PTAB's

[Tilt]

For the IL2 please.............

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_huv58MGYE

[PanosGR]

+1

http://http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,339721.0.html

[danny76]

Wished for this a couple of months ago, it was pretty much rejected as too 'easy mode'

[SmokinLoon]

Wished for this a couple of months ago, it was pretty much rejected as too 'easy mode'

If players want this effect, then perhaps try these out for size first:

B17 carries 24/100 lb bombs
Ju88 carries 20/50 kg (110 lb) bombs
B26 carries 20/100 lb bombs
G4M carries 12/60 kg (132 lb) bombs
Ki67 carries 15/50 kg (110 lb) bombs
TBM carries 12/100lb bombs
B25 carries 12/100lb bomb

hmmm, anything else worth mentioning???

Oh yeah, the B29 carries 80/100 lb bombs. 

Also, this is a great place to again wish for the 8/50kg equipped 190F-8.     This would be unique (single engine fighter w/ 8 small bombs), it would be useful against gv's, and it would be historically accurate "from the factory" verison.   

[Tilt]

But those options do not have the effect of 196/220 PTAB's being dropped across a group of vehicles................

It would be reasonable (IMO) to point out thet the PTAB  WAS the weapon that made the IL2 so deadly and (in an anti vehicle role) the most used weapon by IL2's from mid 43 onwards............

I.e the IL2 and the PTAB belong together.................

[tunnelrat]

But those options do not have the effect of 196/220 PTAB's being dropped across a group of vehicles................

It would be reasonable (IMO) to point out thet the PTAB  WAS the weapon that made the IL2 so deadly and (in an anti vehicle role) the most used weapon by IL2's from mid 43 onwards............

I.e the IL2 and the PTAB belong together.................

No argument here... IL-2s get main-gunned and Whirb/Osti'd into oblivion easy enough, they should be feared by GVs more so than they are now.

[bustr]

That main gunned bit can easily be rectified. In real life the tank commander with his head sticking out of the turret was not bullet proof. So an Il2 can open up farther out and blow the tank commander's head off. Unless commander mode is a fancy way to say F3 or God's Eye for a GV. I thought in WW2 tank crews buttoned up when rounds started flying and Mech style God's eye view only showed up in our M1 Abrhams recently.

If your commander has his head out glassing the terrain he shouldn't be superman. Even if panzer commanders wore superman PJ's to bed each night in WW2 and dreamed of leaping tall buildings.

[Tilt]

A little OT but it would seem logical to suffer some loss if the top of a tank was strafed whilst the player was in the commanders or top gunners position.

I guess we should expect reload time ( when player is subsequently in the commanders position) to be prejudiced if not the ability to shoot and load on the move.

[bangsbox]

Even in "button up mode," a tank commander still has lots of view ports (in German GVs). So u want to screw all the allied GVs. Also, stop whining 

[lyric1]

The howls on the BBS would be immense.     


  Bring it on 

[bustr]

Why don't we get truely democratic here and make the commander of anything in the game sit there in commander god view mode while being bullet proof.

I'm sure all of the airplane types would appreciate commanding their rides as superman and seeing everything all around them at all times while drilling other planes by just looking at them. Some might need to put a small peice of tape on their LCD as a pipper. Nice mode if you can get it especially shooting at airplanes. I remember it from a Mech game I played back in the 90's. And I drilled lots of flying thingies trying to kill my Mech from the air with one shot from the main particle gun instead of using the air defence guns.

So in WW2 what did tank commanders do when the rounds were flying at them? Open their shirts to show the enemy the big "S"................

Hey Vlad we is screwed the tank commander flashed his chest at us. It's got a big "S" on it. Boris you worry about your gun, we have PTAB's. Superman's tank dosen't wear a superman suit does it? Ohhhhh....yeeaaahhhh.....but he's got gods eye and tape on his monitor. I've got zoom and he has to reload. This is not one of those derned wirbels. We stand a ?tiny? chance of not getting hit by his main gun. Oh Vlladdd if this dosen't work.......I..I..boom. Vlad you said that T34 hadn't reloaded yet. Boris, so I don't count so well.

[SmokinLoon]

But those options do not have the effect of 196/220 PTAB's being dropped across a group of vehicles................

It would be reasonable (IMO) to point out thet the PTAB  WAS the weapon that made the IL2 so deadly and (in an anti vehicle role) the most used weapon by IL2's from mid 43 onwards............

I.e the IL2 and the PTAB belong together.................

I've done some digging but have yet to find much info on the PTAB's. It appears as if they were dropped in the masses they were in hopes that one would find the top side of a tank.  Evidently they could defeat up to 70mm of armor.  So... if HTC were to add these would they be treated more like AP bomb with very little splash damage?

Oh, and don't discount the little 50kg and 100 lb bombs, they do nicely against gv's.  You just have to aim with them is all.   

[MK-84]

I've done some digging but have yet to find much info on the PTAB's. It appears as if they were dropped in the masses they were in hopes that one would find the top side of a tank.  Evidently they could defeat up to 70mm of armor.  So... if HTC were to add these would they be treated more like AP bomb with very little splash damage?

Oh, and don't discount the little 50kg and 100 lb bombs, they do nicely against gv's.  You just have to aim with them is all.   

     They're somewhat hard to aim, but I've found that in an il2 for exampl,e with the 50kg's to start a shallow dive directly nose on target and as the target passes under my gunsight to pickle all 4 bombs at regularish intervals with all 4 being dropped within 1.5 and 2 seconds.
     I find them more effective against hard targets than either of the rockets it carries since the rockets have a tendency to ricochet off the target.
     

[Tilt]

I've done some digging but have yet to find much info on the PTAB's. It appears as if they were dropped in the masses they were in hopes that one would find the top side of a tank.  Evidently they could defeat up to 70mm of armor.  So... if HTC were to add these would they be treated more like AP bomb with very little splash damage?

Oh, and don't discount the little 50kg and 100 lb bombs, they do nicely against gv's.  You just have to aim with them is all.  

google  PTAB Kursk Air battle

one of many accounts translates from Russian below.............

Your right there is no "splash" with this field of coverage there does not need to be.............. imagine carpeting a zone 15 yards wide x 200 yards long with (according to salvo setting) the equivilent of between 50 to 200 x 40+mm rnds.

Since this article was originally available on battlefield.ru only in Russian I have translated it for those who will be interesting to know more about the experience of the Russian IL-2 against German panzers.

IL-2 against Panzers

Despite some success in gun armament the main combat weapon against German panzers starting from 1943 became anti-tank cumulative air bomb. New air bomb was designed in ZKB-22 under management of I.A. Larionov Effect of a new bomb was as follows: while hitting the tank armor detonator worked out, which through detonating charge resulted in charge explosion. When charge detonation, owning to so called hollow cone, cumulative spurt was created, which resulted in piercing the armor of up to 60mm under angle of 30’ with subsequent destruction effect like annihilation of tank crew, detonation of tank ammunition, inflaming of fuel or its vapor. This was confirmed by polygon testing. The minimum altitude, accounting for bomb alignment to a tank armor surface was 70 meters.

IL-2 could carry up to 192 air bombs (PTAB-2, 5-1,5) in four cassettes (48 units per cassette) or up to 220 units when rationally placed in four bomb compartments.

When dropping PTAB bomb from the altitude of 200 meters under horizontal flying with the speed of 340-360 km/h, a bomb was hitting an area of 15 square meters in average. Depending on bomb load the total destruction area of PTAB bomb was 15x 190-210 square meters that ensured almost guaranteed destruction of any German panzer located in that area. In fact, the area occupied by one tank was approx. 20-22 square meters and even one bomb hit was well enough to put a panzer out of operation, in most cases for good.

Thus, PTAB bomb was a rather formidable weapon for that time. By the way, the Chief Designer of ZKB-22, I.A. Larionov was awarded by the Lenin Order for creation of PTAB-2, 5-1,5 AND AD-A detonator and later in 1946 was awarded USSR State Premium.

In the very first day of the Kursk Battle, on July 5th, 1943, the Red Army Air Force applied new anti-tank cumulative bombs PTAB-2, 5-1,5 for the first time. The flyers of the 2nd Guards and 299th Air Divisions of 16th Air Army acting against German panzers in the area of Maloarchangelsk, Yasnaya Polyana tested the new air bomb first. There enemy’s panzers and grenadiers conducted up to ten attacks during the day. Mass application of PTAB anti-tank cumulative air bombs had a devastating effect of tactical surprise and strong morale impact on enemy. German panzer crew, as well as their Russian opponents, by the third war year gets used to relatively low efficiency of the air strikes. Therefore in the beginning of the Kursk Battle Germans didn’t use scattered marching and pre-combat orders for tanks movement or in other words in the routes of tank motion in columns in the assembly areas and were severely punished for that. Fragmentation area of PTAB bomb covered 2-3 tanks situated in the distance of 60-75 meters from each other and because of that Germans suffered significant casualties even under conditions of lack of massed application of IL-2.

So, flyers of just one 291st Air Division of Colonel A.N. Vitruk while applying PTAB bombs destroyed and disabled up to 30 German panzers only on July 5th 1943.

Sturmovik-flyers of 3rd and 9th Air Corps of 17th Air Army by the end of July 6th 1943 reported of destruction or damaging by PTAB bombs up to 90 units of German armored vehicles on the battlefield and in the area of North Donetz river crossings. In the Oboyan direction on July 7th 1943, IL-2 of the 1st Air Corps of the 2nd Air Army while supporting the 3rd Mechanized Corps of the 1st Tank Army in the period from 4.40 a.m. to 6.40 a.m. in two groups of forty six and thirty three aircrafts covered by sixty six fighters inflicted targeted strikes at the assembly areas of German panzers in the areas of Syrzevo-Yakovlevo concentrated for an assault in the direction to Krasnaya Dubrava (300-350 panzers) and Bolshie Mayachki (about 100 panzers).

Air strikes of the 1st Air Corps and active actions of the 3rd Mechanized Corps were successful: Germans failed to breakthrough the second line of defense of the 1st Tank Army. Decipherment of the battlefield photographs at 13.15 o’clock showed over two hundred (200) knocked out German panzers and SP guns.

According to the German sources, 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf which underwent several massed air strikes by the IL-2 of the 2nd Air Army in the area of the Bolshiye Mayachki lost in total two hundred and seventy (270) panzers, SP guns and armored vehicles. Density of air bombs coverage was so great that it was fixed over 2000 direct hits of PTAB-2,5-1,5.

Having recovered from first shock, German panzer crews in a few days after the beginning of the battle shifted exclusively to scattered marching and pre-combat orders. Naturally it strongly hampered management of tank formations & units, increased their deployment & relocation time and made interaction between units more difficult. The efficiency of the IL-2 air strikes using PTAB decreased approx. in 4-4.5 times. However it was on average in 2-3 times higher then when using explosive and explosive-fragmentation air bombs.

[SmokinLoon]

     They're somewhat hard to aim, but I've found that in an il2 for exampl,e with the 50kg's to start a shallow dive directly nose on target and as the target passes under my gunsight to pickle all 4 bombs at regularish intervals with all 4 being dropped within 1.5 and 2 seconds.
     I find them more effective against hard targets than either of the rockets it carries since the rockets have a tendency to ricochet off the target.
     

Amateur! (j/k    ) I actually aim them the same way I do every other dove bomber.  The IL-2 just takes longer to get to alt and takes longer to get to 300 mph.     The rockets are fun to tinker with as well, while they are a waste against armor they do well against soft armored gv's.  I will use them against the M3, M8, M18, etc, with good effect.  I'll save the guns for the tanks.