tank main gun shooting planes down.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

What AH needs is a special tank radar that will illuminate tanks at ground and then homing bombs, fire and forget. Best solution to gv problem ever.

[bozon]

Well, diving an B-25 can be exciting.... 410s, not so much. Still, a vertical attack in a B-25 will often result in an auger or the missing of important parts....

I'd still love to see the 5-round AP mix added for the 75mm. I'd imagine that would make a huge difference for the B-25H as an anti-tank platform.

The 75mm gun in the B25 is now very effective against armor. HE ammunition I believe. Did they use AP rounds in it historically?

What I'd really love to see in the game is the Mossie XVIII (Tze-Tze) with the Mollins 57 mm cannon. This is a proper anti-tank auto-cannon that seen extensive use as a ground weapon before being installed in the Mossie. Very high muzzle velocity, accurate, and good armor penetration. The XVIII mossie was initially meant for the tank busting role, but ended up busting ships and U-boats instead. Only something like 45 were in service, but they all saw a lot of action. The XVIII was a converted VI with extra armor, so modeling wise it can probably use a lof of the VI parts we have. It will not be a hot rod as our VI due to the extra weight, but will be more durable with the added armor, and still out perform any other heavy AP cannon bird that we have in speed and climb.

[dirtdart]

I like the idea of those (Tilt is going to kill me, I cannot recall the model #) Russian shaped charge bomblets the  IL-2 carried. Those would be a game changer for GVs and possibly the best field defense weapon.

[kvuo75]

So kvuo please explain to our audience how the Hs129 and Ju87 pilots did it then. When their training tactics required shooting under 100m, generally 50m-60m, so their carbide core rounds had enough energy to breach the side armor of Russian tanks. The point of the 30 degree attack angle was the penetration of the armor at 90 degrees.

I believe Hitech has modeled the BK 3.7 carbide round faithfully. Since I can only get a one shot kill on both T-34 from a 30 degree angle against the upper 60 degree sloped armor from 50-60 yards away. Any farther out, and it's repeated passes as I tick down the damage counter on the armor.

But, please kvuo tell us how the Hs129 and Ju87 pilots really accomplished.

you tell us how an airplane can fire at a tank, and pull out of a 30 degree dive from 50 meters away.

[Lusche]

you tell us how an airplane can fire at a tank, and pull out of a 30 degree dive from 50 meters away.

Even if the plane was only doing 200mph, 50m distance means less than 0.6 seconds to impact...

[kvuo75]

Even if the plane was only doing 200mph, 50m distance means less than 0.6 seconds to impact...

exactly

[Saxman]

The 75mm gun in the B25 is now very effective against armor. HE ammunition I believe. Did they use AP rounds in it historically?

It's been posted several times that the B-25H did carry 5 AP rounds in their loadout. I'd have to dig through threads to find the source supporting it, though.

[Tilt]

I like the idea of those (Tilt is going to kill me, I cannot recall the model #) Russian shaped charge bomblets the  IL-2 carried. Those would be a game changer for GVs and possibly the best field defense weapon.

PTAB.......... And your history

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.

[Wiley]

Even if the plane was only doing 200mph, 50m distance means less than 0.6 seconds to impact...

Looking at what all's been said in this thread, I would suggest a likely explanation could be, 30 degree dive in to a point 100-200 yards short of the tank, pull levelish, line up shot, guns hot at 50m, pull up?

Wiley.

[danny76]

I like the idea of those (Tilt is going to kill me, I cannot recall the model #) Russian shaped charge bomblets the  IL-2 carried. Those would be a game changer for GVs and possibly the best field defense weapon.

Asked for them a long time ago in wishlist.

Think the idea was vetoed pretty much instantly due to the fact they may be used to kill tanks in an attack that would not leave the Il2 as open to main gun rounds

[Lusche]

Looking at what all's been said in this thread, I would suggest a likely explanation could be, 30 degree dive in to a point 100-200 yards short of the tank, pull levelish, line up shot, guns hot at 50m, pull up?

Wiley.

The guns were fired at 30°, because that gave a resulting strike angle of 90° for maximum penetration (due to the sloped T-34 armor):


(Pegg, Simon: HS 129 Panzerjäger. Classic Publications, 1997, page 80)

However, i have some troubles with the pilot's claim stated in the same book (page 182):

"We would normally open fire at a distance from the target between 45(sic) and 60 metres, and from such a close range the 30 to 45 degree diving angle brought the plane dangerously close to the target"

And this would be dangerously close indeed. Even at a slow 200 mph (360 km/h) dive 45m means there's 0.5 seconds left to impact. I can imagine frantically pulling up at that last split second, but opening fire at that range, shooting a few rounds and then pulling out?
I have serious problems to understand how that could work...


Addendum: Just did a few test in the Ju-87G. I couldn't even dive that slow...  more to follow

[Wiley]

The guns were fired at 30°, because that gave a resulting strike angle of 90° for maximum penetration (due to the sloped T-34 armor):

(Image removed from quote.)
(Pegg, Simon: HS 129 Panzerjäger. Classic Publications, 1997, page 80)

However, i have some troubles with the pilot's claim stated in the same book (page 182):

"We would normally open fire at a distance from the target between 45(sic) and 60 metres, and from such a close range the 30 to 45 degree diving angle brought the plane dangerously close to the target"

And this would be dangerously close indeed. Even at a slow 200 mph (360 km/h) dive 45m means there's 0.5 seconds left to impact. I can imagine frantically pulling up at that last split second, but opening fire at that range, shooting a few rounds and then pulling out?
I have serious problems to understand how that could work...


Addendum: Just did a few test in the Ju-87G. I couldn't even dive that slow...  more to follow

Wow.  Reason #4,142,231 why I'm glad I didn't have to do this stuff for real.

Wiley.

[Skyyr]

The guns were fired at 30°, because that gave a resulting strike angle of 90° for maximum penetration (due to the sloped T-34 armor):

(Image removed from quote.)
(Pegg, Simon: HS 129 Panzerjäger. Classic Publications, 1997, page 80)

However, i have some troubles with the pilot's claim stated in the same book (page 182):

"We would normally open fire at a distance from the target between 45(sic) and 60 metres, and from such a close range the 30 to 45 degree diving angle brought the plane dangerously close to the target"

And this would be dangerously close indeed. Even at a slow 200 mph (360 km/h) dive 45m means there's 0.5 seconds left to impact. I can imagine frantically pulling up at that last split second, but opening fire at that range, shooting a few rounds and then pulling out?
I have serious problems to understand how that could work...


Addendum: Just did a few test in the Ju-87G. I couldn't even dive that slow...  more to follow

Dang, that's awesome.

[FLOOB]

That's why the fw190f8 makes crappy dive bomber against tanks. Pulling out of a low speed dive at very low alt.. we all know what happens when you pull back on the stick of a slow 190.

[Megalodon]

Addendum: Just did a few test in the Ju-87G. I couldn't even dive that slow...  more to follow

 your not doing it right

you missed this