Ground Attack Aircraft: Myth of the Tank-Busters

[EntropyAvatar]

The article said that CAS pilots lied a lot about their victories. Sometimes they pretended to kill 100 tanks but only 50 tanks have been destroyed on the battlefield.

I don't think we can conclude that they lied. They might see an explosion near the tank, see some fire and the tank stops. Great, another kill! A couple minutes later the tank crew pull themselves together and drive off.

 

[Kovax]

The effectiveness of light aircraft cannons against top armor was more than sufficient, but only if the attacking aircraft was in a steep dive, making it relatively vulnerable to light AA fire. Even light portable anti-tank rifles proved to be somewhat effective in many urban situations, where the shooter could fire down from a rooftop onto the tank below; the unfortunate side effect was that an HE round from the tank could more easily collapse the building out from under you. The effectiveness of light cannons against side or front armor during a normal strafing attack would be relatively minimal, but FAR MORE effective against columns of soft-skinned or thin-skinned vehicles and infantry accompanying the armor. Hitting a tank with a bomb was also extremely difficult, but landing bombs close enough to do varying degrees of damage to a tank was within the capabilities of many pilots, and bombing their supporting units could be devastatingly effective. Aircraft were therefore reasonably effective at attacking an armor division, causing casualties among the support elements, and disrupting it, but not that effective at actually destroying the tanks.

My suspicion is that many of the "kill" claims include LOTS of "possibles": you drop a bomb, the target is obscured by the debris and smoke, and you have no clue whether or not it survived; or you strafe a tank, the crew bails, and you call it a kill, yet the crew returns and drives off in the vehicle after you're gone.

 

[Liquid Sky]

Somebody did a report by comparing allied claims to German field reports. The Germans knew (and recorded) how many afv's they had available in a unit before a battle. After the battle..they knew how many they had left. Simple math tells you how many they lost.

This was compared with the number of 'claimed' kills....and it was discovered that only a very small percentage of these claims was the true amount. In the end, he concluded it took the death of 4 fighter bombers (to FlaK) to kill one tank.

Even carpet bombing didn't destroy as many afv's as the allies thought. What would happen is the tanks would be covered in dirt from the explosions, and had to be dug out.

There was a book by a Russian tank commander (who commanded Shermans in a guards unit). He said that the tank commander would watch the stuka dive bomb towards his tank, and when the bomb was released (it would take several seconds to reach the ground) could tell the driver to veer left or right to get away from it. He could see the bomb descending.

 

[Jeremy971]

http://www.allworldwars.com/Conversations-with-a-Stuka-Pilot-Paul-Werner-Hozzel.html

this is a very interesting lecture. I quote a little part:

Your link is so interesting !!!
I can't stop reading it.

The general Hozzel describes what a Stuka could do and what it couldn't do
I didn't even know the radio range was of 80km in this plane.
He fought in Poland, Norway, France, England, Russia.

I love what he said about the Mlawa bunker line in Poland and how he used CAS to help the german corps.

I don't know if in HOI4 the air operations show this reality. But it would be so awesome !

Therewas a book by a Russian tank commander (who commanded Shermans in a guards unit). He said that the tank commander would watch the stuka dive bomb towards his tank, and when the bomb was released (it would take several seconds to reach the ground) could tell the driver to veer left or right to get away from it. He could see the bomb descending.

Lol seriously???

 

[77Hawk77]

There was a book by a Russian tank commander (who commanded Shermans in a guards unit). He said that the tank commander would watch the stuka dive bomb towards his tank, and when the bomb was released (it would take several seconds to reach the ground) could tell the driver to veer left or right to get away from it. He could see the bomb descending.

Is that the same guy who did not die because his sherman tipped over right before they fell into a Pak40 ambush?