Sturmoviks vs Panzers...

[MKSheppard]

From a mailing list I'm on once again:

What folows are excerpts from my notes on the most focussed document I ran across, "Deistviya aviatsii po tankam", pgs 94 to 99 in _Sbornik materialov po izucheniya opyta voiny No. 3 Noyabr-Dekabr 1942 g._, published by Voenizdat in 1943. ("Actions of aviation on tanks" in _Collected materials on for the study of wartime experience, No. 3, November-December 1942_, published by Military Publishing in 1943.)

These internal wartime military studies by the Soviets tend to pull very few punches.

Bottom line up front: "... aviation attacks on tanks produce much noise, sometimes produce a strong effect on crew morale, but losses, as a rule, either do not occur or are so slight that they can be ignored."

Further snippets, including the above in context:

Enemy (German) aircraft rarely cause more than 10% of Soviet losses. A T-34 or KV requires a direct hit by a bomb of at least 100kg to be killed. A near miss of up to 1.5 meters by a bomb of 250kg or more may cause minor, easily repairable damage. Tanks are small, airplanes are fast, tanks are very hard to hit as long as they maintain proper spacing of 50-100 meters.

Example: 23 Jan 1942, 23 light and medium tanks come under attack by 48 Ju-88. The Soviet tanks had no air cover and no AAA -- "pretty good conditions for the bombers". Two hours of bombing resulted in no results.

(A number of similar examples cited.)

Conclusion on these examples: "... aviation attacks on tanks produce much noise, sometimes produce a strong effect on crew morale, but losses, as a rule, either do not occur or are so slight that they can be ignored."

The article next turned to range testing of weapons against various vehicles.

HE bombs are essentially ineffective. AT Cluster bombs (PTAB bomblets) work better because of the area covered.

Large fragmentation bombs are effective if they hit within 2-3 meters of a light vehicle.

An IL-2 gets 1 hit per 15 shots under range conditions. Most hits ricochet.

A ShVAK 20mm cannon can only penetrate very light armor.

A VYa 23mm cannon can kill a light tank from the side or rear.

An OKB-15i16 37mm cannon with anti-tank ammunition can kill a light tank from 500m or a medium tank from the side or rear.

Rockets will only harm a tank with a direct hit; a miss of 10cm yields no results.

82mm rockets may kill light tanks. 132mm rockets will kill medium tanks.

However, rockets rarely hit: generally 1 hit per 75 rockets, or 8 to10 IL-2 sorties per hit.

Conclusion: It's only worth attacking tanks that are somehow bunched up: loading & unloading from trains, at crossings, refuelling, etc. It is best to use specially trained crews for tank attack, and captured documents show the Germans are doing exactly this.

Final conclusion: Because of the low damage done to tanks, though, it is best to ignore them and attack, instead:

1) The motorized infantry supporting the tanks
2) The service support of the tanks

... both of which are much easier to kill and killing can take the tanks out of the fight.

[Samuel]

So how do A-10s pull it off?

[MKSheppard]

4,000 RPM gun, capable of putting the eight shells required to destroy a threat tank onto target fast; with a very flat muzzle velocity.

[Anguirus]

Plus, rockets have gotten a hell of a lot better.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'm not sure exactly where a lot of "aircraft murder tanks" myths came from really. They were started during Poland and France (potentially earlier) and seemed to culminate during D-Day and the Falaise Gap. In both cases, most of the victim tanks were either stopped for resupply or doing shit as stupid as carrying huge fuel drums on their backs. Losses were pretty limited even then.

This whole thing smacks of the Pacific where the USAAF and IJA repeatedly attempted to attack each other's ships with level bombers and never once scored a hit with them. At least not when they were under way. Bombing static vessels in a harbor is piss easy.

[Pelranius]

Shaped charge warheads, allow with modern guidance systems, increase the accuracy and hitting power of CAS aircraft today, of which the former naturally wasn't around for much of World War II.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm not sure exactly where a lot of "aircraft murder tanks" myths came from really. They were started during Poland and France (potentially earlier) and seemed to culminate during D-Day and the Falaise Gap. In both cases, most of the victim tanks were either stopped for resupply or doing shit as stupid as carrying huge fuel drums on their backs. Losses were pretty limited even then.

It comes out of pilot claims. Pilots would see tanks obscured by exploding bombs or rockets, and often noticed that the tanks didn’t move afterward (because the crew got disoriented, or abandon the tank for the duration of the air attack) and claimed them as kills. The USAAF and RAF knew pilots were grossly over claiming kills based on battlefield examinations, but they decided not to heavily dispute pilot claims because it would be VERY bad for moral to tell them that attacking tanks was almost pointless. Over 1,500 allied aircraft were lost to ground fire over the Normandy battlefield alone, so moral was a non trivial issue. These claims were then repeated as fact through civil press and worked into numerous personal histories ect…

As for bombers… yeah same thing at work, pilot claims. However level bombers most certainly did get hits on moving ships, and stationary ships are much harder targets then you’d think, especially since harbors tended to have very heavy anti aircraft defenses. It wasn’t uncommon for a raid by 70-90 B-17s and B-24s on Rabaul to hit just one or two ships for example.

[phongn]

So how do A-10s pull it off?

Maverick.

[weemadando]

So how do A-10s pull it off?

Maverick.

Tank Plinking, where all of this really came to a head in the modern day.

Large metal objects w/engines in the middle of the desert at night show up very well on thermal imaging. Combine that with a massive amount of precision guided ordnance as well as huge improvements in general targeting and accuracy for guns and dumb weapons like rockets and iron bombs.

Add stuff like cluster munitions, armour-defeating charges and all the rest and though it's still not the perfect 1 hit kill scenario, it's a look better than it used to be.