# Myth of Combat Aircraft destroying tanks



## critical thinking (Dec 23, 2010)

They've said the first victim of the war is the truth. 

Modern literature on WWII is replete with accounts of devastating air strikes on tank units. There are many stories about dozens or even hundreds of enemy tanks being destroyed in a single day, thereby destroying or blunting an enemy armoured offensive. These accounts are particularly common in literature relating to later war ground attack aircraft, most commonly the Soviet Ilyushin II, the British Hawker Typhoon, the American Republic P-47, and the German Henschel Hs 129. All these aircraft have the distinction of being called ‘tank-busters’ and all have the reputation for being able to easily destroy any type of tank in WWII. 

Now what's the truth? 

*Case 1 - Normandy*

During Operation Goodwood (18th to 21st July) the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th USAAF claimed 257 and 134 tanks, respectively, as destroyed. Of these, 222 were claimed by Typhoon pilots using RPs (Rocket Projectiles).

During the German counterattack at Mortain (7th to 10th August) the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th USAAF claimed to have destroyed 140 and 112 tanks, respectively.

Unfortunately for air force pilots, there is a small unit usually entitled Research and Analysis which enters a combat area once it is secured. This is and was common in most armies, and the British Army was no different. The job of The Office of Research and Analysis was to look at the results of the tactics and weapons employed during the battle in order to determine their effectiveness (with the objective of improving future tactics and weapons).

They found that the air force’s claims did not match the reality at all. In the Goodwood area a total of 456 German heavily armoured vehicles were counted, and 301 were examined in detail. They found only 10 could be attributed to Typhoons using RPs (less than 3% of those claimed). Even worse, only 3 out of 87 APC examined could be attributed to air lunched RPs. The story at Mortain was even worse. It turns out that only 177 German tanks and assault guns participated in the attack, which is 75 less tanks than claimed as destroyed! Of these 177 tanks, 46 were lost and only 9 were lost to aircraft attack. This is again around 4% of those claimed. When the results of the various Normandy operations are compiled, it turns out that no more than 100 German tanks were lost in the entire campaign from hits by aircraft launched ordnance.

*Case 2 - Kursk*

*Luftwaffe*

In July 1943 the German Citadel Offensive (battle of Kursk) was supported by several types of apparently highly effective ground attack aircraft, two of which were specialist tank killing machines. The first was the Henschel 129B-1/2. Made in modest numbers (only 870 of all types) it was specifically designed for the anti-tank and close support mission. The second was the Ju87G-1, armed with two 37mm cannon also specifically designed to kill armour. These aircraft, along with Fw-190Fs, were first employed en masse in the Schlachtgeschwader units supporting Operation Citadel.

They are credited with ‘wreaking havoc amongst Soviet armour’ and the destruction of hundreds of Soviet tanks in this battle. On 8th July 1941, Hs 129s are credited with destroying 50 
T-34s in the 2nd Guards Tank Corps in less than an hour. There is some evidence that 2nd Guards Tank Corps took heavy casualties on 8th July, but 50 tanks appears to exceed their total losses form all causes.

In fact total Soviet tank losses in operation Citadel amounted to 1 614 tanks totally destroyed, the vast majority to German tanks and assault guns. Further detailed research has shown air power only accounted for 2-5% of Soviet tanks destroyed in the battle of Kursk.(24) This equates to at most around 80 tanks. Again, even if this is a low estimate, where are the hundreds of tanks destroyed by German ground attack aircraft?

*Soviet Air Force*

On 7th July 1943, in one 20 minute period it has been claimed IL-2s destroyed 70 tanks of the 9th Panzer Division.
It actually turns out that close to the start of the battle on 1st July 1943, 9th Panzer Division had only one tank battalion present (the II./Pz Regt 33) with only 83 tanks and assault guns of all types in the Division. 9th Panzer Division doesn’t record any such loss in July (it registers an air-attack referred to as heavy strafing), and 9th Panzer Division continued in action for over three months after this so called ‘devastating attack’, with most of its initial tanks still intact. 
During the battle of Kursk, the VVS IL-2s claimed the destruction of no less than 270 tanks (and 2 000 men) in a period of just two hours against the 3rd Panzer Division.
On 1st July the 3rd Panzer Division’s 6th Panzer Regiment had only 90 tanks, 180 less than claimed as destroyed! On 11th July (well after the battle) the 3rd Panzer Division still had 41 operational tanks. 3rd Panzer Division continued fighting throughout July, mostly with 48th Panzer Corps. It did not record any extraordinary losses to air attack throughout this period. As with the other panzer divisions at Kursk, the large majority of 3rd Panzer Division’s tank losses were due to dug in Soviet AT guns and tanks.
Perhaps the most extraordinary claim by the VVS’s IL-2s, is that over a period of 4 hours they destroyed 240 tanks and in the process virtually wiped out the 17th Panzer Division. 
On 1st July the 17th Panzer Division had only one tank battalion (the II./Pz Rgt 39) with a grand total of only 67 tanks. This time only 173 less than claimed destroyed by the VVS! The 17th Panzer Division was not even in the main attack sector for the Kursk battle, but further south with 1st Panzer Army’s 24th Panzer Corps. The 17th Panzer did not register any abnormal losses due to aircraft in the summer of 1943, and retreated westwards with Army Group South later in the year still intact.
In fact total German tank losses in Operation Citadel amounted to 1 612 tanks and assault guns damaged and 323 totally destroyed, the vast majority to Soviet AT guns and AFVs. Where are the many hundreds destroyed by IL-2’s? It appears the RAF and VVS vied for the title for ‘most tank kill over-claims in WWII’.

In addition it is difficult to find any first hand accounts by German Panzer crews on the Eastern Front describing anything more than the occasional loss to direct air attack. The vast majority, around 95%, of tank losses are due to enemy AT guns, tanks, mines, artillery, and infantry assault, or simply abandoned as operational losses. Total German fully tracked AFV losses on the East Front from 1941 to 1945 amounted to approximately 32 800 AFVs. At most 7% were destroyed by direct air attack, which amounts to approximately 2 300 German fully tracked AFV lost to direct air attack, a portion of which would be lost to other aircraft types such as the Petlyakov Pe-2. From 22nd June 1941 to war's end, 23 600 Il-2 and Il-10 ground attack aircraft were irrecoverably lost. Whatever these aircraft were doing to pay such a high price it wasn’t destroying German tanks. If that was there primary target, then over 10 Il-2s and Il-10s were irrecoverably lost for every German fully tracked AFV that was completely destroyed by direct air attack on the East Front during WWII.

*Source:*

_P. Moore, Operation Goodwood, July 1944; A Corridor of Death, Helion Company Ltd, Solihull, UK, 2007, 
N. Zetterling, Normandy 1944, J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc, Winnipeg, Canada, 2000, 
F. Crosby, The Complete Guide to Fighters and Bombers of WWII, Anness Publishing Ltd: Hermes House, London, 2006, p. 365. Also M. Healy, Kursk 1943, Osprey Military, London, 1993, p. 56.
D. M. Glantz, J.M. House, The Battle of Kursk, Ian Allan Publishing Ltd, Surrey, UK, 1999, p. 349.
T. L. Jentz, Panzer Truppen, The Complete Guide to the Creation and Combat Deployment of Germany’s Tank Force: 1943-1945, 
M. Healy, Kursk 1943, Osprey Military, London, 1993, p. 66.
D. M. Glantz, J.M. House, The Battle of Kursk, Ian Allan Publishing Ltd, Surrey, UK, 1999, p. 276. According to Glantz and House, these are admitted Soviet tanks totally destroyed but the number is probably higher. In addition a similar number were probably recovered as repairable.
Tank Forces in Defense of the Kursk Bridgehead, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Volume 7, No 1, March 1994, _


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## Astaldo711 (Dec 23, 2010)

What is your source on this?


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## critical thinking (Dec 23, 2010)

You saw the source list. You can check them all. But the keypoint is this- about 90-95% of these "tankkillings" were nothing but either pure propaganda or just illusions. Not much differences between russians, germans or western allies. 

Why?


During WWII, aircraft with unguided weapons were relatively inaccurate. To a lesser extent this is the case even today and there is no comparison with modern combat aircraft with guided weapons. Against soft targets this was not as critical because bombs and rockets deployed by WWII aircraft were area weapons. Even so, small soft targets such as entrenched AT guns were difficult for WWII aircraft to destroy. Small pinpoint targets, like a moving tank, were very hard to hit because tanks required a direct hit with an AT weapon or a near miss with a very large air launched weapon to destroy it. Even much larger moving targets such as ships were difficult to hit by modern standards. This inaccuracy stems from the nature of aircraft and the state of guided weapon technology at that time. In practical terms this meant that for an average fighter-bomber conducting a strafing attack, the tank remained in the gun sight for approximately a 10th of a second! Even if the pilot was to point his aircraft straight at the tank, a difficult and dangerous manoeuvre against a heavily protected target like a tank spearhead, he would have had at most a few seconds to aim his cannon, MGs, rockets or bombs.

Land based vehicles could carry enough ammunition to sustain approximately an hour of combat, but aircraft could not. Aircraft carried very limited ammunition for their permanently mounted weapons such as cannon, and obviously carried relatively limited numbers of individual air launched weapons i.e. bombs and rockets. This meant they could only attack the target for a very limited time compared to land based weapon systems. Even late in WWII, aircraft only carried sufficient ammunition for 1-4 passes on the target.

Most aircraft mounted automatic weapons were not designed for sustained fire. Apart from ammunition considerations, these weapons quickly overheated and would likely jam if fired for more than a few seconds at a time. Most often they were fired in shorter bursts suited to air to air combat.

Aircraft mounted weapons spent much less time in service (i.e. actually exerting their lethality), then ground based weapons due to overall aircraft malfunctions. This is in addition to the weapon’s Reliability Factor (RL), which only considers the inherent reliability of the weapon itself.

Aircraft were not suited to carry large calibre and high muzzle velocity AT weapons. This was due to the weight of the weapon with more than a few rounds of ammunition and the very severe recoil stresses placed on the airframe. The largest AT weapons placed on WWII aircraft were the 75mm Pak40L guns on the Henschel Hs 129B-3 and the Junkers Ju 88P-1. Neither aircraft was particularly successful with the ‘monster gun’ really proving too much for the airframes. The Hs 129B-1/2 with 30-37mm AT guns was more successful, while Ju 88P remained one of the few unsuccessful developments of the basic Ju 88 design. It is worth mentioning the relatively successful Ju87G-1, armed with two 37mm BK (Flak 18) AT guns. This modification provided the obsolescent Ju 87 with a new lease of life late in WWII. It is interesting to not the Hs 129B-3 carried only four 75mm rounds while the Ju87G-1 carried only 12 37mm rounds. Good examples of the very limited amount of ammunition carried for aircraft mounted weapon, discussed above. 

During WWII, the large majority of aircraft attacking tanks with aircraft mounted weapons used 20mm cannon or simply HMGs. These include aircraft such as the Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Typhoon, Hawker Tempest, De Havilland Mosquito, most Ilyushin Il-2s and Il-10s (some had 37mm cannon), Yakovlev Yak-7/9, Petlyakov Pe-2/3bis, Lockheed P38 Lightning, North American P51 Mustang, and the Republic P47 Thunderbolt. The average 20mm cannon with standard ammunition had great difficulty penetrating the 12-15mm top armour on the Pz IV H, and almost no chance against the 16mm top armour on the Panther and the 25mm top armour on the Tiger I, even if they managed to hit them! The reader should also bear in mind that on average the strike angle of cannon shells on the top of AFVs was usually in the region of 30 to 60 degrees, because aircraft could not attack vertically downwards (the Ju 87 Stuka came closest to this ideal attack angle, which also dramatically increases the accuracy of any air launched ordnance). In general 20mm cannon only inflicted superficial damage on even light tanks, with the most severe damage being penetrations through the top engine grill covers and damage to the engines. Unless the battlefield situation dictated that these tanks became operational total losses (eg, abandoned due to retreat), then they were usually quickly repaired and returned to service.

The lack of a suitable anti-tank armament meant all these aircraft had to rely on much less accurate air launched weapons (i.e. rockets and bombs) to kill late war German tanks. Late war rockets and heavy bombs were capable of destroying a medium tank, but were considerably less accurate than the already inaccurate fire from cannon and MGs. Against a Panther or Tiger tank, nothing short of a direct hit was going to even have a chance of destroying them.

AFVs and tanks were usually found in forward combat units and ‘spearhead’ attack formations. These units often had light and medium flak units protecting them which consisted of 20-37mm mobile flak guns. Even in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, German panzer divisions had integral light flak units with the panzer regiments. This made tank targets extremely dangerous to attack compared to most other ground targets. In addition, aircraft attacking tanks were required to attack at low level, well in reach of light flak guns. The flak also meant fighter-bombers were less able to fly using a nice straight attack approach, and were often thrown about by exploding flak shells, further reducing their accuracy. Indeed it seems that air attacks on tanks protected by flak were more dangerous to the aircraft than the tanks. The 1 726 fighter-bombers lost from the 2nd Tactical Air Force and the 9th United States Air Force over Normandy in 1944 is testament to how lethal light flak can be.

Weather and visibility were major considerations for all air operations. This was especially true for aircraft attempting low level attacks against armour without any form of all weather equipment enjoyed by modern day combat aircraft.

*Source:*

_N. Zetterling, Normandy 1944, J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc, Winnipeg, Canada, 2000, p. 38. The vast majority of these aircraft were destroyed by flak, as the Allies enjoyed air supremacy during the Normandy Campaign._


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## critical thinking (Dec 23, 2010)

Considering the Germans lost around 1 500 tanks, tank destroyers and assault guns in the Normandy campaign, less than 7% were lost directly to air attack. The greatest contributor to the great myth regarding the ability of WWII aircraft to kill tanks was, and still is, directly the result of the pilot’s massively exaggerated kill claims. The Hawker Typhoon with its cannon and up to eight rockets was (and still is in much literature) hailed as the best weapon to stop the German Tiger I tank, and has been credited with destroying dozens of these tanks in the Normandy campaign. According to the most current definitive work only 13 Tiger tanks were destroyed by direct air attack in the entire campaign. Of these, seven Tigers were lost on 18th July 1944 to massive carpet bombing by high altitude heavy bombers, preceding Operation Goodwood. Thus at most only six Tigers were actually destroyed by fighter bombers in the entire campaign. *It turns out the best Tiger stopper was easily the British Army’s 17pdr AT gun, with the Typhoon well down on the list.* 

*Source:*

_N. Zetterling, Normandy 1944, J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc, Winnipeg, Canada, 2000, p. 83.
C.W. Wilbeck, Sledgehammers, The Aberjona Press, Bedford, Pennsylvania, 2004, p. 131, table 4._


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## Astaldo711 (Dec 23, 2010)

Oh. okay.


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## davebender (Dec 23, 2010)

Military budget battles don't stop during wartime.

Aircraft are expensive to purchase and operate. The Allies had 10s of thousands of them by 1944. How does the Army Air Corps justify funding for so many aircraft when the same funding could have purchased other weapons systems or additional shipping?

You lie about how much damage your aircraft are inflicting on the enemy war effort.


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 23, 2010)

So in your Nomrmandy example you say that "no more than 100 German tanks were lost in the entire campaign from hits by aircraft launched ordnance" with "the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th USAAF claimed 257 and 134 tanks, respectively, as destroyed. Of these, 222 were claimed by Typhoon pilots using RPs." Almost 4 to 1 over claims. Compare that to overclaims in air to air combat during the same period.


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 23, 2010)

davebender said:


> Military budget battles don't stop during wartime.
> 
> Aircraft are expensive to purchase and operate. The Allies had 10s of thousands of them by 1944. How does the Army Air Corps justify funding for so many aircraft when the same funding could have purchased other weapons systems or additional shipping?
> 
> *You lie about how much damage your aircraft are inflicting on the enemy war effort*.



Dave, that's just nonsence. These "overclaims" were common in all aspects of operations be air-to-air or air-to-ground and by all sides. During this period funding for aircraft did not have to be justifed by combat results and I challenge you to show any documented record stating otherwise.


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## davparlr (Dec 23, 2010)

Very interesting and reasonable.

I suspect the real damage done to the Germans at Normandy by air power was the loss of all the soft and semi-hard targets, including fuel, ammo, troops and support personnel, and general daytime movement. I am sure it is really disconcerting to maneuver forces when there are hordes of aircraft flying overhead trying to drop bombs on you or shoot at you.


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## Bernhart (Dec 23, 2010)

any stats on how the hurricanes with the 40mm did in the desert


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## Shortround6 (Dec 23, 2010)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Dave, that's just nonsence. These "overclaims" were common in all aspects of operations be air-to-air or air-to-ground and by all sides. During this period funding for aircraft did not have to be justifed by combat results and I challenge you to show any documented record stating otherwise.


 Considering that contracts were often issued/signed 2 years before the aircraft in question saw combat it is a little hard to swallow. In the summer of 1944 funding or appropriations would be being considered for planes that wouldn't fly until 1945 or 46 vrs Army guns/tanks that wouldn't make to Europe until 1945-46. In any case the weapons being used might not be the weapons being funded. Shermans with 75s/76s in use but M-26s being funded? 
For fighters:
"The initial production version of the Shooting Star, the P-80A, was ordered on April 4, 1944, when a Letter Contract for two batches of 500 aircraft was issued."
It is going to take quite of bit of "propaganda" to change contracts between the services for next generation weapons when current generation weapons are still in initial stages of use. 
When was the 5" HVAR introduced into service and when was the 5" FFAR finally replaced let alone the 4.5in rockets? 
How do you evaluate what is being used in the field vs what is already in the pipeline vs the "new" model that is being funded NOW. 

There is also more to disrupting armored attacks or movement than just totaling knocked out tanks. How many were damaged and repaired with a few hours work? How many were damaged and fought while damaged ( shattered vision blocks, loss of radio aerials, damaged road wheels or suspensions.) How many hours were needed to regroup a formation and get it moving again after clearing the roads of the vehicles that couldn't move under their own power?


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## renrich (Dec 23, 2010)

critical thinking-nice posts. I appreciate your work. On other threads some time back, I remember similar info as yours being posted but nothing as detailed and backed up as yours. Many thanks.


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 23, 2010)

Shortround6 said:


> *Considering that contracts were often issued/signed 2 years before the aircraft in question saw combat it is a little hard to swallow.* In the summer of 1944 funding or appropriations would be being considered for planes that wouldn't fly until 1945 or 46 vrs Army guns/tanks that wouldn't make to Europe until 1945-46. In any case the weapons being used might not be the weapons being funded. Shermans with 75s/76s in use but M-26s being funded?
> For fighters:
> "The initial production version of the Shooting Star, the P-80A, was ordered on April 4, 1944, when a Letter Contract for two batches of 500 aircraft was issued."
> It is going to take quite of bit of "propaganda" to change contracts between the services for next generation weapons when current generation weapons are still in initial stages of use.
> ...



BINGO!


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## buffnut453 (Dec 23, 2010)

critical thinking said:


> The lack of a suitable anti-tank armament meant all these aircraft had to rely on much less accurate air launched weapons (i.e. rockets and bombs) to kill late war German tanks.



Interesting posts CriticalThinking. However, one wonders how the various measures of a tank "kill" were accomplished. You'll get no argument from me that aircraft-mounted heavy calibre guns and rocket projectiles were highly problemmatic in operational use but you don't need heavy weapons like those to neutralise a tank. Your posts seem to focus on weapons penetrating a tank's heaviest armour as evidence of an aircraft-inflicted kill but standard 20mm cannon can wreak havoc on tracks and wheels. A mobility kill (M-Kill when I was a lad) will still remove a tank from the fight even though the tank is not fully destroyed (K-Kill).

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## steve51 (Dec 23, 2010)

critical thinking,

Excellent posts. One reason for the heavy overclaiming was probably that any disabled vehicle would have been attacked again and again by subsequent ground attack aircraft. I believe that this was found to be the case in Korea, where similar overclaiming occurred.


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## billswagger (Dec 23, 2010)

Due to the lack of accuracy and lack of correspondence in a war zone, it would be a risk to hit enemy tanks in the vicinity of friendly assets and so perhaps the idea that aircraft were sent in to hit tanks is a bit out of proportion to the actual tanks involved in a fire fight. 
In other words, it would be far easier to identify an enemy convoy working its way to the front line than identifying tanks in a war zone dispersed amongst troops of both sides, as well as other enemy and friendly assets. 

In such cases the bulk of tank assets also included convoys where such air patrol missions involved hitting what ever moved, busting bridges and disrupting supply lines. New tanks traveling to the front for battle would've made up less than the bulk of tanks actually involved the war. From that perspective, it makes perfect sense that the totals for tanks destroyed by air would only make up a percentage of the total tanks destroyed by other means.

That still doesn't make the argument for the aircrafts ability to destroy a tank. 
The aircraft you mention actually were very capable, given the opportunity and frequency, and statistical approach might need to first identify the situations where aircraft were actually involved. 


Bill


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## davebender (Dec 23, 2010)

The RAF and U.S. Army Air Corps didn't wait until June 1944 to exaggerate combat effectiveness. 

On 10 Dec 1941 CPT Colin Kelly's B-17 was shot down while attacking a Japanese light cruiser.

"Kelly had dropped his bomb squarely down the smokestack of the battleship".

"Kelly, after ordering his crew to bail out, had flown his B-17 right into the warship."

That isn't "overclaiming". It's intentional lying.


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## buffnut453 (Dec 23, 2010)

Dave,

I think you're mixing up deliberate overclaiming and propaganda. The Kelly story was generated at a time when the Japanese seemed invincible and the US people needed a hero. The myth about the AVG flying for years against the Japanese before Dec 1941 is a similar propaganda invention.


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 24, 2010)

davebender said:


> The RAF and U.S. Army Air Corps didn't wait until June 1944 to exaggerate combat effectiveness.
> 
> On 10 Dec 1941 CPT Colin Kelly's B-17 was shot down while attacking a Japanese light cruiser.
> 
> ...



And this fable had NOTHING to do with the procurement of B-17s. It was war time propaganda.

He did bomb a Japanese cruiser.

He did stay at the controls of his aircraft so his crew could bail out.

The rest just propaganda.


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## aircro (Dec 24, 2010)

But what about Hans-Ulrich Rudel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ? How much is his overclaiming? And Hurricanes IID - how many tanks they really destroyed?


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## Njaco (Dec 24, 2010)

Rudel's claims will always be suspect and discussed just as any other ace will be. You will find overclaiming at almost every aspect , incident and time during the war. Its common.

The thing I'm trying to figure out is this: is the premise of this thread such that FBs had almost no part in securing the Allies a victory? It just seems to me that someone is saying "Nope, never happened, just a myth", regarding the part played by FBs.

Was not the Falaise Pocket - regardless of the actual count - won by the attacking FBs? Was not the Bulge won by the Allies once the weather cleared, because FBs disrupted supply?


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## michaelmaltby (Dec 24, 2010)

"... Was not the Falaise Pocket - regardless of the actual count - won by the attacking FBs? Was not the Bulge won by the Allies once the weather cleared, because FBs disrupted supply?"

Yes. In both cases the constant presence of the "Jabos" was totally demoralizing. Flaming tanker trucks, wrecked vehicles, dead horses everywhere. The stench was terrible.

And whether or not RAF Hurricanes killed Rommel's tanks - they made dam sure his troops didn't get any water.

MM

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## Gixxerman (Dec 24, 2010)

In 'Spearhead For Blitzkrieg' (based on the US Historical Research Division's report post-war) an analysis of what actually happened to inform US tactics etc for any new conflict - in particular looking at the German experience fighting the Russians; they say that over-claiming by Allied aircrews in the Battle of the Falaise Gap and 'The Bulge' in 1944 were exaggerated by more than 10 - 1.
This was based on examining the wrecks.
They say that the bombs and rockets used by the Allied fighter-bombers were powerful enough to destroy tanks, if they hit them, but that in truth these weapons were not accurate enough to score many hits.
They conclude that (without information to the contrary on the Eastern Front) German claims also probably suffered a similar degree of over-claiming.


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## parsifal (Dec 24, 2010)

Its absolutely true that very few tanks were destroyed outright by aircraft attacks. Its also true that aircraft attacks did not destroy much in the way of soft skinned vehicles, though some of the accounts of units like Lehr panzer Division in its advance to normandy suggests otherwise. 

It should also be added that very few personnel casualties can be attributed to airpower.

And it can even be claimed that the numbers of ships, and shipping, lost to airpower was relatively modest, compared to the losses from other sources, like U-Boats. For the RN, the majority of its losses were at the hands of U-Boats, and surface units, rather than by enemy aircraft.

Postwar studies show that during the war, a maximum of approximately 5% of casualties can be attributed to direct airstrikes. the overwhelming killer in land battles was, and remains traditional tube artillery. During WWII it has been estimated that more than 60% of casualties and losses were attributed to the artillery arm.

Interestingly, the same can be said about tanks as can be said about aircraft....less than 5% of losses to an enemy force can be attributed to tanks, and tanks cannot hold ground, and are pretty hopeless in built up areas to boot. Tanks dont even do the majority of the killing of enemy tanks....that remains the preserve of the lowly Infantry formations and their anti-tanks defences. In 1944, for example, the russians lost 19000 tanks, of which 13000 are believed to have fallen victime to to Infantry formations.

So does that mean, by extension that modern armies can enter battles, with the hope of victory, with just artillery, or just Infantry???? Not a chance. Tanks, aircraft, radios, and a whole bunch or supposedly useless pieces of hardware are critical to success on the battlefieldbecause they are what are known as force multipliers......they make the job for the Infantry and the Artillery much easier, and less costly.


The impact of airpower in the 1944 battles was not so much to kill enemy units, rather firstly to deny airspace to the enemy, and therby deny them the ability to recoinaiter and undertake counterstrike operations. Secondly airpower acted to deny mobility to the enemy, to pin them and prevent them from applying sufficient force at the maximum concentration to achieve the objectives that were needed. In this role they were critical, particulalry for the allies, who would have been unable to achieve victory at normandy without the benefit of airpower.

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## michaelmaltby (Dec 24, 2010)

In fairness, Parsifal, there _are_ air-only operations that were both cost-effective (in terms of losses) and full of shock-and-awe. I'm thinking Pearl Harbor, Toranto, the sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales, etc.

These could only have been done, the way they were done, and they were deadly.

Chairs,

MM


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## parsifal (Dec 24, 2010)

Yes, I agree, but these operations were not the bread and butter of naval actions. The war at sea was not won by a single battle, although some, like Taranto and Midway come close to that mantra. Far more damage was done, against the japanese (for example) by the tireless small scale operations in places like the solomons, and of course by the USNs submarines, than was ever done by the fast carrier forces. Does that make the fast carriers unnecessary. no way....


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## buffnut453 (Dec 24, 2010)

Parsifal,

I agree with much of what you say but war is more complex that simple attrition. For example, an air strike may delay the advance of reinforcements whose presence on the battlefield would swing the battle in favour of the adversary. Thus hard figures about outright destruction are often misleading in terms of the impact of air power on a battle or campaign.

Cheers,
Mark


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## The Basket (Dec 25, 2010)

From what Ive read...a tank can be repaired or refurbished. Even if damaged and with dead crew.

So a tank loss maybe is a tank that cannot be towed back to be fixed...due to the enemy having control of the battlefield.


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## riacrato (Dec 25, 2010)

critical thinking,

Nice post, good job putting down the sources.

Question to you: You mentioned the 37mm armed Ju 87 G. There is some good footage available of this weapon being employed against soviet tanks: It was surprising for me to see how accurate the system was, there were almost no misses. Though the footage might be hand-picked of course.
Nevertheless it is very hard to say if the tank attacked was really knocked out, or if the shot penetrated at all. I have seen sources saying the gun could NOT penetrate T-34 frontal or side hull armor and thus, the claims by Ju 87 G units were probably also extremely exaggerated.
With regards to Normandy: I have a book that claims P-47 units would fire against the concrete ground surrounding tanks and eventually the bullets would ricochet from the ground and penetrate the "soft belly" of the Tigers and Panthers... So yeah there's a lot of myths about this in popular literature.


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## JoeB (Dec 25, 2010)

steve51 said:


> critical thinking,
> 
> Excellent posts. One reason for the heavy overclaiming was probably that any disabled vehicle would have been attacked again and again by subsequent ground attack aircraft. I believe that this was found to be the case in Korea, where similar overclaiming occurred.


In surveys after the initial phase of the Korea War, ie after the North Koreans had been been defeated, before the Chinese entered, tanks were relatively seldom used by the Communists after that, 102 tanks were credited to a/c by USAF wreck survey teams. Claims of tanks destroyed by a/c in the same period have been given as 1,134 (Simon Dunston, Armour in Korea), but both the destroyed tank total and claims could be re-examined. Anyway the general situation of claiming accuracy was similar to WWII, and not comparable to aerial claim accuracy (captured NK reports show the much smaller US claims against NK Yak-9/11's and Il-10's in the opening weeks of the war were largely accurate).

However also similar to WWII, once large scale UN air operations really got going, and found periods of favorable weather (the war opened in the rainy season in Korea) around the second week of July 1950, it became increasingly difficult for NK tanks to travel or operate in any numbers in daylight. Also, NK prisoners from the armored units testified that soft skin support vehicles for the tank units (maintenance, fuel trucks etc, even besides general motor transport) were quickly destroyed in that period. Thereafter the NK armored force had a much smaller effect on the war, in contrast to its very significant effect from June 25 to around July 10. 

In terms of accounts that are slanted in favor of a particular type of weapon, the slant in Korean War accounts tends to be that the appearance of UN medium tanks from late July neutralized the T-34 threat. It had really been greatly reduced already by UN air power. Just because the actual numbers of tanks destroyed claimed by a/c were greatly exaggerated doesn't mean that's not true: two different things. Likewise the often emphasized introduction of the 3.5" bazooka around July 20 did result in kills of T-34's and helped reduce the psychological impact of NK armor superiority among infantry. But again the NK tank ops seen in the major Battle of Taejon, where 3.5" was first used, and where US still didn't employ medium tanks, were smaller scale and more circumspect than earlier NK tank ops...because of relentless air attacks against any significant concentration of T-34's spotted in daylight, and compromised logistical support from destruction of so many NK trucks. That battle was won by NK infantry, and all later NK successes, on and off through September, were mainly due to their infantry.

Joe


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## renrich (Dec 25, 2010)

I think Michael Maltby put his finger on it. Those Jabos in the Falaise Pocket were pure hell on the horses. Probably the fact is that the Jabos were pretty effective against trucks and lightly armored vehicles and the carcasses of the vehicles(not the horses) were an impediment to the movement of tanks on the roads, especially if the going off road was bad.

This thread reminds me that we, all of whom have strong interest in airplanes, argue and discuss ad nauseum over fighter aircraft and which one was the best at knocking down bombers or which is best at protecting bombers and so forth and so on. Actually most of the reason for having fighters is to protect one's bombers or to shoot down the other guy's bombers. But guess what? If the stats show in the ETO what they show by the USN in the PTO, the lowly gun, the Triple A, the gun on the ground which has been around for around 1000 years shot down a lot more bombers and fighters than those fancy modern fighters that first begin to evolve in 1903. My guess is that the gun on the ground or in another vehicle destroyed a heckuva lot more tanks than the fancy and fabled fighter bomber also.


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## steve51 (Dec 25, 2010)

JoeB,

Informative post. There seems to be no doubt that, once established, UN air operations virtually precluded Communist movement during the day. Also, vehicle loss at night to B-26 aircraft was not insignificant. At least during the Korean War, ground attack was very effective and needed.


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## parsifal (Jan 22, 2017)

Over claims aren't deliberate, well not usually, but also, arguing that airpower was not effective is also oversimplifying the equation. Neither is the claim that the 17pdr was the most effective tank killer. Airpower was still probably the most effective tank killer, but not directly. Look at how many tanks, particularly in Normandy and northern France were abandoned due to breakdowns or fuel shortages and a lesser number where the crews were killed or injured due to concussion effects from various sources. its a lot....more than 50% of overall losses in fact.

One should also consider the effects of pinning and loss of mobility that an intensive application of airpower acting as a constant umbrella over a battlefield can bring. These conferred significant benefits on the side being supported .

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## GregP (Jan 23, 2017)

Halting a tank may or may not be destroying it, but will ALWAYS result in a claim.

If you STOP one and it doesn't move again while you are around, what ELSE aree you supposed to assume?

That you missed? After it was immobile, was it effective? If it WAS, it was moving and/or shooting. Stationay targets are just that, targets. It it doesn't shoot anything because it is playing "dead," then it is effectively dead, at least until it is mobile and functional again.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 23, 2017)

A number of ground combat units learned to their cost that a tank wasn't "dead" unless you saw the crew bail out or it was on fire. Too many tanks came "back to life" and killed their unit members to assume otherwise. This lead to the practice of firing follow up shots into an already hit tank until one of those two results was achieved.


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## thedab (Jan 23, 2017)

what I can find so far of RN ships lost in ww2 is 61 to surface ships,56 to subs,77 to aircraft,and 54 to mines
of those lost to surface ships,only 9 was lost to gunfire.

this is something i'm now looking in to.


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## Glider (Jan 23, 2017)

That sort of number (9 for gunfire) wouldn't be unexpected.The Germans and Italians didn't sink much, subs and aircraft did a lot of damage, and after some initial success the Japanese didn't do that much damage.
Whats interesting is how much damage was done by the RN to the Axis forces.


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## thedab (Jan 23, 2017)

Glider said:


> That sort of number (9 for gunfire) wouldn't be unexpected.The Germans and Italians didn't sink much, subs and aircraft did a lot of damage, and after some initial success the Japanese didn't do that much damage.
> Whats interesting is how much damage was done by the RN to the Axis forces.


that don't include the small stuff,i.e.MBT


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## Glider (Jan 23, 2017)

Of course not but even here RN MTB?MGB losses to gunfire were not huge, compared to what they sank.


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## stona (Jan 23, 2017)

The type of vessel sunk by air attack is important. For example 55 of the 77 Royal Naval vessels that succumbed to air attack were destroyers, another dozen were cruisers, throw in a few submarines etc and only one carrier and two capital ships succumbed to air attack. Their sinking, or sinkings like them, were such a rare occurrence that I bet most members here could name those three ships, the only three major units sunk from the air during the entire war, off the top of their heads.
As early as a February 1941 report the RN had established that destroyers and "trawlers/auxiliaries" were the two classes most vulnerable to air attack. In that report a successful attack was gauged as one during which the ships were hit, not necessarily sunk.
Submarines were more deadly to large ships. Someone once said that the best way to sink a ship was to let water in. Torpedoes were better than bombs for this and, generally, submarines could deliver them better than aircraft. Bombs are MUCH cheaper and more readily available, this too had an effect on how aircraft were armed in an anti shipping role.
Statistics always need context.
Cheers
Steve

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## parsifal (Jan 23, 2017)

As complete a list of ships sunk and the circumstances of their loss ive attempted in the "this Day in the War in Europe" thread.

Far more ships than 9 were sunk by gunfire though most were mercantile hulls, in line with german tactics. 

This Day in the War in Europe: The Beginning


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## swampyankee (Jan 27, 2017)

Many people believe I witness accounts by participants are the gold standard for reliability. The data lead to the conclusion that eyewitnesses are unreliable, especially in reporting highly stressful events. Memory is plastic, too: which also helps contaminate history with errors.

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