Best tank-busting armament

[schwarzpanzer]

75mm recoilless rifles?

I thought originally the Vickers 40mm's on the Hurricane IID - couldn't deal with a Tiger but hey! what could??

Had a similar, very interesting, discussion with PlanD on this a while back, his comments are what made me choose the Hurri's 40's. I thought this subject might make an interesting thread?

Any thoughts?

 

[lesofprimus]

Rockets rockets and more rockets.... Also the heavy cannon were effective, 37mm type...

 

[mosquitoman]

Rockets were a bit innacurate from what I've read- I would go with either a 75mm gun as seen on the Hs129 or a full bombload fromn the belly of a Lanc.

 

[pbfoot]

delete

 

[plan_D]

But none of them are actually any good at destroying tanks. And I'm pretty sure you couldn't equip aircraft with a 28,000 ton ship.

 

[delcyros]

(german guns)
Of the machine gun dep. I would choose the MG 151/15. Altough it doesn´t reach the penetration figures necessary to kill heavy tanks:
1.9" (48mm) at 40 deg. net impact obliquity could be defeated (.55"= 14mm at 60 deg. net impact obliquity).
The MK 101 is the most potent 30 mm sized tank killer gun. It was avaiable from 1941 on (and faded out 1943 by replacing with MK 103 due to inferior rof). Even this gun would have it´s problems vs the strongest main battle tanks. Around 2.5" (64mm) penetration at 40 degrees net impact obliquity or .9" (23mm) at 60 degrees net impact obliquity are possible, thus the roofs of most tanks are vulnarable to the MK 101.
Of the late war guns, the MK 214A should receive attention in the tank busting role. A 50 mm weapon with excellent MV and reasonable rof, it could defeat up to 3.2" (81 mm) at close distance 40 deg. net impact obliquity or 1" (25 mm) at 60 deg. net impact obliquity.
The BK 7,5 will defeat up to 5.3" (135mm) at 40 or 1.6" (41mm) at 60 deg. net impact obliquity.

Personally and over most of the war, I would prefer bombs to do the job.

 

[lesofprimus]

As I said above, the Panzerblitz anti-tank rockets (3.07 and 5.12 in) and the Bk 3.7mm cannon were the best tank busting items....

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I too would go with Panzerblitz and the 3.7cm cannon.

 

[Erich]

Les in my mind is correct although SG 9 with the Hs 129 in 44 and 45 did tremendous damge with their 3cm Mk 103 which even took out JS II's without a problem.

there is really no clear cut damage assesments from the Fw 190F Schlacht units with the Panzerblitz and also hard point 2cm rounds. The book on the Fw 190F's is brief in details showing more schematics than anything. wish I had it in my hands though as htere has to be some interesting reading within.
As there seems to be no such personal Schlacht Fw 190 histories available all we can do is wait and or speculate, but what scant info remains in the Freiburg archivs gives indication that in 1945 Soviet armor and motor transport suffered due to rocket attacks

 

[Twitch]

I'd rather be armed with the 37 mm Flak 18s too. They simply had superior penetrating power to anything else.

 

[hole in the ground]

mossie with a 57mm anti ship gun
aka Tse-tse

 

[lesofprimus]

Anti-SHIP????

And yes twitch, I have to agree with u, too bad they were attached to the freakin Ju 87...

Im a big fan of the Hs 129 as well, and some of the pilots that flew them... Sure do wish they were fitted with better engines tho, as it could have been a very decisive weapon....

Once again proving that everything French is sh*t....

 

[Erich]

well we have discussed what a Mk 103 could do to Soviet armor several times, good bye JS II's ............. boom !

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

Anti-SHIP????

well the 57mm Molins was essentially a 6 pounder whish was used as an anti-tank gun anyway, when you use it from above it'd be even more effective...........

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Im with Les as well. The Hs-129 with better engines could have been the ultimate anti tank aircraft of WW2. Hell it was a flying tank and could carry a hell of armament. She was just underpowered from hell.

 

[hole in the ground]

Im with Les as well. The Hs-129 with better engines could have been the ultimate anti tank aircraft of WW2. Hell it was a flying tank and could carry a hell of armament. She was just underpowered from hell.

.....
so couldn't carry a hell of alot of armament???

The Tse-Tse was indeed used in an anti shipping role. Very effective at popping subs pressure hulls if caught on the surface.
Would've thought that it wasn't a bad reference to have for tank busting.

 

[lesofprimus]

But it was never used as a tank buster, therefore, useless in this thread....

Open up a thread about it if u feel so inclined...

As for the Hs-129, there were several variants that were used... The Hs 129B-2/R2 added a 30mm Mk 103 cannon with 30 rounds in a tray under the fuselage....
Hs 129B-2/R3 used a 37mm BK 3.7 gun instead...
Hs 129B-2/R4 mounted a 75mm Pak 40L in an underfuselage pod with 12 rounds.... Weight and stall speed increased to 6.9 tons and 91 mph, respectvely....
Hs 129B-3/Wa with the 75mm BK 7.5 cannon and 26 rounds instead.... The pod could be jettisoned in an emergency.... Only 25 were made, due to the gun being too much for the airframe.....
Hs 129C, which was the planned upgrade, would have used two 627-kW Italian engines and had a limited traverse ventral turret with two 30mm Mk 103 cannons..... The design was dropped after Italy surrendered and the engines became unavailable....

What if.........

 

[plan_D]

I may be wrong, but I think the Tse-Tse was used in the ground attack role over the Normandy beach-heads. Whether it attacked tanks or not, I don't know. So, I'm wasting my time.

 

[delcyros]

...not to forget the early 30 mm gun in the Hs-129, the MK 101. The ballistics of this gun imply a better penetration ability (same projectile but higher mv, lower rof) than the MK 103.
What about the british 40 mm gun or the soviet 37 mm guns?

 

[lesofprimus]

The mk 101 was phased out rather quickly in the Hs-129......