Best tank killer aircraft of WW2 Part I

[plan_D]

You'll probably see the majority of kills on tanks of the Wehrmacht were attacks from the behind or side. The Allies and Soviet Union struggled to destroy the German tanks from the front.
If you noticed I did state the top armour value of the T-34 and Panther. Although sloping on top armour was very minimal, the T-34 had something of a 1 degree angle advantage on the Panther top side. Mostly the Panther was on equal terms, or more slanted than the T-34.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Interesting. I had always heard that the sloped armor on a T-34 gave it a considerable advantage. But tanks aren't not my strong suit.

 

[Erich]

Gentlemen are you familiar with the destruction of a large amount of soviet armor at Kursk by Hs 129's ?

 

[Lightning Guy]

I have heard a little bit about the Hs 129. What I have seen suggests that it was very effective. I know that it was more heavily armored than even the Il-2 and that it used radial engines (which I prefer in a ground attack plane). If only those engines had produced a little more power . . .

 

[plan_D]

No Erich, but I know of the large amouts of Soviet Armour loss at Kursk by everything together.
LG, the T-34 did have an advantage over many tanks due to its slanting, but it only gives so much protection. If you've ever seen late make Panthers, they are very slanted especially at the front. The Tiger however is not, and the T-34 slanting gives it an edge but the Tigers armour is just too thick.
There's only so much slanting can do. And with only 80mm on the T34/76 it was outclassed by 1943.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Which is why the Soviets went for a larger gun (a 90mm I believe) on the Stalin tank.

 

[Erich]

122mm actually and it still bounced off the frontal armor and mantlet of the Königstiger.

Will have to share more on the Hs 129 soon. the biggest problem for the Hs 129 although quite well armored was it's weak engines and the dreaded Soviet tri-flak on flat bed trucks, in fact all the 10.(Pz.) staffeln of the SG's all reported the hate they had for the Soviet AA.

 

[plan_D]

The improved T-34/85 had a 85mm cannon on it. Which did prove quite effective, apart from it being just an upgunned T-34/76 Model 1943 it had extra space in the turret and a new improved Christie suspension system.
The Stalin tanks, most likely you are refering to the IS-2 (Ioseph) or JS-2 (Joseph) tanks, they were based on the KV-1 tank chassis and with many improvments but the main being the 120mm cannon. Even though it had a higher calibre than the German Panther, Tiger and King Tiger tanks it only just matched the Tigers 88mm in penertration. And the King Tigers cannon was an improvement on the Tigers 88mm.

The ultimate gun in my opinion was the 128mm cannon on the JagdTiger. With 250mm frontal armour, this monster was almost undestroyable but not a tank, a tank destroyer.

 

[Erich]

but the Jagdtiger was in such few numbers to be effective. The moving pillbox actaully. personally a Pnather would suit my tastes with superior optiks and good enough firepower to blow anything away on the Ost front.

Optiks is one thing the soviet crews lacked in superiority and usally cramped crew quarters where the commander did work of the crew as well

 

[plan_D]

Yes, I know. The Jagdtiger was in even smaller numbers than the Ferdinand, which had production numbers I think (if remembering) of 260. The Panther could destroy anything in the war, just about. It was at a disadvantage to the IS-2 with its gun power, but within 500m (the average kill range of tank warfare in WW2) it could easily penertrate the frontal armour of the IS-2. The Panther did struggle with the ISU-152 however, and in some cases even the SU-152.
I was simply making the statement of the ultimate cannon, as the 128 on the Jagdtiger was. Nothing had the same penertration as it.

Yes, I know of the cramped crew quarters in the Soviet tanks. The T-34/76 Model 1942 had a two man turret, this was gunner and commander. This meant the commander had to load the gun, while trying to command the tank, both full time jobs. On top of lack of optics (Of which the German counterparts in Tigers and Panthers could see up to 5km), the Russian tanks lacked effective radio, sometimes they could be seen doing flag signals to one another on the battlefield.

In Stalingrad the lack of effective optics was taken away, because THEY HAD NO OPTICS AT ALL. They had to guess the aim by looking down the barrel. The reason being, as the situation in Stalingrad was so dire, they needed tanks fast, so fast they weren't going to put extravagences on them.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Back to the Hs 129. Why did the Germans use French engines on that thing? I think using the BMW 801 would have made considerably more sense.

 

[Erich]

and because of no radio and being basically blind we get back to MT with triple A flak as the guardians of the Russian hordes, although this was enroute to an attack or at a land used base. Once Soviet armor was caught out in the open by German Luftwaffe ground attack a/c it was all ............. well you can get my point. Even during the last months of the war on the Ost front soviet a/c did not seem to come into play when it came to defense of it's ground vehicles. The soviet juggernaut of a/c seemed to play much different roles

 

[Lightning Guy]

Well it wasn't just Soviet armor, whenever anybody's armor (or naval units for that matter) were caught in the open by airpower it usually got very ugly.

 

[Erich]

LG good question, and as I said will have to open up martin Pegg's grandi-oso book on the a/c for the answers. good low altitude performance ? that cannot be it but..........and I agree a German built engine would be more appropriate

 

[Erich]

I make reference to the soviet attacks with a prelude of Soviet artillery. this was the common norm in 1945 through interviews of two good friends serving in the Heer and the other brother in a land based Kriegsmarine division. they both could not understand why there was never ever any softening up by Russian ground attacak or bombers. this basis was also seen in many books covering the Ost front

 

[Lightning Guy]

The Gnome-Rhones were just so low powered (something like 700bhp). The 1700bhp or so of the BMW 801 might have been too much for the airframe but certainly the Germans could have developed something in between that would have helped the Hs 129's dreary performance.

 

[plan_D]

Of course German engineering surpassed the French, maybe the French one was cheaper to build, or in higher number. I don't know.
Interesting thing here, 15% T-34s were destroyed by 37mm calibre in the whole war. 37mm cannon would have struggled greatly to destroy T-34s from the ground, so I imagine those kills would be from a 37mm armed Stuka.
Then again it does say some were in Berlin 1945, but only 5% overall. Were there Stukas over Berlin? I wouldn't think so.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Rudel was flying right up until the end of the war. His unit was the only one still flying Stukas but apparently they were still flying missions.

 

[Erich]

SG 2 was defending Kustrin in late 45 and the evacuation of many German civians and soldiers. yes the Hs 129 nearly died out by 45 and the take over was by Fw 190F's and G's with frag bombs and the evil panzerblitz tank busting rockets. am going to have to check which units still had the Ju 87G on hand in late 45.........

 

[Lightning Guy]

My resources on the Stuka are limited by apparently the night bombing NSGr1 and NSGr2 still had some in service. It also appears that there were only about 200 total left by the end of the war.