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Resp:Hey guys, been out of town all weekend at a martial arts tournament and doing a history presentation (very different era though!).
Some good points made here and at least one new (for me) data source that I still need to look at. I can certainly see the merit of the argument that the most telling effects of tactical air support was against those highly vulnerable soft skinned vehicles and logistics infrastructure, that disruption was often the real goal, that rockets were very inaccurate, and that tanks were tough and so on. We all know that. However I think maybe we are pushing the pendulum too far in one direction with regard to the efficacy of CAS against armor per se.
I don't have time to plunge deeply into this (yet) but I wanted to make a couple of quick points.
By the way, I forgot who commented "if 20mm guns could take out tanks they would have given them to infantry" or something along those lines... they did, actually, give them to infantry see the AT rifle, quite ubiquitous in the early war (and somewhat effective, notably in the hands of the Finns), and it was also the main armament of numerous armored vehicles again especially in the early war - Pz II, the T-60 etc.. In say 1940-41 the larger tank armament was usually in the realm of 37-50mm and that was meant to punch through frontal armor of rival tanks. 20mm was more than enough to destroy many lighter armored vehicles.
- Not every tank was a Tiger or a T-34/85, or even a Sherman or Pz IV.
- There were many open-topped armored vehicles of substantial importance and / or ubiquity on the battlefield. For the Germans the early tank hunters like the Marder and the Panzerjäger I, and later war behemoths like the Nashorn, the self propelled guns like the Wespe and the Hummel, and many armored cars were open topped (side armor on the Wespe was also down to 5mm). For the Americans similarly the M3 GMC, M10 GMC and that whole family of tank destroyers, plus the M7 priest and the similar British Sexton. The Soviets Su-76. Almost all the AAA vehicles too of course, and all the halftracks on every side*. Any open topped vehicle is going to be extremely vulnerable to hits from HMG or 20mm cannon.
- Not all 'Medium' level tanks or armored vehicles that did have armored tops were heavily protected on the tops and rear either - the StuGG III, one of the most important and ubiquitous German AFV's had armor down to 16mm even late in the war. The British Cruiser A-13 had armor down to 6mm, same for the Soviet BT-7. I don't think it's beyond conceivable that 12.7mm MG or 20mm cannon can bust these up. And no, a single 12.7mm bullet piercing armored bottom or top or engine compartment may not wreck the vehicle but it's dangerous as hell to be inside if it does and each hit poses a severe risk to crew and kit. I don't know if you have ever seen forensic photos of what happens when a couple of HMG rounds hit an occupied vehicle but it is not pretty.
- More to the point, it's certainly not inconceivable that the 23mm guns on an Il-2 or shaped charge bomblets, or 37mm guns used on a variety of CAS aircraft can destroy some of the heavier and better protected tanks and other armored vehicles.
- While say, 5-8% hits per strafing attempt may not sound like much, keep in mind thousands and thousands of sorties were flown. If and when the local AAA was neutralized, and fighter escort adequate, strafing Il-2s, Ju-87D (with 20mm cannon), and P-47s could do several strafing runs before retiring. If you had say two squadrons flying out of a cab rank or 'circle of death' to make 3 or 4 strafing runs each, that's 60 - 100 attacks, which statistically means probably at least a few hits for each mission. When you consider this is repeating almost every day, and even multiple times a day in some Theaters and during some battles, to me that adds up to a lot of heavy bullets smacking into AFV's on a pretty regular basis whenever they were caught exposed. Anecdotally, the cannon were the most effective weapons of the Il-2, not the bombs or rockets. And while anecdotes can be wrong I'm not sure it's safe to assume they were always wrong.
- For dive bombing in particular, I again remind everyone that we know for a fact that dive bombers could hit relatively small ships like troop transports, cruisers and destroyers. If dive bombers can hit the Shintai Maru No. 4 with a 6 meter beam, then dive bombers can hit a column of tanks driving down a road in Libya or Ukraine and land bombs close enough to kill them even if it was a Tiger or a KV.
- Tungsten / Wolfram also may be basis of the best AP ammo in WW2 but it was hardly the only AP ammo. Steel core bullets penetrated pretty well too, even steel shelled ones. The 23mm VYa of the Il-2 could punch through 25mm of steel plate at 400 meters. Even the 20mm ShVAK and 12.7mm DShK could penetrate 15mm armor at 30 degrees at short range and 20mm plate specifically on a Pz IV at 20- degrees (~150m).
- We shouldn't, I don't think, assume that the performance of every type of ground attack aircraft was identical through the war. I think that is the crux of the issue. What P-47s could do against late model German Panzers in autumn of 1944 may not reflect realities at Stalingrad or El Alamein or Arras. Maybe that is the pattern maybe it isn't - it's probably worth finding a bit more data before reaching firm conclusions. That was the point of the thread - to expose more data.
*There is a Soviet report on German tank armor showing that side armor of light armored cars and APC's (halftracks?) could be penetrated at 250-400m by DShK 12.7mm and ShVAK 20mm (which had similar penetration). This is the image from document "CAMD RF 38-11355-778" showing penetration and angles, also recommended as guidelines for T-60 and other Soviet AFV's with 20mm armament.
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Resp:
I would think the engine area from above (vents, etc) would have been vulnerable to 20 mm cannons.
Resp:Well, sitting in front of a game console, and having to pump multiple rounds into an "enemy" tank until it obliterates, removing it from being combat effective, is a far cry from reality. It really doesn't matter if a 23mm or 37mm projectile will or will not penetrate the rear deck engine cover at a given angle. The fact that the crew is experiencing a significant life altering event, with all the noise, smoke, flying debris, confusion, and fear surrounding them, is enough to cause them to rapidly egress. U.S. tank crews discovered they could cause German crews to "jump ship," thinking their vehicle was on fire, by hitting them with smoke. A round doesn't have to penetrate the fighting compartment to disable a vehicle enough to render it non-combat effective. Tiger 131 at the Bovington tank museum was abandoned by its crew after receiving numerous non penetrating hits. It's believed that the crew may have suffered some injury. Tiger 131 could've been later recovered by the Germans, repaired, and put back into service, and therefore wouldn't have been considered destroyed, but was nonetheless knocked out of action. Again, as has been previously pointed out in other posts, hitting the AFV itself isn't the only way to disable it. Tanks, like any other weapons platform, require combat support elements close by, that aren't so hard to break. Losing that stuff is just as effective.