How effective were ground attack aircraft against armor and other hardened land targets

[Schweik]

I've been reading a bit about the use of fighter-bombers and dive bombers in the West and in the Med / North Africa, and also specialized ground attack aircraft particularly on the Russian Front. The shorthand on most of these aircraft types is that they did very useful service in the ground attack role. Most histories seem to assume that they were in fact instrumental to victories in many key battles.

But then there is the counter-narrative. Post-war analysis shows that Typhoons only got 15 or 20 tanks at Falaise. Thunderbolts similar. Soviet sources claim the Il-2's knocked out almost 300 tanks at Kursk, 70 from the 9th Panzer Division alone. But German armor afficionadoes claim Il-2s only destroyed a few tanks and most losses were actually to AT-guns, tanks, tank traps, mechanical breakdowns and getting stuck.

It seems like there is more to the story and I'd love to get a little closer to the truth. How many tanks did Soviet aircraft really destroy at Kursk or Stalingrad or Kharkov etc.? How many Panzers did the Typhoons really get? How many Shermans and Cruisers and Matildas did the Stukas blow up. How many T-34s?

Were they only really good at blowing up trucks, trains, supplies, and light vehicles? Or did they break tanks too.

I know for a fact the Stuka was instrumental in knocking out tanks at the Battle of France and in some of Rommels victories in North Africa. Beyond that my research into various Theaters isn't granular enough.

I made a poll for the best ground attack plane vs. armor. Didn't include Corsair or Hellcat since they were mostly just in the Pacific. You can pick up to two choices.

Allegedly wacked by Stuka

Reportedly bombed by P-47

Supposed to have been flipped upside down by a bomb at Cherbourg. Wiki says 3 men survived

 

[swampyankee]

In the West, I suspect that the most effective use of aircraft was degrading logistics — no fuel or ammunition turns tanks into nothing but cozy iron boxes — and stripping off soft targets, like infantry.

The importance of the direct destruction of tanks by WWII aircraft may well be less important than the indirect destruction by denial of consumables, degradation of transport networks, and reduction of supporting infantry and artillery.

 

[Schweik]

Possibly true, but there seems to be a conflict as to whether tanks were destroyed in key battles (Kursk) or not. Logistics etc. has an impact but it's not enough to stop a tank column in 20 minutes (necessarily). AT guns can be another factor though. One key question for me was were the fighter bombers able to knock out 88 mm and 75mm AT guns at El Alamein at a key moment. According to the squadron and DAF histories they did, but I'm interested in what the German records say.

 

[glennasher]

I don' t think the early- war tanks (of either side) were in any way as tough as the later-war vehicles. Stukas and others probably had a much easier time with the lighter tanks of the early war.
I don't really think the aircraft did a lot of damage to actual tanks, but swampyankee brought up the logistics trains, and those were a lot more vulnerable to cannon and machine guns/ rocketry, etc. To actually hit a tank with a rocket or a cannon heavy enough to stop a tank, is pretty tough. Even bombs have to hit close enough to kill the tank outright, or knock off a track. It wouldn't be easy to hit a moving vehicle on a battlefield at XXX knots.

 

[Schweik]

All fair points - a single tank is certainly small as seen from an airplane at 2,000 feet. But if you have a fairly close-packed column of tanks, such as we certainly know did exist and sometimes right out in the open like in the Western Desert or parts of the Russian Steppe, and you send 2 or 3 squadrons of dive bombers to attack them, at least some of those are going to be in serious trouble. You don't have to get that close with a 500 or 1,000 lb bomb and the toughest tank is still going to die.

Fighter bombers should be similar to dive bombers just not nearly as accurate. But when you are sending 10 and 12 squadrons out day after day ...

Ground attack planes are a bit more questionable, but they seem to be the most praised. I have seen evidence that rockets weren't too accurate. But the heavier caliber guns could be, and the top or rear armor of a tank can't hold up to 23mm cannon let alone 37mm or 40mm, IMO.

I also read about the use of bomblets by the Soviets, sort of a cluster bomb precursor...

 

[Greyman]

The only 'effective' anti-tank aircraft were the gun types; Hurricane IId, Henschel 129, etc. And by effective I mean strictly in the sense that they were reliably able to directly knock out enemy tanks. However, the type of attack/tactics that were required of these specialist aircraft was very expensive and without very careful selection of targets the whole idea wasn't profitable.

Interestingly, both the Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force came to the exact same conclusions (official British text here but the German summation of Hs 129 operations was similar):
With intensive AA fire employed by the enemy in support of his armoured forces, attacks on tank targets in the battle area generally imposed too high a wastage on aircraft and could not be justified. Ideal targets were small groups of tanks away from the main armoured battle, and activities were generally limited to the availability of such targets.

I know for a fact the Stuka was instrumental in knocking out tanks at the Battle of France and in some of Rommels victories in North Africa.

Was this actually the case or are they from tales similar to the ones of Typhoons and Thunderbolts wiping out columns of Panzers?

 

[Schweik]

No it was the case, there were specific bomb strikes which took out specific tanks. It's been explored in great detail as the French had a few dozen tanks that outgunned the German ones and many people wanted to know how they were defeated.

There were gun armed stukas, even mosquitoes though I think those were for anti-submarine duties.

Most of the Il-2 had a pair of 23mm guns, and 3,000 of them were built with a pair of 37mm guns. I think that is easily enough to kill tanks with rear and side hits.

About 3,000 Yak 9s were built with 37mm guns too.

I think even a fusilade of 20mm can mess up a tank, knock of tracks etc. and can easily pierce top armor on most early to mid-war tanks.

Bombs work if they hit close enough. That is why the Stukas were so deadly. But there weren't that many dive bombers in use on the Allied side. A-36 seems to have done some damage.

 

[Greyman]

Again I'd like to see some of these Stuka kills scrutinized to the level that the Typhoon/Thunderbolt claims were before I really buy it.

Sure it was an accurate dive bomber, but the altitude that was required to begin a 90-deg attack didn't really lend itself to picking out an individual tank to 'plink'.

 

[Schweik]

Well, lets put it this way - if a naval dive bomber can hit the deck of a cruiser let alone a destroyer with a 1,000 lb bomb (and we know very well they did both), that is close enough to flip over a tank. They may hit only 5 or 10% of the time but if you send say 24 planes out three times a day you are fairly likely to get a hit or two...

You hit a couple of tanks at the key moment in a battle it can make a difference. I'm not so much doubting that they could hit tanks it's more like how many and how often etc., and which aircraft did it better.

 

[Schweik]

According to this the CEP for dive bombers in WW2 was from 50-200 ft. One study of Marine Corps piloted SBD dive bombers and F4U Corsairs from I think 1944 in the Pacific, showed a CEP of 53 meters / 175 ft for the SBDs dropping from 1,700 ft. (not great)

Even a 500 lb bomb should be able to cause a serious problem for a tank if it hit within say, 10 meters. With a CEP of 53 meters, as bad as that is, I think a fair number of bombs are going to get close enough to hurt. Again think 20 or 30 planes attacking.

According to this a modern Mk 82 227 kg / 500 lb bomb has a "lethal radius" of 80m x 30m, presumably for people out in the open.

According to this a 500 lb bomb used in ww2 made a crater 100 feet (30m) wide x 15-20 feet (4.5 - 6m) deep. That to me means a high probability of disabling or seriously damaging a tank within that distance, or at least within say half of that radius which would be 15m. Now maybe a bit more for a 1,000 lb bomb.

 

[Greyman]

Well I don't have flip-distance figures for various bombs and tanks, but I don't think the attack profile of a squadron going after a cruiser would work so well vs. individual tanks in the French countryside.

British static bomb tests vs. an early Cruiser tank showed that generally a 500 lb GP bomb had to land within 50 feet in order to cause appreciable damage. British GP bombs were no world-beaters but then neither was the target's protection in this case.

Is dive bombing individual tanks possible? Sure. Is it reliable/economical enough to use a portion of your air force in such a way? It doesn't seem so.

I think even a fusilade of 20mm can mess up a tank, knock of tracks etc. and can easily pierce top armor on most early to mid-war tanks.

British testing of various 20-mm ammo types vs. tanks showed this generally wasn't useful (but could yield results vs. some Japanese tanks). One of those things that seems like it should work on paper but--when actually tried in the field--the results fell short of expectations for a variety of reasons. For obvious reasons a lot of work (ammunition-wise) went into making the Hispano a viable anti-armour weapon, but in the end the move to 40-mm was necessary.

Due to the angles required I don't think attacks on the top armour of tanks sounds like a realistic option.

Really I think the best option is what the RAF/USAAF went with anyway -- worry more about all those trucks / horse-drawn transport and everything will grind to a halt anyway.

 

[Shortround6]

We have a number of threads on this. Basicly you need a big wacking gun (or two) and a lot of luck unless your name is Hans Rudel.

The attack profile of the gun attacks was fairly flat, they were aiming at the vertical armor of the tank (sides/rear). If the shells hit the top of the turret or hull the impact was usually over 60 degrees of angle (sometimes well over) and the armor was going to act about 3 times thicker or more.

impact was 60 degrees from perpendicular.

Steep dives ran into the same problem as dive bombing. The attacking plane had to pull out before it got into effective range (either from an accuracy stand point or a penetration stand point).

as for the French heavy tanks destroyed by Stukas, some of that was propaganda.

There were only ten in service (or less perhaps six) and the entire contingent was caught on railroad flatcars by the stukas.

there is some dispute as to whether the tanks were actually destroyed by the Stukas or were blown up by their own crews to prevent capture after being immobilized on the train.

 

[Schweik]

We have a number of threads on this. Basicly you need a big wacking gun (or two) and a lot of luck unless your name is Hans Rudel.

The attack profile of the gun attacks was fairly flat, they were aiming at the vertical armor of the tank (sides/rear). If the shells hit the top of the turret or hull the impact was usually over 60 degrees of angle (sometimes well over) and the armor was going to act about 3 times thicker or more.

impact was 60 degrees from perpendicular.

Steep dives ran into the same problem as dive bombing. The attacking plane had to pull out before it got into effective range (either from an accuracy stand point or a penetration stand point).

as for the French heavy tanks destroyed by Stukas, some of that was propaganda.
View attachment 549604
There were only ten in service (or less perhaps six) and the entire contingent was caught on railroad flatcars by the stukas.

I'm talking specifically about two types of tanks, the SOMUA S-35 and the CHAR-B1. The CHAR was a bit more impressive but the SOMUA was more capable. There were about 430 x S-35s made and at least 300 of them saw action. They caused serious problems for the Wehrmacht in a few small battles, and one or two large ones like the Battle of Hannut which involved 1,700 AFV's.

Here is an article which describes some of the SOMUA S-35's getting knocked out by Stukas. This is an excerpt:

"The planes approached us in close formation. We immediately accelerated and dispersed. I closed by armoured driver's hatch. The planes have arrived. They are going to bomb us. But no, they topple over in the sky as if they have been hit and dive down towards the ground."

"There is a mournful sound, a long scream combined with the growling sound of their engines. I feel like they are going to dive on to my head. Then there are explosions that make you believe that the whole world is being thrown into the air."

"Our Somua S35 tank is thrown on its side. I think we are going to topple over. I panic and turn off the engine. We fall down on to our tracks again. There is silence. Then some way away from me, powerful explosions are to be heard; the ammunition lorry that has just supplied us is lying on its side and the ammunition is exploding."

"Twenty metres away from us, one of our tanks has turned over and has come to rest on its turret. The lieutenant shouts, 'Get going, goddammit, full speed ahead.' After two more air raids only nine out of the sixteen tanks that started that morning were still in working order."

"During our first tank battle the day before our Somua S35 Tank's thick our had protected us. I counted twenty hits. The heat generated from shells as they hit the exterior burnt the white painted armour inside the tank brown. The armour protected us from the nearby bomb explosion. There were more burnt brown marks on the inside of the tank after the dive bomber attack."

there is some dispute as to whether the tanks were actually destroyed by the Stukas or were blown up by their own crews to prevent capture after being immobilized on the train.

No doubt both happened.

 

[Schweik]

British static bomb tests vs. an early Cruiser tank showed that generally a 500 lb GP bomb had to land within 50 feet in order to cause appreciable damage. British GP bombs were no world-beaters but then neither was the target's protection in this case.

Well, presumably if you have dive bombers drop a squadron's worth of bombs on a platoon of tanks, you have a fairly good chance of getting one within 50 feet of at least one of them.

Is dive bombing individual tanks possible? Sure. Is it reliable/economical enough to use a portion of your air force in such a way? It doesn't seem so.

I'm not so sure about that, though it's interesting (and duly noted) that some people do think so. I think for one thing it would depend on the terrain. Maybe if you are in the Ardennes or in farm country in Normandy it might be hard to see all your targets, but over the open desert in Egypt or Tunisia, or on the wide steppes of Russia or Ukraine I'm not so sure.

Also tanks didn't normally operate in solo adventures, they deployed in platoons and companies, sometimes in battalions. If you dropped a bomb right on the top of that hill

British testing of various 20-mm ammo types vs. tanks showed this generally wasn't useful (but could yield results vs. some Japanese tanks). One of those things that seems like it should work on paper but--when actually tried in the field--the results fell short of expectations for a variety of reasons. For obvious reasons a lot of work (ammunition-wise) went into making the Hispano a viable anti-armour weapon, but in the end the move to 40-mm was necessary.

Due to the angles required I don't think attacks on the top armour of tanks sounds like a realistic option.

Really I think the best option is what the RAF/USAAF went with anyway -- worry more about all those trucks / horse-drawn transport and everything will grind to a halt anyway.

One British test with (I think?) one type of gun, albeit a good one, doesn't prove the issue though it is worth mentioning.

One thing I am dubious about is that the rear armor on a lot of early to mid-war WW2 tanks was quite thin, as little as 10-15mm thick. Penetration of a 20mm Hispano with AP ammo should be about 20- 25mm at 200-400 meters. With Mk III AP Ammo (available from May 1943) they could penetrate 39mm at 600 meters.

So if you were shooting into the back and engine deck of say, a Pz IIIG or IV, or a Cruiser A13 Mk IV (with 6mm thick rear armor), I think you'd have a fair chance of doing some damage. I wouldn't necessarily expect to knock out a lot of tanks, but if I was sending fighters out to escort my Sturmoviks I might tell them to strafe tanks one the way back; if I had sent Typhoons or Tempests I might tell them to strafe targets after they drop their bombs and shoot their rockets. In fact that is what they did needless to say.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Hs129 was a designed/dedicated ground-attack aircraft (not history's first, though...that was the Junkers J.1 from WWI) but it wasn't built in enough numbers to have an overall impact on the war. It was however, history's first aircraft to change the outcome of a land-battle.

In regards to the Ju87G, keep in mind that it's angle of attack was much shallower that it's dive-bombing counter part, and as steady and accurate as the Ju87D was in a 90° dive, the Ju87G in a shallow, coasting dive would be a rock-solid platform for it's dual BK3.7 cannon.

 

[Greyman]

Regardless of gun calibre the main problem still stands: scooting around the deck strafing tanks is a good way to lose a lot of aircraft ... if we're going to believe those that actually carried it out.

 

[Milosh]

Tempests didn't carry bombs until the last few weeks of WW2. No rockets either.

 

[25Kingman49]

This tactic of bouncing 50 Cal rounds from a P-47 into the bottoms of tanks always seemed ingenious to me.




This evaluation of this tactic is somewhat dismissive particularly in the case of a Tiger I being the target.

P-47s, Tiger Tanks, and Bouncing Bullets: The Limitations of Eyewitness Accounts -

 

[Schweik]

This tactic of bouncing 50 Cal rounds from a P-47 into the bottoms of tanks always seemed ingenious to me.




This evaluation of this tactic is somewhat dismissive particularly in the case of a Tiger I being the target.

P-47s, Tiger Tanks, and Bouncing Bullets: The Limitations of Eyewitness Accounts -

That's a great trick, especially if the tank is on a road, on cobblestone streets in a town, village or city etc.

 

[Schweik]

The Hs129 was a designed/dedicated ground-attack aircraft (not history's first, though...that was the Junkers J.1 from WWI) but it wasn't built in enough numbers to have an overall impact on the war. It was however, history's first aircraft to change the outcome of a land-battle.

That sounds like a story that deserves to be told, feel free to dive into it. Though very similar tales are told about multiple other ground attack types, the Ilyushin Il-2 allegedly wiped out 70 tanks of the 9th Panzer division in 20 minutes at Orel near Kursk. Hurricane IID apparently broke up some attacks in Tunisia etc., and IIRC P-47s and Typhoons were credited with ending the Ardennes offensive and so forth.

Any reason to assume the Hs 129 was better than all other ground attack aircraft?

In regards to the Ju87G, keep in mind that it's angle of attack was much shallower that it's dive-bombing counter part, and as steady and accurate as the Ju87D was in a 90° dive, the Ju87G in a shallow, coasting dive would be a rock-solid platform for it's dual BK3.7 cannon.

The guns were good, the plane was pretty slow though of course, and not flying as a dive bomber means it's extra vulnerable. There is some interesting footage of them in action



I think the sound effects are modern additions but they do add to the whole depiction. Seems like they were able to hit tank-sized targets ... and get multiple shots off which is one advantage of being slow.