P-47 vs IL-2 vs SU-2 vs Typhoon

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Hispano MkII AP could penetrate 24mm of face hardened plate at 400 yards @ 20 degree's, the Panther as an example has deck armor that is 16mm, the MkIII and Mk IV could go through 30mm at 600 yards @ 30 degree's. The standard Hispano SAPI round has the same 20mm of penetration as the .50 M2 AP but with 10 times the incendiary content.

Unfortunately, the number of cases of Hispano-armed aircraft laying waste to the panzer units due to the cannon fire are slim to none. Even the Hurricane IIc would've been killing the lesser panzers in N. Africa, negating the need for the IID version with 2pdr cannon.
Perhaps the theoretical ability was not proven in everyday use?
 
For comparable illustration, the F4U-4 was equipped with four 20mm cannon with 231 rounds per cannon.
The Typhoon's four 20mm had 140 rounds per cannon.

And as noted earlier, the P-47 carried 3,400 rounds of ammunition for it's MGs = 425 rounds per MG.
Nominal load was 267 rounds per gun from what I could find down to 225 when drop tanks or bombs were fitted.
 
Hispano MkII AP could penetrate 24mm of face hardened plate at 400 yards @ 20 degree's, the Panther as an example has deck armor that is 16mm, the MkIII and Mk IV could go through 30mm at 600 yards @ 30 degree's. The standard Hispano SAPI round has the same 20mm of penetration as the .50 M2 AP but with 10 times the incendiary content.
You have to get the angles right.

"penetrate 24mm of face hardened plate at 400 yards @ 20 degree's, the Panther as an example has deck armor that is 16mm"

If the armor is horizontal then you get the 24mm penetration at 400 yds at 20 degrees off axis's or at 70 degrees from horizontal.
Your 20mm armed aircraft are going to be diving at 70 degrees to the ground and not pulling out under 400 yds altitude?

and some lightly armed vehicles are some what resilient.

ww2-german-halftrack-vehicle-260nw-27742285.jpg
I

If aircraft are diving at 10-20 degrees to the ground what is the impact angle to the armor?
Yes the vehicle is open topped but the shallow the angle is to horizonal the fewer bullet get into the top. Granted it doesn't take many.


I would note that the Hispano MK III ammo was a APCR design (tungsten core penetrator) that displayed rather poor accuracy although pentation was much improved.
 
I know it's disappointing that the idea of 20mm cannons on a P-47 doesn't get more support.

To be honest, the fact that the USAAC/USAAF never considered it is a bit surprising, because they were obsessed with trying to put cannons on everything. If it's any consolation, they did order 100 P-72s armed with four 37mm cannon, though the war drawing to a close cancelled that order.

As it stands, the AAF was satisfied with the eight fifties and the pilots were satisfied with the eight fifties.

The Germans, however, did not like the eight fifties...
P-47D_9th-AF_15Aug44.jpg
 
Hispano MkII AP could penetrate 24mm of face hardened plate at 400 yards @ 20 degree's, the Panther as an example has deck armor that is 16mm, the MkIII and Mk IV could go through 30mm at 600 yards @ 30 degree's. The standard Hispano SAPI round has the same 20mm of penetration as the .50 M2 AP but with 10 times the incendiary content.
I have been reading up on airborne tank busting guns. Hurricanes in the desert were armed with 40mm Vickers S guns. These were effective against the tanks generally in service at the time, but there were questions of how effective these would be against the newer tanks. The Hurricane_IIDs made it to Burma, but not Sicily. The British stuck some fairly interesting 40mm guns on to Tempests and Mustangs, but none of it reached service. Hans Rudel was apparently effective with 37mm cannons on his Ju87, but was he busting the new tanks, or just APCs and trucks? Perhaps he was overclaiming? The Germans went to the trouble of mounting BK 7,5 75mm cannons to their Hs129s. These could bust a Stalin tank, but they required total air superiority. I would guess that tank armour improved dramatically during the war, far more so than comparable aircraft technology. Things that worked in early/mid war, would not necessarily work on tanks of the late war.

In Spitfire at War, Alfred Price claims that rocket firing Typhoons were not particularly good tank busters. After the Falaise Gap battle, it was found that out of around three hundred abandoned tanks and self-propelled guns, only eleven were knocked out by rockets. Fifty-four were abandoned due to mechanical difficulties, and the rest were out of gas. The Germans were stopped by the strafing of their supply vehicles. Spitfires were fine at this. I'm sure Thunderbolts were good too. I am pretty certain that 3" 60lb high explosive rockets and fuel trucks were not a good combination.

Have people here checked out Emmanuel Gustin's home page, mostly on guns? A P-47 fired 4.85kg/s of ordinance. A Hurricans or Typhoon with four MkII Hispanos did 5.20kg/s, and a Tempest with four MkV Hispanos did 6.50kg/s, at a somewhat lower muzzle velocity.
 
Last edited:
Didn't this also happen to the Luftwaffe, finding themselves drawn into ground support instead of trying to mess up the Red Army's rear?
It did, at the later stage of the war and for the same reason as the Soviets in 1941. What surprised me, that VVS continued to focus on CAS in a later period as well when it had an absolute majority in numbers.
 
What surprised me, that VVS continued to focus on CAS in a later period as well when it had an absolute majority in numbers.
Was that wrong of the Russians? I suspect that their focus on low altitude performance created opportunities for the Luftwaffe. Performance at higher altitudes would have helped the CAS mission.

If you have lots of Combat Air Support, you win battles on the ground, you kill or capture lots of enemy solders, and you capture territory. When that territory contains the enemy's factories, you shut down their production.
 
I made a very similar post a few years ago and immediately received a negative strike for it, so I now tread carefully if suggesting the supplanting of the mighty Browning M2.
It really is a wonder that Lockheed didn't build any F-22's with 8 M2's in the wings
Yes it's obvious that some subjects on here are strictly taboo.
 
You have to get the angles right.

"penetrate 24mm of face hardened plate at 400 yards @ 20 degree's, the Panther as an example has deck armor that is 16mm"

If the armor is horizontal then you get the 24mm penetration at 400 yds at 20 degrees off axis's or at 70 degrees from horizontal.
Your 20mm armed aircraft are going to be diving at 70 degrees to the ground and not pulling out under 400 yds altitude?
I look at it like the A10, spray it with rounds and sooner or later you will hit a softer spot, simply damaging the gun tube or a round going through the radiator grates is enough. You made a point I didn't think of and that's pulling out, the Jug needs plenty of height so maybe hunting tanks in one diving from above is not a good idea.
 
In Spitfire at War, Alfred Price claims that rocket firing Typhoons were not particularly good tank busters.
They painted a Panther white and stuck it in a field and struggled to hit it with rockets, the physiological effect of rocket armed Typhoons orbiting overhead was more value than their effectiveness.
 
Yes it's obvious that some subjects on here are strictly taboo.
Not taboo, but (as explained above), not something that was wanted at the time.

We can wander off into "what-if" land, but it doesn't change what happened.

So if there's any blame to be applied, you'll have to go back in time and lodge a complaint against the US Army for their leaving the P-47 out of the hallowed pantheon of all machines that were considered for cannon...
 
In Spitfire at War, Alfred Price claims that rocket firing Typhoons were not particularly good tank busters. After the Falaise Gap battle, it was found that out of around three hundred abandoned tanks and self-propelled guns, only eleven were knocked out by rockets. Fifty-four were abandoned due to mechanical difficulties, and the rest were out of gas. The Germans were stopped by the strafing of their supply vehicles. Spitfires were fine at this. I'm sure Thunderbolts were good too. I am pretty certain that 3" 60lb high explosive rockets and fuel trucks were not a good combination.
From a couple of things I read here and there mainly about things after Falaise, the effect of a Typhoon attack was as much psychological. It wasnt just one attack with one aircraft with the cab rank system it was sustained and the longer you spend in the tank with hatches shut the more vulnerable you feel, what you do know is it is almost certain there is no infantry or fuel near you.
 
They painted a Panther white and stuck it in a field and struggled to hit it with rockets, the physiological effect of rocket armed Typhoons orbiting overhead was more value than their effectiveness.
If I were sat in a metal box that was the recipient of strafing, rocketing, bombing or a combination of all three - I don't think the statistics would make me feel much better. Especially when my supporting infantry have all legged it for the nearest hole, my fuel/spares/ammunition was on a truck behind me that got strafed and I'm having to drive long distances (with associated mechanical costs) because some aerial hoodlums have knobbled all the railway rolling stock.

Tank killers they were not in the strictest sense - but they certainly did their job of making a mess of everything else. This then indirectly impacted on the Germans being able to use the (by 44) very limited armour units in their possession.

- Edit - got ninja'd by the poster above!
 
If I were sat in a metal box that was the recipient of strafing, rocketing, bombing or a combination of all three - I don't think the statistics would make me feel much better. Especially when my supporting infantry have all legged it for the nearest hole, my fuel/spares/ammunition was on a truck behind me that got strafed and I'm having to drive long distances (with associated mechanical costs) because some aerial hoodlums have knobbled all the railway rolling stock.

Tank killers they were not in the strictest sense - but they certainly did their job of making a mess of everything else. This then indirectly impacted on the Germans being able to use the (by 44) very limited armour units in their possession.

- Edit - got ninja'd by the poster above!
It may not all been down to the Typhoon, many other planes were used in CAS. The cab rank system was part of CAS support, so if the attack was called in, obviously you were being watched in your tin can. Also proximity fused munitions started to be used, that kept the infantry away from tanks. It may have been the whole "thing" of being under attack for weeks and months.
 
Alfred Price claims that rocket firing Typhoons were not particularly good tank busters.

it is worth taking this into context with the success rate of busting tanks at the time. While the statistics don't look good for the "tank busting" kills, the fact was that success using RPs was limited and the British knew this through extensive trials and development throughout the war. The Typhoon's 20 mm cannon was very effective and the use of the type was especially recommended by the A&AEE during trials because it was fast and stable at low altitude, hence its employment in the role. The argument that the Spitfire could have done the job is a moot one and I certainly don't think it's worth debating as the Spitfire probably could have, but why not use the Typhoon as well? Numbers game. Spitfires and Typhoons both did extensive damage to the German war machine in the CAS role.

The reality was that tank busting was a difficult task and good results were difficult to achieve all round. In 1942 a special branch of the A&AEE Armaments Section was formed specifically to investigate the use of rocket projectiles and the first trials with them, conducted in 1941 using Hurricanes as a launch platform whilst investigating different weapons for killing tanks, showed that the weapon was wildly inaccurate and there was little information out there on their behaviour after launch. The process of developing the weapon for service use took time and practise under controlled conditions, using a variety of aircraft as firing platforms and from these, firing distances, the most effective warheads and the best types of sights were investigated.

Out of suitable types for service use of the weapon, the Typhoon was regarded as superior to the Hurricane, but a wide variety of types were trialled, including Spitfires, Mustangs (the Mustang didn't like having rockets fitted to it, the mountings induced considerable drag and high losses of performance were experienced), Martlets, Hellcats, Mosquitoes, Swordfish, Halifaxes, Hudsons and Liberators. Even by 1944 the weapon was acknowledged as being of limited accuracy and the A&AEE researched means of making them more accurate, such as toeing in the launchers on the wings, zero length (no rails) mountings, improved gun sights etc. It was calculated that one hit per sortie was an acceptable ratio of effectiveness, although in practise, even this was not always achieved.
 
The engine grates are nowhere near the easy target's most people believe them to be.

On a Panther for example the engine radiators are in-between the grates and not only are the grates several inches deep there are baffles between intake boxes and the actual radiators.

They learned a lot about stopping things like Molotov cocktails in the 1930s. Likewise taking fire from higher elevations (buildings or bluffs and hills).

Yes the bulkheads were not tight, even in new tanks. The Germans did fit extra armor, sometimes just 5mm plates over the grates.

It be done, yes. But took a fair amount of hits to get anywhere.
Panthers, like a lot of German kit in 1944/45 showed a large variations in details.

full?d=1521500302.jpg

Some grates had larger openings. But on this example you need a pretty steep angle elevation to get a machine gun bullet (or 20mm shell) down inside the grate or you bullets are trying to plow through several thickness before they get to the bottom of the grate. And like I said early they are baffles and bulkheads.

The Germans had some of top 2-3 suites of AA guns to help protect them from low level aircraft (it varied and it varied from year to year).

operating your planes at low altitude was key to surviving air to ground missions. Flying at several thousand feet trying to line up steep attack lines to try to get machine gun bullets into small grates wasn't a good plan.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back