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4) How effectively alleid rockets worked against tanks is proven by the statistics of their own armies. German on the eastern front discovered that even small bombs had to land very near to the tank to disable it. Actually Panthers and Tigers often were surviving near explosions by artillery shells. Also imobilising a tank is not enough, it still can fire and both armies were expert at recovering
5)Because i have enough with your detractions and insults towards me about not providing evidence i will suggest you some bibliography
a)Aggrersor:Tank Buster vs Combat Vehicle b)Fw 190 , Hs 129, Ju87 ,Bf 110 in action c) Stuka Pilot by Just d) Hans ulrich Rudels Memoirs ( I imagine your answer : He was a liar and a coward)
e) Panzer Aces 1,2 3 f) Armored battles of the Waffen SS g) Infantry aces of the eastern front h)Otto Carius memories j)Guns of the Reich k) Luftwaffe weapons l) Eagles of the third reich and quite a few more that i am boring writing .
I write nothing from my imagination. You do have many knowledges but your biasment blinds you and you insult any one with diferent opinion..
Anton Flettner moved to the USA during 1945 and became chief designer for Kaman Aircraft. His WWII era Fi-282 helicopter evolved into the Vietnam era H-43. If you look at pictures of both helicopters it's easy to see the linage. This gives us a reference as to where Fi-282 helicopter development is heading if Anton Flettner receives adequate funding.
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The historical Fi-282 was approved for service with the German Navy during 1942. However the program received crumbs for funding. Flettner never had more then 120 employees and that was during 1944 after the Heer placed an order for 1,000 helicopters. Let's get the Heer interested during 1942 and give the program serious funding.
Historically the more powerful Fi-285 was approved after the Heer order. This involves replacing the 160hp Bramo Sh-14A engine with a 240hp Argus As.10 engine to increase aircraft payload.
This gives the Heer an aerial tank buster which is inherently more accurate then a fixed wing aircraft. It's also more survivable as it can fly nape of the earth and pop up for a shot.
The Fi-285 has enough payload to carry a 3cm M103 cannon or FF rockets.
8 July 1943
The Russian attack began in the morning, moving west in an attempt to cut the Begorod-Oboian highway. Along the woods north of Belgorod, Gruppenkommandeur Hptm. Bruno Meyer, flying a Hs 129B of IV./SG 9, spotted moving Russian tanks and large concentrations of troops in the attack on the German flank. Meyer radioed to base that he saw at least 40 tanks and, "....dense blocks of infantry, like a martial picture from the middle ages." and ordered the rest of his Gruppe up from Mikoyanovka to assault the Russian attack.
The Luftwaffe immediately scrambled 4 squadrons, a total of 64 Hs 129s, to Meyer's coordinates. Using high-velocity 30mm cannons, the planes swept the forset, pumping shells into the rears of the tanks. Within a few minutes, half a dozen tanks were destroyed and burning. Fw 190 fighters joined the fray, strafing infantry and bombing wherever the Soviets were clustered. Follow up attacks by squadrons led by Major Matuschek, Oblt. Oswald, Oblt. Dornemann and Lt. Orth along with attacks on the infantry by Major Druschel's Fw 190 jabos, soon destroyed the Russian brigade and they retreated into the woods. The Soviet armoured assault had been blunted solely through air power.
1. Some believe that the high powered gun-equipped AT a/c like Ju-87's with 37mm or the Hs-129 with 30mm were much more effective than Allied rocket/bomb armed fighter bombers against tanks, but it does seem to be questionable. The highly rates of overestimation in claims by US and British fighter bombers against German tanks in the Northwest Europe 1944, and those of US a/c in the early stages of the Korean War as well, have long been well documented by English language operational research reports by the British and Americans themselves. The actual performance of German AT a/c v Soviet tanks OTOH hasn't been as well documented in the West, and it seems there's more tendency to accept the German antitank claims at face value or at least assume they are not as massively exaggerated. But perhaps they were.1. According to Bergsytom, during the Kursk battle, there was an incident involving both of the HS 129 units....about 40 aircraft, that claimed the destruction of almost an entire Soviet Tank Brigade....about 70 tanks....in one day. Turns out just three tanks were destroyed.
2. You dont need to penetrate the frontal armour of a tank to knock it out or disable it. A paytern of 5 inch rockets within 30 yards of the target will deliver around 800 lbs of high explosive in a tight radius around the target. more than enough to set up a concussion wave that will generally kill or maim the crew, take of a track, rupture a fuel line, or a dozen other ways to stop that tank.
Since only German units and personnel are named, that's apparently a claim by the Germans. This is the whole point. We know and have long known that Western airmen's claims against tanks in this era were typically highly exaggerated, much more than air to air claims typically were. We know this because British and US operational research reports found it by examining enemy (German, later North Korean) tank wrecks and comparing them to claims. Why would we assume German airmen's claims against tanks were so much more accurate? And there does seem to be countervailing evidence that the particular attack you mention did not destroy many Soviet tanks in fact.I had posted this in the "This Day in Europe ...." thread a few years ago and I can't really remember the source but my question is this: If this stopping of Russian armour is a myth or not quite what it seems why does there seem to be so much info about this, such as personeel and air groups involved?
Dave do you realize the top speed of that chopper is only about 90 mph, while more hp might increase the lift, a helicopter's speeds are determined by rotor design. The Vietnam era HH-43 with almost 5 times the hp only had about a 120 mph top speed.Historical Fi-282. Pilot in front and observer in back.
View attachment 200328
Proposed changes for Fi-285.
- More powerful engine.
- Delete observer.
- Pilot needs a gunsight. Perhaps also an enclosed cockpit to protect him from weapons blast.
The Fi-285 can lift a 3cm Mk103 cannon but can it withstand the recoil? I assume the cannon would be mounted under the fuselage.
FF rockets have no recoil so they should be no problem. Just install a rocket pod under the fuselage.
Ok guys, lets stop the name calling and sarcasm right here. I don't want this thread closed for stupid reasons.
Parsifal, I had posted this in the "This Day in Europe ...." thread a few years ago and I can't really remember the source but my question is this: If this stopping of Russian armour is a myth or not quite what it seems why does there seem to be so much info about this, such as personeel and air groups involved?
2. I agree that a/c AT weapons didn't have to penetrate the *frontal* armor of tanks to be effective, but I don't agree that rockets would often score even mobility kills on tanks without actually hitting them. Back to Soviet experience, the 3rd Guards TB report gave an example of a medium bomb near miss less than 2m from a KV-1 which failed to permanently destroy it. A general report concluded that bombs had to land closer than that to reliably knock it out. German tests of the SC-250 GP bomb gave somewhat more optimistic results: test animals were killed inside captured T-34's within 6m of such a bomb. But a rocket with a small fraction the explosive of a 500#-class bomb would be very unlikely to kill a tank crew by blast effect without hitting it directly. And the Brits concluded that operational CEP's of rockets in 1944 was around 60m, hit rates v tanks around .5%. The USAF came up with considerably smaller CEP and much higher hit rate (1 rocket in a salvo of 6 would hit more often than not, it was predicted) in tests in reaction to complaints of rocket ineffectiveness v T-34's in 1950. But the latter were tests, not actual combat results v AA fire, v. obscured targets and so forth. In the latter tests standard HVAR's (with 5"/38 common shell as warhead) did catostrophic damage to T-34's if they hit directly (the crash development of the 6.5" HEAT rocket in summer 1950 wasn't really necessarily, it seemed) but near misses were only considered effective if close enough to cut a track, very close.