1. With that many detonations occurring simulataneously, you wont need a direct hit to knock out the tank. If the eight rockets hit within about a 40m radius there is a very high likelihood of disabling either the tank, or the crew or
both.
2. To give some idea of the firepower being unleashed by an eight rocket 5" HVAR barrage, each rocket has the equivalent effect of a 5/38 shell, and it was a known fact that a 5/38 was easily able to stop even a tiger tank, with or without a direct hit, as was shown repeatedly during sicily, but in particular at gela during husky.
3. And the 5' HVAR was not even the heaviest ordinance carried. that was reserved for the "Tiny Tim", used at okinawa with a projectile weight in excess of 1200 lbs, an expplosive capility superior to a 12"/50 shell.
4. In Korea, the 21st CAG of HMAS Sydney and 77 Sqn of the RAAF, between them fired a total of 8900 rockets between September 1951 and February 1952. In that period they are credited with destroying over 80 tanks.... Admittedly most of the kills were burn outs (based on the reports by the advancing UN troops being supported...which makes sense, since the australians were using napalm rockets by then ) and the koreans/chinese were using their tanks almost wheel to wheel, but it certainly is a lot better than "almost never" hitting the target.
Again I think we all agree that (.50/20mm) strafing, rocket and bomb attacks as characterized Western fighter bombers in WWII/Korea could severly impact mechanized operations, by knocking out non-armored vehicles and causing morale effects on tank units themselves. The early phase of the Korean War shows this clearly, according to extensive interviews with captured KPA armor crews, and just the conduct of KPA operations: in the opening week or two from June 25 1950, T-34 units were used in relative mass in daylight, after around July 10 they weren't, but in smaller numbers and near dawn or dusk or otherwise limited visbility.
But you come back to the point of supposed ability of rocket near misses to actually knock out tanks, and in studying this I've seen little evidence of this: I don't believe it would be common.
1. I've found some of the individual wreck survey reports done by the US forces in the Korea in 1950, and research papers written at the time based on them. I know of no cases where the wrecks were determined to have been knocked out by rocket *misses*, though the exact causes weren't always known. In the live fire tests the USAF did v captured T-34's with HVAR's, a couple of near misses were speculated to have been close enough to break the tracks on the tank, but the target captured tank had no tracks actually.
2. Jentz's "Panzertruppen" Vol 2 reproduces the combat reports of Hermann Goering Pz Div, the german tank unit involved at Gela. In the actual battle at Gela only 1 Pz.III was reported lost to naval guns. In later battles further inland in following days 2 Pz.IV's were repoted lost to naval guns. No Tigers (of 17 of Pz.Abt.504 attached to HG Pz Div) were reported lost to naval guns. Again, the armored operations were definitely affected by the naval gunfire, especially the Pz.III/IV equipped portions of HG Pz Div which actually reached the beaches at Gela July 11. They did then retreat and though their report says it was due to fuel and ammo shortages, the storm of fire from offshore, and some US tanks and arty pieces already on the beaches, surely affected the situation also. And some tanks blown to prevent capture, rather than recovered, might have been due in part to artillery fire falling all around, in part naval. But I see no reason to disbelieve their account of tank losses directly to NGF. An Italian unit with captured French light tanks also suffered unknown losses possibly to NGF in an attack before the German one. But there is no evidence here that medium naval shell near misses would commonly actually destroy medium or heavy tanks.
3. Yes, but this weapon was mainly limited to single shots where a hit or very near miss on a tank was not likely. And I know of no verified claims of TT's knocking out tanks by either hits or near misses, though latter might be be theoretically possible.
4. There was no surveying of wrecks of Communists tanks in Korea in this period, only in the period following the initial North Korean retreat from South Korea up to November 1950. At that time, 239 T-34 wrecks were reported, of which 60 were to napalm, 17 to rockets, 7 to bombs, 4 to strafing and 10 to air-unspecified, though 15 were altogether unknown. In "Tank Warfare in Korea" Zaloga says this correponded to 857 USAF claims of tanks destroyed; in "Armor of the Korean War" Dunstan says 1134 UN aerial claims v tanks; but counting that myself in original records I would say even Dunstan's number is low, I get past it even with some known omissions.
So, there's no way to say how many real tank kills the 80 claims represents, but IMO we can't base any firm conclusion on assuming the claim accuracy was much better than the earlier period in Korea, or the similarly low % apparently achieved by both USAAF and RAF fighter bombers in NW Europe in 1944.
Communist tanks or their wrecks were very rarely seen by UN ground forces after early November 1950. We know from Communist accounts that the KPA rebuilt their tank units (virtually destroyed in the opening phase) and the Chinese sent some, but known accounts from that side also say they were usually held in reserve. In fact in the few cases where the Chinese claim their tanks ko'd UN tanks later in the war, UN accounts don't even corroborate that such tank v tank battles occurred. Air units saw and attacked these tanks sometimes, but we just don't know the actual results, and in the static warfare of that period of the war, it's also likely there were decoys.
Joe
