WWII aircraft armament machine guns and cannon

[Pumpkin]

To me, it would seem, for tank busting, that the speed of the plane, the cannons rate of fire and the sighting equipment used would combine to make a precision shot very difficult.
And I think most would agree that that’s what would have to take place.
When you bring anti-shipping into the discussion we have greatly enlarged the target.
As far as skip bombing I have to rely on the experts, in some ways it seems more feasible but at what cost from enemy fire?

[RC20]

That is why I don't believe there was any success at so called tank busting.

Other targets from compounds, softe transport in bunches on a road, yes.

As you note, ship attack is a good option and the Brits had success in the Bay of Biscay with attacking German subs both with cannon and rockets. But then a slow moving predictable path and no AA if its submerging.

One of the remedies to AA for skip bombing was using fighter to suppress the AA and mechant ships had little armrament.

Japanaese AA was not very good as it was not controled. Their 25 mm was not that good. As the war went on, the US shifted heavily to 40mm AA as that was what was needed to break kup an aircraft (aka Kamakaze)

Ship AA early in the war in general was not that good with the US using 50 cal. It just did not have the range and the 20mm Oerklikans wound up with the same issue. 40mm was the minimum and 3 inch turned out to be ideal.

5 inch was very effective with the Radar fuses, but closer in the 3 inch would knock a plane apart at a decent range.

The US had by far the best AA directer systems in WWII.

[RC20]

As to the idea that one could not hit anything without sights are you familiar with "point shooting"?? Shooting from the hip?? People who have practiced can turn in some astonishing results. Why would you think a pilot couldn't learn to do that with their aircraft? Sights don't make a hit possible, they make it easier.

As far as I know, they did not have gun cameras on the so called tank busters, if they did it would have revealed the failure of those systems.

Gun cameras were used to sort out claims and those were hugely down counted though pilots argued anyway.

We have people going through records now, you can compare a squadron claims vs the logged losses of aircraft. Rarely did they tally the same and usually it was by a lot.

So you are trying to compare an aircraft doing 100+ Mph with a guy standing still on his feet? At 10 yards? Wow.

And where does the plane pilot get his training? OJT and he can't see how he does because the tank disappears and the bedlam of a battle field and AA or getting jumped by a fighter or all 3?

When rewards are also given? Right. I gave up in Believing about the tooth fairy long ago.

You will notice the Brits did not continue with 40mm cannon on Typhoon or Tempest?

The US only wont with 75mm as snit shipping and even hitting a barge would have been extraordinarily difficult.

In reality if a 50 cal (or 20mm) did not do it then a Bomb was next (well and rockets that were area weapons as well).

Obviously facts don't play into your myths so you ignore them. On that note I will quit responding, you are not interested in the recent research that uses source documents that has dispelled many of those myths.

[44 AMP]

As far as skip bombing I have to rely on the experts, in some ways it seems more feasible but at what cost from enemy fire?

The cost from enemy AA wasn't as high as you might think because of the targets and the method of attack.

First off, the targets were freighters, tankers, cargo ships, troop carriers and their escorts. AA defenses on the shipping was light or sometimes even less and the AA on Japanese destroyers was no where near the amount on larger warships.

Second, the skip bombing attacks were done from astern by pairs of bombers (when possible) and at altitudes of 500ft or less. Some pilots went in as low as 100ft. By attacking down the long axis of the ship, that meant that only half (or less) of the ship's AA could bear. The gun nose B-25s would rake the entire length of the ship with their .50s and drop their bombs so they skipped into the rear of the ship. If they missed the ship the bombs would detonate in the water along side, and below the waterline, buckling plates or even caving in part of the hull.

The gun nose B-25s and A-20s had considerable suppressive fire quite effective at the low altitude of the attacks.
Regular bombers could and often did use the skip bombing technique. but with only a single nose gun their suppressive fire wasn't nearly as much.

Note that in the battle of the Bismarck Sea, not a single skip bombing B-25 was lost.

[Pumpkin]

I would think that the gun nose A-20 and B-25 would have a much greater ammunition supply on board than your typical fighter. Also, possibly the ability to reload some of the guns?

[Hawg]

Look up Hans Rudel. He was a Stuka pilot and killed over 500 tanks.

[105kw]

Most US aircraft like the A-20, and B-25 could not reload any of their guns in flight.
Ammunition for the gun nosed aircraft was good for 20 seconds or better firing time.
The 50 BMGs were very good at suppressing AA fire during low level attacks.

[davidsog]

When you bring anti-shipping into the discussion we have greatly enlarged the target.

You don't have to have a direct hit with a 2000lb bomb on a tank. We are talking a weapon that leaves a 50 ft crater some 30 feet deep.

And that is not to claim that bombs are super effective against tanks. It is simply to point out that German conclusions were probably correct for the technology level of WWII. Bombs were most likely the most effective aerial anti-tank weapon of WWII.

[RC20]

Look up Hans Rudel. He was a Stuka pilot and killed over 500 tanks.

You really need to read the research on good old Hans. Claims were hugely if not totally exaggerated. The same was true with many German fighter aces. Its not that they did not have serious numbers, but they got to cult status and were not questioned.

The Stuka 37 mm installation was badly done and was Rudels brain child. He got hero status and benefited from that. Best guess on actual on ground assessment, maybe 50 tanks. Maybe.

For anyone that has flown an aircraft (I have) any steady flight path is difficult in benign condition. Then add the right angle, 40mm cannot going boom and no accurate aiming device.

As noted before, I think the A-10 gets maybe 20% hits on a tank size target. Its spewing thousands of rounds a minute out (actually brief bursts). And it took a lot of years to develop it with a center line cannon and an aiming system that accounts for trajectory.

If you have a hard time just landing, then try shooting cannon and AA fire. And any actually follow up on ground investigation shows few if any tanks (Armored car, half track, open back SPA, yes as well as soft targets.

This is a good summation.

https://www.historynet.com/think-its...s-think-again/

[RC20]

You don't have to have a direct hit with a 2000lb bomb on a tank. We are talking a weapon that leaves a 50 ft crater some 30 feet deep.

And that is not to claim that bombs are super effective against tanks. It is simply to point out that German conclusions were probably correct for the technology level of WWII. Bombs were most likely the most effective aerial anti-tank weapon of WWII.

500 lb seems to be far more common carry for P-47 as well as the rockets, though I know 2000 lb was a Pacific load for the Corsair.

[105kw]

Lindbergh tested 2000lb bomb loads for the F4U Corsair, flying out of Kwajalein Atoll.
It worked but was not adopted as a standard load for the F4U-1D, they were only rated for 1000lb bombs.

[RC20]

It should be noted that the Normandy breakout in WWII was created by heavy and medium bombers dropping onto German (and some US) positions and that did create conditions that tanks were probably destroyed.

But we are talking carpet bombing and the quantity dropped was huge as it was just across the channel so you did not have to balance bomb load with range.

[RC20]

Lindbergh tested 2000lb bomb loads for the F4U Corsair, flying out of Kwajalein Atoll.
It worked but was not adopted as a standard load for the F4U-1D, they were only rated for 1000lb bombs.

That rings the bell.

[Pumpkin]

RC,
What an interesting link, awesome read!
Lucky for man-kind Rudel was flying “an elephant on roller skates” and not a Typhoon.

And as far as his air to air claims, if they were in a Stuka and not a 190 I find those very hard to believe. The dude was a living, breathing propaganda add.


Amazing but not surprising that the Hurricane took such a performance penalty from carting around those two 40’s.


2 questions,
How many tank tracks were knocked out leaving them immobile?
Would seem like a flurry of expertly placed 50 BMG’s or 20-30mm cannon rounds might be enough to accomplish this?

Next,
How do the ballistics of shoulder fired weapons from then and today compare to those “anti tank” 37-40mm cannons that were used on some aircraft.

Edit:
Okay, I just got through reading about the Javlin, apples and truck load of oranges comparison.

[davidsog]

The same was true with many German fighter aces.

I have to disagree on this one. All sides over claimed to some degree. The RLM had the strictest award systems of all the combatants in WWII.

In fact, the biggest weakness in the German claims is the system was so thorough that not one single claim was actually award for most of 1944 and all of 1945. Most Combatants in WWII only required another eyewitness from their own side to confirm a claim.

For the RLM each claim required witnesses that were present at the engagement and what took the longest was verification either from the battlefield in the form of actual wreckage or confirmation thru intelligence reports from the enemy. In other words, enemy status reports confirming the loss of an aircraft. That lack of intelligence is the main reason the last year of the war, no claims were officially confirmed.

As a General statement about victory claims in WWII, there is no case that can be made that the German's system or aerial victory claims were anything but valid. Read JG26 War Diaries...

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Boo...ref_=pd_hw_i_1

https://www.abebooks.com/97818986978...1898697868/plp

Professor Caldwell goes day by day, engagement by engagement for the entire war. He cross-references Allied records for most of the engagements. The German Claims are very accurate and often underclaimed. Even in the last days of the war, the German claims were as honest as possible under the circumstances born out by post war analysis.

The Luftwaffe got such high scores because their pilots flew in constant combat without respite. There was no rotation out of combat or required number of missions to end their service. They flew until they died or the war ended. Most of the war, they were greatly outnumbered so they lived in a very target rich environment with many times the chances of encountering the enemy compared to their allied counterparts.

[RC20]

I have to seriously doubt offical vs what got claimed

No disagreement that German pilots had high counts for the reasons you stated. Fighting Russians would be high numbers.

But, why would the Germans focus valuable intel assets to count claims? Not the kind of info you get over the airwaves. let alone the decode efforts.

There has been a lot of recent analysis of records. Most kept meticulous written records only accesses post WWII and then far more lately.

I may be wrong but I had read someplace that twin and 4 engine aircraft got two and four claim counts. I could be wrong.

Unfortunately most of my background is in book read in the past and I don't remember titles.

This is a pretty neutral summation. In order to be accurate, you would need the records from both sides in a specific engagement on the same day. Almost impossible in many aerial battles in Europe.

From mid-year 1943 through 1944, the Wehrmachtbericht (communiques from the head of the armed forces) often overstated Allied bomber losses by a factor of up to two; these claims existed only in the communiques and were not used in victory scoring. Defenders of the German fighter pilots maintain that overclaims were eliminated during the confirmation process, but the microfilms show that this was not always the case. Stringent review of German archives show that 90 percent of the claims submitted to the RLM were "confirmed", or found to be "in order for confirmation", up to the time the system broke down in 1945.[9]"


Wingman would lie, an interesting term I have seen is power balance and a higher scoring pilot would have that.

The only ones I believe are the overall records, not individual ones. We sent out 48 planes and 45 came back type of report.

On a more abstract and objective basis, only if the pilot is killed or captured is it really relevant. If recovered by your side and back into combat, new aircraft were there.

Its hard to shoot a guy in a parachute but if he is going to be recovered, is it any different than a sniper shot at a guy just sitting there?

[RC20]

And as far as his air to air claims, if they were in a Stuka and not a 190 I find those very hard to believe. The dude was a living, breathing propaganda add.


Amazing but not surprising that the Hurricane took such a performance penalty from carting around those two 40’s.


2 questions,
How many tank tracks were knocked out leaving them immobile?
Would seem like a flurry of expertly placed 50 BMG’s or 20-30mm cannon rounds might be enough to accomplish this?

As for Hans, once you got hero status there were rewards and with rewards comes corruption and Germany was hugely corrupt. So yea, I doubt pretty much all his claims, tank or air.

50 cal rounds are going to do nothing against tracks or boogies. 37 mm in the right spot maybe. The term is mobility kill.

But keep in mind the angles from above and not likely. I don't know anyone did studies on damaged running gear let alone from air attack.

Behind the lines a mobility kill is wasted as the repair groups would have it back in action soon. If one side was advancing they would loose vehicles that could be returned to service. A lot of effort was put into recovery and then repair if not a constructive loss.

[Jim Watson]

The Stuka 37 mm installation was badly done and was Rudels brain child.

All I know of him is what Jeff Cooper said. That his tactic was to fly low and "pop up" to get a shot at a tank. A shot, Cooper said the cyclic rate and magazine size were so low that he would likely get in only one round per gun per pass.

[davidsog]

But, why would the Germans focus valuable intel assets to count claims?

We also intercepted enemy status reports. It's all good intelligence. The difference is The Germans tied to the claim of their pilots.

In fact, it is one of the mistakes the Luftwaffe made during the war. They put so much emphasis on fighter pilots claims it became the focus of every fighter pilot.

Here is a few examples of allied intercepts of German Reports.

Translated from German Intercepts....
Any crash sites were recorded and investigated. That information would be compiled as part of the claims investigation by the RLM. IF this aligned with what a unit reported they got in the same area then a victory claim would be awarded to the pilot. The investigations took almost a year to complete on average. If no crash was recorded, then enemy intercepts reporting losses could also be used as proof to award the claim.

Here we see the crashes being reported along with the dates and locations:



Here we see I/JG4's initial claims after a battle. NONE of these are awarded to any pilot as a victory. The investigation must be completed and the victory awarded. Only then can the pilot paint a Victory hash on his plane and count the enemy aircraft as a victory.

Here we see a Flak unit claimed victories because the crashed aircraft were right there in front of them. It was much easier to get a claim verified that way.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/att...1&d=1748374861

[davidsog]

I have almost the entire Jagdwaffe Victory claims by unit by day it occurred on the Western and Russian Fronts. I have lined up several battles with allied accounts and would be happy to do it again here if someone has the allied information. I have some allied info but most of this information was compiled during my working on a Luftwaffe FW-190 restoration combing thru archives.

[RC20]

When you control the ground under an aerial battle, a lot of the total losses can be recorded.

I don't see that the same as awarded loss. In the case of a bomber action, dozens of German units would have been involved. Equally the same for bombers and allied fighter units.

It would be incredibly complex to try to correlate a claim and a location in the chaos of a fight.

The best source would not be German claims but the records on allied units as to number sent out and number that came back.

While that gets you actual losses, the reason for those losses would be impossible to certify.

What counted was the overall not individual. Huge losses in training that were not claims.

UK should have had pretty solid claims during the Battle of Britain, most intercepts were over populated land. How paper claims aka propaganda and actual claims, you would have to do a day by day and then unit by unit claim count. Where the numbers came from?

No question that some combat was over water or finished over water but those would be a smaller subset. Also losses not recorded but never made it back across the channel (damaged or just crashed for other reasons). The German records in that case would be accurate if you could bring in all the unit reports for a given day.

I will leave it at that.

[davidsog]

It would be incredibly complex to try to correlate a claim and a location in the chaos of a fight.

It's not as hard as you think. For Example, we were able to unite Oscar Boesch with the surviving B24 crew he shot down over Bremen. We even did a commemorative painting that sold to raise money for the WWII Aircraft Restorations.

We also found the Mustang Oscar shot down on Christmas during the Ardennes Offensive. It was P-51D-10-NA 44-14384 of 343rd FS, 55th FG.

The best source would not be German claims but the records on allied units as to number sent out and number that came back.

This is exactly what everyone during the war tried to do to verify claims in order to award a kill.

The Germans simply had higher standards than anyone else for a award. That is a fact.

Overclaiming did occur and it occurred on all sides. In fact, after Germany's surrender, the Allies thought the German claims were pure fiction and conducted a thorough investigation. Turns out they were just as accurate if not slightly more so due to the higher burden of proof than everyone else's claims.

Blanket statements of the high scores of the Luftwaffe being "propaganda" or anything else but good faith claims backed by a rigorous award system to achieve that confirmed award are just false.

[44 AMP]

One of the often overlooked factors in the German fighter aces kill numbers was the amount of times they flew combat missions, along with what they flew, where, what and how many opponents they were flying against.

The Jagdflieger were hunters, as nearly all fighter pilots are, and they did it a LOT. The Luftwaffe was purpose built to be the army's "flying artillery" and the fighter's primary role was to seek out and destroy the enemy's airpower.

Even when their primary mission shifted to defense as the war progressed, they flew as often as conditions allowed. There was no rotation system for pilots or aircrew, like the US used. While individual pilots did get leave at times, in general they flew until they could no longer fly. And they often did it several times a day, when conditions permitted.

Look at the air war in Europe (and Afrika and the Med) the Luftwaffe operated from any piece of ground that was flat enough, long enough, and solid enough to handle their aircraft, which were also built with that in mind.

When you include what was flown on the Eastern Front, the numbers balloon hugely over what the Western Allies flew. Operating from forward "bases" often only a few minutes flying time behind the ground combat front, multiple sorties sometimes over half a dozen in a day were common. Pilots with actually thousands of combat missions were not uncommon, and flying that much tends to have an effect on pilot skills. Good and bad.

Dispute all you want, but using the officially accepted numbers look at the disparity between the top scoring aces of the main combatant nations.

The top US ace had 40. The top British ace 38. The top Soviet ace had 60 some (63?) The Japanese didn't "officially" keep score, but unofficially their top got somewhere around 100.

Their scores weren't ALL propaganda, though propaganda happily used them as much as they could.

[davidsog]

There was no rotation system for pilots or aircrew, like the US used.

When discussing this subject, people greatly underestimate or simply fail to realize the significance of this fact.

Richard Bong flew 156 sorties in Combat during his entire career as a USAAF Fighter Pilot and United States Leading Ace.

Erich Hartmann flew 1404 combat sorties during his service in combat with Luftwaffe.

Bongs Sortie to Kill ratio is 156/40 or 3.9 sorties for each kill.

Erich Hartmann flew 150 sorties before he even scored his first kill.

Even then, his Sortie to Kill Ratio is 1404/352 or 3.98 for each kill.

The exact same ratio as Richard Bong. In fact, Bong's is slightly better.

That means they flew an average of 4 missions before scoring a Kill.

The Luftwaffe Aces earned their high scores because they had no choice, no respite, and flew until they died or the war ended.

Walter Krupinski flew the entire war. He was famous for never having lost a wingman and several of his wingman went on to become big names in the Luftwaffe like Erich Hartmann.

Krupinski flew 1100 sorties for 197 kills on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. That is a ratio of 1100/197 gives us 5.68 sorties per kill. That is actually average to slightly below average for most aces sortie to kill ratio.

[44 AMP]

I can see how the math works out, but I don't think the math alone allows for a fair comparison between aces in different places times and enemies.

Sortie to kill ratio is, I think, over simplified in too many ways for anything really useful or fair.

How many sorties without even seeing the enemy? How many where the enemy was seen, but didn't result in combat?? How many combats resulted in how many kills? Things like that.

How would accounting for those factors change the sortie to kill ratio?

For example, the guy who gets one kill in one sortie is a straight 1 for 1 thing.

Now how about the guy who flies 15 sorties and gets 10 kills, getting two kills in two sorties, one sortie with three kills, and three sorties getting one each, and no kills on the other seven sorties??

What kind of numbers do you get when you only count flights where a kill (or more than one) was made, vs number of kills??

Numbers are solid. They always work the same way, but they do not always mean what they seem to mean. Sometimes, they just do not take all the needed variables into account to support some conclusions.