WWII aircraft armament machine guns and cannon

[Mike Irwin]

"Going back to the days of muzzle loading cannon, there is a "dance" done by artillery crews (and this include tank crewmen) where each guy stands in a certain place and moves in a certain way which they are trained in doing. What looks awkward, and so seems foolish to the untrained observer might be the most efficient way of doing it, when one is taught the right 'dance steps" to use."

So, where's the dance floor in the turret of a Panther tank?

Do the tank commander and loader dance a minuet around the breech of the gun during the loading process?

RC makes a very valid point, one that you're glossing over, that it's a lot easier for training to take when it matches the natural capabilities of 90% of the population.

It's more natural and, its accomplished faster with less training.

[Mike Irwin]

"First off, we never shipped any 37mm AP, for the P-39 to the Russians."

Primarily because not much of the M80 armor piercing ammo was produced in the United States.

Performance of the round wasn't all that great. It was solid shot (no bursting charge) with a tracer element. It would penetrate about 1 inch of armor at 500 yards... at a 90 degree impact angle. Something that's virtually impossible to achieve when in an airplane.

Top deck armor on a Panther was about 16mm thick, but when you figure in the angle, effective thickness was a bit over what the round could reliably penetrate.

That said, the 37mm high explosive round that was supplied for the M4 cannon was actually quite effective and could do a lot of damage to most German tanks if the rounds hit the top deck.

[Mike Irwin]

"Never heard about the Ju 88 as a tank buster, just one more thing it was used for."

The Germans developed several versions of the Ju 88 as an attack aircraft/anti-tank aircraft armed with 50 and 75mm anti-tank guns.

I think this one has the 50mm gun, but I'm not 100% sure.





The Germans also outfitted Ju 87 Stukas with a 37mm anti-tank gun under each wing. The guns had either 6 or 12 round magazines (I'm unclear on which) and shells with tungsten carbine penetrators and proved to be quite successful in attacks against Russian armor.

This photo is interesting because it looks like the ground crew guy is spinning up the inertia starter.





Other German aircraft were also outfitted with cannons for ground/anti-armor attack, including the Henschel 129 with the aforementioned 75mm gun (limited production and not particularly successful as performance really suffered with the gun mounted), and the Me-210/410, although the primary intended use for the Messerschmidt aircraft was against bombers.

[44 AMP]

So, where's the dance floor in the turret of a Panther tank?

The turret floor...

Do the tank commander and loader dance a minuet around the breech of the gun during the loading process?

No, the loader does the loader shuffle and the tank commander does the elevator (no steps).

Left and right side depends on your point of view, don't they?

I mean, facing forward (the usual way) the left and right sides of the vehicle are aligned with your left/right hands, but facing rearwards, its now the opposite.

[Mike Irwin]

"Left and right side depends on your point of view, don't they?"

Yep, correct. As the turret turns, the crew stays in the same location. The turret turns around them and the breech of the gun phases through them.

[44 AMP]

Only in some designs,

The Soviet T-34/76, widely regarded as the best tank of its time with sloped armor, wide tracks and a powerful engine was a nightmare for crew ergonomics.

The seats for the commander/gunner and the loader were fixed to the turret ring, and did not move when the turret was rotated. Which could result in the breech "phasing through" you if you stayed in your seat when the turret rotated enough...

There were 9 rounds in a ready rack in the turret, and the rest of the main gun ammo was in bins underneath the rubber matting that made up the turret floor. And the original large single turret hatch, while providing easy access and exit, hinged forward, meaning the commander had to peer over it, or around the side to see what was infront of the tank.
And, the commander was also the gunner, meaning he was overworked, which made it difficult to do either job as well as possible.

[RC20]

P

lease be so kind as to point out WHERE that information is.
(in print, by a recognized historian or veteran, not some yammerhead on U tube, please)

I am sorry I have not collected the links. There are quite a few books out on the subject the last few years. The Chiefton is one of the few U Tubes on the subject that are accurate. He reports the same and all the books agree with him (sans your Cooper guy and again, it was not a bad book, but it was a hugely skewed view and discredited on the Sherman).

You assessment on so called yammerheads is really sad. If its credible reporting including data to support it, you dismiss it because you think all U Tube is bad.

You also fail to accept the failure of any logic on your part. One person in one position sees an extremly narrow slice. You then take inaccurate eye witness reports (proven to be not only poor but often contradictory to what acualy did happen) and give them full credence as real.

You fail to acknowledge your eye witness in fact saw one small part of the whole picture and in fact cannot say what the wider facts are and in fact, probably entirely wrong in what they did report seeing. Not because they are malicious or bad, its the proven inability of in person witness to get anything right.

Mike Irwin clearly has informed himself of the brew up aspects so that makes two tech people who live and breath facts. None are so blind as those who will not see

The Cannon carrying aircraft killing tanks in WWII is another dubious item.

I have seen the data on the A-10 and how many rounds totally miss a tank with a modern aiming system and spewing 30mm rounds.

So where do we get the reports of cannon aircraft killing tanks? Pilots. Who are often totally wrong on an aerial shootdown? Pilots. Its whey they had gun cameras. Not malicious in many cases, but wrong often.

Hans Rudel claims an astonishing number of tanks he shot up. Researches think the vast majority of his claims are bogus. Sometimes referred to as the biggest liar of WWII (some German so called aces also stackup up huge claims that their own squadrons knew were false but got away on reputation. Not that they were not good, sadly for the allies they were, its that they then lied for reasons of glory and jewelry.

P-47 tank kills were also few. Post battle checks usually found no aerial delivered weapons killed a tank. Ironic that sometimes a crew would abandon a tank when they were safest in the tank.

That said, you don't need to kill a tank directly. Remove its fuel, ammo and maint support and said tank dies on the vine. That is where airpower was effective.

Just a side note. We often see the pictures of locomotives getting shot up. It turns out Germany overbuild locomotive leading into and during WWII.

They just rolled another locomotive out. Cars, tracks (best done in a station as single tracks are hard to hit) were better targets. Bridges if you can hit them are really good as very time consuming to repair and nothing moves until you do (track is easy to repair but you can wreck havoc blowing up a train yard as that is where the sorting is done)

[RC20]

The Soviet T-34/76, widely regarded as the best tank of its time with sloped armor, wide tracks and a powerful engine was a nightmare for crew ergonomics.

That would be wrong. T-34-76 was extremly unreliable, had massive quality failures (to be expected, the inanity of moving the factories and production in cold buildings boggles the mind).

The engine overheated in the summer months. Trany failed. As I recall they could not get two fuel tanks of distance before breakdown.

Commander being the loader as well, bad bad bad. It was cramped, crowded and the aux equipment broke down including a lousy (to be expected) turret traverse.

The T-34-85 was better with a 3 man turret but it suffered issues though over time the Russians got quality up significantly.

The final Kabosh was Korea where the E8 Sherman shot it to pieces.

The basic idea was sound, but even the ergonomics were poor and could not be improved.

Russia had to mfg 50,000 of them because 40,000 (maybe not that high) were destroyed.

It looked good, it was resistant to the German tanks it ran up against initially, but a Pzkw with a longer (not the longest) 75 was far better.

Sloped armor only works if its good quality. In most ways you can't hold quality against a design. In conditions it was built, it stood no chance but under the hood it still was bad.

Mike probably knows this but diesel fuel injection needs to be mfg very precise. I suspect issue not reported in that regard were rife as well.

[Pumpkin]

We had a 7L or so Zil truck engine that leaked oil THROUGH the side of the engine block.
Not thinking quality control was a very big thing in the USSR.
JD tractor bearings in the Mig-25 engine, controls freezing up on the Mig-15 under certain conditions.
Didn’t the Mig-15 engine have problems from ingesting metallic materials after the firing of its guns ?

[105kw]

The Mig-15 could flame out its engine, with the gun gases from firing the 37mm and 2 23mm.
I think the Russians changed the muzzle brake to solve the problem, because by the Korean War gun gas flame outs were basically stopped.
By the way, the gun armament, and configuration was unchanged in the Fresco A, and C models. Which were the Mig-17, and Mig-17F.

[RC20]

US had the issue when trying to go to 20mm in the latter version of the F-86.

None of it is easy.

[Mike Irwin]

The T-34 was considered to be the best tank DESIGN of WW II.

Note that I said design.

It was the application that was the problem.

The T-34's engine was actually the best part of the drive train. The V-2 Chelapan and his team came up with starting in the late 1920s was substantially mature technology, both in design and manufacturing, by the outbreak of the war in the East.

As with the T-34, though, the rushed manufacturing in the early phases of the war was a problem. As the war progressed, and the extreme early invasion pressure was reduced, the engines were manufactured to MUCH higher levels of quality.

The same is true of the transmission. Early transmissions were prone to failure, to the point where it wasn't uncommon to see T-34s moving towards the front with their own replacement strapped to the hull.

As the war progressed, transmission failures plummeted.

The T-34, as manufactured vs as designed, also showed numerous short cuts that were designed to get the tank out the door faster and cheaper. Things like radios and, more problematically, the turret basket. The turret crew would have to shuffle their feet as the turret slewed.

As the war progressed and as manufacturers became more mature in their processes, the T-34 became a far more reliable tank that it had been in the early days. Radios were fitted, allowing far better battlefield coordination. Mechanical reliability increased dramatically. Some things were still left out by some manufacturers, the turret basket being the big one.

In reality, the tale of the T-34 is the tale of multiple tanks at multiple points in its lifecycle.

German commanders in the east were insanely impressed with the T-34 when they first encountered it. When examples were taken back to Germany for analysis, that's when the issues with armor quality and manufacturing standards became known.

The Germans were impressed enough with the T-34, though, that they derived the Panther to counter it. Except that they went in the opposite direction, coming up with a tank that was too complex by half with attributes that made it difficult to manufacture and (such as the interleavened road wheels) made it less suitable for Russia than was intended.



"The final Kabosh was Korea where the E8 Sherman shot it to pieces."

Yeah... that wasn't because of the vaunted superiority of the E8 by some marked measure OR the fact that the T-34/85 was all stuffed shirt not deserving of the stories about it.

It was because the US military finally developed a truly effective armor piercing round for the 76mm gun. Had the M93 HV armor piercing tracer round that was routinely used in Korea been available in WW II, many of the stories about the Sherman being outgunned by little old Frauleins on bicycles never would have happened.

That shell would have given Sherman 76s almost equal parity with German 75 and 88 mm tanks out to about 1,500 meters. After that performance started to drop, but it was still FAR in excess of what the M62 round was capable of.

Combine the better shell with overall better armor handling techniques (remember that most of the armored troop fighting in Korea were armor veterans of WW II, while the Chinese and Koreans were literally first gen armor soldiers with NO combat experience) it's no wonder that American forces chewed on Communist armor as badly as they did.

But it certainly wasn't because the T-34 was a smoke and mirrors legend, a product of communist propaganda that couldn't drive 100 meters without completely falling to pieces and having to be replaced.

By the time the Korean war rolled around, the T-34 variants that the Soviets and their satellites were fielding were on part mechanically and reliability wise with anything being fielded by the United Nations troops.

[Mike Irwin]

Gun exhaust choking the engines wasn't nearly the problem for the F-86 as it was for the Mig.

If you look at the location of the gun muzzles on the two aircraft you'll see why.

[44 AMP]

About everything built by man goes through several stages of design, redesign, and manufacture before it is declared "perfected", and some things go through even more stages of redesign and modifications after that.

Problems the inventor/designers foresee get changed on the drawing board. Problems discovered during prototype(s) construction get fixed and incorporated on the production line.

Issues discovered during proving ground testing, flight testing, sea trials, etc., get the same treatment, or they're supposed to...however, sometimes personal, professional or bureaucratic ego hinder that process.

And then there is the phase where the "finished" item, with all the bugs worked out gets into general issue, and more problems are discovered, because troops do things and use the equipment in way the designers and even the testers didn't account for.

And then, there is the subset of that, which only happens during combat, which some designs never see in any numbers.

Also, working against getting things that could be, should be, and ought to be fixed is the brass / the boss / bureaus, red tape, regulations, ego and prestige, in varying amounts from people in those positions.

The people who wear ties, and drive desks and who's work is mostly done with a pen often have a different way of looking at things than the people who use, operate, and do the hands on work.

Many times those of us "in the trenches" are given equipment with flaws that we recognize, and report on, and get ignored (until/unless) the job doesn't get done.

"this is what we bought, make it work" is a phrase we often hear from management, and if we CAN, somehow, make it work, getting the flaws fixed gets a low, or no, priority.

The examples are legion, ranging from small things all the way up to hugely important life and death level things. And, in combat, sometimes the little things are important life and death level things, recognized only when combat lethally points that out, but not always even then, or in a timely manner.

This evolutionary process applies not just to manufactured equipment, but also to doctrine, procedures, tactics and training. Many, many things that were the established standards turned out to be flawed concepts in combat. Sometimes these things got tossed out/changed rapidly, and sometimes, they did not due to the influence of individuals in positions of authority being unwilling, or even unable to accept being wrong.

Different groups handle this in different ways. And, of course, governments are loathe to allow the details, let alone the actual facts of the situations out to the public and the enemy.

Things that are famous, and widely known today, generally as examples of what not to do, were top secret things during the war, on all sides, generally.
(except for certain US congressmen...)

[Mike Irwin]

Oh pshaw! I came out perfect first time, only time.

Still have all of my original parts. Except for 2 teeth.

[44 AMP]

That might be the difference between "made by man" and "built by man"

[RC20]

This is another good view of in this case by the Chiefton (aka Nicholas Moran). Please note, the guy is a Colonel in the Armor Forces, former Iraq vet commanding an Abrams. As important, he is a researcher and while not the only one, he is one of the so called loud mouth U Tubers who are a credit to integrity. Usually Number two on each of these is inside the tank vs the outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACqzevjK2DQ

[RC20]

Note that I said design.

I understand the WWII issues, but I disagree on the design part.

The T-34-76 was horribly poor in its internals. It was severely cramped and the two man turret was a horror. Its only advantage was the Germans not having a better than the Pzkw III and its short 50 mm anti tank gun. That certainly did not stop the Germans from getting to the gates of Moscow.

The T-34/85 had a somewaht better gun (though a 76mm better would have done fine) and the 3 man turret solved some of the issues.

Early war quality control issues aside, the T-34 design was not the best. I believe overall the Sherman was though its not a popular view.

The Russians never had quality anything so the design lives within its context of where its produced. In that it had problem equipment that never was cleared up though the basic drive train breakdowns dramatically improved.

While its wide tracks took into account Russian conditions, it was a crude track system that never got any better.

The Sherman was originally too narrow but fixes were put in place and the E-8 resolved those. The basic design of the Sherman was more than good enough to correct that shortcoming.

The Sherman steering system was not sophisticated, but it was going to fight at the long end of a supply chain, huge advantages for it to be simple.

I have seen the ops of a T-34 in regards to trany and maneuver, ungh.

I would put the Pzkw IV ahead of the T-34 and not by a small amount.

The basic form of the T-34 was good, sloped armor and rear drive, but that did not mean the design was good. It only worked in mass numbers and the losses in WWII were insane.

The Points on Korea I will concede to a degree, but the ergonomics, optic and even if equipped with HVAP of WWII it would have been better than a T-34/85 let alone crew (call the E-8 its contemporary for the rough time in the war)

It would be interesting to see what number WWII troops were. By the time of Korea they would be upper level so at least loaders and drivers would be new and likely some gunners (tank commanders may well have been vets to a significant degree)

Bu8t that was the Army, not the Airforce which did have a lot of career WWII pilots. Huge numbers of the Army would have got out when they could and were they in Japan where there was little armor or Europe where the density was as it was abundantly clear the threat the Russians were in 1950.

In some other thought, the engine worked and I don't discount that, but it was driven by the poor fuel capability (refining) of fuel. As noted, keeping a diesel running in Arctic (or Antarctic) temps, its a serious problem. Gasoline is far more preferable. Even modern diesels have serous issues and pretty much below 20 deg they need to be plugged in.

People who have not operated Diesels in cold temps, probably don't get it. Huge improvements in function since about 1995. Glow plugs help but until the advent of really high pressure injection as well as computer control of the now injection cycle (multiple injection events) all mapped to the temperature, the improvements were only small increment (yea I grew up around diesels in cold temps and as noted before, was the end user of the same in -40 and lower vs my youth I wathed it)

Diesel engine for the Soviets was an adjustment to a reality of not having refinery capability for decent grades of gasoline. They made it work because it was their only choice they could make work.

[44 AMP]

I understand the WWII issues, but I disagree on the design part.

Disagree all you want, its your right, but take a step back and try to look at the 1930s and 1940s designs without using 2025 eyes.

Many of the things we take for granted these days, as just being common sense were cutting edge tech, or even completely unknown, or surmised on in theory back then.

And don't overlook the social systems and combat philosophies different nation's tanks were designed under. And then add in both peacetime "foot dragging" and wartime pressure, which different nations all faced, in differing amounts.

The T-34-76 was horribly poor in its internals. It was severely cramped and the two man turret was a horror.

No argument there, but there were even worse design concepts in use prior, along with better concepts as well.

By the time of the early 30s, the most forward thinking armor theorists were some British officers (Liddel Hart and others) who wrote about the concepts of combined arms warfare and other ideas that were rather radical for the day. Great Britian did adopt some of their ideas, but only a few, here and there, because, after all, there was no pressing need, and money was tight.

Likewise the US, where some armor officers followed the concepts with interest, not much was done again, because the money to do it wasn't there.

It was some Germans (notably Guderian and others) who took those concepts, embraced them, and improved on them, when they rose in power with the Nazi's rearming of Germany. The French did what they usually did, did things their way, and "foreign" ideas were not permitted in the Soviet Union, at all. (unless it was something the Soviets "invented" (aka stole).

By 1940, many French tanks had better (thicker) armor and better guns than the Panzers they fought. And, they had more tanks than the Germans did.
But their inability to use them the way the Germans used theirs, and the serious handicap of one man turrets put them at a serious disadvantage.

The T-34 entered service in 1940. A brand new design, with all the bugs that usually includes, produced in small numbers before the German invasion in the summer of 41, and hampered by the Soviet production system and design concepts. One of which is to only make things good enough to work, instead of the best practical. And then there is the Soviet military system, and their doctrine...

There are numerous accounts of a single T-34 or KV 1 holding up entire units sometimes for more than a day, until the Germans could get a weapon able to kill it in place to take it out.

No, they didn't keep the Germans from reaching Moscow, but consider the German Army at the time had a lot of veterans, who learned their skills overrunning Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland, France, and the Balkans all the way down to Greece. The Soviets did not.

All these, and many other factors played a role in what happened, and how.

The German practice of a 3 man turret for their main battle tanks proved to be the best system of the war, overall and was used by Britain, the US and the Soviet Union. KV 1 tanks had a three man turret from the outset, and when the Soviet Union upgraded the T-34/76 to the T-34/85 they went to a 3 man turret there, as well.

As to the Sherman Easy 8 chewing up T-34/85s in Korea, consider that the Korean war started not quite 5 years after the end of WWII and a significant portion of US forces had a lot of WWII vets still in their ranks, and that the North Korean tanks were manned by North Koreans. They had been taught by the Russians, but by and large, they weren't the same as experienced veterans. The better ammo we had in Korea was icing on the cake.

[Mike Irwin]

"The Russians never had quality anything "

Oh, I 100% disagree with that.

They had the single best submachine gun of World War II -- the PPS 43. It was an absolutely masterpiece of functional simplicity.

[Pumpkin]

So, I haven’t seen much conversation about the Tiger in all this.
Is a lot of what we hear and read myth, exaggeration or was it really that superior to the others?
I would imagine that the logistics involved in keeping one fueled was a nightmare, fuel consumption must have been very high. Was this why it carried some of it’s fuel inside the crew compartment? Partly why they outran their fuel trucks in Russia?
Any wisdom shared about it would be appreciated.

[44 AMP]

So, I haven’t seen much conversation about the Tiger in all this.
Is a lot of what we hear and read myth, exaggeration or was it really that superior to the others?

Yes, and no.

Lots of books and military evaluation reports have been done on the Tiger tank, some are straightforward accounts of the physical aspects of the tank, and how well, and how poorly it performed on the battlefield. Others are more biased reviews, influenced by the reviewer's personal opinions, including national pride, and even outright propaganda.

"superior" often comes down to the reviewer's opinion and which aspects of performance and use they focus on, and how fairly they are treating the subject.

First point, there's no free lunch!

One thing the Tiger did was reestablish what a heavy tank could be, and by the example of its strengths and weaknesses, both in the tank itself, and in the way it was made and used, showed what a heavy tank ought to be.

Huge, heavy, slow, expensive, complicated to make and maintain, all true. Nearly double the size and weight of everyone's main battle tanks when it went into service, with (for the time) massive armor and a the most effective gun put in a tank, in terms of firepower and defensive armor it was superior to what it faced for a long time, on a one to one comparison.

The rest of the package was...less so. I can cover these points in detail if you wish, but its probably better for the discussion to ask specific questions.

A couple of tidbits, first, the Tiger had no fuel storage in the fighting compartment. The fuel tanks were in the engine compartment.

Second, the Tiger prototypes (one from Porsche, and the other from Henschel) were rushed to compete against each other for Hitler's birthday, and despite Porsche's personal friendship with Hitler, it was the Henschel design he chose for production.

Ask away!

[Pumpkin]

After D-Day, I think the casual WWII observer might think the Tiger was more common than not.
Also that it’s armor just shrugged off enemy tank rounds.
Something tells me there’s more to it than that.
Would it be correct to assume part of the Tigers defensive advantage was because of the better range of its main gun?

[RC20]

Tigers were pretty rare. Vast majority of German tanks were the Pzkw IV and Panther.

There were also 2 x Tigers and not at all the same tank. Tiger I looked more like an up-sized Pzkw IV.

The U Tube shows the Tiger II did have fuel tanks inside the fighting compartment, don't know about Tiger I

As for the gun, that gets into many factors but the German 75 MM guns, be it on the Pzkw IV or the Panther had all the capability you needed.

An 88 MM in a Tiger II was a lot of waste.

Range is far from the only factor. Can you hit what you shoot at past 1000 yards?

A rare one shot occurred, but note Rare. You also get into the Easter front where it was more open generally vs the Western front where ranges tended to 800 yard maximum.

Tigerr II had great armor, but a stress on the engine and drive train and it broke down a lot. German recovery crews got a lot of practice.

It also had a different doctrine than Panther/IV. It was a so called breakthrough tank that could take a beating and not get knocked out. So yea it was hard to kill but then numbers count in keeping side and rear shots off the table.

I forget which TD had it but the Germans had one that had a 128 mm cannon. Pretty stupid and more waste

[RC20]

Others are more biased reviews, influenced by the reviewer's personal opinions, including national pride, and even outright propaganda.

Hmm, like first hand accounts of how brew up prone Sherman were?