quote:

Originally posted by RSS-Martin:
I just hate it when someone tries to sell BS as facts

Then quit trying to do just that or at least point out exactly what -I- posted that was BS.

I never said that 50 cals penetrated the armor of a Tiger tank. And I didn't post that Sherman tank shells did not bounce
off Tiger tanks, only posted that they didn't ALWAYS bounce off and that Sherman tanks don't FLY. You get the last part,
genius? Shots from above do not correspond to ground action hits on the front.

I suppose you drove Tiger tanks professionally? Are you also a space engineer?

quote:

Originally posted by Fehler:
This seems like a good time to remind everyone that the bar in the FW-190 is not correct.

Actually it's the no-refraction windshield! And I swear that armor glass won't stop bullets either.
Maybe there is no windshield?

quote:

Originally posted by M_Gunz:

quote:

Originally posted by RSS-Martin:
I just hate it when someone tries to sell BS as facts

Then quit trying to do just that or at least point out exactly what -I- posted that was BS.

I never said that 50 cals penetrated the armor of a Tiger tank. And I didn't post that Sherman tank shells did not bounce
off Tiger tanks, only posted that they didn't ALWAYS bounce off and that Sherman tanks don't FLY. You get the last part,
genius? Shots from above do not correspond to ground action hits on the front.

I suppose you drove Tiger tanks professionally? Are you also a space engineer?

Ah I love ignorant people, first I mentioned what veterans said that drove these vehiciles, guess you can´t read? Secondly I mentioned to get those hits a aircraft has to fly 90° to the top plate to get those kind of hits that are constantly mentioned, I guess you can´t read that either? I mentioned if the hits are not at 90° to the plate but at an angel they will glance off, I guess you can´t read that either.
I mentioned that to do such a feat the aircraft has to dive at 90° to the top of the tank, the range has to be below 3000m to have any effect at all, guess you missed that too.
So from 3000m to tank at 90° gives how much firing time and how many rounds are going to hit the same spot to get through?
Guess your pilots are superman?

In my eyes you are a ignorant and biased person.
So again shots through the top plate of a tank with small caliber amunition is BS.
No never said I was I tank driver or what ever silly stuff you might think of but I did have professionally to do with amunition but what does a former amunition mechanik know they are all stupid.

All you can argument is comming up with hot air, like you got a dope sig. I don´t give a fart what you think of my sig.

Be glad you can hide behind your computer, otherwise I would gladly give you a piece of mind. You are the kind that puts the Zoo into Ubi.

I'm not sure of the thickness of tiger tank armor, and whether 50 cal could or did penetrate their armor is benign because 50 cal was never considered efficient for neutralizing heavily armored targets.

I am certain that 50 cal can penetrate 20mm thick armor at closer ranges, and coupled with concentrated fire could actually be more significant on armored structures, but the key here is efficiency. If i have to spend over 900 rounds just to disable one tank then its going to require many more aircraft to stop dozens of tanks. This is what they did in some cases, but i've also read reports that when hitting tank convoys the P-47 pilots hit the fuel trailers which the tanks needed to keep running for any significant amount of time.

I read the title of the thread, as explosive ammo, which was not used on armored targets because they explode. Even 20mm HE rounds can't penetrate a light armor plate.

Thats my two cents, and hopefully clears up any misunderstandings.

You won't put 50 cals through the top armor of a Tiger tank from the plane or get sustained concentrated fire either.
An open hatch and some luck... sure since open hatch is not armor and bullets inside tanks do bounce around until
stopped in various ways. A WWII tank running around buttoned up has severely less view than when the commander has
his head out the top hatch. Unless under fire the commander usually kept up for view and drivers had open hatches
also to see better and able to make the tank go faster more safely.

US doctrine vs projected Soviet attack in the later 70's included high burst artillery with aim to force the Russian
tanks and APCs to button up and slow the wave down. That was an indirect part of my job then. :-P

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
This will end well.

See, and you didn't think the original topic could get any more rediculous!....

K2

..... Let's settle this once and for all. A P47 or P51 in a vertical dive and firing 50cal M2 AP at 2835 ft/sec initial velocity can penetrate the 25mm rolled homogeneous turret roof and rear deck armor of a Tiger I within 200 yards at 0 degrees obliquity. There is absolutely no question about it - it's scientifically certain.

. . . . .

On the other hand, there may be a small problem pulling out of the dive.


;-]

I hope it´s not too late to discuss the trim-on-a-slider exploit as well?

quote:

Originally posted by Blutarski2004:
..... Let's settle this once and for all. A P47 or P51 in a vertical dive and firing 50cal M2 AP at 2835 ft/sec initial velocity can penetrate the 25mm rolled homogeneous turret roof and rear deck armor of a Tiger I within 200 yards at 0 degrees obliquity. There is absolutely no question about it - it's scientifically certain.

. . . . .

On the other hand, there may be a small problem pulling out of the dive.


;-]

Turret roof armor was increased to 40 mm on later Tiger Is and the King Tiger... The reason for this increase was not .50 cal aircraft fire vulnerability, but explosive artillery shell fire vulnerability... Surprisingly enough, Soviet emphasis on massive indirect-fire artillery made being hit on the roof by a slowly falling or exploding shell a common threat for German tanks...

Note however that the Tiger II, like all other German tanks, did not have the very special heat treatement of the armor exclusive to the Tiger I, which was very expensive, and gave protection far beyond what the thicknesses indicate...

Except for the thinner front hull plates and mantlet, the Tiger I had in fact far better all-around armor protection than any other German tank, including the Tiger II...

For all-around protection, it may even have been the best-protected of WWII, with only the JS II or Sherman Jumbo as contenders...

As for the Ki-43's 12.7 mm guns, I am willing to buy that the Japanese efforts did improve its hitting power on unarmored aircrafts parts, compared to other 50 cals individual rounds, but it should be noted this was largely offset by the poor synchronization of the Browning mechanism, which cut the rate of fire from 800-900 rds per minutes to less than 600...

Despite this, I still think that, for anything other than bomber interceptions, for which the Zero was a poor choice anyway, the Ki-43-II was a sounder combat aircraft overall, and was better armed for fighter-vs-fighter combat, than all but the last five-guns A6M5/7s... My main reason for saying this is that the convergence restriction imposed on wing-mounted guns requires them to have a much better rate of fire than the 350-400 rounds per minutes available to the A6M5...

Adding faster-firing medium Mgs to the Zero was badly needed, and they knew it, as many Zero pilots, including Saburo Sakai, bitterly complained about the Jack-of-all-trades/master of none set-up on the Zero...

Gaston

The Tiger I we have in game has 25mm top armor. The rate of fire of the Type 99 cannons on the A6M is 520 rpm.

*Having stated the only applicable facts in a 3 page thread walks away shaking her head*....

....."mens is silly critters"...

K2

quote:

..... Let's settle this once and for all. A P47 or P51 in a vertical dive and firing 50cal M2 AP at 2835 ft/sec initial velocity can penetrate the 25mm rolled homogeneous turret roof and rear deck armor of a Tiger I within 200 yards at 0 degrees obliquity. There is absolutely no question about it - it's scientifically certain.

Interesting...

I heard they bounced them off the pavement or nearby rocks to skip them underneath the tank. That is why foot wounds were the most common wound in Tiger tank crews....

Quote: "Rate of fire of type 99 was 520 rpm"

That MAY be true, and if so would give it a rate of fire near-parity with the Oscar's armament, but it is still too slow for the more limited hit convergence "region" of wing-mounted guns. The Oscar's two guns will still score many more hits over a longer range and a longer period of time than what the A6M5's convergence could achieve. Even 750 rounds per minute was too little for the Me-109G's wing-mounted guns, and the FW-190A VERY often had the outboard 20 mms deleted for the same reason, the electrically synchronized inner guns not requiring convergence, and were being little slowed by synchronization.

In actual real-life practice, I heard that the rate of fire was often lower for these Oerlikon-based 20mm guns, especially the flexible-mount ones, whose rate of fire was, I am told, almost that of a puffing locomotive! An unfair comparison perhaps, but the same type of gun nonetheless...

Quote, Billyfish: "Past that what they fail to mention is that the Japanese 12.7 explosive round had a VERY bad habit of exploding upon contact. Now that may sound good, yet in reality wherein most other explosive rounds had a split second delay which would allow them to enter a confined space enhancing the explosive effect, the Japanese round would explode on the surface of the skin of the aircraft actually causing the energy to work against the fragments pushing them back away from the target.

Think of it as having a firecracker go off in your closed fist vs. on your open palm. The first way it blows your hand apart, the second it does nothing.

Now, that may of been corrected as the war progressed, yet as far as this scenario goes relating to say 1942, it was not."


-True, we don't know if it was corrected, but it seems very likely that it was, or we wouldn't hear of Oscar pilots being very satisfied with the Ki-43-II hitting power on fighters... Or of numerous P-47Ds going down after a single pass...

The simple fact is, if the Ki-61, Ki-84 and Ki-44 were dramatically more effective than the Ki-43-II against US fighters, the Oscar wouldn't have remained in production for two years past mid-1943, unless you assume the IJA was totally stupid. Note that the Ki-27 Nate was rapidly replaced by the Oscar, despite pilot preference for the the Nate's superior maneuverability, similar armament at first, and the Oscar-I's major early structural and armament troubles...

They were not close-minded to progress: Their more advanced fighters simply did not prove that much better than the Ki-43-II, except against bombers... Until the Ki-100 came along. It was not doctrinal rigidity either: There is little point in steadfastly applying enemy hit-and-run tactics if the fighters you have are still inferior in that mode...

If they have tactical surprise, of course they would hit-and-run whenever possible, but apparently that didn't happen often enough to make the Ki-43-II obsolete compared to the numerous other types they could choose from.

Gaston

quote:

Originally posted by Kettenhunde:

quote:

..... Let's settle this once and for all. A P47 or P51 in a vertical dive and firing 50cal M2 AP at 2835 ft/sec initial velocity can penetrate the 25mm rolled homogeneous turret roof and rear deck armor of a Tiger I within 200 yards at 0 degrees obliquity. There is absolutely no question about it - it's scientifically certain.

Interesting...

I heard they bounced them off the pavement or nearby rocks to skip them underneath the tank. That is why foot wounds were the most common wound in Tiger tank crews....

..... Despite having posted in jest, I'm open to the idea that it might perhaps be possible to set afire accumulated oil drippings, grease, etc, that accumulate beneath the engine compartment of an AFV by ricocheting incendiaries off the road surface. But I'd have to set a pretty high standard of proof before buying the notion as historical fact.

That having been said, it IS a recorded fact that Chinese and North Korean soldiers, when confronted by UN tanks during the Korean War, were encouraged to direct small arms fire at the muzzle of the tank gun in the hope of sending the odd bullet down the gun tube to either jam the projectile (which would cause the gun to burst when fired) or to pass through an open gun breech into the turret interior where it might ricochet around and cause havoc. There are recorded instances of USMC personnel being injured inside a tank turret by such tactics. It sounds quite as crazy as rococheting 50cal off the pavement, but it in this case it was actually practiced on the battlefield.

I suspect that Chinese and North Korean soldiers may have well have been told that you can disable a tank by shooting down the barrel, but this was most likely said to discourage them from doing the more sensible thing, and running like heck in a northerly direction.

Having said that, I vaguely remember seeing a photo of a German Flak gun with the barrel split open by an incoming cannon round. I believe the pilot responsible bailed out, and was taken to see his handiwork.

That was Robert Stanford-Tuck. Loosed off at the gun that brought him down as he came in for a forced landing nearby.

Yes, Robert Stanford Tuck.

This is what happened, according to the article here.

quote:

The Germans finally nailed Tuck in January of 1942. Doing a low “Rhubarb” sweep over France, he and his wingman got into massive flak from both sides of a shallow valley when trying to hit a distillery and some trains. Tuck managed to crash land his Spitfire right in front of a squad of German soldiers standing beside a cannon. Tuck's Luck was with him once more when one of his last shots from the Spitfire had entered the German cannon, peeling it like a banana. Seeing this, the Germans couldn’t stop laughing, which probably saved Tuck's life. Even when picking up the dead German soldiers Tuck had just shoot up with his Spitfire, they didn’t stop laughing.

Possibly slightly exagerated, but pausible. RST was quite a character, by all accounts.

quote:

But I'd have to set a pretty high standard of proof before buying the notion as historical fact.

Very high.....

quote:

Originally posted by Gaston444:
Turret roof armor was increased to 40 mm on later Tiger Is and the King Tiger...

Gaston

Only the last 185 production examples featured the heavier roof armour.