Impact of Allied fighter-bombers

[Kutscha]

Chris, tcolvin needs to pick up your Typhoon/Tempest book in which you have listed all the Typhoon, and Tempest, losses by cause.

[Juha]

Tony
"The frontal armour needed to keep out the 88-mm could have been fitted on an upgraded Churchill. Take my word for it"

Sorry Tony, I read You message in haste and misunderstood it. I'm sorry of the unnecessary outburst!

But As I wrote, max armour of Churchill VII, the best armoured Churchill, was 6inch (152mm) and the penetrative power of 88mm L/71 with the usual APCBC round, not with the better but rare APCR, was against homogenous armour plate at 30 deg from vertical, 203 mm from 100m, 185mm from 500m, 165mm from 1000m. But the clearly more common 88, that of Flak 18, 36 and 37 was able to penetrate in same situation 127, 117 and 106mm respectively and the 88mm L/56 KwK 36 of Tiger I a bit less, 120, 110 and 100mm. So the front sector of Churchill VII and VIII was already armoured against almost all German AP rounds. And with applique armour, which seems to be common in NW Europe, the noseplate of earlier Churchills seems to be just adequate to keep out APCBC round of the most common German A/T gun Pak 40 and of course those of guns of PzKpfw IV, StuG III and IV and PzJg IV etc.

"An 88-mm in enfilade shooting through the thin side armour would then have been killed at leisure by the remaining oncoming Churchills."

You really don't understand landwarfare! there is a well known case when one Churchill Sqn lost 9 tanks in a couple minutes to flank firing Jagdpanthers, BTW armed with 88mm L/71s.

"to the common Pak of the day, which in 1945 was the 88-mm."

The common Pak in 1945 happen to be 75mm Pak 40.

"In 1918, one of the main tasks of CAS was to take out anti-tank guns."

Please, give me the type of A/T gun in service in 1918.

Tony check your facts, the bitter truth is that from wrong premises the chance to get right conclusion is very near nil.

Juha

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

You must know Schwabedissen's book; 'The Russian Air Force in the eyes of German Commanders'. "General der Flakartillerie a.D Wolfgang Pickert adds that the IL-2 was impervious to light 20-mm armour-piercing or 37-mm shells. The same views are expressd by General der Infanterie von der Groben, who emphasisies the nose armour and remarks that direct hits with 20-mm shells frequently had no effect on the plane".
The IL-2 is what I call armoured.
Over.

posted 11th March 2006 here by Dénes Bernád

statistics of Il-2 losses, according to Hans Seidl:

Year - Total Losses - To Enemy Action - % of Strength at Hand
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1941* - 1100 - 600 - 73.3%
1942 - 2600 - 1800 - 34.2%
1943 - 7200 - 3900 - 45.0%
1944 - 8900 - 4100 - 46.6%
1945** - 3800 - 2000 - 27.3%
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: 23600 12400 70.3%
* presumably from June 22 [D.B.]
** until May 10

Therefore, over 50% of losses [not counting the 'worn out' category] was due to enemy.

So what was the calibre of the weapons that shot down these Il-2s?

[Graham Boak]

The books I mentioned are David Fletcher's The Great Tank Scandal and The Universal Tank. The latter was published in 1993 ISBN0-11-290534-X.

I would also recommend the superb new French-authored British Tanks in Normandy, desite its lack of mention of CAS. I would give details for that too, but it has been swallowed up by the black hole in my library. It was published only last year, however, so should still be readily available..

[Franek Grabowski]

I believe Renault FT-17 was the best tank of WWI as it was the only design to remain in the service for over 20 years.
I cannot confirm those Il-2 losses data, but the conclusion is correct. It was not invincible.

[tcolvin]

Juha

The Churchill VII was removed from the Tank Brigades and turned into Crocodile flamethrowers. So there were very few Churchill VIIs in the Tank Brigades.
My point was that given resources and a commander like Slim rather than Montgomery who wanted the Churchill abolished from his order of battle, the British infantry could have had support from a tank that was proof against the 88-mm in 1944/45.
You agree with that statement.

"You really don't understand landwarfare! there is a well known case when one Churchill Sqn lost 9 tanks in a couple minutes to flank firing Jagdpanthers, BTW armed with 88mm L/71s."
That was the Scots Guards in 6 Guard Tank Brigade on Point 226 near Caumont. Their Churchill IVs fresh off the LCT got ahead of the infantry of 15 Scottish Division. Only one infantry company had arrived without anti-tank guns when the Jagdpanthers attacked and surprised the Guards. The event was unique. You should draw no conclusion from it. Note they were Churchill IIs and IVs and not VIIs.
The landwarfare I am talking about is a battalion of infantry with the support of a troop of tanks and artillery attacking fixed German defences. It happened repeatedly in the Low Countries and the Reichswald. Dual Purpose 88-mms would destroy the tanks and the attack would stop. It would take days while the artillery pounded the defences. The 88-mms would have pulled out after destroying the tanks to repeat their trick somewhere else. That was why progress was slow.

"The common Pak in 1945 happen to be 75mm Pak 40."
In numbers I am sure you are right. But it was not the common Pak in the Reichswald and Hochwald. There they had 40-mm Paks entrenched to the front which could deal with any Stuarts and Shermans, and Dual Purpose 88-mms on a flank to kill Churchills and anything else that got through.

"Please, give me the type of A/T gun in service in 1918."
The standard infantry gun – not the howitzer. See the following about anti-tank guns in 1918 at http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol035hk.html
"Though one can already notice a change in armament from gun to howitzer, the infantry division still had a noteworthy amount of guns at the end of the war, and only the gun was fit for anti-tank defence because of its higher muzzle velocity and flatter trajectory when compared with the howitzer."

"Tony check your facts, the bitter truth is that from wrong premises the chance to get right conclusion is very near nil."
Very true.

Tony

[Juha]

Tony
"The Churchill VII was removed from the Tank Brigades and turned into Crocodile flamethrowers. So there were very few Churchill VIIs in the Tank Brigades."

I cannot understand why you complained on that. The only function the Crocodile had was to give support to infantry, ie do what you want tanks to do. And of course the converted the most heavily tank around because of flamethrowers were short distance weapon. And crocodile had the flametrower put in place of hull mg and it could easily discart its trailer so it had its 75mm gun and co-axial mg ready to use as normal gun tank.

On Point 226. Now it didn't make a slightest difference were they Mk IIIs, IVs or VIIs because all Churchills were vulnerable to 88mm L/71 flanking fire. And the JagdPanhthers did their damage when they opened fire from their flanking ambush position. All went well to Germans until they made the basic mistake and charged out of their ambush position to the open. So infantry A/T weapons would not have helped.

Now most effective German weapons on D-Day were those capable to flanking fire along the beaches and in fact the effectiveness of flanking fire was known already before Ancient Romans and the reason why towers projected out of walls in medival castles is that so they allowed defenders to shoot flanking fire in front of the walls. All those permanent fortification lines build during 1920s and 30s whose basic design principle I remember were based on interlocking flanking fire zones(, and also to mutual support). So your earlier claim that flanking fire doesn't matter is false.

"The landwarfare I am talking about is a battalion of infantry with the support of a troop of tanks and artillery attacking fixed German defences. It happened repeatedly in the Low Countries and the Reichswald."

Now I can be wrong but I recall that the relation was a troop of tank to an attacking infantry coy. And aditional problem to tanks at Reichswald was that the terrain was sea of mud and in a thick forest the main risk to tanks was a flanking shot from Panzerfaust or -Schreck. And with good infantry 88mm in the forest wasn't unsurmountable obstacle. Finns always attacked through forests without tank support and the examples I can remember for Russian use of tanks in thick forests was that infantry opened the way, engineers prepared a route for tanks and Germans were surprised when the tanks burst out from "impervious" forest. And forest fighting was often bloody because of its nature. But I admit that there wasn't too much room for manoeuvring inside Reichswald.

"The standard infantry gun – not the howitzer. See the following about anti-tank guns in 1918 at http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol035hk.html"

Didn't check the link but I think you mean fieldgun, normal 77mm fieldgun Model??. I knew that and I must admit that I quess that you meant them, but IIRC you talked on anti-tank guns and I could not resist the temtation, sorry.

Juha