Devices vs GP bombs

[Yaab]

Let's say I have a level bomber attacking an LCU in Combat mode. The LCU has both squad and AFV devices. Forts are zero, terrain is Clear. My level bomber has 250 kg GP bombs and bombs horizontally from 1000 feet.

A bomb hits a squad. In game, a squad represent a group of 10-20 soldiers depending on squad type. So, a bomb exploding among them will hurt some soldiers, disabling the squad. That is realistic.

Now another bomb "hits" an AFV. AFV is a tank. And here is something I do not understand.

A squad is a group of people (soft targets) so a bomb, due to shrapnel, disables men in its blast radius. But with an AFV, you need to have a direct hit or a near miss in order to destroy or capsize the tank. Remember, the tanks are in Combat mode, and they are spaced out.

So how come a level bomber can actually hit a tank in game? You should be able to destroy tanks with dive bombers or fighter-bombers, but not with level bombers. Level bombers should be able to hit AFV in Move mode on roads, but not AFVs in Combat mode, or at least it should be highly unlikely that they hit tanks then.

There are many examples of Allied level bombers destroying Jap armor in Clear terrain when Japs invade Australia, but the longer I think about it the more unrealistic the whole setup becomes.

[Barb]

Consider a mission kill - bomb exploding close to vehicle, tearing its track, or some other damage causing tank to be ineffective in combat. Now the crew abandons the disabled tank and because they do not want it to fall into enemy hands, they burn it down ... destroyed.

Or bomb explodes close enough that blast-concussion disables most or all of the crew ... nearby friends remove the crew and send it to hospital leaving the tank at place.

Or simply the bomb destroys the fuel dump nearby thus leaving tank without fuel to move. Crews abandons it and you have got another tank....

Even Dive bombers and fighter bombers IRL were not that deadly in directly hitting tanks. It was the blast effect that did most of the damage... tearing tracks, road wheels, unseating turret, gun or engine from its bed, destroying radio equipment, rupturing fuel/oil/cooler lines, or simply throwing crew unconscious...

[Yaab]

So how close to a tank does a bomb need to fall in order to disable its crew? And what bomb weight is enough to produce the necessary blast? Is it 50 kg? 100 kg?

And another question. Can bomb blast really tear off the tank's tracks?

[BattleMoose]

Running off of memory here but during Operation Goodwood, very large saturation bombing but tiger tanks were turned turtle in places.

[wdolson]

A relatively small caliber gun can break the treads on a tank.

From the air tanks are rather vulnerable. The armor on the top surfaces is usually thin.

During Operation Cobra the 8th AF carpet bombed German positions and knocked out most of the German armor in the sector. Tigers were flipped on their backs.

Even if a tank is in combat mode, that doesn't mean the crew are all in the tank. If not directly engaged in combat, the crew might be hanging out the hatches, or even standing around having a smoke. If they aren't directly engaged in combat and an air raid comes over, the crew might take cover in a foxhole rather than run to their tank. If the tank has an AA machine gun, a crew member may man it, but that would be about it.

A bomb of just about any kind can potentially take out a tank. It depends on a combination of how close the bomb falls, where the shrapnel goes, and the yield of the bomb.

Bill

[Czert]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

So how close to a tank does a bomb need to fall in order to disable its crew? And what bomb weight is enough to produce the necessary blast? Is it 50 kg? 100 kg?

And another question. Can bomb blast really tear off the tank's tracks?

Well, if it is bomb killling radius against soft targets - it should disable tank, if direct hit - any bomb - including 15 kg ones - destroy tank.

Il-2 used 2kg shaped-charge bomlets to destroy enemy tanks/vehicles - they droped many of them from containers, creating i think it was 5x20m carpet on which anything was hit by these bomblets was efectively killed, including personel.

killing crew and fully destoying tank with bomb/arty shell is relative hard and need direct hit, but disabling one - well you need only near hit, and truth is that more modern tanks are much more sensitive to near hits that "vintage" WWII era tanks.
Why ? because they carry much more equpment/sensort outside of hull.

[Dili]

Il-2 used 2kg shaped-charge bomlets to destroy enemy tanks/vehicles

A 2kg shaped charge doesn't destroy a medium/heavy tank, it might take it out of action and kill part of the crew and the tank be a total loss if the enemy takes the ground, but will not destroy it.

[Erkki]

The WW2 anti-tank aircraft that actually worked (mainly Ju 87, Hs 129, some models of il-2) still needed very experienced crews to be effective and were still highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire and fighters(mostly due to mission profiles of low altitude flying not because the aircraft themselves were necessarily badly built).

Most of the tanks in WitPAE would have been barely even be considered tanks in the first place in the East Front. I think its not out of expectations to have them disabled or at times even outright destroyed by massed bombers dropping 250 kg or equivalent GP bombs. A direct hit works but a near-hit throwing off tracks, doing other damage or injuring crew members. Or destroying the fuel tanks that were often out of the hull resulting in a mission kill for some time.

czert: true that modern tanks have a lot of stuff outside of the armor such as sensors, cameras and so forth, but modern tanks also have multiple layers of different kinds of armor designed to stop, contain or absorb penetrating objects, spread the explosive effect of shaped charges to stop them from penetrating and especially for minimizing spalling, which was usually the cause of crew injuries and fires in tanks. A modern tanks may perhaps lose some of its effectiveness easier from just any kind of a hit than a heavy WW2 tank, but modern ones are very good at keeping their crew alive and remaining operational.

[crsutton]

One word, "napalm." [:)]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

A relatively small caliber gun can break the treads on a tank.

From the air tanks are rather vulnerable. The armor on the top surfaces is usually thin.

During Operation Cobra the 8th AF carpet bombed German positions and knocked out most of the German armor in the sector. Tigers were flipped on their backs.

Even if a tank is in combat mode, that doesn't mean the crew are all in the tank. If not directly engaged in combat, the crew might be hanging out the hatches, or even standing around having a smoke. If they aren't directly engaged in combat and an air raid comes over, the crew might take cover in a foxhole rather than run to their tank. If the tank has an AA machine gun, a crew member may man it, but that would be about it.

A bomb of just about any kind can potentially take out a tank. It depends on a combination of how close the bomb falls, where the shrapnel goes, and the yield of the bomb.

Bill

Well said.

The engine decks were particularly vulnerable.

A bit of shrapnel in the intake vents and said tank gets abandoned by its crew due to the fire in the engine compartment.

The 37mm antitank gun dubbed the "doorknocker" by the German soldiers which became quickly obsolete as tank armor grew in thickness was the exact same caliber that proved so effective when slung under the wings of an attack aircraft.

37mm gun fire into the engine deck of a tank was particularly deadly.

Hans Ulrich Rudel proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Il-2 used 2kg shaped-charge bomlets to destroy enemy tanks/vehicles

A 2kg shaped charge doesn't destroy a medium/heavy tank, it might take it out of action and kill part of the crew and the tank be a total loss if the enemy takes the ground, but will not destroy it.

I'm thinking that setting the tank on fire would be devastating. And how much did/do (forgive my spelling) panzerfaust, panzershrek, PIAT, bazooka rockets and like projectiles weigh?

[Spurius Evidens]

Well, the warhead wouldn't weigh more than a couple of kilos. If a shaped charge penetrates it's very bad news for the crew and/or internals.

Came across a video of a modern tank being hit by one, about a minute in. Not Pretty, spectacular actually in a grim way:-

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

Obviously these are more effective than WWII equivalents but so are the tanks they're used on.

[Czert]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Il-2 used 2kg shaped-charge bomlets to destroy enemy tanks/vehicles

A 2kg shaped charge doesn't destroy a medium/heavy tank, it might take it out of action and kill part of the crew and the tank be a total loss if the enemy takes the ground, but will not destroy it.

Well, it should not be total loss for enemy, but it was efective mission kill - and that is what is count on actual combat .

[Czert]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Dili

Il-2 used 2kg shaped-charge bomlets to destroy enemy tanks/vehicles

A 2kg shaped charge doesn't destroy a medium/heavy tank, it might take it out of action and kill part of the crew and the tank be a total loss if the enemy takes the ground, but will not destroy it.

I'm thinking that setting the tank on fire would be devastating. And how much did/do (forgive my spelling) panzerfaust, panzershrek, PIAT, bazooka rockets and like projectiles weigh?

realy good point, it realy matter if hitted tank catch fire of not, any burned out tank if effectively unrepairable. But if that hit only killed/wounded crew and othervise tank was ligtly damaged, so it can repaired, it will take take time to repair tank and replace crew.

[Yaab]

Just a thought, AFV device is different from squad device in one respect, namely the armor rating. AFVs have armor rating of at least 5, while all squads have armor rating of 0. I do not know if there is a an armor rating check when a GP bomb hits (or near misses) an AFV. If there is, then destroying tanks should be doubly hard, since unlike squads an AFV is an individual targets, and unlike squads it is armored.

[Czert]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

czert: true that modern tanks have a lot of stuff outside of the armor such as sensors, cameras and so forth, but modern tanks also have multiple layers of different kinds of armor designed to stop, contain or absorb penetrating objects, spread the explosive effect of shaped charges to stop them from penetrating and especially for minimizing spalling, which was usually the cause of crew injuries and fires in tanks. A modern tanks may perhaps lose some of its effectiveness easier from just any kind of a hit than a heavy WW2 tank, but modern ones are very good at keeping their crew alive and remaining operational.

True, modern tank are much better in protecting his crew/interior from reciving damage, but tank can be maked imobilized/out of combat even without suffereing any internal damage.
destoying tracks is most onvious, but even destoying driver visor can make it done - how do you expect driver to drive a tank, when he see a **** ?
somewhere on net is pdf about effect of modern artilery against moder tanks - and conclusion is that direct hit = tank destoyed in most cases, and near hit result in 50% (or it is even more, didnt exactly recall it) of cases tank is inoperational due to outer damage (senors/track..etc) and hitting moving tank with arty is not so hard, it is only matter of training.