Panzerknacker

[Pips]

Air to ground support has always held a fascination for me. Powerful aircraft the likes of the Hawker Typhoon and IL-2 Sturmovik racing in low to attack tanks and other vehicles must have been an awe-inspiring and frightening spectacle.

But what of the German side? The most recognisable ground attack aircraft would be the Ju-87G - courtesy of Hans-Ulrich Rudel's book "Stuka Pilot". But there was another, considered by it's pilots the be superior to the Ju-87G, and that was the Henschel Hs 129. Although rarely mentioned, and available only in limited numbers (I think only 5 Staffel's equipped from memory), it did provide sterling service from 1942 to 1945.

Is it known how many tanks were claimed destroyed by the Hs 129 and the Ju 87G?

[Sheldrake]

Air to ground support has always held a fascination for me. Powerful aircraft the likes of the Hawker Typhoon and IL-2 Sturmovik racing in low to attack tanks and other vehicles must have been an awe-inspiring and frightening spectacle.

But what of the German side? The most recognisable ground attack aircraft would be the Ju-87G - courtesy of Hans-Ulrich Rudel's book "Stuka Pilot". But there was another, considered by it's pilots the be superior to the Ju-87G, and that was the Henschel Hs 129. Although rarely mentioned, and available only in limited numbers (I think only 5 Staffel's equipped from memory), it did provide sterling service from 1942 to 1945.

Is it known how many tanks were claimed destroyed by the Hs 129 and the Ju 87G?

At the time aircraft were touted as "tank busters" by the air forces and the media,. backed by aerial footage from camera guns. The presence of enemy (n and sometimes "friendly") aircraft was feared by ground troops throughout the war.

Attacking tanks with heavy cannons as mounted to the Hurricane, Ju87G and Hs129 was very dangerous and expensive in terms of aircraft. By 1943 free flight rockets offered a way to hit targets from beyond the range of light AA guns. The problem with any rational analysis of the effectiveness of aircraft was understanding how many tanks were knocked out by aircraft. The scientific study carried out in 1944 on German tank hulks in Normandy and the Ardennes revealed that that kill claims were routinely twice or three times the number of actual kills, many were repeat attacks on tank hulks and only a very small number of tanks were knocked out by aircraft. Read chapter 3 of this study. http://lmharchive.ca/wp-content/uploads ... Monty2.pdf

Claims for Rudel and the Hs129 units need to be regarded in this light. These aircraft were used from 1943 when the Germans were retreating and and rarely had the luxury of examining a battlefield of Soviet tank hulks.

[Ironmachine]

Regarding Hs129 tank kill claims, the following thread is quite revealing:
http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Forum ... 00016.html

[Pips]

Great links, many thanks.

[tramonte]

Fremde Ost made own estimates of Luftwaffe ability destroying/knocking out Soviet combat armor 1944. They cut off 50% of claims of Luftwaffe given total number of 1 090 for whole year 1944.

Here are month estimates (1944):

Jan: 100
Feb: 10
March: 1 60
April: 140
May: 90
June: 20
July: 210 (Operation Bagration plus several other big offensives)
August: 130
Sept: 70
Oct: 120
Nov: 10
Dec: 30

Fremde Ost estimated (early 1945?) Soviet armor losses at over 32 000. In reality Soviet U wrote off 23 700 combat armor with much less than 20 000 actually been destroyed by enemy. Anyway Fremde Ost estimates are suggesting that even that organization didn't believe much on Luftwaffe ability to "wipe out" thousands of enemy tanks. In fact if you take best month estimate (July) and comparing it to strength of Schlactgeschwader in east (650 ground attack aircraft) Luftwaffe needed more than 3 Stuka/Jabo to knock out one enemy tank per month. And i'd suggest that being quite optimistic estimate.

[Tony Williams]

I devoted a chapter on ground attack in the book Flying Guns: World War 2 which I wrote with Emmanuel Gustin, in which I explored the effectiveness (or not) of air attacks in destroying tanks. Some extracts, focusing on the post-D-day fighting in France in 1944 using info from Ian Gooderson's Air Power at the Battlefront, which included Operational Research data:

The evidence gathered by the OR teams indicated that very few tanks were destroyed by air attack. A British War Office analysis of 223 Panther tanks destroyed in 1944 revealed that only fourteen resulted from air attack (eleven to RPs and three to aircraft cannon). During the Mortain battle of 7-10 August, the RAF and USAAF launched sustained attacks on a German armoured column over a period of six hours, claiming 252 German tanks destroyed or damaged in nearly 500 sorties. It was subsequently discovered that there had only been a total of 177 tanks or tank destroyers deployed by the Germans and just 46 of those were lost, of which only nine could be attributed to air attack (seven to RPs and two to bombs). During the German retreat from the Falaise pocket later in August, the RAF and USAAF claimed 391 armoured vehicles destroyed. Shortly afterwards, the battlefield was examined and only 133 armoured vehicles of all types were found, of which just 33 had been the victim of any sort of air attack. In the retreat to the Seine, large numbers of armoured vehicles were left behind and Typhoon pilots alone claimed 222 destroyed, but only thirteen out of 388 AFVs examined were found to have been knocked out by RP attack. In the Ardennes salient, just seven out of 101 knocked-out AFVs were definitely or possibly attributed to air attack, compared with claims for 90. It should be noted that in the prevailing circumstances of a continuing retreat, there was no question of the German Army having recovered any damaged tanks in these later actions, in fact the battlefields were often littered with undamaged tanks abandoned by their crews.

One source estimates that probably no more than about 100 tanks were lost due to hits from air weapons during the entire Normandy campaign. In contrast, the RAF's 2nd TAF (including elements of the Air Defence of Britain which took part in the campaign) and the USAAF's 9th Air Force lost over 1,700 aircraft between them.

I go on to explain the reasons for the over-claiming.

Incidentally, the hit rate for RPs in combat against tanks was about 0.5% initially, though it got a bit better later on.

I should add that air attacks nonetheless had a considerable effect on the morale of the tank crews, who sometimes abandoned their tanks when they saw the fighter-bombers arriving. The fighters were also very effective in knocking out support vehicles, especial fuel tankers, so they did a useful job.