Rocket attack on a Panther.

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Michael Kenny
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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#16

Post by Michael Kenny » 15 Sep 2019, 20:37

I mentioned it earlier but the hits shown on the plot do not tally with number given when this demonstration is referenced.
Was all the data for the ' attack on a Panther' given in the 1945 OR Report taken from this 1944 demonstration?
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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#17

Post by Delta Tank » 21 Sep 2019, 14:12

To all,

Did they ever do the same test using bombs? A near miss may disable a tank.

Mike


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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#18

Post by Kingfish » 21 Oct 2019, 12:27

Were they considering only direct hits as the measure of success?

It would seem to me that hits #28, 44, 56 & 63 would have resulted in some damage, maybe even an immobilization kill.
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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#19

Post by Sheldrake » 21 Oct 2019, 22:10

Richard Anderson wrote:
15 Sep 2019, 19:14
Okay, AORS Joint Report No. 3, Rocket-Firing Typhoons in Joint Support of Military Operations, Table II. The "% shots hitting target" is given as ".5" and for a "50% chance of a hit" the number of RP needed is given as 140 from 18 sorties. The calculation was done by taking the radial mean error of the rocket and a normal distribution for the chance of obtaining at least one hit on targets of different sizes. The horizontal projected area of a Panther for a Typhoon in a 45 degree dive was calculated as 50 square yards.
These figures have a good fit with observations on at least one battlefield.

ORS report No 4 (Air attacks on enemy tanks and motor transport in the Mortain area, August 1944) compared air force claims with the inspected hulks. 2 TAF Typhoons flew 294 sorties and claimed 84 tanks destroyed and 38 probables - a total of 140 hits, while the IX US air Corps flew some 441 missions over three days claiming 69 tanks destroyed and fired 600 rockets, while some typhoons dropped bombs. These were near perfect conditions for ground attack. Clear sky and no AA defences until late on 7th Aug.

The teams inspecting AFVs on the ground found 7 tanks (five panther and two Pz IV) and eight other AFVs (seven SPW and on armoured car).

The test figures above suggest that 294 Typhoon sorties could translate into around 18 tanks hit while 600 rockets fired by IX USAAF would result in 4 tanks hit. This assumes that they were going for tanks rather than transport. These figures agree in being in the same order fo magnitude, and assuming that a proportion of aircraft engaged MT rather than armour.

The figures from the range test are slightly suspect because it was a range test and no pilots were at risk of being shot at.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#20

Post by Sheldrake » 21 Oct 2019, 22:44

Michael Kenny wrote:
15 Sep 2019, 01:20
This test shoot on a static Panther is referenced for the claim that RP attacks of tanks were an exercise in futility. In particular that accuracy of the rocket was poor . The plotting of the hits suggest this was not the case.

Typhoon rocket target Panther (1).jpgTyphoon rocket target Panther (2).jpgTyphoon rocket target Panther (3).jpg

Granted it was ideal conditions and you need a direct hit to disable a tank but The MPI on two runs was right on the target.

1-tilegfggfg.jpg
37-tvvile.jpg
These are interesting results, but there is a problem with extrapolating them into operational use. Accuracy is always higher on a range test because it was not on operations and no pilots were at risk of being shot at. We have known since Napoleonic times that rangework is a poor guide to actuial effectiveness in battle.

The AORS JR 3 figures have a different basis. They are from the measured MPIs of rocket attacks on the church towers at Venray and Orloo on operations.
Richard Anderson wrote:
15 Sep 2019, 19:14
Okay, AORS Joint Report No. 3, Rocket-Firing Typhoons in Joint Support of Military Operations, Table II. The "% shots hitting target" is given as ".5" and for a "50% chance of a hit" the number of RP needed is given as 140 from 18 sorties. The calculation was done by taking the radial mean error of the rocket and a normal distribution for the chance of obtaining at least one hit on targets of different sizes. The horizontal projected area of a Panther for a Typhoon in a 45 degree dive was calculated as 50 square yards.
There is a good fit between the the results and those on a wider battlefield.

ORS report No 4 (Air attacks on enemy tanks and motor transport in the Mortain area, August 1944) compared air force claims with the inspected hulks. 2 TAF Typhoons flew 294 sorties and claimed 84 tanks destroyed and 38 probables - a total of 140 hits, while the IX US air Corps flew some 441 missions over three days claiming 69 tanks destroyed and fired 600 rockets, while some typhoons dropped bombs. These were near perfect conditions for ground attack. Clear sky and no AA defences until late on 7th Aug.

The teams inspecting AFVs on the ground found seven tanks (five panther and two Pz IV) and eight other AFVs (seven SPW and one armoured car) KO by rockets.

The test figures above suggest that 294 Typhoon sorties could translate into around 18 tanks hit while 600 rockets fired by IX USAAF would result in 4 tanks hit. This assumes that they were going for tanks rather than transport. These are higher than the fifteen AFVs found, but are in the same order of magnitude, and can be explained by assuming that a proportion of aircraft engaged MT rather than armour.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#21

Post by Mori » 22 Oct 2019, 08:34

By the way, what's the source of the first document shown in the thread?

The whole discussion is very interesting.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#22

Post by Michael Kenny » 22 Oct 2019, 16:34

Mori wrote:
22 Oct 2019, 08:34
By the way, what's the source of the first document shown in the thread?
I got it from this Facebook page months ago

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010158343490

and he tells me he is to publish it in a 'Panther Book'. He often posts WW2 gems but I don't have the time to constantly check everything he posts.

It looks to me like this test shoot is the source for the figures used in the wider-ranging OR Report.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#23

Post by Mori » 22 Oct 2019, 17:45

It looks very much like the source for the OR report. Checking the rest of the box may provide more, if one knows where it lays.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#24

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 24 Oct 2019, 17:41

Well, thats all good news for the 6 % of Pz Div personnel in a AFV. Why not take a look at the other 94% of the poor sods sitting in the cab of a truck, scrambling for a ditch, or fetched up alongside a barn? How about those unfortunates within 500 meters of a artillery ammo carrier...

To digress, or not, anyone have data for the fragmentation effect of these rocket warheads if any? Effective casualty radius for different classes of targets might have been estimated.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#25

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 28 Oct 2019, 18:13

Some interesting Typhoon rocket attack footage here that gives some idea of the difficulties of operational targeting.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item ... 1060051754

The footage from 17 September 1944 is interesting (both at Arnhem and south of Valkenswaard) and the latter might show burning Irish Guards tanks in the top right hand corner.

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Tom

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#26

Post by Hanny » 29 Oct 2019, 17:19

These recoilless projectiles consisted of a propellant filled steel tube with an armour piercing (or high explosive) shell screwed into the warhead. Four fins stabilized the rocket’s trajectory. The range and armor piercing capabilities were sufficient for anti-armor duties, but a trial conducted by the RAF under best possible conditions revealed the low precision of unguided rockets: In two attack runs, four Typhoons fired all of their 64 rockets on a stationary, pre-painted Panther and only three managed to hit the marked tank.

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/artic ... ng-ww2.php with a nod Artillery Effectiveness versus Armor” by Richard C. Anderson in Volume 1, Number 6 of The International TNDM Newsletter

Nice find Michael :)
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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#27

Post by Michael Kenny » 29 Oct 2019, 17:36

Hanny wrote:
29 Oct 2019, 17:19
revealed the low precision of unguided rockets: In two attack runs, four Typhoons fired all of their 64 rockets on a stationary, pre-painted Panther and only three managed to hit the marked tank.
I think there was only the one 'test' done and that is the Panther in an open field example I used. If this is correct more 'hits' are shown than the number usually recorded.
Panther -target-Typhoon.jpg
Panther -target-Typhoon.jpg (36.97 KiB) Viewed 3390 times
ROCKET TEST pANTHER.jpg
Panther target . . . .jpg
Last edited by Michael Kenny on 29 Oct 2019, 19:10, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#28

Post by Hanny » 29 Oct 2019, 18:35

Michael Kenny wrote:
15 Sep 2019, 02:03
Richard Anderson wrote:
15 Sep 2019, 01:44
Sorry Michael, but those are plots that demonstrate both poor accuracy and poor precision. Just because one of many shots hit the bull does not change that.
It is an armoured vehicle designed to withstand direct hits. Anything other than a tank would be (and was)shredded by those hits. The plot shows that the grouping (for the rocket) is not as bad as we have been led to believe.
9 hits are shown which is higher than the number given in Gooderson. Nos 13, 14, 21, 30, 37, 51, 54, 57 & 60.
There are 71 strikes plotted
54 is on the gun barrel ( but barrel is shown in photos so i assume its the ground below the gun barrel) not within the MPI, so i guess they went with 8 hits not 9. ( of course such a near miss help s with the radial mean area) 71 is another problem, how do we know its 71 if some fell out of the marked area?, and are not recorded as the strikes dont appear to match the number of munitions carried. However if we go with 71=60=13 we get 8 strikes from 144 which is 5%, but the report also uses radial mean error, ie the average distance of a miss which yields a different outcome of % chance to score a hit.

Do you kn ow if thats whitwash on the target?.
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Re: Rocket attack on a Panther.

#29

Post by Michael Kenny » 07 Oct 2021, 21:04

A film on The IWM site appears to show that there was a second group of vehicles used besides the single Panther target. I have never seen any mention of those results.


MGH 3574 reel 5
from 3:04.
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/reco ... a_id/13910
Typhoon demo (2).jpg
Typhoon demo (4).jpg

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