Leftyhunter
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I already posted the above article. The article argues rather strongly to take pilots claims with a shovel full of salt. The fact that a captured Panther painted white in an open field with no AA fire that got struck by rockets maybe four percent of the time tell us all we need to know about the effectiveness of so called anti tank aircraft.Here is an interesting article about why the Allies did not developed tank killing planes. It was not flashy as shooting down other planes. @O' Be Joyful , @rittmeister , @Leftyhunter , @Wehrkraftzersetzer if you have an interest in tanks...
Think It's Easy to Destroy Tanks With Airplanes? Think Again
A close examination of the historical record reveals that ground-attack aircraft in World War II were not as successful against armor as many believe.www.historynet.com
The effectiveness of anti-tank aircraft in World War II is taken for granted by most writers on the subject, offering a technophile orthodoxy that can be seamlessly woven together with accounts of later developments up to and including the Iraq wars. Luftwaffe legend Hans-Ulrich Rudel claimed to have destroyed 519 Soviet tanks, most of them while piloting a cannon-armed Junkers Ju-87G Panzerknäcker, or “tankbuster.” Aleksandr Yefimov, said to have destroyed 126 German tanks while flying the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik, was twice made a Hero of the Soviet Union. Tales of their exploits helped to firmly establish a positive image of anti-tank aviation in histories of the conflict. But that image has little relation to the realities of close air support during the war.
That judgment is given additional weight by the attention the Germans gave to developing their own anti-tank aircraft. The Henschel Hs-129B-1/R2, a small, heavily armored single-seat twin with a 30mm gun, was introduced on the Eastern Front in late 1942. A handsome, strongly built airplane with unreliable French engines and the flying characteristics of a penguin, the Hs-129 was not popular with pilots. But at least two men, Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer and Hans-Hermann Steinkamp, claimed to have destroyed 70 or more Soviet tanks flying the type during the next two years.
Leftyhunter