How often were planes used in tank battles?

[dgsselkirk]

Interesting thread! I think one of the things about SPR that grabbed me the most was that they used people who were actual amputees to film people losing body parts in the opening sequence to make it very realistic.

On ground attack aircraft, as has been said the P-51 was not really considered a very good strafer. The Brits did use the first lend lease models in such a role but that was before they started swapping out the Allison motors for the Merlin engines and overnight basically changed it to a high altitude escort fighter. With it's liquid cooled engine it was extremely vulnerable to ground fire and was considered much too valuable as an escort fighter to be used in the ground attach role. However combat pilots being combat pilots I'm sure it was done on occasion. My guess as well as others is the movie company used what they could find and there are a hell of a lot more P-51's kicking around than P-47's. But, no, it was never known as a tank buster that is for sure!

On the main topic aircraft were always around in tank battles. You might not destroy many tanks from the air but what you do do is isolate them from their infantry and logistical support elements making it easier for your hunter killer teams to get closer to the tanks to destroy them. In the Germans case far more tanks were lost do to lack of fuel and/or service due to their support elements being destroyed from above then were lost by direct hits from fighter bombers.

Another little tidbit re Patton and Monty. If you notice a lot of Commonwealth tanks have chunks of extra track stuck all over them to combat hollow charge weapons. Patton and Ike refused to allow their tankers to do this because he felt not only was it a waste of precious fuel to carry the extra weight around but that it was not good for morale. Brit officers felt that anything that increased morale was a good thing. If you thought you were safer, you may take more risks in a given situation. The Americans opted for sandbags as supposed protection against HEAT rounds.

[Tiggr]

I agree with your observations Ram.
If the claims are exaggerated, and he "only" knocked out 250 tanks, I think it is safe to say that no other person by any means had a greater tally of tank kills in WW II.......

The greatest air borne tank busting ace of WW II was Hans Ulrich Rudel with 519 kills using his Stuka...........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

Claimed kills. Coming out of an attack dive at 600 km/h, you'll have a hard time determining whether or not you've hit your target; much less quantify how much damage you've inflicted. The Soviets lost approximately 85,000 tanks during the entirety of the war, and estimated that less than 2% were to air attack. That'd mean that one pilot singlehandedly accounted for a third of those across a 1500 km frontline.

Who is correct?

I tend to take one side's claimed kills, the other side's claimed losses and average them out. As with so many things in life, the truth is bound to be in the middle.

[rochesb]

It has been said that there is three sides to a battle, yours, your opponents and what really happened, but in my opinion I say there is a fourth side, that what is written by historians trying to get to the truth, and that can vary into many more sides by whoever wrote the "facts."
Mick.

It has been said that 'history' is written by the victors....... a quote commonly miss-attributed to Winston Churchill.

[rochesb]

At least 19th and 20th Century historians have a large variety of materials, archives & other sources to consider, unlike the ancients (Saxons, Romans, & Greeks etc).

[rochesb]

I think you are right, & the Internet is the biggest source of miss-information man has created.

I believe too many people mix up opinion and fact, and are quick to believe what the online and printed media (and social media) have to say. Politicians are the undisputed experts (in my opinion) when it comes to misrepresenting facts & their selective use of statistics and 'evidence'.

If the 'expert' who misrepresented the longest range Challenger kill had bothered to validate his facts he would have found out quite quickly that the Challenger 2 was not in service during the 1st Gulf war when Iraq was kicked out of Kuwait

Of course, that is just my opinion, based on 'facts' found on the Internet ...........

[jarndice]

False claims for "Kills" are not only hell on earth for Historians but have too often got the claimaint's colleagues killed,
As the Battle Britain progressed the German Pilots claims of downed RAF aircraft convinced the Intelligence and planning staff that the British were down to a handful of Fighter aircraft and they would come over with their guard down expecting a walkover escorting the Bomber stream,
A lot of over confidant young men died because of such inflated claims,
I am not saying such inflated claims were not made by British Pilots, the difference being that the RAF had prior to the Battle grossly inflated the number of Luftwaffe aircraft in service so that the high claims made by over excited young pilots merely confirmed the numbers of aircraft the Luftwaffe was thought to have,
Conversely after the fall of France the German Intelligence having counted the destroyed RAF airframes on the ground (Fairy Battles were shot down in whole squadrons) were certain that from the beginning the RAF was short of combat aircraft,
The difference between German industry who did not start 24/7 working practices until the end of 1942 and almost never employed women in factory's and British industry was that it did work 24/7 from day one of WW2 and always employed women,
The Germans not knowing the Production superiority that British industry had over German Industry the Germans were certain the RAF could never gain sufficient reinforcements in time to defend the UK against air assault, Whereas Dowding,s problem was never a shortage of Aircraft but a lack of Pilots.
Shaun.

[rochesb]

Sobering thought while discussing 'kills';
It is worth reflecting upon the fact that many brave men have died in tanks fighting for their countries in just over the 100 years since they were first deployed. It must be horrible being enclosed in a steel 'tank' not knowing if or when you were going to become a target for someone out to injure or kill you, whether that threat be from the air, or the ground around you.

[43rdRecceReg]

One reason for claimed disparities re: tank 'Kills', is that many knocked out tanks could often be repaired, whereas their former occupants could not be. Tanks hit by mines, and rockets or bombs from above could be completely destroyed. They were beyond repair, and in this sense were true 'kills'. Tanks especially, and planes that were repaired and put back into service, might well have been claimed and officially recorded as 'kills', in the first instance. This is how figures were inflated. Humans are also notoriously unreliable witnesses.
Don't forget, though, that warplanes often had gun camera footage to support claims. Tanks, and anti-tank gunners, didn't.
It's often said that the 'first casualty of war, is truth'. The trick is to find a 'truth' you can co-exist with contentedly.

[Jnewboy]

Its weird to think what would have happened if all those planes and pilots had been used on the Eastern Front. Even more so if they had not wasted all those men and equipment in Africa. If Germany and England had come to an understanding or at least agreed to a lasting cease fire the Eastern Front would have been very different.

[jarndice]

For as long as Mr Hitler and his gang of Criminals was murdering not only German citizens but butchering innocent men, women, and children across Europe there was not the slightest hope that the British Government or indeed the British people would have anything to do with them,
It was a war to the finish and it was a war that was fought with the complete support of the Citizens of the UK.
Shaun.