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I was in the movie "Saving Private Ryan".. And I do know that in WWII they used the P-51 Mustang in battle against the German Tanks..

They were called "P-51 Tank Busters".. And believe me, they were very effective at it.. The pilots that were assigned to the P-51 were considered some of the best pilots in the world.. And could do things with the P-51 that most pilots couldn't do..

The P-51 was the official "badass" of the skies at the time.. Just one of these planes could take out a tank in short order.. The moto was, "One shot, one kill."

In fact, there's a scene at the end of the film where Tom hanks is on the bridge dying.. And a P-51 takes out a Tiger 1 with one shot..

Great shot.. And historically accurate as well.. Those pilots were the best of the best.. They made a huge difference in the war.. They saved thousands of lives with their skill and bravery.. And they had the plane to support them..

We made this movie historically accurate. We took no literary license with it.. All of us on this film worked very hard to give the audience the true bravery of the men who fought and died in that war.. To us, it was about honor.. The sacrifice of these brave men, shall never be forgotten.. May they rest in peace..

jarndice wrote:The Battle of the Falaise Gap can be usefully compared with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the Dunkirk area four years earlier,
The Germans saw Dunkirk as a rout of the BEF from France and while no one in the British High Command thought of it as a victory they were aware that the core of the British Army minus almost all of their heavy equipment was safe and back home to defend the Nation against an expected invasion,
The Allied view of the Falaise battle was success in so far as almost all the heavy equipment was captured or destroyed and many German Prisoners were taken,
The German High Command saw it as the escape of the bulk of its army that was able to fight in the defence of Germany against the imminent invasion of the Homeland,
There is surely no argument that the sealing of the Falaise Gap by the Allies was botched allowing many German Service personnel to escape to Germany who should never have got out just as the perceived cock up by the German High Command which allowed many Allied Soldiers to get out of Dunkirk and Back to the relative safety of the UK who should have been captured.
Shaun.

Curiously, I was watching a documentary today on the Typhoon and Tempest. It said that the Hawker Typhoon virtually eliminated the 10th SS-Panzer Division in the Falaise Pocket, destroying as many as 175 tanks in a single day. Overall, it's probable that aircraft in WW2, and anti-tank weaponry, destroyed more tanks than tanks, and tank hunters, ever did. Even the Tiger 1 and King Tiger were easily preyed upon by rocket and cannon firing aircraft (IL-2 Sturmovik, Hawker Typhoon, Hawker Tempest etc...)

gp100 wrote:I was in the movie "Saving Private Ryan".. And I do know that in WWII they used the P-51 Mustang in battle against the German Tanks..

They were called "P-51 Tank Busters".. And believe me, they were very effective at it.. The pilots that were assigned to the P-51 were considered some of the best pilots in the world.. And could do things with the P-51 that most pilots couldn't do..

The P-51 was the official "badass" of the skies at the time.. Just one of these planes could take out a tank in short order.. The moto was, "One shot, one kill."

In fact, there's a scene at the end of the film where Tom hanks is on the bridge dying.. And a P-51 takes out a Tiger 1 with one shot..

Great shot.. And historically accurate as well.. Those pilots were the best of the best.. They made a huge difference in the war.. They saved thousands of lives with their skill and bravery.. And they had the plane to support them..

We made this movie historically accurate. We took no literary license with it.. All of us on this film worked very hard to give the audience the true bravery of the men who fought and died in that war.. To us, it was about honor.. The sacrifice of these brave men, shall never be forgotten.. May they rest in peace..

I thought the main US 'Tank Buster was the P-47 'Jug' Thunderbolt. It was the ground attack and tank busting specialist. The P-51 was primarily an interceptor, and escort fighter, although it did range far and wide attacking ground targets from time to time. The 'Jug' could take more punishment from ground defences, than the more delicate Mustang; that's why it came to occupy the ground attack role.It had once been the premier long-distance escort fighter for the USAAF, before the P-51D began to supplant it.

43rdRecceReg wrote:

gp100 wrote:I was in the movie "Saving Private Ryan".. And I do know that in WWII they used the P-51 Mustang in battle against the German Tanks..

They were called "P-51 Tank Busters".. And believe me, they were very effective at it.. The pilots that were assigned to the P-51 were considered some of the best pilots in the world.. And could do things with the P-51 that most pilots couldn't do..

The P-51 was the official "badass" of the skies at the time.. Just one of these planes could take out a tank in short order.. The moto was, "One shot, one kill."

In fact, there's a scene at the end of the film where Tom hanks is on the bridge dying.. And a P-51 takes out a Tiger 1 with one shot..

Great shot.. And historically accurate as well.. Those pilots were the best of the best.. They made a huge difference in the war.. They saved thousands of lives with their skill and bravery.. And they had the plane to support them..

We made this movie historically accurate. We took no literary license with it.. All of us on this film worked very hard to give the audience the true bravery of the men who fought and died in that war.. To us, it was about honor.. The sacrifice of these brave men, shall never be forgotten.. May they rest in peace..

I thought the main US 'Tank Buster was the P-47 'Jug' Thunderbolt. It was the ground attack and tank busting specialist. The P-51 was primarily an interceptor, and escort fighter, although it did range far and wide attacking ground targets from time to time. The 'Jug' could take more punishment from ground defences, than the more delicate Mustang; that's why it came to occupy the ground attack role.It had once been the premier long-distance escort fighter for the USAAF, before the P-51D began to supplant it.

Hi 43rd,

Dunno.. Cannot honestly answer that one.. I just know what they told us when we were doing the film.. This information came down from some of the movie studio historians at the time.. Hence why they put the P-51 in the final scene.. I'm only 50 years old.. So not being around in that time period, I honestly cannot tell you much about it.. I was told that the P-51 was used in assaults against the German tanks along with other planes.. But the P-51 had the maneuverability to do things other planes couldn't do..

However, that being said, you could be right on what you say.. I just know it was called the "The Tank Buster" in the film..

I SPR, my only real bitch was that a Thompson SMG could not fire through the drivers vision slit on a T1

That aside, the film was a genuine benchmark for its time, and a real emotive portrayal of those desperate days.


As for air power interdiction on tanks, there is plenty to know how it worked and how it all ended...............

History, the ultimate in Hindsight..............

If anyone was to ask me what the best tank to be in when being attacked by an aircraft at that time, my answer is, the one on the same side as the plane

gp100 wrote:I was in the movie "Saving Private Ryan".. And I do know that in WWII they used the P-51 Mustang in battle against the German Tanks..

They were called "P-51 Tank Busters".. And believe me, they were very effective at it.. The pilots that were assigned to the P-51 were considered some of the best pilots in the world.. And could do things with the P-51 that most pilots couldn't do..

The P-51 was the official "badass" of the skies at the time.. Just one of these planes could take out a tank in short order.. The moto was, "One shot, one kill."

In fact, there's a scene at the end of the film where Tom hanks is on the bridge dying.. And a P-51 takes out a Tiger 1 with one shot..

Great shot.. And historically accurate as well.. Those pilots were the best of the best.. They made a huge difference in the war.. They saved thousands of lives with their skill and bravery.. And they had the plane to support them..

We made this movie historically accurate. We took no literary license with it.. All of us on this film worked very hard to give the audience the true bravery of the men who fought and died in that war.. To us, it was about honor.. The sacrifice of these brave men, shall never be forgotten.. May they rest in peace..

Never heard of the P51 being used as ground attack or being called tankbusters. The Mustang made a poor ground attack aircraft not least because of its comparative fragility but also because of its poor payload and ground accuracy.

The ground attack was given to the Thunderbolts due to their robustness and larger payload, USAF used very few rockets in WW2 so it was mainly bombs. The Mustangs replaced the Thunderbolts in the escort role due to their greater range even though the Thunderbolts had better high altitude performance. It should also be noted that the US often left the ground attack sorties to the RAF with its Typhoons as they were the preferred aircraft.

A final point is that the role of aircraft in actually killing tanks is hugely overstated. Post war analysis shows the number of actual tanks destroyed by aircraft was far lower than claimed. The real value was in the harassment and psychological effect on the enemy as well as the destruction of the logistics train behind the frontline (trains, railway yards, bridges etc).

Some tests were done with rocket firing Typhoons against 2 stationary Panthers. They had a 5% hit rate. In the heat of battle, it was reckoned to be even lower. However, if you were the poor unfortunate that got hit, I would not hold out much hope for your chances. The consequence was, apparently, that tank crews were very fearful of them and it was not unknown for the crew to just bail out of the tank when the aircraft appeared.

Here's a fascinating little article listing causes of British tank losses in the main theatres of WW2 operations. In N.W.Europe, for example, only slightly over 14% of tank losses were to Tank on Tank action (where that figure was over 38% in North Africa). Mines, S.P.Guns, and anti-tank guns claimed almost 70% of total kills in Northwest Europe.
The article doesn't seem to take into account the effects of ground attack aircraft, but nonetheless, it's still well worth a peek
https://panzerworld.com/german-tank-kill-claims

Thw German Armed Forces did not go in for specialist Anti-Tank Aircraft
Most of what was used was a derivative of an existing in service type such as the JU 87,
But there was the Henschel HS 129B-2 Which was a single seat close support and anti-tank aircraft,
The Pilot sat in a 12mm thick welded armoured tub,
The worst part of the aircraft apart from its restricted vision and awful handling properties was the twin Gnome -Rhone engines that were notorious for their unreliability,
But they did bear an impressive array of armament depending on what weapon fit it carried,
The standard weapons fit was 2 x 7.9mm MG17s / 2 x 20mm MG151 cannon / 1 x 30mm MK101 cannon and sometimes a 37mm BK3.7cannon,
One of the operations was "Citadel" and on July 8 1943 4 Staffeln of Hs 129B-2 intercepted a Russian Tank Brigade and attacked from the side and the rear, In relays the aircraft made their attack,
The Armoured Brigade scattered in confusion and was all but destroyed.
Most of these types saw service in Russia although they began their trials in North Africa,
I am not aware of them seeing service in Western Europe.
Shaun.