During the fighting in North Africa, it turned out that the British aircraft have a low anti-tank potential. Bombers, inflicting effective strikes on transport hubs, military camps, warehouses and artillery positions, were ineffective against German tanks, since the likelihood of a direct hit or at least a rupture in the immediate vicinity of the tank was small. A squadron of Blenheim bombers, each of which usually carried four 250 pound (113 kg) bombs, when bombed from a horizontal flight from an altitude of 600-1000 meters, could destroy or seriously damage 1-2 tanks. Low-altitude bombing was usually not used due to the lack of bombs with special fuses and braking devices.
Cannon-armed Hurricane fighters, effective enough against transport convoys, could not fight enemy tanks. The armor of German tanks was "too tough" for 20-mm shells from aircraft cannons. As practice has shown, even with the penetration of the relatively thin armor of Italian tankettes and armored vehicles, the armor action of the projectile was insufficient for the destruction or prolonged incapacitation of armored vehicles.
Hurricane IID
The experience of using Hurricane IID fighter-bombers in Tunisia with two 40-mm Vickers S cannons was not very successful. The ammunition load of 15 rounds per gun made it possible to make 2-3 combat approaches to the target. From a distance of 300 m, the armor-piercing shell of the Vickers S cannon penetrated 40 mm armor along the normal. But when shooting at a single tank, experienced pilots, at best, managed to hit with one or two shells. It was noted that due to the strong recoil, the dispersion when firing is too great and aimed shooting is possible only with the first shots in the queue. Even in the case of hitting a medium German tank, its destruction or incapacitation was not guaranteed, since when firing from a gentle dive, due to the large meeting angle of armor and a projectile, there is a high probability of a ricochet. The flight data of the Hurricane IID with the "big guns" was worse than that of the fighter with conventional weapons, and the effectiveness was questionable, and therefore the anti-tank version was not widely used.
Soon, the British and Americans came to the conclusion that the creation of specialized anti-tank attack aircraft with cannon armament was futile. The crushing recoil of large-caliber aircraft guns did not allow achieving acceptable firing accuracy with all shells in the queue, the ammunition load of such guns was very limited, and the large mass and significant drag of large-caliber cannons worsened flight characteristics.
After the German attack on the USSR, information began to arrive from the Eastern Front about the large-scale use of rockets in the battles of the Red Army Air Force. At that time, the UK was already in service with 76-mm fragmentation anti-aircraft missiles with a remote fuse. They were simple in design and cheap to manufacture. In fact, it was a water pipe with stabilizers, 5 kg of SCRK brand cordite was used as a solid fuel in the rocket. Despite the primitive design, 76-mm anti-aircraft missiles proved to be quite effective in conducting defensive anti-aircraft fire.
Aircraft rockets RP-3 based on anti-aircraft missiles had several variants of warheads. At the first stage, two replaceable warheads for various purposes were created. An armor-piercing 25-pound (11, 35 kg) solid steel bar of 3.44 inches (87.3 mm), accelerated by a jet engine to a speed of 430 m / s, could penetrate the armor of any German tank until 1943. The aiming range was about 1000 meters. Field tests showed that at a distance of 700 meters, a missile with an armor-piercing warhead would normally penetrate 76 mm of armor. In practice, missiles were usually fired at enemy tanks at a range of 300-400 meters. The striking effect, in the event of a penetration, was intensified by the cordite of the main engine that continued to burn. For the first time, the British used armor-piercing aircraft missiles in June 1942. The probability of a single missile hitting the tank was low, in part this was offset by a salvo launch, but in any case, the missiles turned out to be a more effective weapon against tanks compared to 20-mm aircraft cannons.
Simultaneously with the solid armor-piercing, a high-explosive 60-pound missile was created, its real mass, despite the designation, was 47 pounds or 21, 31 kg. Initially, 60-pound unguided aircraft missiles were intended to combat German submarines on the surface, but later it turned out that they could be used with great effect against ground targets. A missile with a high-explosive 60-pound warhead of 4.5 inches (114-mm) did not penetrate the frontal armor of a medium German tank, but when it hit the chassis of an armored vehicle 1, 36 kg of TNT and hexogen was enough to immobilize the combat vehicle … These missiles showed good results when attacking columns and suppressing anti-aircraft batteries, striking airfields and trains.
It is also known about the combination of a jet engine with stabilizers and a 114, 3-mm incendiary projectile equipped with white phosphorus. If 25-pound armor-piercing missiles after 1944 were used mainly for training shooting, then 60-pounders were in service with the RAF until the mid-60s.
60-pound high-explosive missiles under the wing of the Typhoon fighter-bomber
After the appearance in Germany of heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, the question arose of creating new aircraft missiles capable of penetrating their armor. In 1943, a new version with an armor-piercing high-explosive warhead was developed. The 152-mm warhead with an armor-piercing tip weighing 27.3 kg contained 5.45 kg of explosives. Due to the fact that the rocket engine remained the same, and the mass and drag increased significantly, the maximum flight speed dropped to 350 m / s. For this reason, the accuracy slightly deteriorated and the effective firing range decreased, which was partly offset by the increased striking effect.
Replaceable warheads of British aviation rockets. Left: 25-pound armor-piercing, top - "25lb AP rocket Mk. I", bottom - "25lb AP rocket Mk. II", right: high-explosive 60-pound "60lb NOT # 1 Mk. I", middle: armor-piercing high-explosive 60 -lb "60lb No2 Mk. I"
152-mm armor-piercing high-explosive missiles confidently hit the German Tigers. If hitting a heavy tank did not lead to the penetration of the armor, then it still received heavy damage, the crew and internal units were often struck by internal chipping of the armor. Thanks to a powerful warhead, at a close gap, the chassis was destroyed, optics and weapons were knocked out. It is believed that the cause of the death of Michael Wittmann, the most effective German tank ace, was the hit in the aft part of his "Tiger" missile from the British fighter-bomber "Typhoon".
Hawker typhoon
For the effective use of high-explosive armor-piercing missiles, it was necessary to have some experience. The most trained pilots of British fighter-bombers were involved in the hunt for German tanks. When launched, heavy missiles with a 152-mm warhead sagged, and this should be taken into account when aiming. The standard tactics of the British Tempest and Typhoon attack aircraft was to dive at the target at an angle of up to 45 °. Many pilots opened fire on the target with tracer shells to visually determine the line of fire. After that, it was required to slightly raise the nose of the aircraft in order to take into account the downward drawdown of the rocket. The accuracy of the fire largely depended on the pilot's intuition and experience with missiles. The highest probability of hitting the target was achieved with salvo firing. In March 1945, aircraft missiles with a cumulative warhead and improved accuracy appeared, but by that time there were not many German tanks left, and the new missiles did not have much influence on the course of hostilities.
The American aircraft rockets used during World War II were much better than the British ones. The American NAR M8 did not have prototypes, like the British RP-3 rocket, it was created from scratch, and was originally developed to arm combat aircraft. Despite the fact that in the United States began to create their own rockets later than in Great Britain, the Americans managed to achieve not an example of the best results.
The 4.5-inch (114-mm) M8 rocket was launched into mass production in early 1943. Weighing 17.6 kg, its length was 911 mm. Three dozen powder bills accelerated the M8 to a speed of 260 m / s. The high-explosive fragmentation warhead contained almost two kilograms of TNT, and the armor-piercing one was a monolithic steel blank.
Compared to the primitive British missiles, the NAR M8 seemed like a masterpiece of design thought. To stabilize the M8 on the trajectory, five folding spring-loaded stabilizers were used, which unfold when the rocket exits the tubular guide. Folded stabilizers were placed in the tapered tail section. This made it possible to reduce the size and reduce the drag when the NAR was attached to the aircraft. Blowing in a wind tunnel has shown that tubular guides have minimal resistance compared to other types of launchers. Launch pipes 3 meters long were mounted in a block of three pieces. Launchers were made from different materials: steel, magnesium alloy and plastic. The most common plastic guides had the lowest resource, but they were also the lightest - 36 kg, the steel guide weighed 86 kg. The magnesium alloy pipe was almost as good as steel in terms of its resource, and its weight was close to plastic - 39 kg, but it was also the most expensive.
The loading process for the M8 was very simple and took much less time than the British RP-3s. In addition, the firing accuracy of American missiles turned out to be significantly higher. Experienced pilots with a salvo launch with a high degree of probability hit the tank, while it was recommended to zero in with tracer bullets before launching the missiles. Taking into account the experience of combat use, at the end of 1943, an improved modification of the M8A2 appeared, and then the A3. In the new missile models, the area of the folding stabilizers was increased and the thrust of the sustainer jet engine increased. The warhead of the rocket has increased, now equipped with more powerful explosives. All this significantly improved the accuracy and destructive characteristics of the American 114-mm aircraft missiles.
The first carrier of the NAR M8 was the R-40 Tomahawk fighter, but then this missile became part of the armament of almost all types of American front-line and carrier-based aircraft. The combat effectiveness of the 114-mm missiles was very high, and the M8s were popular with American pilots. So, only the P-47 Thunderbolt fighters of the American 12th Air Army spent up to 1000 missiles daily during the battles in Italy. In total, before the end of hostilities, the industry delivered about 2.5 million unguided aircraft missiles of the M8 family. Rockets with armor-piercing and armor-piercing high-explosive warheads were quite capable of penetrating the armor of medium German tanks, but 114-mm missiles were much more effective when striking German transport convoys.
In the middle of 1944, on the basis of missiles used in naval aviation "3, 5 FFAR" and "5 FFAR", the United States created a 127-mm NAR "5 HVAR" (High Velocity Aircraft Rocket, - high-speed aircraft rocket), also known as Holy Moses. Its high-explosive fragmentation warhead, in fact, was a 127-mm artillery shell. There were two types of warheads: high-explosive fragmentation weighing 20.4 kg - containing 3.5 kg of explosives and solid armor-piercing - with a carbide tip. A rocket with a length of 1.83 m and a mass of 64 kg was accelerated by a sustainer solid-propellant engine up to 420 m / s. According to American data, the 127-mm NAR "5 HVAR" with a solid steel armor-piercing warhead was capable of penetrating the frontal armor of the German "Tiger", and a high-explosive fragmentation missile was guaranteed to disable medium tanks in a direct hit.
"5 HVAR"
American 127-mm NAR "5 HVAR" in terms of the aggregate of combat and operational characteristics became the most advanced aviation rockets of the Second World War. These missiles remained in service in many countries until the early 90s and were used in many local conflicts.
It is no coincidence that the publication pays so much attention to aviation unguided missiles. The Americans and the British did not have special light cumulative aerial bombs, similar to the Soviet PTAB, with which the Soviet Ilys, starting from the middle of 1943, knocked out Panzerwaffe tanks. Therefore, it was missiles that became the main anti-tank weapons of the Allied fighter-bombers. However, for strikes against German tank units, two and four motorized bombers were very often involved. There are cases when dozens of heavy B-17 and B-24 bombed the places of concentration of German tanks at the same time. Of course, the effectiveness of bombing armored vehicles with large-caliber bombs from a height of several thousand meters is, frankly, a dubious idea. But here the magic of large numbers and the theory of probability played a role, when hundreds of 500 and 1000 pound bombs fall from the sky simultaneously onto a limited area: they inevitably covered someone. Given that the Allies had air superiority in 1944 and a huge number of bombers at their disposal, the Americans could afford to use strategic bomber aircraft for tactical missions. After the Allied landings in Normandy, their bombers soon completely paralyzed the enemy's railway network and the German tanks accompanying them with fuel trucks, trucks, artillery and infantry were forced to make long marches on the roads, while being exposed to the continuous influence of aviation. According to eyewitnesses, the French roads leading to Normandy were blocked by broken and broken German equipment in 1944.
It was the British Tempests and Typhoons, as well as the American Mustangs and Thunderbolts, that became the main anti-tank weapons of the Allies. At first, fighter-bombers mainly carried bombs of calibers 250 and 500 pounds (113 and 227 kg), and from April 1944 - and 1000-pounds (454-kg). But for the fight against tanks in the frontal zone, the NAR was more suitable. Theoretically, on any British Typhoon, depending on the nature of the intended target, the bomb racks could be replaced with missile rails, but in practice, in each squadron, some of the aircraft constantly carried bomb racks, and some of the racks. Later, squadrons specializing in missile attacks appeared. They were manned by the most experienced pilots, and German armored vehicles were among the highest priority targets. So, according to British sources, on August 7, 1944, Typhoon fighter-bombers during the day attacked German tank units advancing towards Normandy, while they destroyed 84 and damaged 56 tanks. Even if the British pilots actually managed to achieve at least half of the declared, it would be a very impressive result.
Unlike the British, American pilots did not specifically hunt for armored vehicles, but acted at the request of ground forces. Typical American tactics of the P-51 and P-47 were a surprise attack from a gentle dive of enemy strongpoints or counterattacking German forces. At the same time, repeated approaches to the target, when operating on communications in order to avoid losses from anti-aircraft fire, as a rule, were not performed. American pilots, providing direct air support to their units, delivered "lightning strikes" and then escaped at low altitude.
Colonel Wilson Collins, commander of the 3rd Panzer Battalion, 67th Panzer Regiment, wrote about this in his report:
Direct air support greatly assisted our offensive. I've seen fighter pilots work. Acting from low altitudes, with rockets and bombs, they cleared the way for us in the breakthrough at Saint-Lo. The pilots thwarted a German tank counterattack on the Barman, which we had recently taken, on the western bank of the Rør. This section of the front was completely controlled by the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers. Rarely were German units able to engage with us without being hit by them. I once saw the Panther crew abandon their car after a fighter fired machine guns at their tank. Obviously, the Germans decided that on the next call they would drop bombs or launch missiles.
It should be understood that the British and American fighter-bombers were not attack aircraft in our usual sense. They did not iron the German troops, making multiple visits to the target, like the Soviet Il-2. Unlike Soviet armored attack aircraft, American and British fighter-bombers were very vulnerable to ground fire, even from small arms. That is why they avoided repeated attacks from ground targets. It is quite obvious that with such tactics of the Allies, the accuracy of the use of missile and bomb weapons left much to be desired, and one should be very careful about the combat accounts of many pilots. This is especially true of the accounts of British pilots who flew the Typhoons, since some of them allegedly destroyed dozens of German tanks.
A detailed study of destroyed and burned German tanks showed that real losses from aviation were usually no more than 5-10% of the total number of destroyed combat vehicles, which, in general, is consistent with the results of field tests. In 1945, at one of the British training grounds, studies were carried out on the effectiveness of British aircraft missiles when firing at a captured Panther tank. In ideal conditions of the test site, experienced pilots managed to achieve 5 hits when launching 64 NARs. At the same time, the shooting was carried out at a stationary tank, and there was no anti-aircraft resistance.
It is safe to say that the effectiveness of Allied aircraft missiles as anti-tank weapons was initially overestimated. For example, a statistical analysis of the actions of the 2nd British Tactical Air Force and the 9th American Air Force in the battles of Morten in August 1944 showed that out of 43 German tanks destroyed on the battlefield, only 7 were hit by a missile strike from the air. In a missile attack on a highway in the vicinity of La Balein in France, armored columns of about 50 tanks were declared destroyed. After the Allied troops occupied the area, it turned out that there were only 9 immobilized tanks, and only two of them were fatally damaged and were not subject to restoration. This can still be considered a very good result, in other places the ratio of declared and actually destroyed tanks was at times completely indecent. So, during the battles in the Ardennes, the pilots announced the destruction of 66 tanks, in fact, of the 101 destroyed German tanks found in this area, only 6 were the merit of the aviators, and this despite the fact that as soon as the weather in this area improved, air strikes followed continuously.
However, the constant air attacks had a debilitating effect on the German tankers. As the Germans themselves said, on the Western Front they developed a "German look" - even far from the front line, tankmen constantly looked anxiously at the sky in anticipation of an air raid. Subsequently, a survey of German prisoners of war confirmed the tremendous psychological effect of air attacks, especially rocket attacks, even tank crews consisting of veterans who had fought on the Eastern Front were exposed to it.
Compared to attempts to directly combat German tanks, attacks against unarmored targets such as trains, tractors, trucks and fuel trucks became much more effective. Fighter-bombers operating on German communications made the movement of German troops, the supply of ammunition, fuel, food and the evacuation of damaged equipment in the daytime in flying weather absolutely impossible. This circumstance had the most negative effect on the combat capability of the German troops. German tankers, winning fire duels against the Shermans and Komet, but left without fuel, ammunition and spare parts, were forced to abandon their vehicles. Thus, the Allied aviation, which turned out to be not very effective in direct fire damage to German tanks, was the most effective anti-tank weapon, depriving the Germans of supplies. At the same time, the rule was once again confirmed: even with a high fighting spirit and the most advanced technology, it is absolutely impossible to fight without ammunition, fuel and food.
