Hs129 vs T34 - How Tank Busting Started During WW2

today's episode is sponsored by the free-to-play game war thunder which i will use to give you visual examples of how germany tested their tank buster cannons during world war ii if you are like me and into planes or perhaps you prefer targets like tanks or ships wall thunder's wide selection of vehicles has everything you want get started with warfare by using the link in the description below to sign up for free and receive a signup bonus more info on warfunder and your bonus later on in the video hello everyone it's chris from military aviation history and today i want to present to you another really cool file that i found in the geometry archive because well first of all this is my channel and i like presenting primary sources that's kind of what i do but secondly this gives us some hard data about a subject that seems to be quite popular at least a lot of people like to talk about it when it comes to world war ii and the eastern front and then is of course tank busting by aircraft or tank hunting by aircraft for the germans as you might expect and as you might know of course this was a massive topic and throughout the war became increasingly important and of course a lot of that has to do with the experience on the eastern front so let me take you back to 1942 when actually this tank hunting or this tank busting never mind how you want to call it was still a very new topic and the germans were only really starting out to invest resources and development time into this and have a look at this source where they're actually testing one of the first weapons they introduced in order to combat soviet armor on the eastern front by aircraft so you're ready i'm ready let's do this the machine in canon m500 irons was a 30 millimeter auto cannon that the germans started to develop in the mid 1930s it was also the first gun to be classified under a new designation system the first number in the sequence stands for the manufacturer and the remaining number stands for the project number as such m kahuna eins or mk101 stands for reinmethyl that being the one and zero one being the project number this being the first 30 millimeter autocannon under this new classification system now it's important to remember that this classification system cannot be transferred to some other guns like for example the mg151 here the sequence is entirely different the first number here stands for the caliber so the first gun of a 15 millimeter caliber of course this gun was later up calibered to 20 millimeter at which point it became the mg-151-20 and this shows you that japan was not the only country throughout this time that had a very inconsistent naming and designation system for their weapons the 30 millimeter automatic aircraft cannon turned out to be merely a scaled up version of the early 20 millimeter anti-tank gun the mark s 18 1000 the weapon was designated mk-101 it had a very long chamber and used an extremely high velocity cartridge for an automatic aircraft cannon overall the mk-101 featured a couple of advantages that made it useful in an anti-tank role it was accurate had good penetration with the right ammo and it was resilient and reliable the negatives were the size the weight and the low rate of fire combined with a generally low ammo count this gave pilots only a few chances of scoring hits although the mk101 could fire a variety of ammunition for this test the germans of course used a special shell which was designed uniquely against tanks abbreviated it looks like this and if i unpack that we get the right centimeter hooked really quite patrolling now i can translate that and if i compensate from the literal to the understandable we will get something like three centimeter high velocity armor-piercing shell with tracer without a self-destructing fuse some people might just call it hvap let's have a closer look the mk-101 fires a 30 by 184 millimeter shell and weighs 800 grams it has a muslin velocity of 960 meters per second with the casing it has a length of 296.6 millimeter a maximum diameter of 49.5 millimeter the casing itself is 184 millimeters in length let's have a closer look at the actual shell it is 133.5 millimeters in length 30 millimeters in diameter and weighs 350 grams the shell is made out of six components the tracer at the bottom has a burn duration of 1.5 seconds which is equivalent to roughly 1200 meters of flight distance the body is made out of an aluminum magnesium copper alloy and the tip of magnerine which was a magnesium aluminum alloy this was a light made metal that was also used in aircraft construction inside a resin filling of trolitan and in the middle the wolfram khabib penetrator also known as tungsten carbide the germs described the shell in the following manner effect special armor penetrating shell with additional incendiary effect effective only against targets with bare armor tanks with spaced armor can cause penetrator to shatter penetrative capabilities at 300 meters an armor tensile strength of 100 kilograms per square millimeter an angle of 60 degrees 70 millimeters and at an angle of 90 degrees 100 millimeters use exclusively against heavy and heaviest tanks firing practice is forbidden i should add that although the germans do say schwerer and schwerster panzer i believe what they mean here is that this shell is not being used against lighter armored soft targets for example also in light tanks and only against medium or heavy tanks for firing practice pilots were given the ubungs or trainings shell it had similar flight characteristics but was not made out of precious metals and had a dummy fuse this one was called the dry centimeter hawkish medications means practice never say i don't teach you stuff that said let's have a look at the test and see how things check out this firing test was conducted between the 17th and the 20th of july 1942 in the ukraine at a place called zolochium i hope i pronounced that correctly it was conducted against a t-34 a kv-1 and it's more jacked up brother the kv-2 now all of these tanks were in relatively good condition they hadn't been burned out the fuel tanks were drained and most of the ammunition was removed now during this test the weapon was stationary and fired either in bursts or in single shots i will indicate when what firing method was used in the test later on at a distance of 100 300 and 600 meters now with a closure speed of a henchy one two nine at four hundred kilometers per hour yes that is somewhat optimistic but in a shallow dive or with that plane more of a controlled plummet you could get to that speed uh this was essentially equivalent to 250 450 or 700 meters for this video i will still be quoting the 100 300 and 600 meters just now of course there's some operational variants in this the tanks were fired at from the side at either the hull or the turret and as i go through this test one by one i will be using footage here provided by warfunder to visualize the test as close as possible to the official photographs that you can actually find in the file sources are always in description below sadly as most of you will know who have already seen videos like this i cannot use the official photographs because of copyrights the t-34 has a side hull armor of a thickness of 45 millimeters angled at 30 degrees the turret is likewise armored with 45 millimeters of steel at up to 60 degrees five rounds of the 76 millimeter cannon shells were placed in the turret the tank was slanted at 20 degrees to adjust for the attack angle of an aircraft this has the result that the effect of the angled armor on the t-34 was reduced the weapon fired in short bursts 32 rounds were fired resulting in 21 hits and 17 pence penetrations the remaining four resulted in insignificant damage in the upcoming breakdown i cannot account for mistrusts as the file does not indicate these eight rounds were fired at 100 meters with four penetrations and a single stock shell at the indicated angles 10 rounds were fired at 300 meters six of these penetrated one round ignited a 76 millimeter shell in the turret resulting in a fireball erupting out of the turret hatch which was closed but not locked the oil inside of the crew compartment burned crucially however the erupting shell did not detonate the remaining shells around it the remaining 13 rounds were fired at 600 meters only four of these penetrated moving over to the kv-1 the kv-1 has a side armor on the hull and turret of 75 millimeters and has flat surfaces the tank was on the receiving end of 27 rounds hit 27 times with 14 penetrations the 100 hit ratio was due to the weapon firing single shots rather than bursts four 76 millimeter shells were also placed into the turret at 100 meters the tank was hit six times with four penetrations at the indicated angles at 300 meters the turret was hit eight times with one penetration and two stuck rounds at 600 meters the hull and turret were hit and combined 13 times with nine penetrations and one fire again this was due to a hit on a 76 millimeter shell the kv-2 has a similar armor to the kv-1 75 millimeters on the turret and the sides of the hole with a flat surface the tank was also slanted at 20 degrees this was done on purpose to test the three centimeter rounds on the worsened conditions 26 rounds were fired in bursts for 22 hits compared to the hit ratio of the kt1 you can already see the difference between burst fire and single shots in terms of accuracy i should add that among these 29 rounds an additional free standard ap shells were also added which is properly infuriating from a modern research perspective because even though i know on which burst the standard ap rounds were fired they were mixed in with the high velocity ammo as well on the last burst five rounds too high velocity and three standard armor piercing but the file doesn't make it specifically clear in what order and it doesn't make it specifically clear which of these rounds penetrated and which ones didn't but of these five rounds two penetrated and three balanced which we can assume i guess if we just trust quick math here that it's most likely going to be the high velocity that penetrates in a star standard armor piercing that bounce but we simply do not know if in the future you are by chance ever in charge of a weapon firing trial please make sure that you indicate for future researchers in i don't know 2050 2060 2070 which rounds are which and on what burst you're firing what and in what sequence best yet just fire them in a separate burst don't destroy your own methodology it's diabolical let's continue because of the limited penetrations on this test we are limited to the firing test at 100 meters of 22 hits four rounds penetrated at 100 meters in the turret of the five 15 centimeter shells which were added to the turret one was damaged by shrapnel but did not go off with this test we have a clinical example of how the mk101 performed with the specialized function ammo we of course always have to remember that these clinical firing trials are always going to be slightly different in their conclusion than actual operational use but at least it gives us some data to work with of course what is also interesting is that we can already see the influence of how burst fire and single shots affects accuracy because the kb1 of course was fired at in single shots and there were no misses whereas even a large tank like the kv-2 was missed multiple times when the weapon was firing bursts of free to rough e six shots accuracy is of course going to suffer even more once this gun is being placed on a moving platform like a plane anyway let's continue here with the conclusions of the test attack direction approach the side preferably perpendicular to the length of the tank reasons largest target area best hit angles highest chance to cause fire as fuel tanks are built into the sides and the ammo is stored there attack angle for t44 preferably a high angle for kv-1 and kv-2 a flat approach reasons best hit angles point of aim the turret ring reason highest chance to off hits on target area with best penetration chances distance to open fire 800 meters reasons sufficient range to deliver an appropriate number of shots in short bursts with good penetration seven seconds of distance with a wire rate of four rounds a second on the mk 101 it should be noted that seven seconds of continuous fire on the mk101 on the henshi 129 uses up all of your ammo hence why short bursts are necessary so you don't use up all ammo on a single tank break off the attack when spotting effects of hits such as smoke or fire reasons limited use of ammunition as rounds are manufactured out of scars metals these conclusions are interesting because even though it is only summoned id 42 and tank hunting or tank busting never mind how you want to call this is only slowly starting to become a theme for the luftwaffe a couple of things are made clear first how do you best approach an enemy tank second that tank identification or target identification rather is crucial in finding the best approach against that tank and that is based on pilot training and pilot experience remember with a kv-1 kv-2 you want to be coming into the flight angle with a t-44 you want to be coming in at an angle because it negates the angle armor of the t-34 itself fourth that the 30 millimeter gun with the specialized armor is capable of penetrating soviet tanks and that either damages them or knocks out the crew or can potentially even destroy the tank out right even though with a 30 millimeter cannon you've got to be a little bit lucky and fourth the precious metal aspect to this weapon or not to this weapon but the armor that has fired is already being made clear hence why it is not being cleared for practice firing and why a special shell is designed only for that role as well so that pilots can gain some experience in firing this high velocity ammo before they're actually being shipped to the front lines and now for a very brief intermission if you enjoy these videos based on german primary sources and are a fan of aviation topics consider the whole subscribing hitting the notification bell liking this video part of the deal here on youtube yes it's in my business interest to remind you to do that but it's a win-win you get free regular content about topics you like and i get to do this and with that back to the show now the mk101 was an early tank busting gun that the germans used more famous are perhaps the mk-103 or the bot canon because which was used on the ju-87 or perhaps even its bigger cousin i guess you could say the bot can only be car from from zipc which was a 7.5 centimeter gun placed on some of their aircraft until they realized in testing that that was really a bad idea i shook a party aircraft mid-firing really bad idea but it is the mk-101 that really kicks off this development stats stands at the forefront of it and with it the jones are for the first time using gun dedicated with the special ammo in only one roll and that is tank busting early operational use of this weapon was mainly with the henschel hs129 the first machines got this weapon in may 1942 in some limited frontline testing and then later on in june of 1942 the first stuffer was supposed to be equipped with only this weapon in this very specialized role and that shows you how limited the early usage was because a stuffer in that sense is normally only nine planes in a schlager and only a few months after this test we see the process that has been kicked off in arming the luftwaffe with this weapon in a general meister bisprey in the luftwaffe garland all hench the one two nines that are at the front were already pulled out and will be placed into tank hunting rolls with cannons luftward eins will receive one tank hunter stuffel luftwaffen commando aust one stuffel luftwaffe commando don two stuffin and obs one shuffle cannon procurement is underway the operational success of a gun like the mk101 is very hard to both qualify and quantify first of all what metric are we using because if we're only using kill claims or kill numbers then we're obviously already ignoring a lot of aspects like for example the psychological effect the intervention by a couple of henshaw 129s has on the battlefield against an enemy tank formation or for example the mere presence of luftwaffe tank hunting units in the area has on the planning of an operation but if we push that just aside and we pure focus purely on the kill numbers which is sort of the metric that is often being placed on the fore trunk front we already have a major issue because it's for example not always obvious to a pilot whether he has scored a hit or well for the lack of a better word kill against an enemy tank right and what do we actually rate as a kill is this um a mission kill in the sense that this is a damage tank that can place no further part in the fighting but is still recoverable by the soviet army for example or do we only rate tanks that have blown up or that are on fire or that have been abandoned by a crew which is not always obvious especially when you're just observing out of the air and what about tanks where for example the crew might actually not have suffered any wounded where the tank itself might not have suffered any damage but the crew panics and bails out and runs away that is possible or at least hides under the tank which sometimes happened and then they would remount their tanks once the aircraft are gone how do you rate those kills and the quick answer is you cannot really rate those 10 kills and that is of course before we discuss the natural and sometimes also artificial mathematical acrobatics that happens with these kill claims and these kill numbers it's also worth pointing out that early on pilots were actually a little bit hesitant about using this cannon because they didn't feel it was that effective and opted more often than not to still using bombs which is most likely also simply a fact of being used to bombs rather than being used to using a cannon this aspect is for example shown in the following quote the pilots themselves began to express doubts of the armor-piercing ammunition pointing out that when german ground forces advanced and occupied the scene of the fighting no tanks were found which had been hit by aircraft cannon here for example it is possible that at least some of the tanks reported hit were actually hit and perhaps temporarily knocked out of combat just that the soviets were able to recover these tanks before the germans advanced then i have one report here from early 1943 which heavily contrasts with this experience based on reports from oberst leuitenant vice during the time of the 14th to the 21st of march 1943 the following results were achieved with the henshaw 129 carrying an mk-101 71 tanks destroyed 30 tanks heavily damaged 47 additional tanks hit operational strength of the gopa is 24 aircraft at most not all of these were equipped with mk101s based on the usual counting mistakes that we always encountered during combat reports from world war ii i highly doubt that a handful of fanchu129s only partially equipped with mk101s destroyed 71 tanks within seven days especially since the whole of 1942 the horde sweater copper of jacques schwarinz claimed 91 tanks also with a limited supply of mk101s but as i said earlier kill clams are very one-dimensional black and white often faulty metric in using or in qualifying and quantifying the success or the efficiency or the performance of a weapon like the mk101 of course it gives us some data but that's not the end of the story and i think it's more worthwhile also talking about the other effects that these aircraft have not just talking about the gun but simply their interference or their impact on the battlefield in terms of morale in terms of suppression and also in terms of operational planning for example it's well possible that certain soviet commanders made sure that their tank units had more cover out of from from the soviet air force or that more aa units were attached to the tank units going forward of course not initially where the tank the presence of tank hunters on this german side was still very low the germans also in their reports later on throughout the war keep on saying that actually aaa presence and the firepower that is being leveled at these tank hunters from the ground increases and increases and increases what we do know and this is probably more of a measurement of the worth of these units and this gun is that the luftwaffe is after the initial teething problems rather pleased with the effect that the tank buster units have on the battlefield and devotes more time resources and units into this role and at this point they identify that the 30 millimeter cannon is simply sort of the best mixture for a weapon and like a cannon an auto cannon when it comes to the price you pay for it the weight the size the ammo count compared to what you're getting out of it is simply the best net gain in the role of a tank buster with specialized ammo and the mk101 yeah i mean it's the first stepping stone there the mk103 appears on the scene with various improvements and this becomes then a much more well-known tank hunter gun although the mk-103 also had its limitations which in turn led the germans to consider other possibilities in knocking out tanks which were cheaper easier to handle and specifically not canon related and that is going to be the topic of a future upcoming video so stay tuned for that before i end this video check out warfunder warfare features more than 1 700 aircraft helicopters tanks and ships and allows you to take part in exciting and explosive virtual battles what i really enjoy in warfarin is their mixed battle experience where i can drive around in a target like a tank or fly a plane and go tank hunting perhaps some of the information i provided in this video will help you go tank busting in war thunder warfare continuously adds new tanks ships and of course aircraft and with the recent update you can now fly an aircraft like the f5a freedom fighter the sukhai 17 m2 and the a6m5ha or drive around in the m3a3 bradley or a whole new collection of sneaky vehicles from south africa the game features full cross-platform integration between pc playstation and xbox so sign up for free by following the link in the description below and receive a special bonus of three days of premium and exclusive sign up bonus vehicle of your choice i hope that you enjoyed this video let me know what you thought about it down below looking forward to your feedback i upload a new video on this channel every thursday except the first first day of every month because that's my off week so remember first day is mad military aviation history day it sounds way better in my head but then again i'm german and we have a proud history of being rubbish at acronyms and i'm just following that tradition one of the upcoming videos is going to be an insider cockpit on the f104 starfighter there's also going to be a video on the f35 during my off week that is the first week of every month i will also be linking a specific video that i found very interesting on aviation matters on both my twitter and my facebook so make sure you follow those pages as well all the links down below there's also my instagram but i don't really understand instagram apparently you put pictures there on hashtags it's like twitter i guess i hope that all of you have a great day and see you in the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 85,292

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Id: wyix9PGqi3E

Length: 26min 28sec (1588 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021