Quote:
Originally Posted by Roddoss72
Tiger and King Tiger as impressive as they were were no match for a Thunderbolt and Stormoviks and the like armed to the teeth with anti-armour rockets.
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For the 11,567th time...
Air power did not destroy the panzers directly.
It denied them mobility, shredded their comms and cut their supplies, it ravaged softskins and forced vehicles to constantly take cover, it sewed confusion and fear & generally throttled the panzers freedom of action, but it simply didn't destroy the armoured vehicles to as great an extent as legend has it. The execution was performed by ground forces (and mechanical failure).
Sorry, It's becoming like a Pavlovian response... I'll
try to ignore the bee in my bonnet on that subject.
I don't know why but the Jgpzr IV/70, is a current favourite vehicle, just looks
right (though it still suffered from some of the more conventional mark IV's problems).
Been reading about testing recoilless guns fitted to German tanks, not in the conventional sense of a counter charge or blast going backwards but 'standard' guns solidly mounted to the chassis with no recoil system at all, the entire firing shock going through the trunnions. If this was the way they'd have had to go in an effort to save materials it seems that Mk. IV's suffered rather badly on testing (edit: apparently not, curse my memory) and heavier vehicles were (obviously) far better at taking the strain. Got more reading to do on that though.
I know we could refer to the '67 Syrians as an exception but If the war had continued I suspect the mark IV would have looked a bit of a white elephant by late '45/46 anyway. obsolescence was building and if you stand too still in military development you get run over.
Hmmm... rambling again...
Cheers,
Adam.