(ArtKramr) wrote in message ...
Subject: P-47/51 deflection shots into the belly of the German
tanks,reality
From: "Gord Beaman" )
Date: 9/2/03 2:34 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Doesn't seem reasonable though does it Art?

Surely you can see that?.

--

-Gord.

"Reasonable" is not fact. Or evidence. Or anything. Especially in light of
eyewitnesses who say otherwise.

Eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable, especially under the
stress of combat and from the confined cockpit of a vibrating combat
plane travelling at 300+ mph. This is from 'Air Power at the
Battlefront':

"There was also the problem of accurate target identification by
pilots hurtling at low level over a mass of vehicles obscured by smoke
and flames. Under such conditions all types of armoured vehicles, and
perhaps even some soft-skinned vehicles, could be mistaken for tanks.
In the snows of the Ardennes it was found that even small buildings
such as huts which stood out against the white background coud be
mistaken by pilots for tanks and vehicles. Moreover, what constituted
a tank was often loosely defined by pilots, a former American
fighter-bomber pilot admitting that assault guns, armoured artillery
and tank destroyers were all identified by pilots as 'tanks'."

When it comes to evidence, the most convincing to me is the
after-battle examinations of knocked out German tanks by Operational
Research Units, who were specifically trying to find out what caused
the damage. They reported on hundreds of tanks (hardly any of which
were knocked out from the air) and I have never read of a single case
of a tank being knocked out by this tactic.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/