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Originally Posted by Fredfetish
Got it, makes sense. Thanks!
Although, it would be great if you can post a link that describes this in more historical accurate detail (not being sarcastic). The reason why I ask then is if so, they aren't just making perfectly round holes in the surface of the plane and they aren't just "passing through the empty tail section without hitting anything of importance". In my opinion and based on what you have said there should be a far more drastic effect on the tail (especially fighters and Stuka) when hit from the dead six position. Currently what I'm seeing is the rudder or elevators might fall off, but that's about it.
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All I can say is, bullets do stange things! They would go through aluminium pretty easily and may even stay 'tip first', but there's a lot of stuff within the structure that is more substantial and as soon as a bullet hits these things you can forget about it penetrating armour. The flip side is that AP will go straight through the tail section leaving just small holes at entry and exit, so unless you hit something vital all you're really doing is letting some fresh air in :
I'm basing what I said on 2 things, my understanding of WWII Ammo / ballistics
and a test that has been mentioned on here before where the RAF fired LW and RAF AP rounds at a Blenheim rear gunners armoured plate from 180m away. Only 6% of the RAF AP actually penetrated the armour (4mm) and only 1% of the German equivilent (7.92mm) penetrated the armour. (Remember that this is the
rear gunner in a Blenheim, the chances of hitting and penetrating the pilots armour from six o'clock is virtually zero).
The armour on most LW bombers was substantially thicker.
An indicator of the ineffectivness of AP is that the LW stopped using them for Air to Air. They knew the best way to bring aircraft down was HE and fragmentation.