Ju-87G Stuka

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Sorry, I understood that you were implying a 90° dive. It wasn't clear.
Anyway 30mm are easily penned by 37mm BK, on any angle in between 45° and 90° at around 300m

Penetration even if easily achieved is not a sure kill. It is possible even for a 122mm shell to penetrate and do no harm -though unlikely.

Originally Posted by RPS69

I must disagree. The pilot job is done, it can't depend on the ground troops performance to be asigned as a kill.
Tank is abandoned, crew is badly injured, or temporarily out of comission, the attack is a kill.

And that was just what happened. Pilots claimed kills because they believed to have destroyed a vehicle. But if not for a spectacular kill like a ammo cook-off, it is not easy for pilots to assure a kill, a hit vehicle may stop because its engine is dead, or crew killed - or it might just stop to engage a target.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Many kills were scored by pilots that never realized that they were that successful. Not all kills are spectacular.

Exactly. But this works the other way round too, e.g. many kills were claimed by pilots that were not sucessful. And also anything in camouflage is a tank, at least at 400 mph....

Originally Posted by RPS69

Propaganda inflated most probably, as some other british bomber pilots.
Anyway, my comment was supposed to be an irony.

Usually I'm sceptical, but Rudel was beyond human -and I don't mean that to be a compliment, and if such someone has a lot of luck, and quite some talent as a pilot he might as well get to such feats without cheating. He made a few thousand missions, and got shot down countless times, survived every time, if nothing else he is the luckiest WWII aviator ever.

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

And that was just what happened. Pilots claimed kills because they believed to have destroyed a vehicle. But if not for a spectacular kill like a ammo cook-off, it is not easy for pilots to assure a kill, a hit vehicle may stop because its engine is dead, or crew killed - or it might just stop to engage a target.

Well, a tank under enemy fire that got it´s engine dead, is a dead tank, normally it's crew will bail out as fast as possible. Stranded tanks are canon ammo magnets

Exactly. But this works the other way round too, e.g. many kills were claimed by pilots that were not sucessful. And also anything in camouflage is a tank, at least at 400 mph....

For sure!, but maybe there is another kind of confusion here, pilots may report armoured vehicles, without distinguishing a tank from an armored transport. In german that's a normal confusion, since the term "Panzer" means armoured, but not necessarily a tank.

Usually I'm sceptical, but Rudel was beyond human -and I don't mean that to be a compliment, and if such someone has a lot of luck, and quite some talent as a pilot he might as well get to such feats without cheating. He made a few thousand missions, and got shot down countless times, survived every time, if nothing else he is the luckiest WWII aviator ever.

Lol! The guy ended the war as almost a Cyborg! And then he traveled to Argentina with Kurt Tank as a test pilot during Peron's time. He surelly was a bit on the crazy side.
But the fact that he survived the whole war flying a Stuka for most of the time, must mean a lot. Even if he didn't kill everything he claims, surviving all those missions make him someone to be appraised as a pilot.