Allied air and tank crews would rather state they destroyed a Tiger than a Pz.IV along with honest misidentification (from a distance they do look mildly alike). Now, I will not try and deny that Pz.IVs were often mistaken for Tigers. This barrage would make the tanks armour collapse after the armour has been weakened enough. They were be diverted by the small area into the tank. The small area made by the surrounding tracks and low ground clearance of the tank (I'm not talking actually low but you get what I mean) would mean that the rounds would be hitting in basically the same place when hitting the tank. If the rounds are landing just behind the tank though the law of physics are obvious enough to say that it will bounce forward or up, if landing just below the tank (possible because the aircraft is shooting down at the tank), the rounds will bounce up into the confines of the space under the tank. Everyone knows when a round ricochets you cannot predict which direction it is going to reflect at.
Allied losses of aircraft were considerable, the 2nd TAF (including elements of Air Defence of Britain that took part in the Normandy campaign) lost 829 aircraft, while US 9th Air Force lost 897.Ī ricocheted round is extremely unpredictable, it could have bounced up at a 0 degree angle. Rather it seems that air attacks on tank formation protected by AA units were more dangerous to the aircraft than to the tanks. Probably no more than about 100 tanks were lost due to hits from air weapons during the entire campaign. In fact no more than 46 tanks were lost in the operation and of these only nine had been hit by air weapons.Īctually it seems that very few German tank were lost due to hits from weapons carried by aircraft. This actually exceeded the number of German tanks employed in the operation. The British 2nd TAF claimed to have destroyed or damaged 140 German tanks in the Mortain area 7 - 10 August, while 9th US Air Force claimed 112. But in fact this engagement is rather an example of vastly exaggerated claims. Often the German attack at Mortain is used as an example to show the effectiveness of the fighter-bombers as tank killers. However, it is hard to conceive a less reliable source for information on the effectiveness of the attacks. The image of allied fighter-bombers as effective tank killers is probably the result of claims by the pilots themselves. This is actually quite strange, since weapons carried by aircraft were unsuitable for attacking tanks. Often the attacks on German tanks by allied fighter-bombers that are put forward as examples on the great effectiveness of allied air power.
Occasionally attacks on German combat units in the battle zone are emphasized.
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