I recently read an article that gave statistics that ground attack aircraft had very little impact on actual tanks with a very small percentage of the total kills. However, they devastated soft skin vehicles which in turn reduced the logistic support for the tanks; basically starving them of fuel, ammo and repair.JABQ04 said:
A Typhoon or Thunderbolt
I saw an example of this the other day. I was on my way out to Midland Saturday and passed a train loaded with army equipment coming from the west. Probably 10 to 20 (?) cars of M1s and the rest were HEMTT (wreckers, tankers and pallet haulers) M88's (the ones based on the M1 chassis), LMTVs, Humvees and LOTS of other soft skin stuff on a 50-75 plus car train. Obviously coming from NTC.CT'97 said:
You are right that the constant harassment from the air slowed everything. Remember tanks don't move alone, they need huge fuel, ammo, and maintenance convoys to support them. A company of tanks would have at least as many vehicles there in support as it did tanks, if not more.
Which goes back to my original comment about avoid them eventually they will be abandoned and useless.
There was a platoon of panther tanks, 4 I believe, that stopped an entire British division near Cean. They held a high position, were dug in and out ranged everything the Brits had at that point. Those 4 tanks held off the division for an entire day. The crews abandoned those Panthers over night and walked away because they didn't have the fuel left to drive them out or fight them the next day.
The Germans should have put every resource they used for the Tiger I and II toward building more Panzer V Panthers.CT'97 said:
There was a platoon of panther tanks, 4 I believe, that stopped an entire British division near Cean. They held a high position, were dug in and out ranged everything the Brits had at that point. Those 4 tanks held off the division for an entire day. The crews abandoned those Panthers over night and walked away because they didn't have the fuel left to drive them out or fight them the next day.