Quote:
Originally Posted by Hooston
Well i found a useful source and the answer is YES... but NO.... but YES.... but maybe.
See
http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index.p...kets&Itemid=60
The HE and ball ammo would not cut it. So NO
The armour piercing round (many flavours used!) would penetrate around 20mm of armour plate at 200yds at 0 degrees incidence. So YES
Most attacks would have to be at a shallow dive angle and I'd guess around 3-400 yds. For shallow incidence shots there's not a lot of difference between armour plate and high tensile steel and the penetration drops off (reference only goes up to 40 degree incidence). The thin deck plates would also get in the way a bit. So NO, but YES against conning towers and the thin unpressurised saddle tanks. Some boats had added armour on the conning towers (I guess for this reason).
Seems to me that you should incur a lot of damage to deck crew, guns, periscopes and deck plates, a bit of damage to the conning tower and a slight nibble at the hull integrity (never enough to sink the boat).
Looks like we are not too far off! |
Ha, nice find, well I say let the planes a little charitable wiggle room on the power of their 20mm - to compensate for their overall stupidity, predictability, massivley easy detection, inability to shoot fixed guns at all at certain attack angles and pretty poor bomb accuracy. when you factor all that in, what's a little damage buff to their cannons? And TBH if I fight them rather than evade, well maybe I deserve the hull integrity of a collander