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Can a Nashorn destroy an IS2 at 4600m?

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#41
I feel that any distance quoted would have been the range estimated by the gun crew when laying the gun onto the target.
I have no idea what range finding equipment was available to them, or how accurate it was.

The Ferdinand, Elefant and Nashorn were all equiped with the same gun sight, the Sfl.ZF 1a / Rblf 36 (Source www.tariff.com). Does anyone have a "manual" or picture of the "view", so we can see what range it went up to. We all know that the Tiger's 88mm gun sight went up to 4000m, so I wouldn't be suprised that Nashorn's did the same.

While I do take Dingbat's point that Flak guns would have been engaging aircraft at ranges beyond 4000m, the shells only had to travel a long distance, they didn't have to be going that fast when they arrived. Also I have no idea of the weight of an AA shell.
And I'm not sure how spacious the Nashorn fighting compartment was. While the shells were large, a maximum capacity of 40 seems small for a AFV of this size.

nash_int.jpg
 
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#42
German AAA guns by mid war all had range finding electronics ( sound, radar, etc..) to determine range. Also by estimating the speed and distance traveled in a set amount of time you can gauge the altittude as well such as in the long eared viewfinders that were common to flak crews. I think we can all come to the conclusion that if the nashorn did get a kill at 4000+ meters it was pure luck and skill combined.
 
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#43
DAT said:
German AAA guns by mid war all had range finding electronics ( sound, radar, etc..) to determine range. Also by estimating the speed and distance traveled in a set amount of time you can gauge the altittude as well such as in the long eared viewfinders that were common to flak crews. I think we can all come to the conclusion that if the nashorn did get a kill at 4000+ meters it was pure luck and skill combined.
Click to expand...
That's what I recon. Pure skill and luck.

Anyway what's to say the commander didn't use powerful binoculars to spot the tank and the gunner could have fired, and the commander watched to see where the shots landed. So the commander only had to tell the gunner how far the shells were falling and adjust the range.
 
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#46
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#51
At the range given the ammo used was most likely standard AP, not APCR. The tungsten rounds had awesome penetration, but shed velocity very rapidly. Using them beyond 2,000 meters or so (depending on caliber) actually gave poorer penetration performance than standard rounds. Since the standard AP round travelled at a lower initial velocity the trajectory required to hit a target at 4,600 meters would, by necessity, be more pronounced in arc. Makes the likelyhood of a rear deck or turret roof hit even higher.

Remember also that we're talking about crew who had been in combat for quite a while. By that time they would have been extremely skilled at range estimation and at target ID. They would also be intimately familiar with the performance of their guns and ammunition at all ranges. Add the fact that the 88mm Pak 43/1 L71 gun used by the Nashorn was one of the most accurate anti-tank guns of the war and you have a good possibility that the report could very well be true (my, isn't that a mouthful of qualifiers). By the way, the Nashorn's gun is the one from the towed AT mount, slightly different from the 88mm KwK 43 L71 used by the King Tiger and Jagdpanther.

It's also worth noting that projectiles have been known to far exceed their normal performance at times. Rounds will penetrate when they normally shouldn't, or fail to penetrate when they should. Variations in armor quality, the exact point and direction of impact, even absolutely freak circumstances such as hitting an opening that would otherwise be an impossible target (vision slits for example). We honestly have no way to determine the exact circumstances that may have made such a shot possible.

Did the shot happen? It seems highly unlikely given all knowable information, but still not outside the realm of possibility.
 
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#55
without doing any research and going from memory of numbers, this shot is only slightly possible on a 90 degree angle on the side or rear, remember the js2 (not is2) had very thick frontal armor, not so much on the sides. now wether it was actually a js2 that is debatable, its very likely that it was a different tank.
(just take side pictures of a t34,kv1&2,su 100,85 and shrink them down to about 1 cm in diameter, shuffle em around, and see if you can identify them correctly.)

remember peeps the nashorn was using the 88mm which held its kinetic energy even better then the panther's 75mm when over 2000m. small check to wiki says its the pak 43 round (the tiger 1 shell , versus the tiger's 2 much larger 88mm shell)

i think il take a look round at some sights i used before to gather info on ww2 tanks, it is very likely this could have happened, but also very likely it was malarky, OR just a smaller tank assumed to be a js2 but was actually a much thinner skinned tank.

edit: booboo you shure the nashorn used the kwk.71?
 
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#56
Colt .45 killer said:
js2 (not is2)
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Actually it is 'ис' which translates as IS - the anglicised version of the Russian. The only reason we ever used J was either because we took the translation via German (the German J doing what the English I does in the other version) or because we use the even more anglicised 'Josef' instead of Iosif, which is more correct.

..and anyway these tank debates generally are never-ending. If you want a really boring evening go on a BDJ, Orel or Arad server and ask which was the best tank or which tank could pwn hardest. The only highlight of such a debate would be to ask the person who inevitably puts forward the Maus or KT if they have got a girlfriend yet - that normally shuts them up.

If you want an interesting evening, however, go on the same server and say that the Matilda I, TACAM R2 or Hotchkiss H35 was the best tank of WW2 and see how many of the 'experts' have even heard of them.
 
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#57
Hmm I've never heard of the TACAM R2. :eek:
Guessing it's some sort of a light French tankette or some such produced by Renault.

Edit: A quick google proved my assumption wrong.
Curse your random Romanian tanks Nestor!

Double Edit: Does you mentioning it mean we'll be seeing it in CC? :D
 
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#58
Nestor Makhno said:
Actually it is 'ис' which translates as IS - the anglicised version of the Russian. The only reason we ever used J was either because we took the translation via German (the German J doing what the English I does in the other version) or because we use the even more anglicised 'Josef' instead of Iosif, which is more correct.

..and anyway these tank debates generally are never-ending. If you want a really boring evening go on a BDJ, Orel or Arad server and ask which was the best tank or which tank could pwn hardest. The only highlight of such a debate would be to ask the person who inevitably puts forward the Maus or KT if they have got a girlfriend yet - that normally shuts them up.

If you want an interesting evening, however, go on the same server and say that the Matilda I, TACAM R2 or Hotchkiss H35 was the best tank of WW2 and see how many of the 'experts' have even heard of them.
Click to expand...


pffff
everyone knows that the maus slays!
 
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#60
kapulA said:
Hmm I've never heard of the TACAM R2. :eek:
Guessing it's some sort of a light French tankette or some such produced by Renault.

Edit: A quick google proved my assumption wrong.
Curse your random Romanian tanks Nestor!

Double Edit: Does you mentioning it mean we'll be seeing it in CC? :D
Click to expand...

TACAM_R2_muzeu_l.jpg


only the Tacam was romanian of those he mentioned. It was a redesign of (mostly) the Pz35(t) known as R2 in romania to a tank destroyer, cause the romanians saw their 37mm cannons can hardly scratch the heavy soviet beasts.. The redesign happened to slow and late in the war to play a role (at least in the time the romanians fought for the axis). It saw action on the soviet side though iirc.

Read more here http://www.worldwar2.ro/arme/?article=242
 
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