"half of all "kills" were due to hits on the turret" Topic

'As part of the Centurion purchase, the UK had supplied volumes of data from World War II and Korean War tank engagements. These demonstrated that a full half of all "kills" were due to hits on the turret or the turret ring. Hits on the lower portion of the tank were much more rare. These statistics also suggested that the chance of being hit was strongly related to the overall height of the tank.'

Quite interesting for Wikipedia!

link

Presumably as crews tried, as far as possible, to go Hull down?

Yes, Martin, this struck me as one of those factoids that is factually true but could be quite misleading.

It's like that story about how damaged 8th Air Force bombers were coming home with lots of holes in the wings and tail planes, therefore they obviously needed more armour on the wings and tail. Except they didn't because the ones that didn't come home at all were those hit in the engines and fuselage.

The more useful stat would be how many rounds hit in each location and how many in doing so destroyed the tank. If every hit out of 10 destroyed the turret while five out of 10 destroyed the tank by hitting the hull you might draw a different conclusion.

I was just quite surprised to learn that the UK had data on where tanks got hit.

I have never seen a survey that says most hits are on the turret and I see the Wiki mention is unreferenced. The gold-standard for tank casualty data is the 1945 Medical survey that also collected info on hits etc. It is by far the most thorough look at the subject. Every tank has a 'hit chart' and this is but one type of M4.

It didn't say "most", it said half. Which is a larger proportion than you would expect, based on the relative surface areas.

But kills and hits aren't synonymous. Maybe turret hits are just very deadly.

The survey counted hits not just penetrations. Each strike is numbered and linked to a specific tank/Regiment. For instance in the M4 V illustrated every hit on surveyed M4 V is shown on the drawings. There are also drawings for strikes on M4 II,III,Ic,Ic Hybrid,Vc Stuart, Cromwell and Comet.

Since this board is for "modern" period (1946 up), the above discussion is a moot point for this board. See the video here to understand why: link

The data given to the Swedes included KW results.

Depends what you mean by a 'kill' as well. Still, most of the turret is critical, so a penetrating hit there will likely take out a tank. Although the hull is larger, there are perhaps fewer critical points. So it would take serious analysis to find out if this was an interesting fact or not.

[I was just quite surprised to learn that the UK had data on where tanks got hit.]

The UK put a lot of effort into Operational Analysis, especially in 1944-5. The OA reports, for example, are the ones that showed conclusively that Typhoon and P-47 claims for AFVs destroyed were hugely exaggerated, but also proved that tactical airpower had a morale effect on German tank crews anyway, and a massive impact on their logistic support, so even if the Typhoons and P-47s were not actually killing tanks, they were emasculating armoured forces by taking out their fuel tankers and softskin trucks..

It was also British OA reports from North Africa that showed that the main cause of tanks catching fire was not petrol vs diesel, but ammunition fires, one reason why the US moved to embrace wet stowage.

Korea has very hilly terrain which may account for the excess hits on the turret.

If the hit chart for the Sherman V is from Europe it could explain why there are many hits in the lower hull because the terrain was flatter than Korea.

Wolfhag

To further DBS303, indeed, I have learnt very recently, it was not the fuel type that was the problem when hit, it was the stored ammo.

But even then, the first thing that brewed up was the propellant in the shiny brass bit, not the pointy bit at the front that actually came out of the main armament. Wet storage was probably less important than keeping that stuff under the floor and a loader's hatch and large hatches for the driver and assist did not hurt either (and, yes, they should be called doors by all accounts)

Ammmo explosions and turret hits are not unrelated. Figure most kills--as opposed to repairable damage--come from fire or explosion, and ammo needs to be fairly close to the gun breech in the turret.

So the part of the tank which must be exposed in order to fight is also the part where a hit is most likely to be a kill. It's enough to make a man think battles should be fought on tabletops.

I recall being quoted that I one UK WW2 study, only 1/3 of all hits were below 3 ft. This is not unreasonable as most ground has some undulation so the visible center (and presumably the area not likely to stop the round before hitting the tank) of mass, typically will be higher than the theoretical center of mass based on viewing from a perfectly flat plain.

I am surprised the hits below 3ft were as common as 1/3 to be honest. Your point about ground cover is well made, but, even without, I would have expected the vast majority (far more than 2/3) at 6-9 feet.