Perfect non angled sideshot is rare and not worth considering, you absolut …
Edit: I’m sorry, I got very annoyed.
You are creating perfect fantasy/rare scenarios to make.your **** shell look good. If you are flying level and low, you can’t even spot targets and you are insta dead vs enemy planes and most SPAAs.
HVAP angled pen drop is way worse than with API, pen gain from plane speed is relatively smaller too.
I go for the roof. Which is waaay better idea overal. You keep counting on hitting lower T-34 angled side from a shallow dive while getting .50 called to death by everyone and their mother.
Oh and good luck with side shots vs targets in cities, in mountains and ravines. Most maps also have hills. The attack patern of flying level and shooting sides is just not viable in many, many cases.
While going from 45-50 degrees I can avoid most of the terrain, I can actually spot targets and retain more speed.
it doesnt need to be perfect. But it also yout choise to attack a machine angled 45*, not 5 to 10*.
Up until 30* APCR pens more with all distances, and to pick target with <30* angle is pretty easy done.
I do go for a roof only for one or two first attacks. Then you just dont have neither energy nor time to regain it. So you`re left with shooting from low altitude.
Also people are notorious for hugging terrain features.
Going at 50 degrees means 2 things.
You can just slap people regardless of.most.terrain features.
You don’t have to care about their angle, as roof is always available.
When using 262 with 50mm I got immensely frustrated by people making turns and making my shots bounce.
Also when diving at 20-30 degrees (because one has to go up to spot targets anyway) the side gets already stronger. Now add lateral angle.
Meanwhile with roof very rarely your target can surprise you.
Generally, I see how some people may like HVAP.
But for me and my attack profile API is better.
I had it happen to me with the swedish 600kg bomb (the thing has what? 480kg tnt equivalent?). I hit the tiger dead on the front plate. My bomb bounced of and landed in front of him (2second fuse) and he took no damage at all.
ah but its usualy one option you are left with after first dive
I find it quite difficult with anything i have with MK103 to do top down attacks. You either run out of energy in instant or smack the ground. So i pick the safe route
Do-335 A0 and A1 can perform dives and climbs till they run out of ammo, reaching over 500km/h in the dives.
With 70 ammo, it really makes a difference.
Me-410 is kinda bad, but still, you can do about 3 passes and then just reclimb for 30s. But yeah, that plane is “do something quick before you die” kind of affair.
Practice is test flight, without using the distance markers. It really helps. API has some really broken performance vs angles, so 50 degrees dive will be enough vs most targets. 335A1 is quite nimble (for 335) so you can pull up fairly close to the ground.
Of course HVAP indeed is way better vs T-34 side, as T-34 side is a goddamn black hole for API from level flight, which I did not expect. However, with APCR in the same scenario I needed so many hits it just wasn’t viable. The best shot is back of the turret roof penetration straight into ammo. API is way better at detonating it BTW.
