Picture of the day

The "Blacker Bombard", large and fearsome father of the PIAT:

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Not hugely useful, but something in the dark days of 1940...
 
Bazooka Charlie (Lt. Col. Charles Carpenter) and his "slightly" custom L-4 Grasshopper, aka "Rosie the Rocketer".

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Just because you're job title says "observer", doesn't mean you can't shoot. Credited with 6 tank kills, and numerous MV and AFV kills, by the end of the war. After 1945, returned to his peacetime occupation as a High School history teacher.
 
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Ten minutes later, the RSM, armed with a bat, was getting the lads to "scrub that flimshaw offa there, right goddamn now, before the BC sees it!"

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I guess that was KB722, and was quite famous in her time. The CWH painted the Mynarski Lanc to represent her for a while:

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Flown on at least 33 operations including 419 Squadron's last operation on April 25th 1945 against the enemy defences on Wangerooge.
Flown on that occasion by F/L J E Short. Ropey had a number of different crews flying it during the months of March and April of 1945, including P/O Rickert. F/O D S Bowes (Heide), F/O J C MacNeil (Kiel) and F/O M F Martin (Schwandorf)

KB 722 was returned to Canada and was awaiting further use with Tiger Force.
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And what came after the Lanc? The Lincoln:

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Doubtless a superior aircraft to the Lanc, but there's something off about her lines. She looks like that girl we all knew in high school who was tall and bony-kneed, but when we saw her at the 10-year reunion, she was a devestator. Yeah, Elke Becker, I'm talking about you... :)
 
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Before restoration
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http://www.cidadevirtual.pt/fragata/restoration.html

Current Condition
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Dom Fernando II e Glória is a wooden-hulled, 50 gun frigate of the Portuguese Navy. She was launched in 1843 and made her maiden voyage in 1845.[2] Built at the shipyard of Daman in Portuguese India, it was Portugal's last sailing warship to be built and also the last ship that undertook the Carreira da Índia (India Run),[3] a regular military line that connected Portugal to its colonies in India since the beginning of the 16th century.

The ship remained in active service until 1878, when she made her last sea voyage, having travelled more than one hundred thousand miles, the equivalent of five circumnavigations of the world.

After long service it was almost destroyed by a fire in 1963 with the burned wooden-hull remaining beached at the mud-flats of the river Tagus for the next 29 years. Finally in 1990 the Portuguese Navy decided to restore her to her appearance in the 1850s. During the World Exhibition of 1998 the ship remained in Lisbon as a museum ship on the dependency of the Navy Museum, being classified as an Auxiliary Navy Unit (UAM 203). Since 2008, the ship lies on the southern margin of the Tagus river in Cacilhas, Almada.
 
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grelmar said:
Bazooka Charlie (Lt. Col. Charles Carpenter) and his "slightly" custom L-4 Grasshopper, aka "Rosie the Rocketer".

6fc696a5afdfc6a0cc23e550e17653d3.jpg


Just because you're job title says "observer", doesn't mean you can't shoot. Credited with 6 tank kills, and numerous MV and AFV kills, by the end of the war. After 1945, returned to his peacetime occupation as a High School history teacher.
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This is awesome. Tank busting from a cub, the guy could only carry 2 rockets because his balls exceeded gross weight. I’d say this is a perfect example to use the phrase “where there is a will, there is a way.”
 
GarandStanding said:
This is awesome. Tank busting from a cub, the guy could only carry 2 rockets because his balls exceeded gross weight. I’d say this is a perfect example to use the phrase “where there is a will, there is a way.”
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I wonder how true it is. I was reading somewhere that air attacks on armour was extremely ineffective with something like less than 5% of fired rockets or bombs hitting their targets.
 
Tikka223 said:
I wonder how true it is. I was reading somewhere that air attacks on armour was extremely ineffective with something like less than 5% of fired rockets or bombs hitting their targets.
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It was quite a challenge to hit single targets. Chances improved when an aircraft was able to engage a convoy or group of vehicles parked in rows or lined up on a road.
 
Tikka223 said:
I wonder how true it is. I was reading somewhere that air attacks on armour was extremely ineffective with something like less than 5% of fired rockets or bombs hitting their targets.
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Most of those attacks were done in a fairly traditional manner, and the bombs were dropped/rockets fired, from a considerable distance.

"Bazooka Charlie" was a bit of a special case. His tactic was to come in low (trimming the wheat field low), and hold his fire until he was within 100 yards, and often much less. Other scout pilots tried to copy him, and quickly gave up on it as far too terrifying to attempt.

At least two of his tank kills were doing close air support for infantry who were able to over-run the German position as a result, and able to confirm the kills on the spot.

In another case, after shooting up a small supply column, he landed beside the wrecked vehicles, dismounted and grabbed a discarded rifle, then captured and held a half dozens Germans who hadn't run fast enough, then casually waited for American infantry to catch up with him to take his prisoners into custody so he could fly back to base.

Charlie appears to have been that perfect combination of fearless, foolish, and lucky.
 
I read about this many years ago in a military history magazine. If I remember it right his first kill was a tank that was hull down behind a wall/rubble. He warned off an approaching US unit and stayed on station to call in artillery, which destroyed the tank and saved the GIs from an ambush. Another was a similar situation but by then he had rigged the bazookas and he was able to come in from behind and put a rocket or two into the back end of the tank. Apparently if the tank was running they couldn't hear his 65hp Piper engine over their own noise and he could get in close from behind. His trigger was a piece of 2x4 with some toggle switches that he held in his lap.
 
Cottage Hill Bill said:
I read about this many years ago in a military history magazine. If I remember it right his first kill was a tank that was hull down behind a wall/rubble. He warned off an approaching US unit and stayed on station to call in artillery, which destroyed the tank and saved the GIs from an ambush. Another was a similar situation but by then he had rigged the bazookas and he was able to come in from behind and put a rocket or two into the back end of the tank. Apparently if the tank was running they couldn't hear his 65hp Piper engine over their own noise and he could get in close from behind. His trigger was a piece of 2x4 with some toggle switches that he held in his lap.
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That actually sounds really plausible then. Wow, my hat is off to him.
 
Not the only time a Cub proved its worth as a fighter. There was also an incident in the Italian Alps in which a Cub pilot was credited with destroying a ME109 in air-to-air combat. When the Cub pilot was jumped by the 109, he flew into a box canyon, pursued by the 109. When he reached the end of the canyon, he executed a u-urn. The 109 couldn't turn as sharply, and hit the wall.
 
grelmar said:
Most of those attacks were done in a fairly traditional manner, and the bombs were dropped/rockets fired, from a considerable distance.

"Bazooka Charlie" was a bit of a special case. His tactic was to come in low (trimming the wheat field low), and hold his fire until he was within 100 yards, and often much less. Other scout pilots tried to copy him, and quickly gave up on it as far too terrifying to attempt.

At least two of his tank kills were doing close air support for infantry who were able to over-run the German position as a result, and able to confirm the kills on the spot.

In another case, after shooting up a small supply column, he landed beside the wrecked vehicles, dismounted and grabbed a discarded rifle, then captured and held a half dozens Germans who hadn't run fast enough, then casually waited for American infantry to catch up with him to take his prisoners into custody so he could fly back to base.

Charlie appears to have been that perfect combination of fearless, foolish, and lucky.
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Range was up to 400 yds, one would think you could make the most effective use of that from the air.

Grizz
 
The Russe pilots must have had standing orders to bomb the ever loving daylights out of any German super gun. Read a quick snippet in which it was said one of the mortars was almost completely annihilated in combat, with only the breech salvageable. Due to enemy action or a faulty fuze???

It seems they were not quite suitable for the highly mobile operations later in the war, esp. with Axis air superiority being put under such intense pressure.
 
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Regarding Dom Fernando II e Glória ship-is Portugese Navy restoring that ship to sailing condition or static ,floating museum?

Museum site doesn't say anything about it so I'm guessing static display.
 
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