Picture of the day

All of those .50's aboard the B-17's were likely more of a comfort thing for the crews than an effective deterrent. An awful lot to think about under stress at 20,000'.

I wonder how many hits made on bombers in box formation were actually stray rounds from friendlies?
 
Ganderite said:
Once explained, I understood the idea that the bullet would move sideways, with the plane - but until that movie, I had no idea.
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I must say that if I were an old antelope hunter from the windy mid-western plains I would be very dubious of any value in that movie making me a better waist gunner...until I actually had the opportunity to prove it to myself.

The narration makes no mention of the 350 mph wind deflection or range to the target when calculating the "Rad" increments. What is considered "in range" in the example given, a starting range of 500 m or 1000m or 2000m of a fighter that is closing at 400 mph.

The big question for me would be the wind deflection. All of the offered examples show a direct straight line to bullet impact from the bomber gun. From my own tests at my range I can tell you that a 50 kmh wind will easily cause a 4 moa deflection at 100 yrds so how can a bullet fired in a 350 mph wind impact in a straight line 1000m from where it was fired...not gonna happen. If your bullet retained all its fired mv out to 1000m your poi would be at least 35 ft to the side of your target but allowing for bullet fps to decline with distance you could very easily be 50 ft to one side...and this doesn't take into account for bullet drop & closing distance of the target at all.
 
I think it's cool that people seventy years on can learn something from the studio that gave us Henry Chickenhawk and Yosemite Sam. :)

Speaking of aerial gunnery, did you know a few Mk. I Lancasters were fitted with ventral turrets? Here's R5727, the "pattern Lanc" flown to Canada preparatory to the building of the FM series Lancaster Mk. X birds in Malton.

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The Lanc's #1 blind spot was underneath, a fact the Nachtgeschwader folks knew very well. Their Schragemusik install took full advantage of it. The obvious fix was the installation of something to ward off attacks from below, and nothing says "not today, Fritz" like machine gun fire.

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Fired by periscope from inside the fuselage, the FN-64 install was neither widespread, nor popular, nor terribly effective. Gunners couldn't see enough to be useful, it weighed more than the aircraft liked, and added complexity.

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(Looks like version 0.1 of playing with your phone while "dropping a load"...)

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It appears there is exactly one of these things left. It's in the hands of a welding and manufacturing concern in the UK.

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That should polish out.

One more idea that should have worked but didn't. The space was far more effectively used by the H2S blister.

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fingers284 said:
The narration makes no mention of the 350 mph wind deflection or range to the target when calculating the "Rad" increments. What is considered "in range" in the example given, a starting range of 500 m or 1000m or 2000m of a fighter that is closing at 400 mph.

The big question for me would be the wind deflection. All of the offered examples show a direct straight line to bullet impact from the bomber gun. From my own tests at my range I can tell you that a 50 kmh wind will easily cause a 4 moa deflection at 100 yrds so how can a bullet fired in a 350 mph wind impact in a straight line 1000m from where it was fired...not gonna happen. If your bullet retained all its fired mv out to 1000m your poi would be at least 35 ft to the side of your target but allowing for bullet fps to decline with distance you could very easily be 50 ft to one side...and this doesn't take into account for bullet drop & closing distance of the target at all.
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Wind deflection is not a factor, both of the aircraft and the bullet are in the air so equally effected not on the ground like an antelope and hunter with just the bullet traveling in the air.

Dan
 
Sharps '74 said:
All of those .50's aboard the B-17's were likely more of a comfort thing for the crews than an effective deterrent. An awful lot to think about under stress at 20,000'.

I wonder how many hits made on bombers in box formation were actually stray rounds from friendlies?
Click to expand...

The USAAF formations were supposedly very disciplined and tight compared to "masses" of Cdn crewed Bomber Command warplanes. Not sure if a RAF bombing mission consisted of a great enough percentage of Canadians to make it a noteworthy difference. Seen it described in old books (increasingly all we have to go on) as a 'gaggle' of Cdn bombers.

There is a great interview with Steinhoff in which he described the terror of attacking an Allied bomber formation. Not a cake walk. Steinhoff described 50 sometimes 100 machineguns firing at one Axis interceptor.
 
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Makes sense the USAAF would keep tight bomber formations...... since they mostly flew in daylight, while we, with the RAF flew strategic bombers at night. No amount of carrots would help at night with cloud cover that developed after the fight took off.
 
Dan B said:
Wind deflection is not a factor, both of the aircraft and the bullet are in the air so equally effected not on the ground like an antelope and hunter with just the bullet traveling in the air.

Dan
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Nope don't think so....two waist gunners could throw a ball back and forth all day inside that plane but let one of them miss the ball and it go out the window...that ball will turn a right angle immediately and go by the tailpiece at the speed of the forward motion of the plane. Parachutist or water dropped from a water bomber hit the ground a long ways behind the drop plane, neither will continue on at the speed of the plane when released. Wind is wind no mater if man made at 20,000 ft or mother nature on the ground...a bullet will not be able to differentiate between the two.
 
fingers284 said:
I must say that if I were an old antelope hunter from the windy mid-western plains I would be very dubious of any value in that movie making me a better waist gunner...until I actually had the opportunity to prove it to myself.

The narration makes no mention of the 350 mph wind deflection or range to the target when calculating the "Rad" increments. What is considered "in range" in the example given, a starting range of 500 m or 1000m or 2000m of a fighter that is closing at 400 mph.

The big question for me would be the wind deflection. All of the offered examples show a direct straight line to bullet impact from the bomber gun. From my own tests at my range I can tell you that a 50 kmh wind will easily cause a 4 moa deflection at 100 yrds so how can a bullet fired in a 350 mph wind impact in a straight line 1000m from where it was fired...not gonna happen. If your bullet retained all its fired mv out to 1000m your poi would be at least 35 ft to the side of your target but allowing for bullet fps to decline with distance you could very easily be 50 ft to one side...and this doesn't take into account for bullet drop & closing distance of the target at all.
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Based on the movie:

Assume a 2500 fps bullet is fired at 90 degrees, to the side of the plane. It would also be moving in the direction of the plane at 250 mph (say 350 fps). The bullet will slow down because of air resistance, so the gunner will have to aim higher for longer range shots, and towards the tail side of the target, to compensate for the sideways motion.

At longer range the sideways motion will not be as much (air resistance) but the initial error (in feet) will always be there, so the gunner always has to aim towards the rear.
 
Yup. I can see teenaged gunners who are scared witless, shivering with cold in an oxygen depleted environment taking all these factors into consideration ...... NOT!

The Luftwaffe pilot had a huge target for his armament in a lumbering bomber, one of hundreds in tight formations. Granted, he was facing several .50 cal machineguns, but it would appear the odds were still in his favour. One quick pass with all guns blazing and dive for home, beer and bratwurst! "Let the FLAK gunners have their shot and we'll pick off the cripples on their way back."

I read that the claims made by air gunners sometimes exceeded the known number of aircraft available to the Luftwaffe. Good PR and propaganda for the folks back home.
 
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Sharps '74 said:
Yup. I can see teenaged gunners who are scared witless, shivering with cold in an oxygen depleted environment taking all these factors into consideration ...... NOT!

The Luftwaffe pilot had a huge target for his armament in a lumbering bomber, one of hundreds in tight formations. Granted, he was facing several .50 cal machineguns, but it would appear the odds were still in his favour. One quick pass with all guns blazing and dive for home, beer and bratwurst! "Let the FLAK gunners have their shot and we'll pick off the cripples on their way back."

I read that the claims made by air gunners sometimes exceeded the known number of aircraft available to the Luftwaffe. Good PR and propaganda for the folks back home.
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This last was a natural side effect of massed close formations. Any given fighter would be taking fire from half a dozen or more gunners. If the fighter flamed out, then it would be difficult to sort out who had actually scored a hit, but everyone who was firing at the time would likely make a claim.

The best solution, for morale purposes, was to give a bunch of gunners a pat on the back and say "Good job, son, you got one."

As far as the odds being in favour of the fighters... Well, kind of sort of, but not really. Even making a high speed single pass through a tight bomber formation was a pretty risky endeavour. With so many guns throwing lead around, the odds of catching a bit of it were fairly high. Fighter sweeps were at their most dangerous through broken formations or going after cripples and stragglers.
 
Not exactly "Milsurp", but definitely related. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, I can remember films similar to this. It was an odd time.

It isn't just the music in this film that's optimistic sounding. Some of the survivability predictions in this are beyond optimistic.

 
fat tony said:
The USAAF formations were supposedly very disciplined and tight compared to "masses" of Cdn crewed Bomber Command warplanes. Not sure if a RAF bombing mission consisted of a great enough percentage of Canadians to make it a noteworthy difference. Seen it described in old books (all we have to go on) as a 'gaggle' of Cdn bombers.

There is a great interview with Steinhoff in which he described the terror of attacking an Allied bomber formation. Not a cake walk. Steinhoff describes 50 sometimes 100 mahineguns firing at one Axis interceptor.
Click to expand...

RAF and RCAF bombers flew individually, at night, in a stream. There was no formation, bombers were spread out and on their own. It wasnt even a gaggle.

"A typical bomber stream of 600 to 700 aircraft was on average 8 or 10 miles broad, and 4,000 to 6,000 feet deep."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_stream
 
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Sharps '74 said:
Yup. I can see teenaged gunners who are scared witless, shivering with cold in an oxygen depleted environment taking all these factors into consideration ...... NOT!

The Luftwaffe pilot had a huge target for his armament in a lumbering bomber, one of hundreds in tight formations. Granted, he was facing several .50 cal machineguns, but it would appear the odds were still in his favour. One quick pass with all guns blazing and dive for home, beer and bratwurst! "Let the FLAK gunners have their shot and we'll pick off the cripples on their way back."

I read that the claims made by air gunners sometimes exceeded the known number of aircraft available to the Luftwaffe. Good PR and propaganda for the folks back home.
Click to expand...

Add in the desire to survive, and yeah, I can totally see it. Lanc rear gunners would fly with the center perspex taken off the turret to better see incoming fighters. They were also on oxygen with heated flight suits. Not comfortable at all, but I think you're selling them short. If your life, and the lives of your crew depends on it, you get good at your job. They were also very well trained.
 
Speaking of tail gunners...

Awful gig. Lonely, cold, scared. Mynarski's tail gunner went down with the ship and survived. Imagine being trapped in a dying aircraft and having a good minute to consider your situation and imminent fate. Terrifying.

Or not getting the opportunity to think about it at all.

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Average life expentancy of a tail gunner in Bomber Command varied through the war, but at the peak, it was about six weeks or five sorties. Some very lucky guys completed the requisite 30 ops. But most didn't. Hell of a thing to ask a kid to do.

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Years ago my instructor at PVI (later BCIT) was an Englishman named Len... can't recall the last name. He had been a tail gunner in Lancs.

He was a short, slight fellow, with an amazing sense of humour.
 
Ganderite said:
Based on the movie:

Assume a 2500 fps bullet is fired at 90 degrees, to the side of the plane. It would also be moving in the direction of the plane at 250 mph (say 350 fps). The bullet will slow down because of air resistance, so the gunner will have to aim higher for longer range shots, and towards the tail side of the target, to compensate for the sideways motion.

At longer range the sideways motion will not be as much (air resistance) but the initial error (in feet) will always be there, so the gunner always has to aim towards the rear.
Click to expand...

Just an hr after making post #742 I had the opportunity to watch an episode of "ten Best" on AHC concerning machineguns. I would have liked to have seen a "behind the gun" footage of the chain gun firing from a specter gunship but they didn't show it, they did however show a lot of footage of tracer fire from a machine gun from a helicopter gun ship. The "bullet drop" was plainly visible in the footage of the gunner shooting basically at targets a long ways behind (hard to tell range distance but looked to be 2-300 yrds) the aircraft ( the bullet drop was plainly accelerated as distance increased from firing point, the last 1/3 of bullet track/tracer curved down much more than the first 2/3). They also showed considerable footage of a door gunner firing sideways to the direction of travel and this is very interesting to this conversation. The backwards curve of the tracer rounds to the direction of travel were very evident, they were hitting the ground a fair distance behind the forward movement of the aircraft. The relationship of the forward movement of the aircraft & bullet didn't last more than a few inches from the muzzle, at that moment the ability of the bullets m.v./energy to overcome the man-made wind was the defining factor in where it hit and the video plainly showed it was a loosing battle as distance increased.
 
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