Yeager on Air-to-Air Gunnery

[joeblogs]

Lundstom's history of the first year of USN combat credits our emphasis on gunnery training, in particular deflection shooting, to the success through December 1942.

-Blogs

Originally posted by Shuckins
While exercising my thumbs with the remote the other day I ran across a program on the Discovery Channel about the history of air combat.

During an interview with Chuck Year he stated that 11% of the fighter pilots in America's armed forces during World War II shot down 90% of all enemy aircraft destroyed in aerial combat.  He also stated that research showed that, almost without fail, these outstanding marksmen were raised in rural settings and had hunted rabbits and birds and were therefore more familiar with deflection shooting.

Being a suthun boy, I don't doubt that for a minute.  But I was wondering if anyone has any real data on this.  I'm inclined to take his word for it, but I would like to see it backed up by the results of an actual study.

Comments or opinions?

Regards, Shuckins/Leggern

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by Kweassa
Mr.Williams, I've always wondered about this; just how much would "skill factor" effect the 'effective range' pf gunnery('effective', not as in machine specs, but as in a reasonable distance which damaging/killing target fighters can be expected)?

 It's been long debated to how differences in experience allow a virtual pilot to shoot and hit something so much further out in distance than what history suggests. I understand that logically, a pilot with better gunnery would be able to hit further out, but how much further can we expect? Two-fold? Three-fold?
 

I think it's impossible to be precise. There is no doubt that a skilled shot in WW2 could hit targets at a longer distance than the average, but how much further would depend on the circumstances and of course the degree of skill of the pilot.

I would be wary of drawing direct parallels with combat sims. I've never played them, but I have heard from sim designers that they deliberately make it easier to score hits than in RL, because otherwise players would get bored with missing all the time and would stop playing.

Having said that, there is no doubt that a realistic sim would have been a great training aid in WW2, and would have helped pilots improve their accuracy. I don't think it would have increased the performance of the good shots by much, just brought the average up by improving the bad shots (i.e. most of them) to a reasonable level.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Originally posted by Rasker
Otoh I've heard it said that Bong was a superb pilot but lousy shot.    I guess the exception that proves the rule.

After being sent home, Bong returned to his unit to be a gunnery instructor, and flew more missions, to score more kills. The vast majority of criticism of Bong's marksmanship came from Bong. They called him "Bing" Bong, because he got so close when he shot that his plane almost always had some sort of damage from the debris flying off of his victims.

McGuire was said to be a natural marksman, but he also criticized his ability regularly. He also said when he thought he was close enough to shoot, he'd get closer. Then before he pulled the trigger, he'd get closer than that.

[MiloMorai]

When the K-14 sight was introduced, did not this aid the average(gunnery) pilot in his shooting accuracy? Heard it was called the ace maker.

[Crumpp]

Yeah from everything I have read VERY few pilots were any kind of long distance marksman.  

I've got a Luftwaffe study on weapon effectiveness and marksmanship in bring down the USAAF heavies.  According to it the Average B17 could be shoot down with 20 x 20 mm cannon shells from an Mg151.  Each FW-190 carried 780 rounds of 20 mm so in theory one FW-190 could bring down dozens of Bombers.

The reality the study concluded was that only 11 percent of the pilots could hit with the required 20 rounds using 100 percent of the ammo load of the 20mm carried by the FW-190.  The average pilot only landed Hits with about 1.5 percent of his ammo or between 12-15 rounds.  

The study concluded in order to ensure a shoot down StaffleKaptians were ordered to assign two fighters to each bomber then the average pilot would be able to achieve the 20 rounds required to bring a B17 down.

Crumpp

[MiloMorai]

taken from: "Gunner" ISBN 1-55046-332-2

Attacks in reference to azimuth direction only. (ie. could be high 3 o'clock)

B-17 - 3585 attacks, 441 hits (12.3%)

clock position - % of # of attacks - % hits

1 - 12.5 - 9.3
2 - 5.9 - 6.7
3 - 4.5 - 3.9
4 - 5.7 - 4.0
5 - 9.0 - 9.1
6 - 20.7 - 15.6
7 - 8.9 - 6.6
8 - 3.8 - 2.7
9 - 3.9 - 2.9
10 - 3.7 - 3.9
11 - 10.4 - 10.3
12 - 20.2 - 15.6


B-24 - 1042 attacks, 102 hits (9.8%)

clock position - % of # of attacks - % hits

1 - 12.7 - 8.7
2 - 3.9 - 5.2
3 - 2.9 - 5.4
4 - 3.0 - 3.6
5 - 7.8 - 7.7
6 - 19.6 - 20.6
7 - 11.0 - 6.9
8 - 3.1 - 2.0
9 - 2.8 - 3.9
10 - 6.9 - 3.4
11 - 11.9 - 7.8
12 - 21.6 - 17.6

It was a borrowed book, so can't check the  %s  (don't add up to 100%). Anyone have the book, so the data can be corrected?

What is interesting is the hit % is better with rear attacks from the starboard side and better with frontal attacks on the port side. Any ideas why?

[Shuckins]

In any discussion on air-to-air marksmanship the thousand pound gorilla is convergence.  It severely limits the distance at which a target may be hit by a pilot's weapons.  Because of convergence almost all fighters with wing mounted weapons had to get in close to their target in order to score hits.

Pilots who flew fighters with centerline, or line-of-sight weapons had a much easier task when it came to scoring hits.  They didn't have to worry about crap such as estimating where the shells from their wing mounted weapons converged, plus bullet drop, airplane speed, and deflection.  When the convergence equation was eliminated, gunnery became much easier.

I'll bet if you checked the scores of AH's top sticks who fly P-38's or 109's exclusively, or almost any other fighter with centerline weapons, their hit percentages on targets would be considerably better than the scores of pilot's who fly fighters with wing-mounted weaponry.

Regards, Shuckins/Leggern

[ra]

Pilots who flew fighters with centerline, or line-of-sight weapons had a much easier task when it came to scoring hits.

The opposite is true.  This is the reason Galland wanted the 109F to retain 2 wing-mounted cannon configuration of the 109E, rather than going with the single nose-mounted one.   Wing guns give a shotgun effect which improves the odds of an average pilot scoring a hit.

[Shuckins]

Ra,

I believe what Galland was referring to there (I'm familiar with the quote) is weight of fire.  He feared that the day would come when Germany's young pilot's, fresh out of a flight training program that was feeling wartime pressures, with a minimum number of hours, would need as large a number of weapons as possible in order to score a hit.  In other words, in the case of the 109, five guns are preferable to three.  The large number of weapons Galland was asking for were needed to compensate for a lack of gunnery training and also to have more hitting power.  It wasn't really a "marksmanship" issue.

Regards, Shuckins/Leggern

[WarRaidr]

what helped Yeager the most was his exceptional eyesight 20/10 in his first book he stated that he could see the LW boys at 50 miles and could plan well in advance

Galland is exceptional when you consider that he was blind in 1 eye and had to cheat on his eye tests

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Originally posted by WarRaidr
what helped Yeager the most was his exceptional eyesight 20/10 in his first book he stated that he could see the LW boys at 50 miles and could plan well in advance

Galland is exceptional when you consider that he was blind in 1 eye and had to cheat on his eye tests

FIFTY MILES? I find that very difficult to believe. I respect Yeager
but I'm not a big fan. As a test pilot he may have had no peer, but I'm not sure he was as good a fighter pilot as legend would have you believe.

[United]

Originally posted by Puck
One of the drills they put my dad through in  gunner school was to shoot trap from the back of a moving pickup truck.  They'd roll by the trap houses and have to shoot clay (or whatever they used in the 40s) pigeons on the fly.  Supposed to help teach them about hitting moving targets from a moving platform.

Thats what they did for my grandfather, B24 waist/ball gunner.  He said he did excellent in the pickup training, and I have to believe him.  I watched him (on more than 1 occasion) roll a tire with a piece of paper in the middle down a hill and put .22 rounds through the middle of it, consistantly.

[Puck]

Originally posted by United
Thats what they did for my grandfather, B24 waist/ball gunner.  He said he did excellent in the pickup training, and I have to believe him.  I watched him (on more than 1 occasion) roll a tire with a piece of paper in the middle down a hill and put .22 rounds through the middle of it, consistantly.

B-24 Emerson nose/ball turret.  I still have his (original) gunners file from 'way back when.

Wish we had the dual speed turrets, but he always said the hydraulic rear turret was so jerky you coudn't harldy aim it.

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by WarRaidr
what helped Yeager the most was his exceptional eyesight 20/10 in his first book he stated that he could see the LW boys at 50 miles and could plan well in advance

Galland is exceptional when you consider that he was blind in 1 eye and had to cheat on his eye tests

From what I remember about that book is both Yeager and Anderson tested out to 20/10 and could cleary see bandits at 10 miles.

[Crumpp]

I believe you are right, Ra.

Wing mounted weaponry does increase the AVERAGE pilots ability to hit a target.  So doesn't removing the tracers believe it or not.  

However centerline mounted weaponry can hit accurately to a much longer range than wing mounted due to convergence of the wing mounted guns.  A superior marksman will do better with the centerline mounted weapon because his "sector of fire" is bigger.  Your average pilot needs the wieght of fire and cone of fire of wing mounted guns to make the few hits he lands count and increase his "beaten zone" to land those hits.  

Crumpp