Krusty:Kweassa, consider the .32 revolver vs the .44 revolver. Fire at a barn wall (made of wood planks) with a .32 and you put a hol in the wood. Fire at the barn wall with a .44 and you snap the entire plank of wood in half and send it flying (leaving a larger gap in the wall where that used to be). Imagine a mostly wood box car being hit by 6x50cal MGs with 100s of rounds a minute. It'll be KINDLING baby!
It'd be in rags and pieces. Not "cut in half".
A boxed car is a relatively small target with brittle surface. Strafing methods in WW2 were typically "walking the shots in", which the bullet landing patterns will start out wide, get narrower as the target nears the exact convergence range the guns are set, and than widen again as the range becomes closer than the convergence setting.
Nobody particularly questioned the vet's statement.
Mando, logically pointed out it was an exaggeration, and you'd need surgical precision hits on a stable platform to really 'cut it in half' - except, someone starts to claim that statements should be accepted
literally. (and preferably without any evidence)ps) The higher the power of penetration is, the less damage it will do to ambient surfaces. The reason why your example of small arms snaps wooden planks is actually because it is weak. If you shoot at a wooden surface with rounds that is not hollow point, or doesn't shatter upon impact, or is not disfigured, it leaves a clear hole.
I think what many people have is the misconception that a bullet will just make a hole. Sure the rifle caliber rounds will. But when a 50cal hits a piece of aluminum that's on a wing, it's not just making a hole and passing through. It's probably snapping rivets around that panel, warping it, having half of it curl up, or even ripping it right off (due to a combination of warp, snapped rivets, wind sheer, what have you), resulting in some structural integrity (the surface of the wing was load bearing, to an extend), and definitely a loss in lift and an increase in drag. Again, imagine with 6x 50cal, 100s of rounds a minute.
That's not what the battle damage pics show. A group of .50s landing at a concentrated spot does wreck havoc on a surface. The more precise this concentration is, the closer it becomes to almost mimicing the effects of cannon fire.
However, firing on a small plane that is maneuvering through the air, with the gun platform itself mounted on a wing that is susceptible to flex and vibrations, with multiple convergence issues, and difficulty of general targetting? That's a totally different story.
P.S. Don't forget: Most planes didn't HAVE empty spaces anywhere. Except the tail, in most cases. Most wings were filled with vital systems. Consider the 109, one of the common targets for the 6x50cal planes. The wings were filled with radiator equipment, sometimes ammunition, controls, and so forth. Yes there is some empty spaces, but all in all you're more likely to HIT something than to MISS something.
No objections here. I totally agree.
But that's exactly why I mentioned in the earlier post that it's a DM issue, not a .50 issue. .50 fire should have higher probability of damaging internal systems, and less probability of snapping surfaces off..
except AH DM rarely has any internal DM we know of(rods.. cables.. spars..), and all damage is more or less received and dealt directly on the surface - which consequences result in strutural failure as the main reason of planes being shot down - as opposed to what .50 guncam footage shows. And I'm not opposing this kind of change. I want it too.
It's not the .50 modelling is wrong. It's the DM that is insufficient.
Elfie:I saw a show on the history channel where several surviving P-47 pilots said they did that. Dont recall the name of the show atm though.
Thanks for that Elfie. Now since clearly someone saw this recorded interview, I guess some of you guys must conclude that the particular vet story should also be taken literally!
SlapShot:I see nowhere in this thread anyone asking that these gentlemen be deified ... only not to summarily dismiss them as exagerating and embelishing their personal experiences.
What is being said is that their personal observations and many hours of experience in WII fighter planes in actual combat hold a lot more weight and truth than those who have absolutely 0 hours in any WWII fighter plane and spent 0 hours fighting in WWII.
Except you will accept their experiences without any logical concern on the situational matter. You will take it literally and not question it, and accept it as a fact, because they said so.
That may not be 'deifying', but it is giving up logical/scientifical approach towards proving a claim.
Your remarks are typical of
empiricism which assumes everything anyone has to say must come with experience, and those who have experience will always tell the truth(or, what they perceived to be true will always be really "true").
Except people like Tony Williams or Emmanuel Gustin also has absolutely ZERO hours in WW2 aerial combat and yet they provide as much - in some cases even more - insight and scientifical proof in what the aerial gunnery was like in those days, than your typical "vet".
Lucky for us, God gave us something we call logical analogy. By examining pieces of facts and evidence we can piece up an accurate picture of what happened. Experience helps, but it's not the only thing that can prove anything.
Besides, if we should follow your logic, you shouldn't be objecting to us since you're not the person who flew those fighters and made those claims. You also have no knowledge whatsoever in what shooting stuff is like, and thus, you also base your statements on facts and pieces which YOU perceive to be logical. You're also using your own process of logical analysis without concern to firsthand experience, just like every one of us.
In short, according to your empiricism, you shouldn't even be posting here. Because obviously you know nothing about what it is like and thus, have no substance which you can put against us to discredit our claims.
Please ... tell us your eyewitness accounts of what happened in WWII when you flew fighter missions or any accounts of your experiences in WWII ... oh ... thats right ... you weren't alive then ... but u can summarily dismiss those that were.
That's not a denial.
Do we need to experience to know that cramming pig stickers up our arses is gonna smart? Do we need to experience to know that a physical object travelling at X miles of speed at Y angles of impact will or will not penetrate Z thickness of metal? If it be so why did humanity even bother with science?
Or maybe science does not apply in this case, and it's some divine intervention that allows .50 rounds to bounce off road surfaces and penetrate inches of hardened metal, because German made tanks were evil incarnate?
