P-38 Gun Dissapointment

[Ack-Ack]

Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
Rather than add a second 20MM to the 4 50's, they should have just installed 4 20MM cannons with about 250-300 rounds each instead. As hard as planes with 4 20's hit, imagine 4 20's in the nose of a P-38.

Mmmmmm....4x 20mm cannons mounted in the nose...chubby time!



ack-ack

[bozon]

Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
imagine 4 20's in the nose of a P-38.

I imagine....
and I see a mosquito!

[Bronk]

Originally posted by uvwpvW
I have yet to see guncam footage of .50 cals doing catastrophic structural damage. I believe it to be a myth. All I’ve seen are engine smoke, radiator hits and fuel fires. In AH, fuel fires are the oddities while structural failures are the norm.

Not sure if it's .50 but I'm thinking it is.

Looks like something flies off. May not be catastrophic but I'd guess if enough hits were made, might just take off a bigger piece.


109

Breakup


Bronk


Edit: just checked what that fg flew .  They flew 51/47 so it was .50s.

[Kweassa]

I have yet to see guncam footage of .50 cals doing catastrophic structural damage. I believe it to be a myth. All I’ve seen are engine smoke, radiator hits and fuel fires. In AH, fuel fires are the oddities while structural failures are the norm.

- uvwpvW

Not sure if it's .50 but I'm thinking it is.

Looks like something flies off. May not be catastrophic but I'd guess if enough hits were made, might just take off a bigger piece.

-bronk

 I'm no expert at this, but the way the 'blast' definately seems to indicate .50 API rounds rather than 20mm shells. Again, since I'm no expert I can't say I've seen at every guncam footage nor my comments are entirely accurate, but I did make some observations and small analysis in the guncams Mosq was grateful enough to post.

 The footage which would provide helpful info, in this case, would be the 'breakup' footage Mosq posted and Bronk linked to this thread. My observation (as you can also see in the main forums in Mosq's thread) is;

The "break-up" footage is one of the very rare cases I've ever seen a Luftwaffe plane go through an immediate, abrupt structural failure by being shot with .50s. I'm no expert, and the guncam footages I've seen are merely what goes around in the internet, but in most cases the .50s would rarely cause such a sudden, catastrophic structural failure. At first I suspected the .50s might have detonated the ammunition of the gondolas, but the target 109 was clearly in clean configuration with no gunpods.

I looked at frame to frame and realized the .50s, landed a remarkably well grouped barrage of shots concentrated on the left wing of the 109, just a to little bit left of the radiator exhaust. A near perfect shot, in perfect convergence - one of the best shots I've ever seen in guncam films. Probably sawed right through the segments of wing spars there.

-kweassa

 I'm not aware of what kind of plane the guncam footage is from, but if it is from standard P-51s or P-47s that kind of perfect shot is rare. The great average of what we'd see in guncams is usually a barrage of .50s spread out through a certain sizeable area on the target plane. You'd usually see something like the smoke, flash, puff and debris from the tail section, rudder, elevators, wingroots, and etc etc.. - hits landing in a quite wide pattern on the enemy plane.

 But the 'breakup' footage clearly shows you what the .50s can do when they land at its ideal pattern. It literally saws it off. I haven't seen any internal 'detonation' manifest before the left wing snaps off, so it seems to be clearly a result of .50s 'sawing them off' instead of 'blowing something inside the wing, that causes subsequential structural failure'.


 My 2cents.

[Kweassa]

PS)


 Went through the 'breakup footage' again.

 It seems some of the left wing still stays intact despite the 'breakup' - I'm not sure, but to me it looks like something caused a big chunk of the trailing edge part of the left wing to fall of. The concentrated barrage of the .50s must have detached or sawed off something vital to keep that part together - but most parts of the left wing, are still left intact.

 I went through again on the part the 109 flips over, and noticed something I haven't seen before. The 'flipping over' might not have been entirely the result of the parts of the left wing falling off. Just as the shots begin to land, I've noticed what seems to be the aierlon deflected.

 The first group of shots land near the left wingroot (and parts of the left rear fuselage). After that the barrage concentrates on the middle of the wing. The last, final big incendiary flash lands on the left wing, at the right edge of the left aielron  and bam! The left aileron is suddenly deflected. However, the right aileron is not.

 It could be something just hanging loose, instead of being an aileron, but if it is indeed an aileron, then the deflection wasn't caused by the pilot, since the right aileron stays neutral. There was no pilot input, the barrage of shots caused some kind of malfunction of the controls, the left aileron deflects, as a big chunk of the left wing falls out, abrupt change in the attitude of the attitude of the airflow on the left wing, and the 109 is 'snaprolled'. The speed of the 'roll', and attitude of it clearly indicates the plane being out of control, while the large part of the left wing is still intact.


 
 So now..

 I'm not sure if it was really the result of .50s "sawing off" the leftwing.

[Widewing]

Here's a sequence of gun camera frames showing a 109 getting clobbered by .50 cals at high deflection. Notice that HTC has managed to duplicate hits rather well.









My regards,

Widewing

[Widewing]

Here's an interesting montage of gun camera film (some in color), mostly from P-38s in the SWPA. Be advised, Active X must be enabled.

Gun Camera Footage

My regards,

Widewing

[Platano]

Why all this video footage of 109's getting ther arses kicked??

wheres all the German footage shooting down spits and ponies and buffs???

[Ack-Ack]

OH NO!  It's a Luftwhiner!



ack-ack

[Platano]

Originally posted by Ack-Ack
OH NO!  It's a Luftwhiner!



ack-ack

chillax it aint that serious...

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Ack-Ack
OH NO!  It's a Luftwhiner!



ack-ack

Don't make any sudden movements....they ARE an endangered species, you know....

[Platano]

NO but seriously all Luftwhines aside, anybody know of any german guncam footage?

[Widewing]

Originally posted by Platano
NO but seriously all Luftwhines aside, anybody know of any german guncam footage?

Luftwaffe gun camera video on DVD

My regards,

Widewing

[Bronk]

Kweassa
IMHO
What it looks like to me in the break up is...

The attacker gets good hits on the wing tip and it more or less splits open.

It doesn't look like an aileron that far out and that small. There is no right aileron deflection. The outer part of the left wing does come off.

I think that is significant structural damage .



Bronk

[Kweassa]

It's a bit confusing for sure.

 When the initial attack happens, and parts start flying out, it looks like the whole left wing has snapped. Especially when you see the violent spinning out of control, you get the impression that the structural damage done to the left wing was something severe.

 But as I look frame by frame after the 109 goes into its first spin, when it becomes inverted, the more I look at it the more it feels like the entire left wing is almost unharmed.. follow the lines of the edges and the wing is still there...

 Frankly, I'm a bit stumped. The only incidence I can imagine of a plane going into that kind of spin is when one wing is snapped off.. yet a large part of the wing still remanins intact... Could partial structural failure evoke such violent spinning out of control, despite a large part of the wing staying intact? While AH is merely a game when a plane loses half a wing still many of them remains control for quite some time with desparate pilot input on the stick to stabilize the plane.


 Could it be because the pilot was already dead when the 'breakup' happened?