Ensign Eliminator

[F4UDOA]

Pongo,

Actually that percentage is based on combat losses per combat sortie. Not per A/C built.

Eddiek,

Where did you get the Jug's ariel K/D being 4.6:1? It looks allot higher(better) than that based on the numbers for losses I have seen.

[Ripsnort]

FYI, the F4F wildcat had a higher number of ground looping accidents than the F4U ever did, according to one author in Flight Journal.

[F4UDOA]

Widewing,

Have you seen the evaluation of the P-47, F4U, P-51 and F6F done by "The society of Experimental Test Pilots" done in 1989?

BTW, I have been unable to locate Jeff Ethell's "Buyers guide for classic Warbirds". If you have an ISBN I would really appreciate it.

Thanks
F4UDOA

[bolillo_loco]

bit off topic, but somebody else brought it up. I have fired A/P rounds in mgs at boiler plate that was about 5/8 inch thick. from the bren gun they would just stick into the plate much like an arrow does when it strikes a tree. I shot at them in an old strip mine and had plenty of 303 A/P ammo. even at weird angles of 45 degrees the A/P round would stick into the metal and not ricochet off like one would expect. Sorry, but cant comment on the A/P round for the 50 cal. everytime we shot at the plate the A/P round of the 50 cal would just punch a hole in the boiler plate that was 5/8 of an inch thick.

I wasnt testing to find ricocheting of the bullets so I didnt try it at angles less than 45 degrees. it was too hard cause the strip mine was filled with water. the plate would sometimes fall over while you were rattling it with the bren and thats why I got all kinds of different angles that the bullets struck the plate. somebody pointed out that the angle of deflection is the same as impact so if the A/P round had enough energy to punch thru the tanks thin armor, then it would also have enough energy to punch thru what ever it bounced off of. the angle would have to be less than 45 degrees cause every A/P round I fired at angles between 90 and 45 degrees would not ricochet.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by Pongo:
"The US forces used bulldozers in combat in the pacific I believe. So your stat while interesting is not as supprising as all that.
Only nations that had large % of their AC not in combat would have loss % in wartime that mirror the US experiance."

Well, I was actually attempting to make a rather lame joke, and was referring to the bulldozers wrecked in air attacks and naval bombardment at Guadalcanal. I'm sure many others were destroyed in other campaigns.

My regards,

Widewing

[Widewing]

eddiek wrote:

"Over half a million sorties (Widewing said 747,000, more specific than my source)"

I neglected to point out that the 747,000 sorties included those flown by the RAF, Brazilian and other Allied Air Forces.
However, the loss rate differed little between the various Allied Air Forces. The USAAF loss rate was 0.7% excluding non-combat losses, which were relatively low as well as I recall.

My regards,

Widewing

[AKDejaVu]

 

Ok, I went digging, and here is a bit of Jug service info I found. Will post the links when I can.
Total Jug losses: 5222 (1723 were noncombat accidents)

Over half a million sorties (Widewing said 747,000, more specific than my source)

0.7% losses per mission

Just a reminder that you promised to post the links Eddiek.

Does anyone know what quantity of aircraft were used to fly this many sorties?  Or the average number of sorties per pilot?  I'm curious as to how it stacks up against the Navy and Marine birds.

AKDejaVu

[eddiek]

Ok, here are the links........took me a while to dig them back up, and to be honest, I almost said to heck with it.........the remarks about the solidity of the road kinda caught me off guard.  Water is liquid, and have any of you ever noticed in the old WW2 combat films, the gun camera ones, that show a plane strafing a ship?  Notice the tracers flying off in different directions?  Well, they bounced, or ricchoceted off the surface of the ocean, I believe the pilots called them "fliers", but I may be wrong.  So, yes, it was possible for the AP ammo to penetrate the armor.....not a 100% sure chance, but it did happen, according to some.  If water will make a round go flying off, would not earth, especially hard packed like one would find on a road traveled by tanks, which weighed 30 tons (approximately, cannot remember the exact figures)?  

Anyway, here are the links:
 http://www.aero-web.org/history/wwii/d-day/8.htm
 http://www.aviation-history.com/republic/p47.html
 http://www.p47advocates.com/thep47.html
 http://www.tgplanes.com/planfile.asp?idplane=103
I tried to access the website that gave the 4.6:1 k/d ratio, but got a message saying it is now inactive......will try one more link I have written down.



[This message has been edited by eddiek (edited 01-24-2001).]

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Don't know much but I'm just done reading "P47 Thunderbolt aces of the 8thAF" jerry Scutts.

He said the 56th alone was credited with 1006.5 kills, 677 being air kills. reading his stories, it's evident that a lot of those aces felt from ack fire at the end.

As far as the number of kills, most P47 squadrons transitioned to P51. P47's would had probably have more kills if those squadron stayed P47.

Just my modest contribution.

[pzvg]

Fifties will bounce off a road, of this I have first hand experience (and it was very unnerving to us at that) however, I do question knocking out panzers by this method,since in order to get a ricochet at the right angle to hit the underbelly dead-on
(the only way you'd penetrate) the aircraft in question would have to be in a nearly 80 degree dive at low alt. so did the rounds disable the panzer? or was it that bloody great aeroplane landing on it?  
Now, back to the top, IMHO, "Ensign Eliminator" was one of those wartime urban legends, if you recall they called the B26 the "flying prostitute" because it had no visible support, a reference to the narrow wing.

------------------
pzvg- "5 years and I still can't shoot"

[Ripsnort]

 

Originally posted by pzvg:
...if you recall they called the B26 the "flying prostitute" because it had no visible support, a reference to the narrow wing.

And to dispose of these urban legends, such as in the case of the B26, Doolittle used to go to the front lines where these A/C were delivered, and flew the B26 aerobatically, thus dispelling the myth, and making some of the naysayer pilots look rediculous.