Buff Guns and some 8th AF gunner Info

[Nefarious]

Well I posted this earlier and judging from the response I figured that I might as well post it again.

On Sunday I made a trip to Pittsburgh Intl Airport and I got to tour the "Yankee Lady"
a B17G.

Talking with some of the Veterans I found some interesting info out on Gunnery and other tactics used by the bombers over Europe.

A member of the crew ( I forget his name ) was a Tailgunner on a B24 Liberator with 16 missions under his belt when the war in Europe ended.He said the tail end 50s on his B24 had a good chance of hitting at 1000yds This man also was wounded by flak and still has the piece of shrapnel at his house. He shot down 1 Bf109 on his first mission. He said the 109 closed on the Libbeys six from above him, The first burst from his 50s caused the pilot to attempt a bailout."I saw the cockpit swing open and as he tried to exit I let loose again, turning the pilot into Hamburger" He also said a favored tactic of the LW was to hide and close in on the bomber using the contrails, and you wouldnt see them until thier rudder poked out of the contrails. He claimed to see plenty of Me262 and Me163s saying the Me163 scared him worse than the 262, because the 163 could destroy a bomber in one pass, Usually taking no return fire from the bombers (too fast and too small to hit).

Im not a math expert but 1000 yrds is around 1 kilometer. And since the tail end is firing backwards it might just be able to hit from 1.0K-1.2K. And another thing to add that contrails would be an intersting thing to add to AH.

[Tuomio]

Contrails would be cool! Just use the same smoke that fuel leakage is generating.

[Tac]

yeah, FPS hell for the contrails  

Now I do understand a gunner shooting a plane on his direct 6.. but not all gunners shooting at the same spot at any range with singlepingkill37mm powered guns smacking a plane diving at 550mph past its 3 OC position with one ping.

Fluke, I am your father! *hiiiissshhhhhaaaaaasssshhhh*

[DB603]

S!

 1000d is a bit over 900m.U have to remember that if a plane comes from dead 6,the closure rate is not so big helping aiming.Think of an off angle attack and trying to shoot a plane coming in well over 300mph...No more 1000d pings.
 And this "turning the bailing pilot to hamburger"..coulda have left it out.So shrecking tired of this US style of boasting killing a "Jerry" in chute and how "cool" it was to see him turn to a "hamburger"...

[Nefarious]

He didnt say it was cool and he was not boasting. The pilot was not in his chute either, I picture the 109 pilot opening the cockpit, climbing over the side and preparing to jump. You are very quick to jump to conclusions. And he said after that mission he did not want to go up ever again, saying "after 1 mission I had it with the war,I didnt want to go up ever again" I know it sounds crazy but that was his exact words!

[JimBear]

And the 109 pilot would not have had a round of toasts raised that night if HE had managed to turn a 10man crew into "hamburger"? Spoken by someone who lived through the exchange it does not seem to be a boast.

Really good point on the closure rates, your absolutely correct on off angle shots being the way to go about it.

[DB603]

S!

 OK..I exaggerated a bit here with the hamburger thingy.But still it amazes me, that on every single LW pilot's book I have read, they ALL mention how they waited until last second to open chute because of the USAF planes shooting them otherwise.Was the hatred really so big or was it a direct order from commanding officers to do so?   Oh well..the war is over and life goes on...Damn too tired again...

[eddiek]

DB603, they way I understood it was since the LW pilots were bailing over their own territory, it was highly likely the LW pilot would be back in the air the next day...and face it.........in war, normal "black and white" areas, or "right and wrong" got blurred.....on BOTH sides.  I remember reading a book when I was in high school in which a former LW ace was describing his victories......several of them involved waiting til the pilot of the damaged plane tried to exit and bail, then opening fire again to kill him before he was able to clear the stricken aircraft.  It's not a "U.S" thing solely.....war is/was hell, and both sides did things they now regret.

[DB603]

S!

 Even they were over their own soil,the war in the air was practically over 1944-45.No fuel,shortage of pilots etc.A few pilots against the masses from Allies...wouldn't help LW a bit even the pilot survived the bail.Or were they(Allies) too scared of a few pilots  ;)Oh well..I just disappear and leave this thread...

[Angus]

Hi there.
A retired wing commander and today a historian of the LW told me this:
"You could expect both russians and americans to shoot at chutes, but not the RAF pilots. This was like a silent agreement between the RAF and LW. The few time it was broken by the RAF, the pilot almost always turned out to be Polish, or a Check.
We hold an archive over Chute killers.
We also know of examples where bailed out LW fighter pilots simply wawed at their victors from the RAF, either while in the chute, or after landing on the ground"

[Tac]

wawed?

[AKDejaVu]

wawed=waved

AKDejaVu

[B52Charlie]

Pappy Boyington was asked about the knight like duels with Japanese pilots, and remarked that he wasn't there to shoot down planes he was there to kill pilots. If you check out Wild Blue Yonder or Victory in the Air I think volumn 5 or 12 you'll see a chute and the gun camera of the fighter on his return to view his/or wingers victory and then at last few frames the chute buckles and begins to partially collapse pretty obvious it was taking rounds and the rest of the footage was cut. Anyone want to view this these can be found at the Yolo county library, Ca. With over 10,000 bombers shot down in the euro theater I seriously doubt the .30 and 50 cals on any bomber was that effective, and considering the mauling the bombers got on early unescorted day raids the facts proved it. With the motion of the aircraft the bucking of the weapons and the extreme harsh enviroment I think it was pretty hard to shoot down a small streamlined fighter even with a slow closure rate of 100-200mph at the 6 position let alone a 600+mph frontal assult. And look at the math , 20,000  bombers flew in that theater during the war, average say 4 gun positions and if fighters were that easy to shoot down , the skies over occupied europe would have been barren of axis fighters in the first week of combat.

[ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: B52Charlie ]

[Nefarious]

B52Charlie:

 

With over 10,000 bombers shot down in the euro theater

10,000? is that all of the allied powers alone? or axis combined? and if either, please give me stats on the bombers that were downed by flak and lost in Other Operational losses. Please let me know. The German Airforce did not shoot down 10,000 bombers with fighter alone.

 

And look at the math , 20,000 bombers flew in that theater during the war, average say 4 gun positions and if fighters were that easy to shoot down , the skies over occupied europe would have been barren of axis fighters in the first week of combat.

average of four gun posistions? How many different bombers had 4 or more gunner posistions flying in the euro theater, that flew bomber missions over Europe. Plus when did this list start? 1940?

Easy to shoot down? No one said it was easy.
He claimed 1 Bf109 in 16 missions. Any way, A fighter closing dead six would be identified way before the fighter could begin firing, allowing the gunner to fire earlier, given the speed of the bomber plus the gunner firing from the tail of the a/c, I believe the Gunner would have plenty time to lead the enemy fighter. The fighter would be flying directly into the bullets!!

Plus: If this gunner had 16 missions before the war ended, then the chance that the 109 pilot was an experienced pilot is slim given the condition of Germany in 1945.

[B52Charlie]

LOL,Nef. you're kidding right? US lost over 4000 alone. While you're looking up the stats ck out the British losses before they went to night bombing only. ck the VFW register and see how many vets were early war bomber crewmen that saw the end of the war in one piece or were not POWs. Many months of WW2 bomber losses were in the hundreds per month. Probably why 20,000+ US KIA over eruope alone. While your at it ck the losses in Africa,China,Japan,Philipines ect...and if ya really want throw in the German losses and then ck the total. DOH.

Here's a head start on stats Nef,  sept39-may45 bomber command losses= 64,120 aircrew casualties.

8th AF plane losses only:
Aircraft Type
 Number Lost
 


B-17
 4,754
 
B-24
 2,112
 
P-47
 1,043
 
P-38
 451
 
P-51
 2,201
 
Total
 10,561

as far  as id'ing a fighter at dead 6, you kidding? at 1000yds with weather, frozen goggles maybe also, don't fool yourself. Try this , find a car and pace off 1000 yds then grab someone walking by and ask them what kind of car that is then try that also in the fog, raining, sleet, viewing through icing glass/poly panes. Its ok of you know you have no fighter escort but even then theres the problem of most peoples eyes not being able to focus more than a dozen feet away without something to distinguish distance, commonly known as pilot blind, and if your eyes not focusing kinda hard to see a tiny speck of a fighter that way.

I'm not knocking the story about the 1st mission kill thingy, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes, i'm just stating that in AH its way harder to kill a buff and way ez to get kills in a buff due to the icons and b.s. 50's cone and the fact tha all guns slew as one and some even shoot thru the buff frame,  in real life the top turret couldn't shoot dead 6 for obvious reasons also.

[ 07-26-2001: Message edited by: B52Charlie ]