Real Gun Film. How much hipsano does it take to light up a B17?

[Shifty]

nasty business those 4th FG guys and the mossie. I don't know who the got it wrong being so close to it and didn't see the RAF roundels after flying past it?

It's the nature of real life combat. We play a game, these guys are flying for real firing real bullets and facing real death. The mistake could have been caused by fear, adrenaline, fatigue, inexperiance or a combination of the those or any other real world problems you don't deal with in a game.

[Karnak]

I came across an account of a group of P-47s setting up to attack a Mosquito PR.Mk XVI in one of my books.  They P-47s had already dropped their tanks and were lining up for the run when the Mossie's crew fired their "color of the day" flare, stopping the imminent attack.

[Scherf]

Which book is that Karnak? I can't recall having read that story.

[BrownBaron]

I can totally see the CO of those guys yelling at the pilots for friendly fire

Men were probably killed, or injured in that short burst of friendly fire, really not something to joke about, especially such a weak one.

[Scherf]

No probably about it.

[Karnak]

Scherf, I found that one in 'Mosquito' by Sharp & Bowyer while hunting for descriptions of Mosquito vs Me262 encounters.

[Scherf]

Gotcha, thanks.

[Mace2004]

nasty business those 4th FG guys and the mossie. I don't know who the got it wrong being so close to it and didn't see the RAF roundels after flying past it?

ID-ing aircraft in flight isn't as easy as you might think, especially if you're in combat or other high-stress situation.  The biggest problem is that you have a tendancy to see what you expect (or want) to see and many features that seem obvious to the casual observer just aren't to someone under stress, even something like roundels.  For instance, the F111 and Mig23 look amazingly similar even though the F111 is twice the size of the Flogger and the Mig23 has a big sawtooth leading edge on the wing that's very visible.  Put them next to each other on the ground and there's absolutely no way you'd mistake them for each other but put them in the air and it's a completely different story.  The 1994 shoot down of two US Army Blackhawks during OPC (Northern Iraqi no-fly zone following the first Gulf War) happened even though the AWACS knew there were friendlies in the area and the Eagles had IFF interrogators and both fighters did a Visual ID.  The Blackhawks were carrying external tanks (not a real common configuration) and looked very similar to Iraqi Hinds.  They expected to see Hinds, wanted to see Hinds, and saw "Hinds".  I ran into a fighter about 20 miles off the coast of Vladivostok in 1986 that I thought at first was an F4 off Midway or maybe a JSDF F4 but it turned out to be a Soviet SU15 Flagon, the same interceptor the Soviets used to shoot down the KAL 007 airliner three years earlier (not too far away from where I was).  Coming beak to beak with him we had our TCS (a high power TV camera under the nose) on him and I saw a low wing, two large, rectangular intakes, and a big old nose and remember thinking "what the heck is an F4 doing coming FROM Soviet airspace?".  I realized what it was only when I saw that the wings were flat and the tips didn't crank up like the Phantom's.  I really knew what he was when he pickled his drop tanks to play.  I guess he didn't like seeing a Tomcat that close to Vlad.  

[Scherf]

They expected to see Hinds, wanted to see Hinds, and saw "Hinds".

I reckon that about covers it - highly unlikely there were any other aircraft near the mossie, so near fear or fog of war, just young guys wanting to get to grips with the enemy. "A twin on its own can't be ours," or some such.

Friendly fire accounted for more mossies than one might think. Of the losses to which I can attribute a definite cause, 40 are to friendly fire. That contrasts with 45 to 190s, and 26 to 109s. Flak accounted for 196 that I know of, but there are likely many more than that.

Edit - Meh, make it 41, possibly 42 for friendly fire. The truth may simply never be known in some cases, especially at night, over water.

[MiloMorai]

Didn't the USAAF paint the tails of their Mossies red to help ID them from the Me410?

[Karnak]

Scherf,  I got home and looked up that passage.  It is on page 138, bottommost paragraph.]

Mace2004, that matches pretty closely to what I have heard about the Iranian airliner shootdown.  The The Aegis operators expected, or feared, Iranian aircraft to enter the fray to support the gunboats we were engaged with and, even though the computers were reporting a climbing contact, the operators repeatedly identified it as a descending F-14 on an attack path. 

[Scherf]

Thanks mate.

I know of another instance with Thunderbolts, in which they attacked and shot down a USAAF Mosquito, escorted by USAAF Mustangs, despite the Mossie crew maneuvering to present national markings and yelled calls on the radio.  The Thunderbolts who shot down the 140 Squadron Mossie on 2 October (not the one in the film clip) apparently reported "a Mosquito in German markings" (!), as did the Mustang pilot who shot down a Mossie during operation Clarion.

I dunno, people see what they want to see, U guess, as posted above by Mace.

[Mace2004]

Mace2004, that matches pretty closely to what I have heard about the Iranian airliner shootdown.  The The Aegis operators expected, or feared, Iranian aircraft to enter the fray to support the gunboats we were engaged with and, even though the computers were reporting a climbing contact, the operators repeatedly identified it as a descending F-14 on an attack path. 

Yep, definently a good example.  Of course, I think the reports focused on what the air track was doing and tend to gloss over a very significant point.  Exactly what sort of threat did an F14 pose to an Aegis cruiser???  Iranian F14's don't carry bombs, never did and never have.  We didn't even start to experiment with bombs on the Tomcat until 1987 at VX4.  So, what could an F14 have done to Vincennes?  A strafing run on an Aegis that had SM2 and Phalanx?  That would have been an incredibly stupid decision for the Iranians especially since they had a bunch of F4s that did carry bombs.  Overall this incident was a terrible series of incompetance, mistakes and wish fulfilment.  Life is hard, it's even harder if you're stupid.

[Scherf]

Life is hard, it's even harder if you're stupid.

That raht thar is sig material.

[Scherf]

Didn't the USAAF paint the tails of their Mossies red to help ID them from the Me410?

(Image removed from quote.)

Eventually yes, they did. following the loss of NS533 of the 25th BG on August 12 1944, which I see now from my notes was lost to P-51s, not to Thunderbolts. Apparently the Mossie was mistaken for a Ju-188.