some P-51 and P47 footage that may interest some of you

[atlau]

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/8thAFGuns.html

some P-51 and P47 footage that may interest some of you

[madrid311]

That was really interesting. Hitting the targets looks about as hard as it is in game. Did you see all the saying in bursts?

[jeffdn]

If you look closely at 7:50, you'll notice he is strafing a parked Me-262. Also, the last pilot they show, Sanford Moats, ended up being a General.

[PanosGR]

OMG never seen before a guncam footage of an 152  

Conclusion: I would prefer to be a luft pilot than a steam loco engineer

[bustr]

Their .50 cal API (Armor piercing Incendiary) caused more fires against 109 and 190 than ours does. That last 190 had a fire before the cockpit and in the tank behind the pilot's seat. By the time of these films most of those pilots were using the K14. Ground strafing would be done with the fixed reticle flipped on. Some pilots had no clue about estimating elevation for shooting at ground targets outside of 400yds. A few had tracers and corrected with them. Then some looked like they understood aiming with a fixed reticle at ground targets.

The air to air deflection shooting was aided by the K14 gyro compensated 6-star in most of the film. The precise hits mid section on turning planes gives that away. Along with them suddenly stopping shooting for a moment while their turn caught the 6-star back up with the con. And the lack of wasted rounds to accomplish quick fires and engine punctures.

Looks a lot like our shooting problems in the game. Hitech has masterfully reproduced the physics.

[matt]

 

[atlau]

Plus the awesome soundtrack.. must have been what they listened to to get amped up before their missions

[BnZs]

Hmmm...some would argue that our .50s are if anything MORE likely to do structural damage though. I dunno. There was one  P-51B pilot account I remember, he shot a 190 well inside convergence in a high G turn...so he hit both wings, one with each set of his wing guns. He said the 190's wings folded upward under the Gs, like a carrier plane wings. Always found that one interesting.

Their .50 cal API (Armor piercing Incendiary) caused more fires against 109 and 190 than ours does. That last 190 had a fire before the cockpit and in the tank behind the pilot's seat. By the time of these films most of those pilots were using the K14. Ground strafing would be done with the fixed reticle flipped on. Some pilots had no clue about estimating elevation for shooting at ground targets outside of 400yds. A few had tracers and corrected with them. Then some looked like they understood aiming with a fixed reticle at ground targets.

The air to air deflection shooting was aided by the K14 gyro compensated 6-star in most of the film. The precise hits mid section on turning planes gives that away. Along with them suddenly stopping shooting for a moment while their turn caught the 6-star back up with the con. And the lack of wasted rounds to accomplish quick fires and engine punctures.

Looks a lot like our shooting problems in the game. Hitech has masterfully reproduced the physics.

[bustr]

I don't know about the structural damage. Late 44 gun cams show the API igniting fires with only a few hits on 109 and 190. I've watched a lot of them. We also see the HE content of the wing cannon magazine explode, snapping the outer wing off and spinning the 190 out of control.

The K14 made it possible to concentrate rounds more precisely in a relative sense to the fuselage because the 6-star was harmonized for 75% of the rounds to pass through 4Mil at range. The pilot held the 6-star pipper center on the con which concentrated rounds to the fuselage. From the film you see the evidence of that. Starkly in the last 190 with a fire forward of the pilot and aft. There was no other purpose for a incendiary content being included with a kinetic round. In 1944 if it didn't start fires in 109 and 190, there was no purpose to wasting the cost and extra manufacturing process to creating an AP round that only smoked in transit.

[Widewing]

Did anyone notice the gun camera only film of a downed P-51? It apparently was hit and bellied in. A squadron mate made two camera runs on it.....

5:30 through 5:36... P-51D, canopy jettisoned on its belly.

[bustr]

I'm being vague about fuel fires. Get a copy of DoDD 5200.10. USSARDCOM.

Fuel fires from fuel tanks were tested. It's possible if an incendiary or HE round meets the fuel air layer in the top of a tank, an explosion or fire can happen. Not as likely as the leak which the next round will ignite. The most successful condition, and which happened in the majority of fires, a leak was created in a sheltered internal cavity, engine compartment\rear auxiliary tank compartment by a first round entering. The second round would ignite the free standing fuel. You see this in every ETO gun cam from the AAF where API ammo hits the fuselage resulting in flame exiting from the ruptured fuselage. The fire is protected from the slipstream buring out of control inside the fuselage cavity fed by the hole in a fuel line or auxiliary tank.

You see this clearly in the last Fw190A engagement in the film, showing fire exiting in front of the cockpit from the engine compartment and behind from the auxiliary tank compartment. Once you had an internal compartment fire, the pilot had to bail or eventually the craft was toast with him along for the ride. That's also the source of as much black smoke we see in gun cam as oil hits. Fuel fires for the most part outside of the protection of a wing or fuselage cavity will be blown out by a slip stream faster than 110mph.

DoDD 5200.10. USSARDCOM makes for interesting reading. Especially since Aberdeen Proving Grounds admits self sealing fuel tanks at that time cannot defeat being holed by a shattered or deformed ogive of a 50cal type round, or a 20mm exploding at the right moment during penetration to fracture a chunk out of the wall structure of the self sealing tank.

The consensus was you have very little probability of causing a fuel tank to explode short of the amount of HE it would take to blow it to pieces extinguishing the flame. And fuel fires are started by first causing a leak, then a hot enough secondary source ignites it inside of a protected compartment. Last, fuel will not burn in the slipstream past 110mph. So this is why you see fire close to the source of the opening or rupture the fuel is leaking with lots of black smoke.