Spiraling tracers

[JB42]

I've seen some people refering to gunfilm tracers as spiraling and/or bouncing. What you see is film from a stationary object in a non-stationary vehicle. The tracers only appear to be flinging all around when the are quite straight and accurate in real life.

[Midnight]

Originally posted by JB42
I've seen some people refering to gunfilm tracers as spiraling and/or bouncing. What you see is film from a stationary object in a non-stationary vehicle. The tracers only appear to be flinging all around when the are quite straight and accurate in real life.

Certain tracer rounds actually produce a spiral smoke trail.

In, many gun cam films, the camera is vibrating while the guns are shooting, so the tracers appear to 'wiggle' as you indicated.

Tony Williams could probably tell us which rounds produced a sprial smoke trail, and which rounds were flare only.

[ramzey]

Originally posted by Midnight
Certain tracer rounds actually produce a spiral smoke trail.

In, many gun cam films, the camera is vibrating while the guns are shooting, so the tracers appear to 'wiggle' as you indicated.

Tony Williams could probably tell us which rounds produced a sprial smoke trail, and which rounds were flare only.

thats mean IL2 have wrong modeled tracers?

[GRUNHERZ]

Some tracers did leave a corkscrew smoke trail, this is unrelated to the wiggle effect you see from camera vibration.

[GPreddy]

In the pacific we were pretty heavy on the use of incendiary ammunition especially after we found out a few details concerning the construction of the Zero. I think it was probably the incendiaries that tumbled through the air.

[Bodhi]

The "spiraling smoke trail" is caused by the rifling of the barrel setting the projectile into a spinning motion upon exiting the barrel.  Therefore, as this superhot hunk of metal hurls through the air, it is indeed spinning, but only around it's center longitudinal axis.  Most of the barrels in the US inventory were rifled as it produces an added assistance in keeping the projectile more stable as it heads to its intended target.

[ra]

I think it was probably the incendiaries that tumbled through the air.

Bullets don't tumble, they spiral like a football.  The tumbling you see in guncam footage is from the camera shaking.

ra

[Charon]

I've actually seen one .50 being fired that produced a visible, corkscrew spiral. The barrel in the gun was shot-out and the tracers looked like that special effect from the Quake rail gun. The spiral started as the round left the barrel and seemed to get wider as it went down range. At all other times it is a straight line of tracers without the "shaking" you see in film.

One time we fired a full belt of tracers for a laser effect (which is a no-no of the type that burns out a barrel easier, or so was the rumor). The only other tracer oddity is that the tracer element sometimes pops out when the round hits and flies off to the side.

The M2 is a mean machine, but rather mundane on the range from a firing excitement standpoint, IMO. The M-60 was always more exciting for me to fire because you got more of a feeling of hosing deadly lead with it up against your shoulder.

Charon

[ccvi]

Spiraling (opposed to tumbling) tracers and kork screw don't contratict eachother.

The bullet is spiraling, but the smoke from the tracer isn't leaving the bullet exactly along the line of flight but a little to the side.


Just a guess

[HFMudd]

I've seen a low motion film of a 105mm rifled tank round in flight that had a distinct wobble of maybe 5 or 10 degrees off center.  The round was still stable but a bit of oscillation was apparent.  The amount of wobble was certainly enough that it would have left a spiral if it had a tracer component.  I can't think of any reason to assume that a smaller calibre round would not have the same small wobble. (Unless of course the wobble was introduced by a sabot or some such that is not present in a .50...)

Be that as it may, I'm sure that the zig zaggy look of the tracers in gun camera footage is a result of camera vibration as opposed to unstable rounds.

[GPreddy]

Funny you should say that because I have a lot of archived gun camera footage and the cameras do not appear to vibrate at all and certainly not enough to cause the deviation you see in trajectory.

[Midnight]

Originally posted by GPreddy
Funny you should say that because I have a lot of archived gun camera footage and the cameras do not appear to vibrate at all and certainly not enough to cause the deviation you see in trajectory.

The rounds fly straight, they do not 'wobble' or 'tumble'. Remember, these are small unguided projectiles that travel in the the direction they are fired.

If a tracer round deviated off trajectory one way, it would not all the sudden deviate back onto the orginal trajectory, etc.

bullets go ----------------------------------------------> STRAIGHT

NOT /^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\---_/^\_/^\---> WOBBLEY