Originally posted by Hangtime:
I'd say there's historical precedent.
Hang
Well look at it this way:
P-51 in AH's 6 gun configuration has 1880 rounds. Every 5 are tracers. That quite a bit of ammo wasted on shells that have a a slightly different trajectery (historically anyways)then the rest of the ammo stream.
No wonder they got more kills
"I can think of only one time where tracers actually helped me on a combat mission. At the time I was leading the squadron, normally the CO's job, and here I was a lowely Lt. (Due to slow promotions because I had started out enlisted, that whole evadee thing, I was really an old hand in the Squadron and was considered competent enough to do so). One bastard was flying tail-end charlie for my 4 plane formation when I wagged my wings to draw him in. He just ignored me and refused to close up, and made some snide remark about my rank. I quickly broke off the lead, rolled in behind him and let loose a good burst, with tracers streaking right over his cockpit. Bastard did see that, and I didn't get any problems out of him for the rest of the flight.
Tracers were great for learning how guns fired, but the main bulk of the ammo normally didn't follow the tracer path exactly. When we were practicing gunnery out in the desert in the P-39, we found it was much easier to go without tracers. We'd fire on rocks, guessing where the bullets would hit, and compensate once we actually saw them hit. As Mack would say, 'Hell we have to correct once we fire anyway, tracers just give you less time to target the sum-squeak before he starts jinxin'.
I never really did like them much, it was always kind of a shock when the guns went off and the tracers streaked out, impairing my vision for a second or two till my eyes
adjusted. I used them though, without any problems." -- Chuck Yeager
- Jig
