Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: rogerdee on February 15, 2006, 10:31:53 AM
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ok i know its a game and we always get asked do we want a gunner or some one screams they want a gunner.But tell me after looking at these pictures youd want to be one.
I salute all Air Gunners they were a special breed,there job to defend there plane and there crew a job i couldnt do.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/610_1140020485_wellingtoneargunner.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/610_1140020442_halafaxgun.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/610_1140020295_halafaxgun2.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/610_1140020255_b17tail.jpg)
Three are English planes 1 American
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It's mind-boggling to imagine what is was like at that moment for gunners exposed to hailstorms of cannon-fire. Yes, this is a great game, but consider really where and what it was derived from. Never forget.
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I wish you could kill gunners in Aces High. :-)
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Dont have a digital copy, but I remember seeing a horrifying shot of a returned Lancaster. Seems the plane was inadvertantly in the drop path of a second night bombing Lanc, and the bomb cleanly tore the tail gun posittion (and the poor tail gunner) right off the back end of the plane.
Only consolation is that the poor bloke probably never was conscious of anything, it had to happen so fast....
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Back in 1989 i met 2 guys that were a tial gunner and a waste gunner.The tail gunner was telling me how he heard and felt the plane take flak damage,when he came forward too check,from in front of the belly gun too right past the waste guns was missing all across the bottom of the plane,and his 3 buddies were no longer there.When i asked what made him get into the plane every mission he simply said,it was his job to do so,and sometimes you paid the ultimate price.
<<<<>>>> too all those who paid that price!!!!
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Bullets ripped through that thin aluminium whether you were a gunner or a pilot. At least as a gunner you had the feeling you could fight back; the poor pilot & co-pilot just had to sit there & hope his friends were all OK & hitting the X-ring. All soldiers from all countries who are forced to do the un-thinkable, all the while fearing the un-imaginable get my respect. Whether your huddled with your buddies in a depression waiting for those 155 arty rounds & 102 mortars to stop; or in a sub holding your breath wondering when the sea is going to come screaming in; or flying straight & level behind the thin metal walls while every bad guy in the area plugs away at you, or following behind picking up the pieces of your countrymen & others from dead mothers clutching dead children to the guys who were just slinging hot steel at you. War is hell...thankfully this is just a game.
to all past victims of war & the ones presently in the worst of situations who trudge on looking forward to the day they can smile again.
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Originally posted by mandingo
I wish you could kill gunners in Aces High. :-)
You can :D
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aye, big
to everyone who served. it can be so easy to overlook it at times
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there's a guncam clip floating around, not sure where I saw it, of a german fighter sitting on the 6 of a b17, just hammering away. You can see the hits all over the rear of the plane, wingroots, engines, stabs and tail guns. There is no visible movement of the guns that I can see. Realizing what I'd just watched became absolutely terrifying the more I thought about.
Bomber crews were put through absolute hell, sometimes, I feel, without good reason, and I've got tremendous respect for anyone willing to put their bellybutton on the line, for whatever service.
A story was told to me by the brother of a Luftwaffe crewman, of his brother being physically blown out of a Ju (88, I think) over the mediterranean, surviving, returning to duty, and later trying to evacuate a field when their transport became mired in the sand. Several of the guys jumped out to try to free the plane. The minute they got it free, the pilot firewalled it, and left the men on the field. The plane was shot down minutes later, with the loss of all on board.
I can only imagine the terror he must have felt each time he got into a plane.
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ah, yes, the poor airel gunner-the unsung hero. but its not just them or all the men who died in past wars- its all who served in the war. even today we dont give nearly enough respect to the people who defend this great nation
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big salute to all of ya
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Of all the positions though, only imagine what was going through the minds of the ball turrent gunners. Sitting helplessly below the plane and the possiblility of the glass being broken and falling through. Cant ever see my self sitting 30,000 feet above the ground hanging there just looking at the ground just thinking you may fall.
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Google video interviews (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=+Archive+of+American+Television+Interview+with+Delbert+Mann+Part+)
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If that ball turret jammed, and the bomber had to make a wheels-up landing, well...
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From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
-- Randall Jarrell
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There once was a gunner from Kent
Who hunched over wherever he went
When asked "Why the gimp?"
He said with a limp
"Im a ball gunnah wankah..get bent!"