Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: jolly22 on March 02, 2011, 07:37:55 PM
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How exactly does this happen? Ive always wondered.
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In our game or real life?
Think of some Luftwaffe stick over the British isles, shot to crap or losing oil pressure. He's going to try and find a place to land instead of floating in a latewar parachute for 4 minutes allowing the enemy to zero his position. So...... He lands and for whatever reason is unable to demo his bird. Probably read this story a dozen times.
Just one off the top of my head. :salute
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In our game or real life?
Think of some Luftwaffe stick over the British isles, shot to crap or loosing oil pressure. He's going to try and find a place to land instead of floating in a latewar parachute for 4 minutes allowing the enemy to zero his position. So...... He lands and for whatever reason is unable to demo his bird. Probably read this story a dozen times.
Just one off the top of my head. :salute
Ok cool, has it ever happened that a land raid took a base with planes on it?
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Absolutely, but far less often than you might think. SOP on all sides was basically blow up anything you can't take with you. So large airfields always had days if not weeks to reroute it's resources. But the smaller, makeshift airstrips, and especially for the Germans late in the war with low morale, it was not uncommon say for a Brit Commando, US Ranger or other outfit specially trained in raiding fortified positions to walk unto a location with slight light fire, maybe some small artillery only to come and find out they were battling the 23 men who chose not to desert their position. Make off with a couple of 190s in the process, or at least parts from 12 of them.
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Were tanks or planes a higher priority?
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Who do you ask that question.... Patton or Arnold? Keitel or Göring? I'd destroy the birds first personally.
I've come to believe that with something like that, regardless of what the overall command might be, individual field commanders make those decisions based purely on their own beliefs. Which, truthfully should always be within the leaders authority. :salute
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So it only depends on what the general thinks has the biggest threat on the war is.
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History is riddled with many backseat commanders gaining fame simply because their adversary's frontline commander was too self centered to follow orders. :salute
Now to what extent it's applicable to your 2nd question.... Probably a nice amount.
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Absolutely, but far less often than you might think. SOP on all sides was basically blow up anything you can't take with you. So large airfields always had days if not weeks to reroute it's resources. But the smaller, makeshift airstrips, and especially for the Germans late in the war with low morale, it was not uncommon say for a Brit Commando, US Ranger or other outfit specially trained in raiding fortified positions to walk unto a location with slight light fire, maybe some small artillery only to come and find out they were battling the 23 men who chose not to desert their position. Make off with a couple of 190s in the process, or at least parts from 12 of them.
I hope you're not serious because someone seems to believe this.
wrongway
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I hope you're not serious because someone seems to believe this.
wrongway
Didn't quite get that one either.
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Nor I.... :headscratch: What do you mean wrongway? Not up until vary late war were we "confiscating" mass amounts of German equipment.
Didn't quite get that one either.
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Nor I.... :headscratch: What do you mean wrongway? Not up until vary late war were we "confiscating" mass amounts of German equipment.
What you were implying, I thought, was commando raids were carried out, behind enemy lines, during active war time, to capture and fly/drive out enemy equipment.
it was not uncommon say for a Brit Commando, US Ranger or other outfit specially trained in raiding fortified positions to walk unto a location
It just didn't happen.
"Captured" equipment was generally aircraft that crashed and were reassembled. Hundreds of Allied aircraft were shot down and ditched or crashed over German occupied territory, sometimes nearly intact.
The first Japanese Zero to be studied by the U.S. crashed virtually intact on Akutan Island in the Aleutians of Alaska in July, 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akutan_Zero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akutan_Zero)
While searching for the above, I came across an incident of a Zero capture due to crash landing in China in 1941 as well.
http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/WarPrizes.htm (http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/WarPrizes.htm)
The first Fw190 to fall into Allied hands was a case of pilot error in June 1942 when a lost pilot landed at a British field.
In June 1942, following a dogfight over the Bristol Channel, a lost Luftwaffe pilot landed his Focke-Wulf Fw-190 at RAF Pembrey, he was promptly "captured" by the air traffic controller with the only weapon at hand - a very pistol.
As the war wound down, yes, special units wandered Germany collecting equipment and weapons. They weren't commandos nor did they operate behind enemy lines. They were technicians.
In any case, captured equipment was rarely, if ever used in combat. It was used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. Only desperation would call for using enemy equipment as the risk of getting killed by being mistaken for the enemy was too much of a risk. No red icons.
The F6F Hellcat's design was influenced by flying the captured Zero and the F8F Bearcat was influenced by the captured Fw190.
In game we have a skin for a French Ju88. They were not captured to the unit but issued to them when Vichy France was allied with Germany. When France was liberated, the former Vichy units began flying for the Allies with the same equipment.
Italians flew P-39Qs after they surrendered and began flying against Nazi Germany.
There are the rare, anecdotal stories of captured aircraft being used, the Italian "Phantom" P-38 story (http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/index.php?/topic/10565-the-strangest-aerial-duel-of-world-war-two/), strange B-17s shadowing bomber streams over Germany, ect.
Germany's KG200 flew captured Allied aircraft to evaluate them and familiarize pilots with their adversaries up close.
Otherwise, B-17s and B-24s were not used by Germany to bomb anything. P-51s, Spitfires, or 109s were not used against their former owners in combat. There were no squadrons of captured aircraft in combat.
wrongway
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IIRC, the Japanese Army put the P-40 into service in squadron strength based on captured airframes from the Philippines.
Germans, Russians and Finns all used captured enemy tanks.
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My grandfathers unit, the 812th IAP, captured hartmanns plane, he was not flying it, it was being ferried by a different pilot, but they pretty much found him flying around lost, put a burst into his tail, flew up beside him and used hand signals to tell him to follow them and land, after he didn't comply they put another short burst into his tail and he followed them.
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IIRC, the Japanese Army put the P-40 into service in squadron strength based on captured airframes from the Philippines.
Germans, Russians and Finns all used captured enemy tanks.
I was looking for a picture of a captured P-40 in Japanese markings when I came across this site. Very Interesting.
http://www.j-aircraft.com/captured/capturedby/p40warhawk/captured_p40.htm (http://www.j-aircraft.com/captured/capturedby/p40warhawk/captured_p40.htm)
This was what I was actually searching for :D
(http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/1/2/6/9/3/9/a3721165-182-P-40%20dutch%20-%20captured%20by%20Japanese.jpg?d=1294776555)
Another interesting picture, not sure of it's accuracy though
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3372/4603411564_d9ce9eea37_b.jpg)
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The captured Zero was important in the refinement of tactics, it provided no direct
input into the Hellcat design. The contract firmly fixing the Hellcat configuration was
signed six months prior to the crash of the Aleutian Zero. (imo the Zero was a rip off
of the Gloster F.5/34)
As for the F8F being influenced by the FW190. I've heard i before but no one can point
out what the supposed influences were. The F8F looks like a meaner,leaner bubble topped
F6F. I personally see no resemblance to the 190 at all.
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The captured Zero was important in the refinement of tactics, it provided no direct
input into the Hellcat design. The contract firmly fixing the Hellcat configuration was
signed six months prior to the crash of the Aleutian Zero. (imo the Zero was a rip off
of the Gloster F.5/34)
As for the F8F being influenced by the FW190. I've heard i before but no one can point
out what the supposed influences were. The F8F looks like a meaner,leaner bubble topped
F6F. I personally see no resemblance to the 190 at all.
I'm thinking more of a design influence versus an outright copy.
Kind of like, "a Zero can do this. What if we design this into a Hellcat to do something to counter this."
or
"The 190 can do this, what can we incorporate into the F8F to do this also."
Probably all anecdotal anyway.
wrongway
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Well everyone knows that Kurt tank designed it all anyway.
He was a quadruple secret-gent and the brain trust behind
all the major powers aircraft designs.
Or so say the uber alles, leather undie wearers anyway :D
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The Long Range Desert Group made a raid on the airfield at Barce. 32 aircraft destroyed.
http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=548
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IIRC, the Japanese Army put the P-40 into service in squadron strength based on captured airframes from the Philippines.
Germans, Russians and Finns all used captured enemy tanks.
Finns used several captured Hurricanes, I-153, I15bis, Pe-bombers (8 of them) etc. also for combat duty. They received little airtime and were used mostly for reconnaissance though due to obvious shortage of spare parts. There was serious shortage of equipment. Basically anything that was salvageable was taken into use.
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The Long Range Desert Group made a raid on the airfield at Barce. 32 aircraft destroyed.
http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=548
Yes, destroyed. Not like the apparent claim earlier in the thread that they would have captured them and flown them out.
Only desperation would call for using enemy equipment
Finns used several captured Hurricanes, I-153, I15bis, Pe-bombers (8 of them) etc. also for combat duty. They received little airtime and were used mostly for reconnaissance though due to obvious shortage of spare parts. There was serious shortage of equipment. Basically anything that was salvageable was taken into use.
You guys are basically saying the same thing. :aok
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Actually I think I remember hearing bout a captured 51B going up against a Tuskegee airman who was in a 51D. Think it was on the show "Dogfights".