Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: MiG Eater on September 05, 2001, 06:43:00 PM
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Having flown AH for nearly two years now, I realized that I'm watching war films with much more scrutiny with regards to tactics, planes types, and all kinds of other info. I recently found some film footage from the of summer 1945 that chronicled a strike on Tokyo by B-29's escorted by P-51's. I was surprised by the similarities to AH but also by the constrasts to long held beliefs from online flying. Figured I'd share .
The title contained following footage:
B-29 Bomb bay cameras
B-29 Bomber gun cameras
P-51 Fighter gun cameras
Handheld cameras
Mission:
B-29's - 12,000 foot strike with incendiary and HE GP bombs.
P-51 Escort and ground attack.
Observations:
Bombs started to wobble as soon as they hit the slip stream. The wobbling caused the bombs to diverge. The smaller the bomb, the greater the dispersion which was visible within the first few hundred feet of free fall. After 12,000 foot free fall, the bombs impacted on a path about five city blocks wide.
A6M's were present in large numbers at the 12,000 foot bombing altitude.
N1K's had smokey engines at full power indicating a very rich mixture.
The fighter's guns emmitted a lot of smoke when fired.
.50 caliber tracers were barely visible when used air to air. All bomber guns used tracers. Most fighters did not use tracers. The tracers that were visible from fighter's gun camera did not have a zig zag path. No tracer "trails" were visible unless bullets were fired at the cloud level or near the ground indicating the trails were caused by condensed water vapor.
.50 caliber bullets fired from long range at ground targets impacted in two distinct areas that shrunk to one as the guns reached the convergence (harmonization) range.
Most of the level flying Japanese fighters attacked by the P-51's were Zeros. N1K's and Ki-84's were tasked with attacking the bombers and were later chased by P-51's.
.50 caliber rounds did a lot of damage when they hit but it was clear that some pilots expended a lot of ammo with few hits.
Most targeted airplanes appeared within 200 yards when fired upon except from the bombers which fired much further out.
Bomber's gunners were very accurate.
Nearly every volley of hits (from US bomber or fighter guns) resulted in fuel leaks and/or oil leaks.
Many of the hits resulted in the incapacitation or death of the pilot as evidenced by a cessation of maneuvering.
Most leaks turned into short then long trails of fire started from (apparently) engine exhausts or the bullets themselves.
None of the airplanes exploded, though two trailed long fireballs as they continued to evade.
None of the Japanese airplanes shown suffered structural failure (wings, tail surfaces, etc.).
Hits to self sealing fuel tanks in wings were apparent with momentary sprays of fuel.
One head on attack was filmed from a P-51. All attacks on the B-29's appeared as head ons from the perspective of the gun camera. Initial attacks on the B-29's were made from head on.
Half of the fighter to fighter engagements were turnfights with most descending. The turns resulted when the attacking fighter followed a target through a break turn. The other half of the fighter to fighter engagements were surprise bounces. The P-51 pilots in the Pacific (at least in this film) seem a lot more willing to mix it up with the Japanese pilots than I'd been led to believe. No aerobatics - they turned hard into the enemy planes and kept turning.
Comparison to European airwar footage:
I have other compilation footage from axis and allied gun cameras in Europe that clearly show massive structural damage (seperating wings and tails) and exploding airplanes. I expected even more of this since most of the Japanese fighters in this footage were built with little armor or fuel tank protection. I was surprised to see almost every airplane eventually catch fire after being hit in this title.
Interesting stuff...
MiG
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Good read mig. thanks :)
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would you mind sharing the name of the video you watched? or was it on Tv?
great stuff here!
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ditto mason's request. I would love to see your sources. I am a nut about combat footage.
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If you get the discovery channel everyday at 2:30 they play "famous planes". I've seen the mossie, 190 and spit. You HAVE TO see the 4 cannons on the front of the mossie firing ( they had the ground test firing). shells and fire everywhere. Great stuff.
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Thank you Mig! Very insightful observations there. I do wonder about this one, though:
Bomber's gunners were very accurate...
You may be looking at clipped footage, rather than the entire roll. Obviously the film editor would keep the gunner's hits and discard the rest, making gunners appear much more accurate than they might have been.
I always wondered about gunners on the B-29. As I understand it, the turrets were operated by remote control. I would think accuracy would suffer if you couldn't "look down the barrel" as you're tracking targets...
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It's all about the lead and the convergance. You get used to it in RL unlike un a flight sim.
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Good post Mig. Watching guncams on the different shows I'd have to say we have it poretty good in this virtual world. True most were very close ( and they make the best visuals for a TV show) but many I've seen were from a decent range too.
I too would really would like to know what the videos/filsm names were and where they may be gotten!
Westy