Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: bangsbox on December 18, 2014, 03:24:43 PM

Title: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: bangsbox on December 18, 2014, 03:24:43 PM
what are the smoke trails in the pic?  I know usually the first bomb had smoke attached but in the pic it doesnt seem to be that. It also looks like it came up from below and exploded. Anyone have opinions?


(http://i.imgur.com/wKTkbkk.jpg)
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: colmbo on December 18, 2014, 04:22:15 PM
Markers dropped by lead aircraft to signal bombs away.
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: Ack-Ack on December 18, 2014, 04:33:56 PM
It's an amazing photograph as it also captures the moment a B-24 explodes from a flak hit.

Quote
Flak Greetings Over Bremen, Germany. Bill Washburn took this photo from the right waist gunner position in his Consolidated B-24-J Liberator heavy bomber in January 1945 over Bremen. Flak is seen bursting on the left side of the photo as bombers release their payloads. The two smoke trails on the right are from the special bombs dropped by the lead aircraft so that trailing bomb groups could toggle their bombs on the target area.

ack-ack
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: BuckShot on December 18, 2014, 06:33:50 PM
Funky vertical chemtrails.
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: Ack-Ack on December 18, 2014, 07:33:23 PM
Funky vertical chemtrails.


Not chemtrails, special smoke makers (as Colmbo pointed out) dropped by the lead bombers to let the rest of the group know when to release the bombs.

ack-ack
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: colmbo on December 18, 2014, 08:23:38 PM
I'm not seeing an exploding B-24.  Are you referring to the ball of smoke behind the camera plane?  I'm thinking that is just the initial gout of smoke, it was dropped from the camera plane.
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: Rich46yo on December 19, 2014, 03:48:06 PM
Nope its a B24 hit and the plane on fire is belching smoke OTW down.
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: colmbo on December 19, 2014, 08:42:05 PM
Nope its a B24 hit and the plane on fire is belching smoke OTW down.

Have you seen a caption for the photo?  Airplanes put out black smoke when they burn, not white.  An oil leak can show white if oil sprays on hot exhaust but that doesn't take the airplane down.
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: Guppy35 on December 26, 2014, 10:19:44 PM
Not seeing a 24 going down, just target markers?   Where did you find info on a 24 going down AKAK?

While not a 24, the 17 that is going down to a direct flak hit seems to support Colmbo's point on how messy it would look

(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/guppy35/Merseberg.jpg)
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: Volron on December 27, 2014, 03:14:40 PM
That may have been something bigger than an 88.  Maybe a 12.8 cm FlaK 40?
Title: Re: 24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?
Post by: DaveBB on December 28, 2014, 12:41:56 PM
It's actually a bit of a fallacy that the Germans mainly used 88mm as their primary anti-aircraft guns.  The majority of them were much larger calibers.  I read this in "Citizen Soldiers" by Stephen Ambrose.