Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Kratzer on July 01, 2002, 12:59:42 AM
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Really just some amazing, amazing color footage. I was extraordinarily impressed.
Also, there was a thread a while back (which I'm too lazy to look for) in which someone said they heard a P47 pilot talk about ricocheting rounds off of the roadway into the underbelly of tanks because they were unarmored...
Now obviously, they were lightly armored (in comparison to the rest of the tank) on the underbelly, and I doubt that a .50 Browning would penetrate, especially on the ricochet... BUT - a P47 pilot DID say that on the show - so at least whoever it was that said that on the board got it from somewhere.
Anyhoo - the real point of interest was the color footage - absolutely amazing.
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Ya the last time they ran that show(I watched it then), is when that thread ran, compleat BS the amount of tanks/ armored vehicals killed by allied JABO's was greatly exagerated, The thing of it is he may of beleaved that he was correct in saying so, but as has been covered on the BBS and in the physics books this simply is not possable.
Then again I may beleave i am correct in saying so:)
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I saw it. Was awesome.
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Great show, looked like it was quite fun flying around blowing everything up with little opposition. :)
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CC, they should make something like Barbarossa Air War. The superior 109E blowing away the dreaded Ratas and Ishaks, ricocheting rouunds to destroy whole factories from below, setting Stalin's dacha on fire...oh boy ;)
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LOL Hristo :D
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The range and damage done by those .50s were pretty awesome. Some of those P47s were reaching way out there in their strafing runs.
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Yeah, I saw parts of it, my dad wanted to watch DieHard2 at the same time, so I could only see parts of it. The color footage was amazing, I'm pretty sure they had another show about P-47s.
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Originally posted by Frost
The range and damage done by those .50s were pretty awesome. Some of those P47s were reaching way out there in their strafing runs.
Yep! I'll take the word of a couple old "was there" pilots... Sad hearing about the losses they took. I never would have thought they'd be STARTING gun runs at 500ft.
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I posted this in a different forum, but it applies here.
.............................................................................................................................................................................................................In my reading time in recent days, I have been enjoying a good one that Sancho loaned me. Its called "ANGELS ZERO by Robert Brulle. It’s the one fighter-bomber pilot’s story of his role in WW2 in Europe between mid-June 44- wars end. Bob flew P-47's the duration of the war with IX TAC (9th Air Force). This is a highly recommended read for of us, not just the P-47 nuts, or the allied nuts.
On to the subject. I found this very interesting. I am going to just quote it straight from the book for you all to read.
After D-day, and a foothold was established in France, the pilot had a chance to inspect some rubble and damaged locomotives once they were moved to a temp field in France.
"We first noted that the cab (of the locomotive) had two inch thick steel plates welded around it to protect the engineer. It was obviously not armor as several 50 cal bullets had pierced it. I also followed the path of a 50 cal API round that went through the steel drive wheel several inches thick, ricocheted off the lower flange of the engine I-beam structure, and imbedded itself sideways in the upper flange. I had a hard time prying the round out for a souvenir, and it didn’t have a scratch on it. It was an amazing revelation of the power of a single armor-piercing round"
"A tiger tank was disabled by repeated strafing, and twelve trucks and a staff car were destroyed.
The reader may wonder how strafing a tank could disable it. Recall that our .50 cal API rounds pack a wallop that could penetrate several inches of soft (not hardened) steel. (Recall the story on our visit to the Laon railroad yard, where I followed the path of a .50 cal API round that went through a locomotives drive wheel.) During the war, we thought the penetration power of our API round was sufficient to disable a tank by shooting off the tracks. To research the issue and keep the record factual, I contacted several armored vehicle historians and specialists. Their collective views are summarized below*.
The .50 API round fired from fast moving AC does indeed have a high momentum but the German tank armor was very hard and massive and the round only dinged the armor. The most vulnerable area (least armor thickness) is the rear deck compartment and the top of the turret. The tracks are extremely hard steel and .50 API were shrugged off with little damage. A lucky hit was possible that might cause the tank to throw a track, but if they were on a hard surface they could keep moving on the road wheels. The Germans in 1944-45 had three main battle tanks in use. They were the Mark IV, which was a medium tank comparable to the American M4 Sherman tank, and two 50-plus-ton heavy tanks, the mark V Panther and the Mark VI Tiger. The Panther and the Tiger completely dominated the Sherman.
The Mark IV had a lightly armored rear deck that could be penetrated with our 50 API rounds and set the engine on fire, but the panther and the Tiger were mostly impervious to our strafing. In those tanks the crews would just button up and hope that we wouldn’t call in AC that had bombs since that would finish them. There is a case on record where a Panther tank was strafed by P-47's for an extended time. The massive strafing shot off all the equipment parts carried outside the tank, and entombed the crew by dinging the hatch lips, effectively welding the hatches closed. If we could catch the tanks while on a road march far from the front lines they sometimes-carried extra fuel and ammunition strapped on the outside. In those cases strafing could ignite the fuel or ammunition, possibly destroying them. Although we couldn’t be sure of damaging or destroying a heavy tank, our strafing was sure to affect the crew psychologically, having to stay cooped up hearing the constant rattle of our rounds hitting the tank and not knowing when a bomb or other heavy gun would finish them off. In summary, strafing a tank could do nothing or it could destroy them, depending on the circumstances.”
*= Conversations with Dr. William Atwater, Director, US Army Ordinance Museum, Army Proving Ground, Md., and Mr. Uwe Feist, historian and author of German Armored Vehicles. Two of his books are recommended. Ewu Feist and Bruce Culver ”Panzerkampfwagon Panther” and “Panzerkampfwagon Tiger”
Brulle is a good author, telling it like it was for a “Jabo” pilot in the days after D-day and through the war. I suggest it to all that enjoy WW2 aviation books.
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It was a sight to see the those 8 50's rip into one of those trains to see it explode and let out allt eh steam.. very cool footage..I can't wait for a rerun so I can see the whole thing..
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"...and entombed the crew by dinging the hatch lips, effectively welding the hatches closed."
I was under the impression that most tanks had an escape hatch in the floor?
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Was that the 'Colors of War' about P-47s cutting supply lines in Italy. What a great film. The naration is almost as good as the footage "Railroad tracks...following tracks...great way to find a train". Between that & 'The Fighting Lady' i dont know which i like better. Anyone know of any similar movies?
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The footage of the horses runing or geting splatered was disturbing. But it did do good to stop suplys so its 50/50.
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Originally posted by whgates3
Was that the 'Colors of War' about P-47s cutting supply lines in Italy. What a great film. The naration is almost as good as the footage "Railroad tracks...following tracks...great way to find a train". Between that & 'The Fighting Lady' i dont know which i like better. Anyone know of any similar movies?
No, you're thinking of the combat film "Thunderbolt!" made during air ops in Italy during the German retreat through the mountains. I have that on video and its fantastic - I highly recommend it to anyone looking to build an air combat film library. Everything you see is real, including the dead pilot they pick out of the smoldering wreckage just short of the runway.
Last night was a 1-hr show made by History Channel as part of their series "The Color of War". I can't recall the precise title of the installment, but it focused more on P-47s over France and Germany. You can get the whole series on DVD, but I'm only interested in that one episode and they don't sell shows seperately. :(
The bit with the horses was pretty intense. You could see the poor animals running as fast their legs could carry them, but not comprehending the danger they were in.
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Jabos in France - that had to be nasty - I've read at least 4 different books by guys who flew over that Falaise pocket and reported that they could smell the rotting corpses several thousand feet up
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Yeah, there was footage of the defeated German soldiers/POWs walking back to Germany along the roads by the thousands. You could see the various military branches represented by the uniforms - even a u-boat sailor missing a leg. You could tell the paratroopers from the infantry by the type of boots they were wearing. A lot of young boys and old men in that bunch.
The footage was great and the editing was well-paced. I'd love to get the thing on DVD with no interruptions, but I don't want to shell out a hundred dollars for the full set.
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Was surprised to hear mention in the program that over 50 million died in WWII!
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Yep 50 million plus, some 27 million of those were Russians.