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[1LtCAP 4,264]

they're a channel on youtube. they generally have some fantastic stories........like this one. sadly, there was no version of the p-40 that was a match for any bf109......

 

[GRIZ 3,369]

Very interesting and entertaining.

[1LtCAP 4,264]

as i think i've said....a different breed of men back then. can you imagine being in one of those 17's? each gunner's only got 1,000 rounds on average?  and this guy was flying a p-51b.....under gunned(only 4 .50 cal brownings) and not quite as powerful as the p-51c or d......pretty much outmatched by the 109's...but this guy put a hurting on them.......

 i read about this engagement in one of my air classics or air power magazines a long time ago.

 

[GRIZ 3,369]

Keep in mind many of the fighter planes only carried 400 rds per gun. That gave the pilot only 20-25 seconds of firing time.  A 5 second burst would be 20-25% of your ammo.

[1LtCAP 4,264]

13 hours ago, GRIZ said:

Keep in mind many of the fighter planes only carried 400 rds per gun. That gave the pilot only 20-25 seconds of firing time.  A 5 second burst would be 20-25% of your ammo.

yea...that's one of the inaccuracies i keep seeing in these videos..they show relatively long bursts, when in reality most gunners and most fighter pilots usually only took 1-2 second bursts.....

 the other thing......most fighters with wing mounted guns had a convergence set. usually this was 250 yards or less....which when you consider the speeds they were flying....that's up close and personal

[1LtCAP 4,264]

gotta sink the bismark. i think there used to be a ton of misinformation about this battle. i generally prefer the videos to do with air combat........but to be honest, wwwaaayyyyyyyyyyy back in high school, while most of the dudes were reading hotrod, carcraft and/or stealing their fathers playboys.......i was devouring pretty much anything i could get my hands on about ww1 and ww2.....mostly the airwar side, but i read anything i could get my hands on.

 

[1LtCAP 4,264]

this channel put out some good stuff too. and the best part is that they're talking to the guy. it's always special when you can talk to someone that was there. i've talked to ww2 fighter pilots  from the usa and germany, a bombadier from the usa, and a vietnam war vet who flew phantoms........

 

[GRIZ 3,369]

8 hours ago, 1LtCAP said:

yea...that's one of the inaccuracies i keep seeing in these videos..they show relatively long bursts, when in reality most gunners and most fighter pilots usually only took 1-2 second bursts.....

 the other thing......most fighters with wing mounted guns had a convergence set. usually this was 250 yards or less....which when you consider the speeds they were flying....that's up close and personal

Converging the fire of fighter machine guns at 250 yds was a technique developed by the British IIRC.  Can't remember the term they used for this.  Very important important when Spitfires and Hurricanes only had 303 machine guns.

Another factor looked at was the "weight of fire" of a 2 second burst.  Obviously the weight of the rounds delivered in that time depended on what you were shooting.  A 20mm beat a 50 cal, a 50 cal beat a 30 cal.  We standardized pretty much on the 50.  More on that later.

IIRC the P47 inboard guns had bigger magazines.  Maybe a couple hundred rounds more than the other guns.  This waa designed to give the pilot a reserve.  If he only saw 2 streams of tracers he knew his other guns were out of ammo.  He still had a few hundred rounds for SD on the way home.

The only US fighter used in a fighter capacity through WW2 with a 20mm IIRC was the P38.  150 rds for 1 20mm (15 seconds of fire) and 500 rds for each of the 50 cal (30 seconds of fire).  This firepower was certainly a consideration why the P38 was used during most of the war along with other factors.

Richard Bong, highest ranking US ace with 40 Japanese planes shot down flew these.  Bong's record was later matched by McGuire who the AFB US named after.

Bong achieved these results although he never really was a fully qualified fighter pilot.  He never went to aerial gunnery school and was sent to the Pacific shortly after Pearl Harbor.

Read an interview with Bong long ago. He said he achieved his results by closing to 50-100 yds of a Japanese aircraft and giving it a short burst with the 20mm and 50 cal.

IIRC, Bong died test flying the X1 the same day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Yeager later broke the sound barrier in the X1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GRIZ 3,369]

2 hours ago, 1LtCAP said:

this channel put out some good stuff too. and the best part is that they're talking to the guy. it's always special when you can talk to someone that was there. i've talked to ww2 fighter pilots  from the usa and germany, a bombadier from the usa, and a vietnam war vet who flew phantoms........

 

Great video.

My algebra teacher in the 9th grade flew P51Ds in a reconnaissance unit in WW2.  A few of their guns were replaced with cameras.  Their missions were usually flown single aircraft.  He said after a while they removed all the guns from the guns from the recon aircraft as they were shooting down more German planes per capita than the fighter units.

Years later, I found a book in the library that listed all fighter kills by US aircraft in WW2.   Way before the internet.  Found my algebra teacher had shot down 2 German planes.

[1LtCAP 4,264]

8 hours ago, GRIZ said:

Converging the fire of fighter machine guns at 250 yds was a technique developed by the British IIRC.  Can't remember the term they used for this.  Very important important when Spitfires and Hurricanes only had 303 machine guns.

Another factor looked at was the "weight of fire" of a 2 second burst.  Obviously the weight of the rounds delivered in that time depended on what you were shooting.  A 20mm beat a 50 cal, a 50 cal beat a 30 cal.  We standardized pretty much on the 50.  More on that later.

IIRC the P47 inboard guns had bigger magazines.  Maybe a couple hundred rounds more than the other guns.  This waa designed to give the pilot a reserve.  If he only saw 2 streams of tracers he knew his other guns were out of ammo.  He still had a few hundred rounds for SD on the way home.

The only US fighter used in a fighter capacity through WW2 with a 20mm IIRC was the P38.  150 rds for 1 20mm (15 seconds of fire) and 500 rds for each of the 50 cal (30 seconds of fire).  This firepower was certainly a consideration why the P38 was used during most of the war along with other factors.

Richard Bong, highest ranking US ace with 40 Japanese planes shot down flew these.  Bong's record was later matched by McGuire who the AFB US named after.

Bong achieved these results although he never really was a fully qualified fighter pilot.  He never went to aerial gunnery school and was sent to the Pacific shortly after Pearl Harbor.

Read an interview with Bong long ago. He said he achieved his results by closing to 50-100 yds of a Japanese aircraft and giving it a short burst with the 20mm and 50 cal.

IIRC, Bong died test flying the X1 the same day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Yeager later broke the sound barrier in the X1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yea. the 38 had a single 20mm cannon and 4 browning .50 cals all nose mounted. it was also i believe the only allied fighter to serve in every theater of operations and from beginning to end of the war. Bong did so well with the 38 because he knew better than to fully engage any japanese fighters. there was no version of the p-38(or any american fighter outside of the wildcat and hellcat) that could sustain a turn-fight(dogfight) with any of the japanese fighters. you kinda had to engage, take a shot or two, extend out(bravely run away), then come back at them again. odd that you mentioned bong though.......i watched a video on him(again) last night, but soon as it finished, i went to bed. and yea.......50 to 100 yards at anywhere from 250mph to 350 or more? holy hell! that's like following "nascar" close at 70, lolol.  side note....i can't remember exactly why...supposedly something to do with internal politics....but the 38 with drop tanks more than had the range to have taken our bombers deep into germany and back, although 38 pilots did see some good action in the eto.  i often feel like the p-51 gets just a leeeetle too much credit for destroying the luftwaffe. i kinda feel like the 47 and 38 drivers pretty much decimated the luftwaffe of their better pilots before the pony came on scene. or the surviving good pilots were pulled back to defend the homeland/

i seem to recall that the original design of the p-51 mustang was the a-36 apache. in that configuration it was supposed to be used as a dive-bomber, and i think that one had 4 20mm cannons mounted int he wings. i just can't recall if that version ever served in the war. after the apache, there was the 51a which had 2 .30 cal(i think) nose mounted underneath the engine firing through the prop and 4 wing mounted .50 cal. the b and c versions lost the nose mounted guns, and i think the d was the first to have 6 .50's mounted int he wings.