Bandit at 8 oclock high!

Thumper,
The "explanation" given was that the bullets were fired in an upward direction which caused them to travel in an arc while the plane dove straight forward/downward at high speed. I would like to see some specifics and math/physics calculations on the story myself.

Good shooting and be safe.
LB

ps: Actually the Korean F100 Super Sabre fighters could exceed speed of sound in level flight and the F86 fighters could do so in a dive.

For clarity though, "8 o'clock" would be slightly low and to your left. 12 being straight up, 6 being straight down with 3 and 9 being level on iether side respectively.

Click to expand...

I may well be mistaken for fixed wing. My first 3 years in the Army was in an aviation unit (Air Troop, 116 ACR), the pilots asked us to call out stuff as if we were looking directly at a clock and the helicopter was in center.

Click to expand...

So, you're saying that if you radioed to the pilots, "Slow down, wires 12 o'clock, 100 meters", you'd be warning the pilots there were wires 100 meter directly above them? Maybe the 116th does things a litte differently.

Whenever I've been in a helicopter, if they said, "See that at 1 o'clock?" they've always meant slightly right of straight ahead.

Probably the best evidence is that if you are out drinking with pilots, be it fixed wing or rotary, and one of them says "Check 6", they all look behind themselves for the girl, not down.

Any helo pilots/crew chiefs able to confirm this?

Navy Helo guy (well, fixed wing now, but did a tour in helos)

We use a normal clock.

Traffic 3 o'clock - level = on your right, same altitude

BugSmasher 11 o'clock low= cessna or similar just left of forward, lower than you.

Traffic 9 o'clock high = traffic (type unkown or irrelevant) on your left, higher than you.

I read a book on the 8th AF in WWII. It noted that over half of the battle damage on the bomber force could be attributed to expended cases and links. The tight formations of bombers would produced enormous amounts of brass and steel links dumped overboard as the guns fired. When thin aluminum travelling at 200 mph meets steel falling through the sky, aluminum gives way. Propellers and wing leading edges took the most damage.

I thought I remembered during the Gulf war, when Wolfe Blitzer was in Bagdad,
That he said that a lot of the damage in civilian areas around the city had
come from AA and Surface to Air missiles landing back in the city from the Iraqi army.

When the news was showing you all the AA going up through night vision you
only saw, what, every 5th round (give or take) because it was a tracer. So
the rest of that stuff had to go somewhere since none of the Stealth 117's
were hit/shot down.

When a surface to Air Missiles runs out of fuel and falls back to earth does some
type of electronic control fail safe disables the warhead? Natural ballistics would make the
missile come down head first. If it's still active, impact with the ground would be
the same as impact with a plane, at least to the war head.

I wonder if you could look up collateral damage – Gulf War on the net and see
What you would get.

CajunBass said:

One U-boat even penetrated into and was sunk in Chesapeake Bay.

Click to expand...

Can you provide any details on this event? U-boat ID, or approximate date?

On the U-Boat sunk in the Chesapeake Bay: I don't know the exact details, but I think it was near the mouth of the Patuxent. It's pretty common knowledge in this area.

On the main topic:

I recall Alistair Cooke's comments on the old Masterpiece Theater series "Upstairs/Downstairs" regarding the Zeppelin Raids during World War One. Cooke said that most of the civilian casualties were caused by British anti-aircraft fire, and that the government knew it. They thought it was a higher priority to be seen to be shooting back though, rather than allow the enemy to bomb London with impunity.

I've got the Victory at Sea series on DVD, it is loaded with some of the most unbelievable footage. If your a gun lover there is just so much to see. I end up drooling over every episode.

But the really interesting thing is the scenes where the Kamikazes are attacking. The tremendous amount of rounds being expended is impressive. But even when a plane was disabled and spinning down the gunners are so focused they would fire at the planes right down until they impact the ocean. In many videos the stream of rounds clearly crosses at least one and sometimes several ships. It makes me think that being above deck during one of those battles you would have been extremely likely to recieve incoming friendly fire!

There have been documented cases of jets shooting themselves down. I don't have any links handy, but it is a real problem if the pilot is not careful. The incident I heard about was a pilot fired his guns, went into a steeper dive then got hit as he was pulling out of the dive. He fired, went into a dive, passed his bullets, then slowed down on climbing and got hit. I think he had to eject in that case.

I remember hearing a story about incident that supposedly happened in the Korean conflict: US jet fighter fired .50 MGs at enemy plane slightly above his, then dived at shallow angle while continuing straight ahead. In short time, his plane was hit by his own .50 cal MG fire and damaged. Not sure about authenticity of story.

Click to expand...

You are probably thinking of the Grumman G-96 Tiger, a fighter being developed for the Navy during the 1950s.

During a test in which the pilot fired the aircraft's 20mm cannon, he dove and caught up to the projectiles FROM BEHIND, causing damage to the plane.

One of my great uncles, sadly now passed away, was a Grumman engineer on the G-96 program.

Hello,

My Dad was a B26 Marauder co-pilot, and was shot down over France 4/29/44. He eventually wound up at Stalag Luft 3 in late May '44. At the end of January '45 they were force marched back west as the Russians were getting to close. They wound up in a temporary camp near some flack batteries.

All the pows scrounged whatever wood, and blanket material they could find to make shields to hold over their heads. The flack batteries would fire at the allied bombers overhead until the bombers were out of range. The shrapnel fell back to earth, some of it right on the pows. They used their homemade shields to protect their heads while in the slit trenches. Dad says he picked shrapnel out of his shield two, or three times. Some guys got hurt, but he never mentioned anyone getting killed outright from the falling shrapnel.

best, RG

mpmarty sez:

of damage caused inadvertently by combat activities during WWII, I always ask the green weenies what became of all the millions of tons of crude oil, avgas and lubericants torpedoed and sunk in the oceans. Never find any record of damage to our environment at all.... strange.... puzzling? Between us, the Japanese and the Germans we spilled more oil in the six years of WWII than the entire history of oil spills including the Exxon Valdez etc.

Click to expand...

Actually, two WWII wrecks of historical significance have been in the mainstream news so far this year for environmental concerns:

1) The USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. She's been slowly leaking out her fuel oil ever since she was sunk. Shortly before the battle, she had topped off with 1.2 million gallons. About 500,000 gallons are left, maintaining an eternal slick over her wreck.

2) U-Boat U-864, at the time it was sunk about two miles off the coast of a tiny Norwegian island, was carying over 70 tons of mercury destined for Japan. BTW mercury was commonly used to transport Uranium Oxide for the Axis atom bomb programs because it preserved the Uranium Oxide for later recovery in the event a U-Boat sank. Research U-234, U-859, and the Amiraglio Cagni to get an idea of what other dangers lie beneath...

In both cases, after years of worry and study, it seems leaving the wrecks where they lie and entombing them with sand is the best course of action.

Pearl Harbor

Well, here's some data about civilians killed by falling AA in the December 7 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor:

"American dead numbered 2,403. That figure included 68 civilians, most of them killed by improperly fused anti-aircraft shells landing in Honolulu. There were 1,178 military and civilian wounded."

Full text -> http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-1.htm

During WWII, AA projo fuzes rapidly involved to not only include proximity-detonated functions, but also self-destruct systems. For example, the projectiles used in the Allied versions of the ubiquitous 40mm Bofors AA guns included self-destruct tracer elements that ensured destruction of the projectile after the tracer burned out. Better to have small fragments rain down on you than an armed, complete 2-lb HE shell!

In the same vein, I once read that early jet fighters had to plan their strafing runs so as not to dump heavy 20mm brass casings on friendlies. Later gun designs recycled the spent casings back to internal stowage in the plane.

The anti-kamakazi fire mentioned, i've often wondered about 'friendly fire' effects on the other ships. i guess it was the lesser of the two 'evils' when compared to a direct hit by an aircraft.

Click to expand...

I'd think that the way they built ships back then helped. Everything armor plated and built like, well, battleships. Prox or impact fused HE isn't going to go very far against reasonably thick armor plate.

I'd imagine brass falling on you would make for a bad day. Most guns systems today use what's called a linear linkless system. This is partly due to the nature of the guns, and I'm sure getting the brass back(and not having it fall on people) would be a bonus.

Can you provide any details on this event? U-boat ID, or approximate date?

Click to expand...

No, I sure can't. I remember reading an artilce about it in the Richmond Times Dispatch some years ago. The skipper and I believe a few of the crew had survived the sinking, and the skipper had settled in the Norfolk/Hampton Rhoads area after the war. It may not have been in the bay itself although IIRC it was just inside the Virginia Capes.

The plane that is famous for shooting itself down is the Grumman F-11 Tiger, a 1950s era jet. A test pilot fired the guns while in a shallow dive, and apparently caught up with some of the rounds as they slowed from air resistance. Story is here. http://www.aerofiles.com/tiger-tail.html