Luftwaffe gun camera footage

[Weasel]

This link:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bZOb0vx9y9I&feature=related

has some great Germ. gun camera footage. At about the two minute mark there is about a 45 second clip of a 110 raking a B17, amazing. You could tell many of the bomber crew were injured or dead because none of the guns were moving when the 110 flies up beside her.

Also included is a 190 going after a Lagg5.

[Walrus]

Hi
Awesome footage.
Cheers

[zeiss]

Yep, a great find Weasel.

There's a nice duel towards the end of the clip.

[Vesku]

I was lost for a couple of hours watching all the clips behind that link, thanks Chris!

[Ironfist]

Excellent, just added that to my links. Cool music with the video's:smoke:

[brm_3k]

Thanks Chris

Quite chilling to watch........

The bombers look so hopeless, and let's not forget that wasn't a game - it was real people in there

Alex

[Vesku]

I spotted a gunner dropping from the tail and the belly cupola from couple of videos ... gruel.

[Weasel]

Yep, I play IL2 and I know just in game terms it takes a lot of guts to attack even a piece of junk bomber like a Betty or something like that. A B17, big nuts! I have always thought that if I had to be in WW2 I would want to be a gunner on a B17 or in a Lancaster.

Oddly enough, the UK lost more bombers in night bombing then the US did in day. Kind of makes you wonder if night bombing really was any safer huh.

[seabolt]

I have always thought that if I had to be in WW2 I would want to be a gunner on a B17 or in a Lancaster.

Gunner on a B-17 was just about the most dangerous job in the U.S. Army. Clean sheets between missions, but a fatality rate exceeding even that for riflemen until the P-51 and -47 got worked up properly for long-range escort.

Oddly enough, the UK lost more bombers in night bombing then the US did in day. Kind of makes you wonder if night bombing really was any safer huh.

UK policy depended on the cover of night for self defense. The Germans did a pretty good job of developing their interceptor program.

Had the UK halved their bomb loads to cram in more gunners and belts of .50-caliber, as in the US day policy, things might have been very different. During daylight, the German fighters enjoyed a significant advantage in hammering their prey with 20mm fire before the .50s could return the favor.* At night, fuggedabout it. It would be a carronade matchup of sheer weight of fire. The .50s would have been sorely felt, had the UK borrowed a few hundred of them ...

*This amounts to sacrilege among worshippers of the "strap a .50 on anything" U.S. policy, but I was convinced on the topic years ago by a German researcher.

-- 30 --

[Greybeard]

Hello Guys,

Well, there is alot of other factors involved with effective range of a weapon than just how far a gun can shoot..

on a bench rest a .50cal has an effective range of well over a mile.. (1.6km)..

the cannon on most aircraft we very abreviated versions of something that might be use on the ground.. and had an effective range from the bench much less than a .50BMG.. slower muzzle velocity and slower rate of fire..

But.. when you are shooting from a relatively stable platform of a fighter plane.. with a superior sighting system, and not fighting the effects of a slip stream blowing your bullets off-course.. and your target is 3-4 times larger than you are..

then, absolutely.. the incoming fighters enjoyed a big advantage over the crew served .50's in a bomber.. as the effective range of the .50 drops to less than 500 yds.. and the fighter can sit back at greater ranges and plug away..

thankfully the qty of shells that the Germans carried in those 20 and 30mm guns was very limited..

the twin engine night fighters carried alot more ammo.. but were easy meat targets for escorting fighters.. but before there were escorts.. :(

Greybeard