WW2 air combat footage

I have been watching Old footage from cameras mounted near the guns of several aircraft, activated by the gun trigger
There are tons on youtube
What amazes me is the sound of cannons during short bursts, very different from the rapid fire of machine guns.
Also, how parts come flying from the enemy plane just ahead. ailerons, tail sections, wings, wheels , parachutes, etc
But the most chocking part is to see how close behind the enemy plane the pilot gets, for the kill, before pulling up or turning I mean, maybe less than 50 ft and parts coming flying at him Its incredible Highly recommend.

 

Some of those images are posted by " IL-2" and they are CGI and almost convincing. I was friends with an ex P-38 pilot and Ace whose airplane was heavily damaged several times from the debris of planes that he shot apart. He went through (5) P-38's all of which were named "Scrap Iron"

 

The Brits and the Germans loved automatic cannons while we pretty much stuck to multiple .50s with a few exceptions like the P-38 and P-39/63.

 

All from 30mm FW-190 cannon fire. I was stationed at Langley Field with the airman, Leo Stoutsenberger, that filmed the demise of "Extra Joker". Tail, lower fuselage, center section tank, wing, and number one engine heavily damaged. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

With all due respect I believe the images are not CGI Not the ones I saw
Maybe there is CGI out there but the combat footage I have been watching is real to me Small pieces of footage collected by cameras mounted in the nose or leading edge of wing next to guns
Anyways , it gave me an extra dose of respect for fighter pilots using their eyes and pedals and a stick

 

The fakes are produced by "Il-2" . I realize that there are real photos from actuall gun cameras. The actual gun camera shots are usually very short and shaky, not stretched out and precise. Most are deflection shots but I agree, many are from the rear and close.

 

For Terry. The sad thing about this incident is that the Germans, again, were able to have three FW-190's stooging around that drew away the P-51 escort so that the B-24 formation was jumped by 13 -190's that shot down at least 5 of the B-24's. When Leo turned to take pictures of the airplanes on their left, they, too, were gone. Leo's airplane took some hits but not fatal.

 

Bob- Those 30 mms were real bomber killers. Tactics killer was tying the fighter escort too closely to the bomber stream. Better to have them sweeping ahead and to the sides where they could intercept the bad guys before they got to the stream. Otherwise the bad guys got at least one free pass on the bombers, and those cannons often made one pass more than enough.

 

Yes...

The A-10 uses 30 mm (altho depleted uranium) I think...and the Apache? Heck of a bullet.

 

Affirmative, but the 30 mm "Chain Gun" in the Apache is a completely different weapon from the GAU-8 in the A-10 and uses a much smaller round. Only the diameters are the same. This photo shows how gigantic the GAU-8 round is compared to the Chain Gun round. Looks like about 3-4 times the propellant in the GAU-8 round.


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Good chart, thanks, so was the 30 in the FW-190 similar to the chain gun round?

 

Not really sure, but probably even smaller. Will look.

This is 30 mm ammo being loaded on an HS129, I think. Just over an inch in diameter,


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Yes, they were bad stuff. I recall that the german munitions people got some kind of award for the design of the 30mm shell (projectile) and its explosive power. Charge plus design of the round casing. I recently viewed a YouTube of FW-190 attacks on B-17's and one that sticks in my mind is a very close in attack that clearly indicates a B-17 that was probably over the channel and almost home when it was assaulted at VERY CLOSE range without any return fire. The ball turret was "guns down" indicating that the gunner had left the turret. The tail gunner was also gone because the attacker came up to within 50 yards without any fire. Pretty sad.

 

To OP -

Got a favorite few vids from YouTube ?

MDS

 

This is a good one, although it has several repeated clips

 

Sometimes it looks like you could reach out and touch the targets... you can also witness the gunnery skills of Allied fighter escorts and fighter-bombers, especially after the D-Day landings.. deflection shots against moving ground targets, equally mesmerizing...





Don't forget the effect of the guncamera lens'es optics - they magnify the view. Targets will appear a lot closer on film, than it would look like to the pilot with their own 1:1 eyes.

My expertise lies mainly with the Ju-88, but I'll clarify the German Mk 108 30mm cannon was brought into service late in the war, 1943.
- The G model of the Me-109 was the first and most common fighter to carry the 30mm cannon internally, hub centric, designed specifically as a bomber interceptor. Most gun camera footage showing 30mm against bombers are from Me-109G variants and on.
- Me-110Gs were also fitted with internal 30mm cannon and deployed as bomber destroyers, but were outclassed by Allied escort fighters and reassigned as night fighters.
- On Fw-190s the 30mm was only carried in retrofitted wing gondolas, which reduced their speed and maneuverability.. the two 20mm wing cannon they carried were still very deadly. The rare Ta-152 development of the Fw-190 was designed to carry the 30mm internally, firing hub-centric.
- The primary armament of the Me-262 was a cluster of 4 x 30mm cannon in the nose.

Here is a testament to the 30mm's effectiveness:
"Testing verified that the autocannon was well-suited to this role, requiring on average just four hits with its 85g RDX-load (in a 330g shell) and a resulting strongly brisant high-explosive ammunition, to bring down a heavy bomber such as a B-17 Flying Fortress or B-24 Liberator, and just a single "shattering" hit to down a fighter. In comparison, the otherwise excellent 20 mm MG 151/20 (3g of HE in 57g shell) required an average of 25 hits to down a B-17."

One single round to down an Allied fighter.

@Bob Parks - yes that footage from a Luftwaffe fighter pumping shells into the rear of a B-17 is famous and gut wrenching. That declined once Luftwaffe pilots developed the more successful head-on attack. Their closure rate was much higher, but the defensive fire they faced was far less than from any other angle. Hence the B-17G chin turret.

Cheers,
- Art

 

I liked the footage of trains being strafed. If the locomotive boiler was compromised, a huge plume of white steam would come shooting out of the smokestack. One memorable film shows what must have been an ammunition car exploding violently.

 

One of my favorites is seeing the tracers sailing off into space while the shooting P-51 was in a banking turn to the right. Just as the tracers were starting to drop an ME109 comes in from the left and meets the rounds that were dead on target, hitting the cockpit and engine with converging fire. The other one was also in a turn to the right while firing and dropping the shots onto a train and raking it from the caboose to the engine. Good flying and shooting. Aerial gunnery was heavily dependent on good flying technique.