RAF .303 caliber Me-109 live fire test vulnerability results - Lancaster bomber gunners aim point
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- RAF Lancaster bombers were armed with Browning .303 rifle caliber machine guns. This was deemed adequate at the start of the war. As the war progressed the Germans added features to their fighters to defeat this round. On the Me-109, there existed single small .5 ft squared zone which was vulnerable to the .303 armor piercing cartridge. This is the only zone which would cause the fighter to break-a-way from his attack. The video will address live fire testing which confirm the Me-109's vulnerability location.
From video I have seen from film of fighter attacks on bombers, i seriously doubt any gunner was capable of aiming at a specific part of a fighter, much less a .5 square foot vulnerable area. They aimed at the fighter plane and hoped for the best! Great channel, the archival reports are so interesting to WWII aviation historians/enthusiasts!
Especially as the RAF where bombing at night.
My grandfather was shot down in their Lancaster on the 21/22 Feb 45. They were attacked by two JU88s and a BF110 simultaneously. The two 88s from the rear and the 110 from underneath, which they didn’t see. He assumed the two 88s were used to distract the gunners.
20mm cannon rounds came through the cockpit in front of him and through the instrument panel. A round went through the floor, between the navigator’s legs. Two engines and the wing immediately caught fire. One of the 88s caught fire, as a result of being hit by the rear gunner. All crew bailed and survived.
His train was strafed by two P47 Thunderbolt’s. Killing numerous POWs in his carriage. On the forced march, they were strafed again by a P51 Mustang. He was 19 years old at the time. Not an occupation I fancy.
Was this at night or during the day?
@@williamzk9083 The BF110 and JU88s had some use as day fighters in WWII but in general were extremely vulnerable to being shot down by Allied fighters (Germans discovered that early during the Battle of Britain). And so mostly they were used as night fighters, since they could accomodate radar guidance as well as heavier anti-bomber guns such as the innovative Schrage Musik upward firing cannons and the Allies did not have night fighter escorts.
@ At night
@gandalfgreyhame3425 They did have night fighter escorts. Radar equipped Mosquitos were used to defend the RAF/RCAF bomber streams
@@monza1002000 Were the Mosquitoes attached to actual bomber units to be escorted or were they suppressing German night fighter units near the bomber streams?
The only bomber gunner I have spoken to did over thirty missions in Lancasters as tail gunner and never fired once in anger. His reasoning was that more often than not you would be giving your position away, in the dark. As a farmer's son he was a very capable shot and would probably used his guns effectively.
The Lancaster's biggest vulnerability was from below as it simply had no gun coverage in that direction. This was pretty obvious to the Luftwaffe and they mainly attacked Lancasters from below, and even installed the innovative Schrage Musik upward firing cannons so that the attacking night fighter could cruise parallel with the bomber stream while shooting at one after another bomber without having to point its nose at the bomber with forward firing guns by climbing up and then pealing away. So, the biggest reason he never fired his guns would most likely have been because the German fighters were coming from below at the Lancasters.
@@gandalfgreyhame3425 If he had been fired on from below often enough, he wouldn't have returned to tell the tale. On his last mission he was thrown against his sight during a corkscrew manoeuvre and lost some teeth in the process, but I think it was when avoiding searchlights rather than enemy fire. They had quite enough trouble just with flak.
Lancasters were primarily used at night. As such, the gunner's primary role was to keep a lookout and shout to the pilot when to take evasive action. Opening fire would give their position away and so was only done as a last resort. The Lancaster was surprisingly manoeuvrable, so it was far better to throw the plane all over the sky to evade the nightfighter.
It would be great if we could have similar data against a radial engine fighter like a FW-190. Great video with very good information, thanks.
You are the GOAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your videos are well-researched, presented and edited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
not only that but it is such an incredible niche that is hard to find on YT in such an easily digestible format.
Some Lancasters were fitted with .50 cal guns instead of .303s. The postwar Avro Lincoln got 20mm cannons.
From memory, there's a passage in the Wiki page about the B17. The Germans assessed the usefulness of their armament against the B17. They established two Mes or FWs flown by pilots of average ability would need to completely unload all of their ammunition before downing a B17.
Advice from ace Douglas Bader: "Get as close as you can before opening fire. When you think you're too close, get even closer".
Would have been nice if I could have done that in War Thunder :(
Carrying a max ammo load, firing at max range, and standing on the trigger was too much fun, tho :)
To be more exact, based on the german investigation, the b-17 and b-24 examined needed at least 20 hits from the 20mm gun to get shot down. The average german pilot scored hits with about 2% of his fired rounds. Same report also noted that when attacking from the front of the bombers, it took only 4 our 5 hits to bring a bomber down, due to killing of the pilot/s. The findings changed the german tactics.
When the B17 first appeared over Europe, the BF109's still had two rifle-caliber machineguns and only 1 cannon. Still, 200 rounds of 20mm could easily down a B17. It depended on where the rounds landed on the bomber. The Germans quickly learned the vulnerable spots of the B17 and became more adept at shooting them down. On the head-on attacks that were increasingly used later in the war, for example, a few rounds into the cockpit was often enough. A few cannon rounds into an engine could disable it and start a fire. As the war wore on, German fighters were increasingly optimized as "bomber killers" with more and heavier cannons. This was partially offset during the war by the lower quality of German fighter pilots later in the war, though.
@@jfess1911 The Me 109G1, with rifle caliber motor guns, was coming of the assembly lines by Feb 1942. There were a few small series hand built production Me 109G-0 in combat trials before this. The Me 109G-6 and its pressurized cousin the G-5 were commencing deliveries by Feb 1943. The G5 and G6 were the first with the 0.55 inch (13.2 mm) MG131. This gun had a lower weight round with lower velocity than the Browning but a somewhat higher rate of fire compensated a little. It had the destructive power of 2.5 rifle caliber machine guns so it had a much better punch. Ballistics was about the same as a rifle caliber gun. It's advantage was that it could fit in the space of the rifle caliber MGs it replaced.
-The Me 109 was more likely to be used for head on attacks due to its weaker Armour and armament while the Fw 190A was more likely to be used in a tail chase.
-Luftwaffe fighter pilots awarded half a victory for a "herausschuss" or for damaging a bomber such that it fell out of formation as this was considered more difficult than shooting down an individual bomber. Once out of formation the bomber was almost certain to be shot down.
-Some Me 109G6/U4, Me 109G14/U4 (and presumably Me 109G10/U4) had the MK108 30mm canon fitted.
-The Me 109K-4 started appearing in October 1944 and had the 30mm MK108 as standard in most cases.
-Heinz Knocke in his memoirs "I flew for the fuhrer" (the lurid title was his publishers idea, knocke was prett decent) recounts how he was shot down by a P-47 but as his engine stopped the P-47 flew past him and Knocke fired 1 or 2 30mm rounds into the P-47 which blew its tail off. Both pilots bailed out and were picked up in the same Luftwaffe truck and they discussed what had happened with each other. (Knocke spoke English). The American went to a POW camp, Knocke who had a fractured skull took a year to recover in hospital and barely survived.
-A variant of the Me 109K4, the K6 was to have 30mm guns in the wing spars and also the Me 109K16 with a two stage supercharger.
@williamzk9083 Thank you for the details. My main point was that when the B17s first appeared, the German fighters of that time were more lightly armed and had a tougher time shooting them down. Nevertheless, a single skilled pilot had enough 20mm rounds to kill a B17.
Do you have an idea how long German fighters tended to stay in service? How long, for example, did the 109s with rifle-caliber machine guns stick around. IIRC, there was also a period when mounting extra 20mm guns was a field modification, which implies that not all aircraft had them installed.
Thanks.
Gun writer Dean Grennell was a gunnery instructor in WW2 and the 'bulletproof glass' the rear gunner looked through was touted as protecting them from attacking aircraft. Somehow they got a hold of one of these thick panes of glass, took it out to the desert to test it out. First shot was with an M1 Carbine (30 cal 110 grain bullet @ 2000 fps) and from what they'd been telling all the gunner trainees the glass would easily shrug this off. To their surprise it blew it into pieces with the first shot.....so the much heavier armament of attacking fighters would absolutely NOT be stopped in a direct attack. Very long range hits might be defended...but that poor guy was screwed unless he could get the fighter to break off before he landed a hit. Hats off to the brave men on both sides who fought that war.
Then how did he explain all the examples of them stopping rounds during the war?
Sounds like reality TV style induced drama.
@@dukecraig2402 How did they know what range they were fired from? At what angle? Of course at extremely long range or a steep angle the glass could stop a round....but up close many German pilots said they took out the tail gunner first so they could then work over the rest of the aircraft.
There is the factor of an unsupported glass being less strong than when contained within a sturdy frame....I just wrote what Grennell wrote about his experience.
Grennell's most hilarious story is when he was an instructor for 25 rookie bomber gunners shooting a Browning in 30-06 with a 200 round belt each on a fixed target on a shooting range. As Grennell ordered "fire" a coyote appeared at 200yds. All 25 gunners emptied their belts at the hapless critter. However, the coyote slammed the throttle to the firewall and was not hit by a single bullet 🤣 Grennell had doubts of the effectiveness of full auto fire after that..
Grennell said a coyote ran across the range in the desert. A dozen 50 cal training turrets opened up. When the dust cleared the coyote was a running speck in the distance. "There is one path to hit the target and 100 paths to miss".
I remember reading a memoir by Curtiss LeMay on the 30mm bullet proof glass of the B-29 rear gunner. He said it could be penetrated by Japanese fighter rounds. It obviously protected from a AAA burst shrapnel say +/- 40 to the rear and provided some protection from rounds fired from ultra long ranges.
So,,,, as a recap. I'm supposed to aim for a target about as big as a notebook, at a range of around 500 yards, as I am traveling over 200 mph, and my target is in excess of 300 mph, at an altitude over 20,000 ft, air temperature is in the negatives, and it's a deflection shot. ...... yeah,,riiiiiggght 😂
For you yes. For them its very possible especially if there competently trained
@@gotanon9659 Nope. Even if the gun was aimed properly, the bullet dispersion was too great to reliably hit a target that small. The approach was to blast away and pray.
That's obviously not the take away.
@jfess1911 better sitting there doing nothing.
Spray and Pray Baby!
@@gotanon9659 You should not drink before you post a response to a comment.
I doubt a Bomber Command gunner had an option about which part of an enemy fighter to shoot at. Each engagement would less than 2s and at night.
Another great bit of information, thank you.
No lack of interesting content on this channel!
Most edifying. Thanks for posting.
Thanks for the information. It was very enlightening.
The 303 had a higher rate of fire. The rounds were explosive, armour piercing, ball, tracer,incendiary, and their velocity was higher than the 50. I'd like to know what the destroyed and damaged numbers were for fighter attacks against the RAF.
The BF109E (Emil) used in the table was obsolete by 1942 and replaced by the BF109G (Gustav). The main differences were an upgraded engine (early ones were notorious for spontaneously catching fire, Hans Joachim Marseille being the most famous victim), and cannons either firing through the propeller spinner or mounted in heavy underwing pods along with ammunition. The radiators could be isolated in flight, allowing the plane to still fly with one radiator damaged.
Operating from old memory here. Marseille died in a 109F. Pretty sure about that. And yes the early models were notorious for spontaneous engine fires. He bailed out and struck the tail. Did not open his parachute. Killed by the tail or just knocked out ? No idea. Witnessed by his squadron mates.
the oil cooler radiator cannot be isolated. no spare, and can't fly without oil or too hot an engine.
I love your channel! To me the most interesting part of WWII aviation is the fighter/bomber war in the West, although mostly on the German side of things. Your channel nicely fills a Viermot-sized niche in my head.
Keep it up! 😘👍
About 20 years ago those MKII* .303 Browning A/C kits were being sold here in the USA. Many were remanufactured by C2s and legally registered. Here is a price for one that is for sale right now. Transferable $32,750.00 Pennsylvania.
Is it even possible to aim that accurately?
This sounds like someone sitting at a desk telling law enforcement to aim for the leg/arm/gun. There are few people who can even shoot that accurately on a practice range, let alone in a life threatening confrontation. The only place to aim is center mass. Get hits on target.
An incoming fighter in air combat is exposed for seconds. The gun mount isn’t all that accurate. The gunner is under high stress. As discussed in previous videos by this channel, the ballistics of a round fired from a moving aircraft at another moving aircraft are very complex.
If you try to aim for the windscreen, any rounds that miss high are unlikely to damage the tail. Aim center mass, put rounds in the air, and hope that some of those rounds cause damage!
Keith Besherse
The ROF of the Browning .303 MKII* was 1,150 rounds per minute. With tracers, this makes aiming fairly straightforward. You walk the rounds into the target. The issue is running out of ammo before you hit the enemy. The secondary issue is that the rounds were quite anemic against aircraft.
@@FreiherrDinkelacker You responded with a technically correct answer which missed my point.
How many machine gun rounds have you fired? I have shot M60 from bipod and tripod. M2 from tripod. M240 from tripod and pintle mount. Maybe the first round goes exactly where you aim it (probably not). After that the gun is moving constantly! It is not a sniper rifle. It is an area fire weapon.
Yes, getting hits on an incoming fighter at 400-600 meters is probable. And you probably will hedge your point of aim towards the windscreen if you know that is the only way to get an immediately incapacitating effect. But most important is getting hits; any hits are better than spraying and praying. Keith Besherse
@@BaldGuy-Marketing I was a C2 for 9 years. I purchased many of those MKII* kits from Ohio Ordnance. I registered a few. I was also in the US Army for 10 years....I can safely say I have shot at a minimum over 500,000 rounds. I used to purchase ammo from Century Arms by the pallet. 8mm, .303, 7,62 Tok surplus. The MKII* kits were all solenoid-actuated and were tricky to swap over an AN/M2 backplate with spade grips. Also, very expensive!
@@BaldGuy-MarketingI think it would be dependent on the mount. Your experience is probably more applicable to someone like the waist and tail gunners on US medium and heavy bombers except later B-24s and all B-29s than those in fixed mounts such as on turrets which were power-operated turrets with more effective recoil buffers on stiffer mounts.
Though given the available aiming systems requiring the gunner’s own estimation, their accuracy wasn’t as good as hoped until B-29s showed up with their radar controlled remote gun turrets.
@@FreiherrDinkelacker Thank you. I don't know what a C2 is. Your experience is relevant.
Did you watch these:
ruclips.net/video/Z58d5jt4HI4/видео.htmlsi=u2FGPAqFCV4y8NpL (USAAF, RAF, and Luftwaffe all eliminated tracers, why?).
ruclips.net/video/OqeoVM6CXqE/видео.htmlsi=lTCFckiB0-tf2Hiv (In the gun sight table mount footage it sure doesn't look to me like our host is suggesting one should aim anywhere other than center mass of the fighter fuselage).
You may not know this, the trajectory of a bullet fired to the left of the aircraft flight path is different than a bullet fired to the right relative to point of aim due to gyroscopic precession and inertia. Figs 4-1, 4-3, A-9, A-10 (aviation-assets.info/wp-content/uploads/fm-1-140-helicopter-gunnery.pdf).
My point is, with only a couple seconds of exposure it is unlikely most gunners were able to consistently and reliably aim precisely enough for windscreen hits. Center mass fuselage hits are better than no hits.
I think most gunners probably said, " what was that."
Then noticed that their plane was on fire.
Very detailed analysis, both then and now. ;)
By June/July 1940 the RAF knew the .303 was obsolete. They couldn't quickly upgrade everything to Hispano, etc, because of design and weight decisions made years previously. They made their bed and were forced to lay in it. They (bombers) were slaughtered in daylight. The only recourse was to go dark and bomb by night. That worked out. Mostly. The Mosquito came in '42 with 4 cannons for instance, lessons learned. Can you cover the Mosquito? There are myths about that plane that still remain.
the bomber versions used did not have 4 cannons.
@@juslitor Correct. It had a plexiglass nose with bombsight that the navigator used on the bomb run.
I would like to see a British report on how just how many German fighters they shot down, damaged, are deflected the attack with those pop-gun .303 caliber rounds. Realistically, how in the hell was a .303 caliber gunner supposed to hit the windscreen of a German fighter at high speed?
Why did the British persist with Browning 30 cal when Browning also made 50 cal that was a lot more effective? Plus they could have shared ammo supplies with the American bombers
They did adopt the 50 BMG in some later Lancaster models. Mostly the upper turrets but the rear mounted Rose Turret was adopted and fitted to 400 bombers. Before the end of the war.
They were in the manufacturing pipeline. RAF bombers with turrets, were designed for the .303. The size and shape of the guns, the weight of the ammunition, etc. As I proposed, if the turrets were there to provide the illusion of a defensive capability, why go to the trunks of disrupting production line output to incorporate the larger gun? It could also be that the deciders really did believe in the worth of defensive armament, although one could argue that having only the tail turret on Lancaster’s and Halifax’s, would have done nothing substantive to reduce defensive capability, reduced the casualty rate, and allowed for increased weight of bomb-load.
@@JimmySailorWhen they were also mounting daylight missions in late 1944-45.
@@ronhudson3730
They didn't have to interrupt the production of bombers, the turrets were a sub assembly that could have been changed over on their own with little difference to the bomber itself once they showed up at their production facility.
The AN/M2 was already developed and being installed in aircraft like the P36 and B17 before aircraft like the Spitfire went into production and well before the Lancaster went into production, the RAF just plain dropped the ball choosing what was essentially a deer hunting cartridge by WW2 as an aircraft gun.
@@ronhudson3730 BSA got the license to manufacture the .303 MKII in 1935. This means that there was at least 4 good years of manufacturing before the need during the Battle of Britain. The British went with what they had available. Remember, 1940 was the Battle of Britain and the USA had not spun up their "Arsenal of Democracy" to supply alternatives in a meaningful quantity, yet...
Again, you find obscure information and present it in a very clear manner.
Great stuff!
.? -BF-109 with shattered windscreen was how compromised regarding ability to navigate to safety? Did they just bail out(not likely) or land with reasonable margin of risk to pilot and plane?
While the .303 was clearly outmoded by this time, its higher rate of fire partially compensated for its lower effectiveness. (More strikes.)
The rate of fire/how many you put in a wing or a mount doesn't increase range.
@@dukecraig2402 True, but definitely would cause Helmut to soil his briefs if he got shot at by 8 .303 hurricanes.
I enjoy your breakdowns of these interesting details of war. I would politely suggest that you make the video a little longer, and also leave the described material in place so we can read it without pausing the video. In the case of the .303, I'm curious what if any action was taken by the results of this study.
You do a really good job of conveying a lot of information. I am about halfway through this video but I had a couple things I wanted to ask before I forget. Was there an advantage/disadvantage to having the inverted V engine as far as pilot protection does anybody know or have an opinion? I would think you would be aiming right into the middle of the V on an upright engine. Like a Mustang or Spitfire were. I would have to think in a straight on attack the German pilot is better protected with this configuration than if he had been in a fighter with an upright V. 🤔
It is something of a mystery to me why Britain did not manufacture their own 0.5 inch machine guns for the RAF (apparently the USAAF needed nearly all the 0.5 guns the US could produce for their own machines). The inadequacy of 0.303s in the air to air role was known from mid 1940.
It is especially mystifying because (according to Max Hasting's classic book Bomber Command) the Bomber Command Chief Arthur Harris was pressing for 0.5 guns for his heavies for many years, but never succeeded in upgrading by replacing the .303s, except in a few cases (tail turret guns on some Lancasters).
Bomber Harris (notoriously) got his way in _most_ matters - including ensuring the allocation of the majority of UK war expenditure (Bomber Command more funding than the entire Army and Navy put together according to a recent analysis!) but apparently not in this instance.
Oh that's pretty easy - logistics. Britain did not use 0.5 inch machine guns to any major degree (particularly compared to the US) and it would be a waste of resources to adopt it.
For RAF fighters, the Hispano 20mm cannon was far superior to the 50cal, so only a few variants of the Spitfire (and yes, some bombers) had the odd 50cal. By 1944 most RAF fighters were using quad 20mm.
For RAF bombers, guns were not there to shoot down enemy fighters - they were there to prevent the bomber being shot down. For that purpose, hosing an enemy fighter with 4 .303s (especially if running all tracer) is quite effective. As the data shows, landing a hit, of any caliber, near the windshield of an enemy fighter is 100% effective at getting them to break off. For the same weight, you can throw out a lot more .303 than you can .50, which means more probability of hitting. RAF bombers flew at night, so it's much harder for a fighter to re-engage after breaking off.
And of course the British could manufacture large volumes of .303. It was their standard caliber weapon used almost everywhere, so it was available and cheap. Any resources used for a .50 production line would have been more profitably used producing 20mm instead.
@@kenreckless2757 I don't think you have thought this through! O.5s would undoubtedly have been significantly better defensive armament for UK bombers (and 20mm cannon were not suitable, and irrelevant). 0.5s have more than _double the range_ of .303s (which German fighters knew - they could and did spray the British bombers with heavy machine guns and cannon fire, while staying out of range of the 303s.) and about 4x the weight of fire per bullet. "Bomber Harris" wanted 0.5s - but somehow he didn't get them! - despite that Bomber Command controlled (probably) half or more of Britain's resources of manufacturing - including massive production of aircraft, nearly all with defensive guns - nearly all of which were 303s. As I said; I can't understand why the 0.5 were not manufactured in the UK for use in the many, many thousands of bombers that would undoubtedly have benefitted from them. There *will be a reason why not*, I'm sure - but I've not seen anyone who has given a genuinely _plausible_ reason.
@@BruceGCharlton Absolutely have thought it through.
You cite the range and extra hitting power of the .50s, and you are correct. However it is also irrelevant. RAF bombers operated at night. There was no maximum range shooting in those conditions, it was all close range as targets loomed up out of the gloom. Hitting power is also irrelevant, as you aren't trying to kill the enemy fighter so much as drive it away - which is the reason a fair few crews loaded all tracer. In this context rate of fire was king, not hitting power. The primary job of the gunner wasn't actually to shoot, it was to spot threats and tell the pilot which way to evade. Different story for daytime bombers, but the Brits bombed at night.
20mm cannons are not irrelevant, because logistics. The Brits had limited resources. Why invest in .50s that will only get used on heavy bombers when you could use that metal and workforce to pump out 20mm cannons that were used in greater number (with both RAF and RN).
History bears this out - the Lancaster's post-war replacement (the Lincoln) did have .50s in the tail, but by that time it was generally realised that bombers shouldn't have guns, and subsequent bombers like the Canberra typically had no guns, relying on speed.
@@kenreckless2757 I just don't understand why you are making this argument. Firstly, Bomber Harris wanted 0.5s for the night bombers but could not get them - which is the main point - *why* couldn't he get them?
But surely you don't want to suggest that the RAF would not have *wanted* to replaced the .303s if 0.5s were available? 303s were used on their Spitfires even after cannon were introduced, for a couple of years - mixed 2 X 20mm cannon and 4 X 303s. Beaufighters had 4 x 20mm = 6 X 303s. Both would have better had 0.5s; since the 0.5s were certainly superior to 303s on fighters - nobody would dispute that.
The Fleet Air Arm had US-made Martlet/ Wildcats with 0.5s; but the Fulmar had 8 X 303s in their early variants, before these were later replaced with 0.5s.
I think all the evidence suggests that 0.5s were used on aircraft instead of 303s _whenever they were available_ - and that the demand for heavy machine guns was therefore enormous.
Which leads back to the question of Why they were Not available in sufficient numbers.
@ Bomber Harris wanted a lot of things. Doesn't mean you are going to get it. Same is true for all military commanders, and it comes down to the same reason - priorities.
Imagine you are a British purchasing officer in WW2. You have a limited bucket of money with which to buy US equipment. You have unlimited demands for it. Where do you spend the money? On Thompson SMGs, M4 Shermans, carrier based aircraft, land based fighters, or US guns for RAF bombers? You can get a little of each, or enough of a few things. Where does your weight of effort go?
I'm sure the Army wanted lots of Thompsons - they got Stens. I'm sure they'd have wanted semiautomatic rifles - they got bolt action rifles. Priorities.
I don't dispute that the .50 is a better aircraft gun than the .303. It was not, however, a priority for the bomber force. Especially when you have to purchase them from the US, whereas you can make .303 yourself.
On the fighter side of the house, .50s were mostly used on US aircraft, or as an interim while the bugs in the Hispano 20mm were being worked out. So yes, you saw .50s being installed in some Spitfires and aircraft like the Fulmar - but these were replaced as soon as possible with all cannon armed aircraft.
The simple reality is that the bang for buck gained by acquiring large numbers of .50 guns for the heavy bomber fleet isn't there. It's a better choice, sure, but it's not going to make that much of a difference. You might shoot down a couple more enemy planes, but not enough to make any significant difference. That's why the Brits generally jumped from .303 to 20mm wherever they could.
4:24 - that's *not* a .303 on the left. You can tell because they're rimmed.
Another great vid.
May I point out that the cartridge at 4:20 that is not a standard issue .303 all of which were rimmed. There were some experimental rimless.303s but they were not put into service. I would be happy to be corrected.
Good stuff, very interesting
I would imagine that at least some pilots would break off their attack if they felt things were getting too 'hot'. Lots of bullets hitting their plane, even if it wasn't "lethal" damage. Even lots of bullets whizzing by 'too close for comfort' might help them decide to break off.
The table shows that 25% of hits to the engine cowling and 100% of radiator hits by a .303 were delayed lethal hits. So it's not like the .303 was totally ineffective. I would think that the fighter pilot would think twice about pressing an attack if his plane were taking on hits.
This assumes the Lancaster gunners were like snipers. I would have thought they’d be lucky to get any hits at all on any part of the plane let alone aiming only at the windshield
Even if a bomber gunner had the optics to aim at a fighter cockpit (which they didn’t) the bullet spead made such accurate fire virtually impossible at realistic engagement distances (say 400m).
Odd to use the Bf-109 as the example target as that type was in a minority for night interceptor operations - 110s and Ju-88s were much more common adversaries.
Interesting, RAF Bomber Command night bomber loss rates per sortie were similar to those USAAF daylight raids, so it seems that the cover of night and heavy defensive armament were of comparable levels of protection.
Remember. The gunners job was to keep the fights away from the bomber
Could the ammo store "chain detonate" when enemy fire struck it? Or just the links disintegrated and it could not feed beyond the damage?
Detonation of the rounds was not a common issue. A fragment would need to hit the tail of the bullet and primer, and even then, not "chain detonate". A hit on the case body would penetrate the brass and possibly cause a "fizzle" of the now unconfined propellant. If the hit did not break the belt, the deformed cartridge would cause a gun jam, though
Hi. I'd like to add that ammo cooking off was more common in pillboxes that were set hit by flame throwers, and in war ships that had avgas fires-such as aircraft carriers and ships that were hit by kamikazes. Basically, an ammo box that's covered in burning napalm or avgas often started cooking off rounds that added to the damage and confusion. I'm guessing if a bomber had a fire that burned an ammo box, that probably caused some cook offs, but probably not just getting hit by gunfire.
@@davidhoffman6980 Agreed, once the ammo is engulfed in fire, cookoffs are much more likely. Otherwise, a strike from another bullet or fragment is unlikely to cause a cartridge in a belt to go off.
I always used to think something like a minigun would have been a winner, put patently not!
Me 109 front glass 80 mm actual thickness but thicker because at steep angle 45%
If you are only firing at planes attacking you how do you protect the other bombs?
The US gunners were trained to only fire on enemy fighters during their pursuit curve. However, they were allowed to fire on enemy planes that were in the pursuit curve as they attacked other bombers as well. Basically, if the fighter is dodging, he doesn't present an immediate threat and is almost impossible to hit. The fighters are at their most vulnerable when attacking because they have a steady predictable path and have to get within a couple hundred yards of the bombers. Thus the gunners only fire on them during attacks but they fire on any attacking fighters in range even if they are attacking a fellow plane.
WT windscreen casually absorbing 50mm Mineshells.
Pilot: No damage to report!
While I've no dispute with the ballistic data presented here, I have some difficulty believing bomber gunners could 'pick' any shots to vulnerable areas of ANY attacking aircraft. On the other hand, the attacking aircraft have infinitely more latitude in that particular aspect. I can visualize some of these tests being conducted in a more or less antiseptic environment, and in that way skewed the data.
oil cooler is a radiator too
There had to be all sorts of studies going on during the war as the British and Americans sought some nick in the enemy's armor. Some of these provided useful information that saved lives and shortened the war. Some were less useful. I suggest this study falls into the later category.
British bombers flew at night and German single engine fighters flew during the day. They rarely crossed paths. When they did it wasn't like a precise darts competition.
Going into WW2 with a rifle-calibre cartridge for air combat always struck me as pure folly and cheapskatery on the part of the Brits.
The brits didnt have reliable 20 cannons available until after the BoB.
At the start of WW2 very few aircraft in any airforce were armed with anything other than rifle calibre guns and the RAF with 8 in its fighters and powered turrets in its new bombers were among the most heavily armed.
By then it was already recognised that heavier guns were needed so cannons were developed for the fighters.
For the bombers it was realised that at night defensive gunners were more lookouts than anything and the guns were just to make them feel better. The odds of hitting anything were fairly negligible so best keep the armament light so as to limit the performance of the aircraft. Speed and altitude are more important when avoiding interception than the ability to shoot back.
@Crabby303 I agree. Every other major belligerent upgraded their aircraft armaments. Any explanation of why the British didn't with their bombers has to take that into account. For crying out loud, the British even upgraded the armaments on their fighters.
Perhaps the British Command knew the gunners weren’t going to be able to hit anything anyway in the dark, even before they realized the Luftwaffe was using SchrageMusik. Giving them heavier guns and ammo would have meant less bomb load or shorter range, and diversion of .50-cal guns from other uses where they would have been more effective. Putting .50s in the bombers would have competed with USAAF bombers for ammo supplies, not “shared.” And then each time a bomber went down - on average they lasted only six sorties - so too would six or eight scarce machine guns.
Hard choices.
@@genreynolds6685 "scarce machineguns"? The Browning M2 wasn't scarce. Nobody was stripping them out of bombers to ship them to where they were desperately needed. GM alone built over a million during the war, and if the British built them as well, then there'd be more than enough to put on every bomber. Also, one doesn't risk an expensive bomber, and its crew to save a small amount of metal and money on machine guns.
The .303 calibre guns were largely ineffective as a defensive weapon against aircraft. BUT: the sole presence of gunners in the bombers forced the attacking fighters to fly in a path that minimized chances of being hit by defensive fire, reducing fighter offensive fire accuracy as well. If bombers had no gunners, the fighters could just position themselves behind their targets and fire from close range with devastating effect.
If bombers had no guns, they could;
* fly faster and higher
* be more agile
* risk less crew per aircraft
Look at the success of the RAF Mosquito. No guns, no armour, only two crew, very good range and bombload. For the resources put into a single B17 or Lancaster you could get several Mosquitoes that overall do a better job.
@@kenreckless2757 I generally agree, but disregarding the Mosquito for a while and considering only the four engined heavy bombers used in WW2, I maintain that stripping them of all guns wouldn't be a good idea. I would keep at least the tail turret.
Very interesting. However it would have been far more relevant if the video looked at RAF bomber armament effectiveness against predominantly twin engined German nightfighters. Different types of aircraft, very different tactics.
Me-109 haha. That’s what I’ll call myself when I’m 109 years old haha.
Woooo!
Neither the Me-109 and Lancaster were WWII US Bombers.
That's Bf 109.
Period USAAF and RAF document refer to the fighter as the Me-109, not the Bf-109
@@WWIIUSBombers Still incorrect. Perception isn't fact.
i have nothing pertinent to add
except for the squiggles to appease the algo-deities
A quickly trained teenager, who is scared to death, has seen many of his friends go down in flames, is unlikely to be able to hit the broadside of a barn, no matter what the training recommendations. Were the .303’s insufficient? Obviously. Were the .50’s more effective? Hypothetically. My suspicion is that aerial gunners both in the USSAF and the RAF sprayed bullets at whatever came into view. Remember that most RAF gunners didn’t know they were being attacked until their aircraft were hit and on fire. I suspect that the defensive guns, no what their calibre, were there more to provide a psychological crutch for the aircrew either in the USSAF or the RAF, than for their efficacy in shooting down defensive aircraft. Proven by the heavy loses incurred by the 8th Airforce before the advent of escort fighters, in spite of the recommendations of when to fire and what to fire at. The reality was that the attrition rates were expected and addressed by the training pipeline and mass production of bombers. Reports like these kept up the pretence of the value of defensive armament and as such may have mollified those doubting the value of the loss-rate but contributed nothing more than the deforestation incurred to provide the paper they were printed in. In fact, a combined force of Mosquitos, flying at night with adequate path-finding and only two crew and no defensive armament, might have accomplished more with a much lower loss rate. IMHO.
There is a massive difference between a 303. It’s not “hypothetical”. A .303 has 3500 joules of energy. A 50 cal has 20,000 joules of energy. A.303 is pretty much the same bullet as most hunting rifles in the U.S. the .50 cal was developed to penetrate WWI tanks. So a massive difference. A plane can be raked by .303 and potentially be hardly damaged, while being raked by .50 cal will go right through the plane and turn it into Swiss cheese.
Streamlined unarmed Lancaster should have been a better option too but there is 3 flaws in that ways of thinking.
1) Military doctrine at the time (of the design at least). Bombers were supposed to be self sufficient. Mosquitos program wasn't a well regarded one at first.
2) Psychological effect. Going at war without any way to strike back? Sending boys to sure death if they meet any opponent? This would have been nerve breaking for crews and lower echelons commandment (higher one are usually psycho enough for the job).
3) Trusting the scientist who's proving you wrong? Does this have ever worked in human history?
He has covered this in other videos. He gave the (once upon a time) confidential stats for the Pacific Theater, on who shot down who, with what. B29's actually shot down a lot of fighters
@ronhudson3730,
The Germans learned the hard way that attacking a massed formation of B17s from the rear was a suicide mission. The Germans switched to frontal, side, top, and bottom attacks, often using the sun and clouds to conceal themselves. The Germans also used large bore canons in their fighters for a reason as well. They wanted a round that could set a bomber on fire or destroy its structural integrity after one or two hits. Self sealing tanks only worked against smaller rounds. They did not work against 23mm, 37mm, 40mm, etc. The Americans did not do themselves any favors by obsessing over the Browning .50BMG round. The Americans did not learn this lesson until after the Korean war. In Korea, the Soviets laughed at how many .50BMG rounds it took to damage or destroy their MiG15s, and how they only worked with direct hits on highly vulnerable parts of the aircraft such as right up the tailpipe or directly into fuel tanks, the pilot, or other critical parts of the aircraft. The Soviet's 23mm and 37mm canons ripped apart US F80 and F86 fighters after as few as one or two hits. Now the USA uses high velocity explosive armor piercing rounds of a minimum 20mm size and larger in its areal guns.
Bomber Losses, Germany and Northern Europe
HC Deb 13 October 1943 vol 392 cc863-4863
§28. Mr. Stokes asked the Secretary of State for Air how many British bombers were lost over Germany and Northern Europe during the month of September; the total for the nine months ended 30th 864September; and whether he has any information as to the figures for American bombers over the same periods?
§Sir A. Sinclair 193 British and 92 American bomber aircraft operating from this country were reported lost over Germany and Northern Europe during September. The totals for the nine months ended 30th September are 1,844 British and 539 American.
Long story short, the RAF handicapped themselves by sticking with rifle caliber machine guns throughout much of the war.
Not really. Unescorted bombers were highly vulnerable regardless of their defensive armament. Switch the .303’s for .50’s and you make your bomber heavier which translates to less speed, less height, less range and less bomb load and you’ll still have next to no chance against an attacking fighter which will have an easier time intercepting you because you’re lower and slower.
The RAF was well aware of the limitations of rifle caliber weapons on aircraft which is why they were developing cannons to arm their fighters even before the war started.
@@gcox7013
No they weren't "highly vulnerable", the infamous Black Thursday Schweinfurt raid was swarmed on by 250+ fighters, that's the part guys like you fail to recognize, if those bombers had been unarmed none of them would have come back.
@@dukecraig2402 I don’t think anyone is forgetting anything. Every raid was met with the largest force of intercepting fighters the Germans could manage on the day. The losses the USAAF took in 1943 were appalling and the Schweinfurt raid just demonstrated that in a manner that couldn’t be ignored. Bombers could not operate with little or no fighter escort in daylight over enemy territory. That means they were highly vulnerable.
@@gcox7013then why didn't they go with pistol caliber guns and save even more weight?
@@davidhoffman6980 there were some who proposed to strip the guns off entirely. In fact there was one nation that did remove all but the tail guns from their bombers and used speed and darkness as their primary means of defence over enemy territory. It was the Americans with the B29’s.
So, blind them. Interesting.
Repeat after me... 👏there👏is👏no👏such👏thing👏as👏a👏ME109👏it's👏designation👏is👏and👏always👏was👏Bf109👏
You can call it a Messerschmidt 109 or a Bf109 but calling it a ME109 is not only wrong it's a totally amateur move.
Period documents of the both the USAAF and RAF refer to the fighter as the the Me-109, not Bf-109.
Adequate 🤣 303
For FRAK'S sake.... It's BF 109. Can't you get even the most simple fact right?
The RAF and USAAF documents refer to the fighter as the Me-109, not Bf-109
There is no such thing as an ME 109.
The USAAF and RAF period documents refer to the fighter as the Me-109
Keep calling it the Me-109.
All RAF and USAAF WWII period documents refer to the fighter as the Me-109.
German records from the war refer to it both as the ME109 and BF109, one channel even showed a surviving German document from the war that referred to it as the ME109 in one paragraph and the BF109 in the next paragraph.