Tales of the Gun-Guns of the Sky

[xl_target]

Interesting video for aerial combat fans.

[youtube][/youtube]

[nagarifle]

any in 105mm?

[TwoRivers]

any in 105mm?

I believe the "gunship" carries a 105mm howitzer among other nasty things.

[prashantsingh]

xl,
You should have been a fighter pilot.

[only32owner]

xl,
You should have been a fighter pilot.

Why? Just because of this post

Regards.

[xl_target]

xl,
You should have been a fighter pilot.

Why? Just because of this post

Regards.

Actually, not just because of this post. Prashant knows a little bit about me.

xl,
You should have been a fighter pilot.

I sure wanted to be one.
I was told my eyes were too bad.
The IAF was very, very picky back then and I'm sure that hasn't changed.

[only32owner]

Sorry, XL,
never knew that prashant, knows so much about you.

Anyways, Best wishes for both of you.

Regards.

[timmy]

I have seen a number of these shows, but I had not seen this one. I liked it and thought it was good, but there are some things that I felt could have made it better (realizing, of course, it was for an hour of TV broadcast time).

1. The original B17 was, indeed, called a "Flying Fortress," but it hardly was one. The only guns it had were a few 30 caliber machine guns mounted in blisters, and it had no tail gun at all, which is the most important gun on these types of heavy bombers. Later B17s corrected these problems, starting with the B17E variant. Actually, it is surprising that the Army Air Corps did not give that aircraft a new designation, since so many changes were made.

2. The B17 had superb high altitude performance, conferred by the use of turbocharging. Actually, the USA led the world in turbocharger development, mainly because of the work of Dr. Sanford Moss of General Electric. He began experimenting with high altitude turbocharging soon after WW 1 on top of Pike's Peak in Colorado. I cannot recall the part of the program, but there was something that inferred that bombers became the focus of the US Army Air Corps. Actually bombers always were the focus. For this reason, the B17, B24, and B29 were all turbocharged, and the fighters which had been designed to be turbocharged were produced without them. Therefore, because of the poor altitude performance of the P40 and P39, the US Allison engine got a bad rap. The truth is, Germany had most of the tungsten reserves, and there was not enough supply available for all US aircraft to be turbocharged. The Mustang, at the request of the British for who it was built, requested installation of a Merlin, and the rest was history. The Merlin had decades of Rolls Royce research in high altitude supercharging behind it. But the show did not mention the P38 Lightning, Allison powered and turbocharged, which had excellent high altitude performance. Also the P47 Thunderbolt, also turbocharged, had superior high altitude performance, as well.

3. Actually, the .50 Browning Machine Gun was becoming obsolete by the end of WW 2. By that time, the Allies had destroyed most of the Luftwaffe and Japanese airpower. But the Germans had begun to roll out excellent 20mm and larger weapons that did not suffer from low rates of fire and rainbow trajectories, and their guns actually made the .50 cal obsolete. The trouble with Germany was its politics: the Me 109 was always better connected politically than Kurt Tank and Focke Wulf, so the emphasis on production was on an aircraft too small to carry a sufficient amount of gunnery - the Me 109. By the time of the Korean War, combat speeds were too high and ranges too great to allow weapons as small as the .50 cal to be successful, and the Jets were tougher to knock out than the older prop planes. Heavier firepower was needed, which the Soviets had and the Americans did not, at first.

4. The most glaring omission was about the monster cannon on the A10 Warthogs. They did not mention that the big performance booster of the 30mm gun was the use of spent uranium fuel to make the shells it used. Since uranium is so much more dense than any other element occurring naturally, it offers much increased ballistic performance over even traditionally heavy metals, like lead. The show did not mention this important fact for some reason.

But it was a fun watch, XL, thank you for sharing it with us!

[xl_target]

Sorry, XL,
never knew that prashant, knows so much about you.

Anyways, Best wishes for both of you.

Regards.

No problem, only32.
Prashant doesn't know me that well but we have communicated and he is a very intelligent man and an excellent guesser.
Not to mention he has huge Cojones. Any man who will follow a man-eating Leopard on foot, at night and in the hills is a man to look up to. He did that without a suit of powered armor and a Phased Plasma rifle in the 40 watt range (which I would require to even consider a similar feat).
He was able to deduce that from the limited contact we have had and I'm not surprised at all that he guessed that.

Another point about the B-17. The Luftwaffe figured out that the early B17's did not have any guns that pointed straight forward. This allowed them to make head-on attacks at the "boxes" of bombers flying over Germany. They were quite successful in those head-on attacks. This led to the addition of a chin turret in the B17 F and B17 G model that alleviated the problem somewhat.


B17 G Aluminium Overcast that I photographed in 2009




Here is the belly turret that they talked about in the video. Believe me, it is tiny.
The drawing inside the turret shows how a gunner would have to contort himself to fit in there.
The guns were between his legs and fired in that position.
Imagine lying in there for the hours it took to fly to Berlin and then back to England.

[xl_target]

any in 105mm?

I believe the "gunship" carries a 105mm howitzer among other nasty things.

Here you go Naga. Just for you.


Here is a 105 mm being loaded inside the Spectre. The 40 mm Bofors is right behind it. You can see the loaded magazine with the shells in them.


Here you can see the 40 mm Bofors and the 105 mm Howitzer protruding from the side of the aircraft.

[xl_target]

The video also mentioned the F22. Here is a video that shows some of the capabilities of the F22.
It's amazing that the aircraft doesn't simply fall out of the sky at such low speeds. It is fully controllable even at 80 kts.!

[photobucketvideo]http://www.militarytimes.com/multimedia ... 714_rc_f22[/photobucketvideo]

If you can't see the video, here is the link

[nagarifle]

can you get me seat beside the 105?

[xl_target]

can you get me seat beside the 105?

Not a problem!

We just need to find someone who knows how to apply makeup.
Then we will disguise you as an 18 year old.
There is an Air Force recruiter in the shopping mall here so we'll take you in there (I'll pretend that I'm your dad) and have you sign up for six years.
After basic training at Lackland AFB in Texas, you can volunteer for Spectre/Spooky/Stinger aircrew.
They'll probably make you attend several schools and if you're lucky, you might get it after a couple of years.
If you get selected, you can travel to exotic locations, meet amazing people and then shoot them up with the 105

The gunship's sole user is the United States Air Force, which uses AC-130H Spectre, AC-130U Spooky, and AC-130W Stinger II[2] variants for close air support, air interdiction and force protection. Close air support roles include supporting ground troops, escorting convoys, and flying urban operations. Air interdiction missions are conducted against planned targets and targets of opportunity. Force protection missions include defending air bases and other facilities. AC-130Us are based at Hurlburt Field, Florida, while AC-130Hs and AC-130Ws are based at Cannon AFB, New Mexico.[3] The AC-130s deploy to bases worldwide in support of operations. The gunship squadrons are part of the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), a component of the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130

The good thing is that when you are done, the Air Force will pay for you to go to college.

[James_Bond]

Interesting video for aerial combat fans.

[youtube][/youtube]

Nice xl_target. Its very nice.