Deflection Shooting

[wmaxt]

I think that it needs to be noted that prior to and during WWII arial gunnery was taught by having an aircraft tow a target sleeve, like a big wind sock. To fire from directly behind was not allowed because of the likleyhood of shooting the tug aircraft down and scoring the shots. Scoring was done by giving each aircraft bullets with a different color dye on them and counting the number of marks of a given color. They normaly started their runs from an angle of about 30deg, judging from the accounts I've read, so deflection shooting was more or less taught.



This changed with the P-63 and "Frangable Bullets" (they shatter on contact with any resistance) which had a light bulb that flashed whenever the aircraft was hit. I don't know how many there were or if it was an experimental project or how widespread it was if it was used.

wmaxt

[FLYBOYJ]

I think that it needs to be noted that prior to and during WWII arial gunnery was taught by having an aircraft tow a target sleeve, like a big wind sock. To fire from directly behind was not allowed because of the likleyhood of shooting the tug aircraft down and scoring the shots. Scoring was done by giving each aircraft bullets with a different color dye on them and counting the number of marks of a given color. They normaly started their runs from an angle of about 30deg, judging from the accounts I've read, so deflection shooting was more or less taught.

This changed with the P-63 and "Frangable Bullets" (they shatter on contact with any resistance) which had a light bulb that flashed whenever the aircraft was hit. I don't know how many there were or if it was an experimental project or how widespread it was if it was used.

wmaxt

pwafb museum


This WW II fighter was developed from the P-39 Airacobra which it closely resembles. The Army Air Forces never used the P-63 in combat, although some were used for fighter training. Many P-63s were exported as Lend-Lease aircraft; the Soviet Union recieved 2,456 and Free French forces obtained 300. P-63 performance was adequate for low-level fighting and P-63s were widely used by the Soviets for such missions as "tank busting." Bell produced 3,305 P-63s, 13 of which were -Es.

The most unusual P-63 variations were the RP-63A and RP-63C "pinball" versions developed late in WW II. These manned target aircraft were fired at by aerial gunnery students using .30 caliber lead and plastic frangible machine gun bullets which disintegrated harmlessly against the target's external skin of Duralumin armor plating. Special instruments sent impulses to red lights in the nose of the "pinball" aircraft, causing them to blink when bullets struck the plane.

The P-63E on display (S/N 43-1172 was donated by Bell Aircraft Corporation in 1958. Although it lacks the armor plate and other "pinball" features, it is marked and painted in the unusual color scheme of an RP-63A.

[Gnomey]

Cool! Interesting post Joe!

[pbfoot]

Interesting sidelight on this drogue stuff the drogue operator was the only guy in RCAF/RAF to recieve flight pay and not have a set of wings also the lowest ranked for recieving flight pay I was introduced to a guy who operated drogues from Battles and he had over 900hrs flight time and was an LAC

[Tony Williams]

I believe that the principles of deflection shooting were well understood from the earliest days of air combat, and pilots were instructed in them. Why shouldn't they be? As has been pointed out, shotgunners practice deflection shooting every time they aim at a target, and this was indeed used as a type of training method for pilots and air gunners. The few pilots who were naturally skilled in deflection shooting generally came from hunting backgrounds.

The problem was the lack of any really effective practical training methods (a modern combat sim would have been a wonderful aid). The RAF discovered in pre-war exercises, using fighters armed with camera guns in mock attacks on bombers, just how bad the aiming skills of the pilots were, so they started the development of the gyro gunsight, eventually perfected in late 1943 and adopted immediately by the USAAF and USN as well as the RAF, as it was reckoned to double the chance of scoring kills. Until that arrived, the general advice was "assume the target is twice as far away as you think, and use twice as much lead as you think you need".

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Twitch]

The good shooter could hit at any range and at any deflection angle. It's as simple as that. It is almost a thing that can't be described. It's more something that needs to be experienced. Tracers were in ammo belts to assist in ranging activities. Angles were adjusted for automatically as the shooters commenced firing.

Great shooter could make kills without seeing the enemy if you can believe that. Here's some comments from aces I've talked to about it.

"There was a tremendous urge to drop your nose and eyeball the guy but instinct takes over and you shoot him without seeing him." That's what Jack Thornell said about firing in a turn when the nose of your plane is leading the enemy and actually blocks him from view.

Thornell flew the P-51B for most of his 17.25 victories even when the six gunned "D" became available. He didn't mind that the "B" had only four .50 calibers. He had a shooter's eye that compensated for the firepower. He was good enough to make triples on two occasions with the 1,260 rounds his Mustang carried.

I finally got a question answered that I'd pondered over a long time. How accurate to reality was the above scenario? It was right on the mark! You get into the flow and feel it. I always felt that occurrence was tantamount to Yoda and Luke Skywalker discussing "the force."

Jack Bradley, 15 victory ace who scored kills from "all distances," when asked the same question replied, "You can drop your nose and look if you're far enough away since you can easily point in the lead to compensate again. 30 to 45 degrees was a comfortable angle to fire at another aircraft whether on the horizontal axis or the vertical one." 30-45 degrees above or below and from 30-45 degrees to the side was an ideal angle I'm told. But pilots preferred to attack from six o'clock even though the target is smaller.

Pilots found the 30-45 degree angle to be superb for kills. They were more deadly from the six o'clock level position and from six low or high of course.

[Glider]

Small point to take into account is that the Tracer bullets/shells sometimes had very different trajectories compared to the 'HE, AP etc' shells. So to rely on them for ranging could be misleading.

[Tony Williams]

There is no question that some fighter pilots were brilliant shots. The one regarded as the best was the German, Hans-Joachim Marseilles, who was credited with 158 victories, and he specialised in high-deflection shooting. On June 6 1942, while flying alone, he attacked a formation of 16 P-40s and shot down six of them (five in six minutes). On September 1 he shot down 17 aircraft, eight of them in ten minutes.

However, such abilities were extremely rare. Most fighter pilots never managed to shoot anything down in combat, and it is generally estimated that about 10% of the pilots scored 90% of the kills.

The Luftwaffe looked into the question of deflection shooting, as reported in Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45:

"German research in the early 1940s indicated that most successful attacks took place at zero deflection and the maximum angle of attack for effective shooting without a gyro sight was 15º. Many successful fighter pilots preferred to open fire at point-blank range in order to avoid the deflection problem altogether."

These included the most successful fighter pilot of all, Erich Hartmann, with a claimed 352 victories. He preferred to close to around 50m, right behind his target, before he opened fire.

Another quote from FG:WW2 about deflection shooting:

"Gyro sights were first developed in the UK in the late 1930s, after combat tests using camera guns revealed the difficulties in estimating the amount of lead. The first model was tested in combat in 1941 in both fighters and bombers, but had many problems which were not resolved until 1943, when the sights were perfected as the GGS (gyro gunsight) Mk IIC (for turrets) and Mk IID (for fighters). These went into quantity production early in 1944 and, after demonstrations revealed the dramatic improvement in average shooting accuracy which resulted from their use, the USA adopted the sight as the Mk 18 (USN) and K-14 (USAAF). There can be little doubt that these sights contributed significantly to the excellent kill ratios achieved by Allied fighter pilots in the last year of the War."

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Jabberwocky]

Reflector Vs gyro gunsight tests in WW2

[Twitch]

As one of Bong's wingmen, Ralph Wandrey described them tracers "had a trajectory like a sloppily thrown football but gave you some idea of where your ordnance was going. Yes, Dickk used them." (Somebody has got to fix that damned censorship of the name of America's top ace Richard Bong since you can't write the name he was known by Dickk without mispelling it so it will appear.)

Tony, what you neglected to mention or may not have known is that it was an even sixty rounds per plane times six. That's all it took for Hans-Joachim Marseille to down six Tomahawks of the British Desert Air Force (DAF). What's more amazing is that the 20-millimeter nose cannon had jammed after only ten rounds were fired. The Star of Africa finished them with the pair of 7.9mm MG 17s above the cowl! He was so far and above the rest he shouldn't be included in comparisons due to his legendary trigger skills.

And, well, as fighter pilots were fond of saying back then, "When you think you're close, get closer!" There were many instances of guys kicking rudder to skid and bring the guns of one wing only to bear on the enemy they were so close.