Bf 109 K-4 Kills? Anything Exceptional?

[kool kitty89]

Perhaps you could start a thread on this in the weapons subforum.

 

[drgondog]

Hi Juha,

>You seem not to understand the difficulties of aerial gunnery

Snapshots are standard operating procedure ... just look up Shaw's "Fighter Combat", page 20, to see I'm well in agreement with the author of "the fighter pilot's bible".

Shaw distinguishes between "snapshots" (the technique to use with the MK 108 at short range) and "tracking shots" (what the army taught you). As your army training was for tracking shots, you didn't learn about snapshots. However, the priorities in anti-aircraft fire are different from air-to-air fire, so it's not an oversight by your instructors - it's just that regarding our topic, you can't draw any valid conclusions from your army training.

A 'snapshot' is the same specific technique whether shooting at a clay target or a grouse in cover or in a tangential - out of plane shot to one point and time when you believe your barrel or a/c gun axix is crossing the line of flight of your target.

It can be done but requires much luck in addition to the flight skills of the pilot as the pilot generally can not follow and close for a lower deflection tracking shot.

>>Quote:" and how big are the chances of actually getting a crippling hit from debris when it happens? We're talking about infinitesimal chances here."

>Read again what Jabs wrote.

My quote actually started (emphasis added): "Yes, but how often does that happen during a DOGFIGHT, ...", as we're discussing fighter-vs.-fighter combat here.

I also asked for the chances of a CRIPPLING debris hit. If the target goes down at the price of some scratched paint on your Me 109, that's not much a problem even if it happens every time you kill an enemy fighter.

>The field is all yours, I'll not continue this conversation

Hm, that's slightly disappointing as I thought it was an interesting topic ... feel free to add more information if you come across relevant stuff in the future.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Henning wondering if you shoot international skeet?

If you do there is a near perfect analogy at station 2 High house or worst case station six low.

A snap shooter like Petrov - USSR '68 Olympics would position his Baikal with position of body and shotgun to move vertically to intercept the horizontal target. When he broke the target (98%of the time) it was approximately 10 feet out of the house from a low gun position. The rest of us were breaking the target at 50' in the semi tracking swing through method. He was exceptionally gifted and the only Olympic quality shooter that I ever saw that was capable winning with this method.

We all have seen the very rare 'one off' shooting at an a/c entering the gun camera field in a rapid 90 degree crossing manuever, but even fewer showing a hit.

Finding the track, aligning the path of the a/c or shotgun to the target track, 'swinging through' and adjusting as you shoot is a far more reliable (and teachable) technique. With a Grouse in heavy cover you don't take the shot in leisure and you don't eat if you don't take the shot - but you'll miss a lot more than a reasonable time to swing through the flight path would avail you.