- Thread starter
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- #101
Burmese Bandit
Senior Airman
- 474
- Dec 5, 2008
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You know, I was researching pusher planes after I posted and the Swedes has a pusher (Saab 21) that they liked quite a bit, powered by a DB 602. They kept it into the mid 50s.
I never thought rear gunners did much good. They never had more than a single .50 to shake at the enemy, and if one was enough to down an enemy fighter, why did the fighters have 6?Pushers have one drawback - no rear gunner possible...and you need an ejection seat.
That said, I think that if 4-7 years of research into high powered pushers had been done before WW II, we might have seen some very interesting designs indeed!
Bramos - I thought about it, but what if an attack from the front takes out one of the Bramos? As I said in post no. 98, fifth para, self quote here...
And now we see another reason for having two engines in each powerpod (separated of course by an armoured firewall) - battle damage redundancy. With an attack from the front, the front engines will soak up the fire but at the same time protect the rear engines, thus ensuring at least 50% power available. Probably more, as air cooled engines will take more than one hit before they finally give up the ghost and stop producing power. Same in an attack from the rear. Even in a worst case scenario, an attack from the rear destroying both the left rear engine, the central engine and supercharger, and the right rear engine, we should still have 25% power left...enough to make a controlled crash landing scenario, some miles away from the combat zone, plausible.
The reason why I don't want rockets for my tankbuster is given in the start of Tony William's excellent essay on tankbusting aircraft - rockets are just too dang inaccurate.
And I did give an alternate 3.7 armamaent, Tomo. It's the FlaK 43. an excellent weapon.
Rear gunners are valuable not so much for their shooting skills as for their eyes.
If we look at the analysis of fighter kills done by the US, UK, Nazi Germany, the Russians, etc etc, one fact leaps out - the great majority of pilots shot down were shot down from the rear, and they never saw the plane that shot them down until the bullets were striking them!
This is why the great aces in the air had what was joking called the "fighter pilot neck syndrome" - their heads and eyes were continually swiveling round amd round, looking for the enemy ambush. There's an ace saying "If it's a fair fight, you didn't set it up right".
The greatest of all, Hartman, gained most of his kills by ambush hit-and-runs. If you're a soccer fan...and remember the German soccer team of the 1970s...think of him as Gerd Muller with wings and machine guns!
So, for fighter planes with space limitations, no rear gunner means you have to have a fighter pilot neck. Only rare human beings can do this 24/7 in the air. No matter how often it's drilled into you, your mind gets tired and you stare in one direction just a little too long...and the next thing you know, your ass is on fire!
This is why bomber and attack planes have a rear gunner.
Of course, if your plane can neither run worth a damn or maneuver worth a ****, then you need a gunner with superb shooting skills...
You got 80% of it right - Kudos to you!
Where you missed, though,(and this is more my fault of inadequate description than yours of inadequate visualization,I think) is in the fact that the powerpod mates smoothly with the main wing, and the rear propeller has a driveshaft that goes right through the main wing to drive a prop that turns behind the main wing.
Furthermore I would have the air and cooling intakes for the fifth argus in the main wing roots so as to keep the belly clean for possible ordnance stations. And, of course, mud on takeoff is better avoided this way...
The landing gear (this is something I forgot to fully describe, again) is behind the rear engine, and continues neatly behind the powerpod with half the wheel visible in the folded back flight position, like the stormovik, a very useful thing to have in a belly landing.
And I definitely would have a cockpit with more view!
But apart from that, A FANTASTIC JOB!!!