Dog fights on the History channel

Wayne Little · May 2, 2008

Just watched the 'Night Fighters' episode....

kool kitty89 · May 2, 2008

It's hard to tell if a new season was postponed by the writers' strike or it was canceled. (or both) The strike would explain the crappy programing (ice rod truckers among others), reality programs filling in w/out writers, at least I hope that's why. (otherwise their programming is really going to hell...)

timshatz · May 2, 2008

"Ice Road Truckers" and "Ax Men", who gives a s---! That ain't history, it's reality TV. Put it on Discovery and give us Dogfights! Preferable something from the BOB or Russian front (just to mix it up a bit).

Njaco · May 2, 2008

or pure dogfighting from North Africa. Hey how about the defense of Malta by a few obsolete bi-planes! This series could go on and on. And I hope it does.

Soundbreaker Welch? · May 3, 2008

They could a lot of good stuff on the Russian Front.

Erich Hartmann, P-39's, Sturmoviks, Stalingrad, ect.

kool kitty89 · May 3, 2008

Or commonwealth pilots in the Pacific.

rochie · May 5, 2008

i saw the P-51 episode yesterday, it puzzled me though would a mustang really survive a 30mm hit from an Me 262 on the wing then still be able to fight like it was shown in this episode

drgondog · May 5, 2008

rochie said:
i saw the P-51 episode yesterday, it puzzled me though would a mustang really survive a 30mm hit from an Me 262 on the wing then still be able to fight like it was shown in this episode

If the 30mm hit outboard of the guns and missed the spars it should survive one hit.. inboard where the lift distribution and wing loading is higher - a different story

would sure be 'draggy' compared to other wing

Freebird · May 5, 2008

Njaco said:
or pure dogfighting from North Africa. Hey how about the defense of Malta by a few obsolete bi-planes! This series could go on and on. And I hope it does.

Yes and how did Marmaduke Pattle get so many kills in that Gladiator?

Njaco · May 5, 2008

Agreed. How about showing how the Buffalo did so well in Finland.

kool kitty89 · May 5, 2008

Or a whole overview of the Buffalo. (all things considdered it didn't do too bad in Sinapore either, with almost 1:1 air:air for the commonwealth and more for the Dutch)

JoeB · May 7, 2008

kool kitty89 said:
Or a whole overview of the Buffalo. (all things considdered it didn't do too bad in Sinapore either, with almost 1:1 air:air for the commonwealth and more for the Dutch)

I wouldn't expect the History Channel to properly research that, it's one of the whole problems with those kind of shows beyond oral history-type value (by which I mean 'here's how it seemed if you were really there' not 'here's how it *was* if you could look at both sides'), and entertainment.

The Buffalo did way worse than 1:1 v Japanese fighters based on what the Japanese really lost, Brit Dutch or USMC (latter just one combat, at Midway)and were not effective inflicting heavy losses on their escorted bombers either. Allied claims in the chaotic and difficult conditions of '41-42 Pacific were highly overstated.

I don't know the real situation of Finnish Buffalo claims v real results, but the real results of the Buffalo v the Japanese were quite poor, that's no myth, and a show presenting 'success' based on an inflated claim of 1:1, at this point in time when it really pretty easy to check that and find it's not supportable, would be a farce. Though, it wouldn't shock me if they did, again it's entertainment/oral history and already a number of those episodes show pretty easily discountable claims as facts. I think some examples are covered above.

Joe

kool kitty89 · May 7, 2008

I understand they're "claims" ad are somewhat inflated (and a lot of the kills wouldn't have been against fighters but:

Brewster Buffalo Mk I

Many official British historical sources blame the loss of Malaya and Singapore largely on the Buffalo's poor performance. However, the picture is not entirely that of an unmitigated disaster, and many Buffalo-equipped units gave a good account of themselves before they were overwhelmed by superior Japanese numbers. Accurate figures on the combat losses of British Buffalos are difficult to come by. Approximately 60 to 70 Buffalos were lost in air combat, 40 were destroyed on the ground, twenty were lost in various non-combat related accidents, four were transferred to the Dutch, and six were evacuated to India. Commonwealth Buffalo squadrons claimed at least 80 kills, and some units may have achieved a 2-to-1 kill ratio.

Brewster 339 in Netherlands East Indies

The Japanese advance was extremely rapid, and by mid-February 1942, the Japanese had taken all of the Dutch East Indies except Java. On February 26, 1942, the Japanese invasion of Java began, but by this time only a dozen Brewsters were still airworthy in all three surviving ML-KNIL Buffalo squadrons. They still fought on against impossible odds. Their last operational mission was flown on March 7, 1942. Java fell on March 8, and all Dutch forces in the Indies surrendered on March 9.

The Brewsters were completely outclassed by the Japanese fighters which opposed them. The Model 339C and D were inferior to the Japanese Zero in speed, maneuverability and in climb rate. During three months of combat, 30 Brewsters were lost in air combat, 15 were destroyed on the ground, and a number were lost in accidents. 17 pilots were killed in action. Against these losses, Dutch Brewsters claimed 55 enemy aircraft destroyed, a victory-to-loss ratio of almost two to one.

Njaco · May 7, 2008

But these Dogfight shows aren't really about the individual planes but a situation in which someone overcame odds or such. I think a show on some of the actions of Buffalo pilots getting kills and how they did it in a supposedly inferior craft would be interesting.

Soren · May 7, 2008

Does anyone have the episode of a -51 being hit by the 30mm guns of a Me-262 ? I'd like to see that. Normally a single hit would tear a wing or rear fuselage clean off. Most reasonable explanation would be that the a/c wasn't hit by a HE(M) projectile but an ordinar HE or AP round.

The effect of a 30mm HE(M) round fired from the MK108:

drgondog · May 7, 2008

here are two shots of my father's various flak targets. The P-51B was hit by a 20mm, the P-51D by a 37/40mm.

A wing could be blown off by any of these - depending on a.) where it hit, and b.) how heavily the airframe/wing/tail was loaded stress wise when it was hit.

There excellent examples of B-17s and B-24s being hit by 88mm shells which burst inside the bomber aft of the wing and flew home.

So, you want to make a blanket statement about the 100% attrition of all aircraft hit by a 30mm from an Me 262?

Proof, please?

Soren · May 7, 2008

Someone seems unable to understand that not all rounds fired were of the HE(M)type. But hey I'm sure the P-51 was magically resistant to a hit which would sever a Spitfire's aft fuselage...

drgondog · May 7, 2008

Soren said:
Someone seems unable to understand that not all rounds fired were of the HE(M)type. But hey I'm sure the P-51 was magically resistant to a hit which would sever a Spitfire's aft fuselage...

And your proof that all ships hit anywhere by a 30mm HE(M) was destroyed?

Would you state for the record that you believe a 30mm HE(M) was more destructive than an 88? If not, would you agree that not all 88mm direct hits were fatal to the damaged a/c? If then, could you further conclude that a 30mm HE(M) type might not destroy a Mustang or a Spit or a B-17 or B-24?

Have you ever failed to use 'absolutes' and unequivocal statements when there is a good chance someone will call your hand and ask for proof?

Proof? Soren. Facts. The elixer of debate.

Nobody is debating the fact that a 30mm HE(M) round was very powerful, but your debate style doesn't carry much weight without proof. What is being debated now is your application of logic and facts behind your comment.

comiso90 · May 7, 2008

Soren said:
Someone seems unable to understand that not all rounds fired were of the HE(M)type. But hey I'm sure the P-51 was magically resistant to a hit which would sever a Spitfire's aft fuselage...

Isn't it fair to say that the effect of impact fuses would not be the same 100% of the time when you consider closing speeds of the aircraft, angle of impact, trajectory of shell, amount of kinetic energy at impact, stress exerted on aircraft at time of impact.... and a million other factors.

Some shells may explode the nano-second they make contact, others half way through the air frame, and still others on exit or not at all. Each instance would have a different destructive effect.

sometimes big hole, sometimes total destruction.

.

kool kitty89 · May 7, 2008

Not saying it was not an AP or normal HE round (what was the ammo comp used on the 262?) but mine rounds were designed to hold the max amount of filler possible and thus used thin walled steel shells holding up to 85g HE!

Hoever the inherant properties of mine shells meant that they tended to not penetrate much (if at all) before detonating, thus they tended to cause mostly surface damage and the thin shell walls produced much less shrapnel than the thicker walls of a standard HE shell. However, while the surface damage limit may have been true for the 20 mm HE(M)/(XM) with 19-25g HE the 30mm carried 3-4x that amount of HE, so the size of the blast itsself would do a good deal of pennetration and the aircraft's strusture would become shrapnel. However there were also a fair amount of duds. (~25% iirc) But a dud would tend to bounce off (due to the soft nature of the shell, low density, and realatively low velocity), so that's not the case with this P-51.

In the Spitfire's case shown, it looks like the shell exploded inside the fuselage as well.

And somewhat off topic but another usual drawback of the mine shell is that it usually results in a very poor ballistic shape, but I found something interesting here:
Komet weapons: MK 108 cannon

The Type N mine shell, holding ~10% less filler but it's a tracer round as well, and the Ballitic shape apears very good (except for the flat tip for the fuze common to all HE shells) even with some boat tailing, and tracer rounds also tend to have better performance as the tracer gasses reduce the vacuum at the bullet's tail and therefore reduce drag)

Compare to a typical Mine shell:

Dog fights on the History channel

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