German Guncam footage

Udet if you replay the cine-film again you will notice how many cannon rounds hit so close together a point made by several Luftw vets to me, noting the 4 cannon by the Fw 190A-8. the angle is strange for sure, but the pilot actually slows down and is on a slight cant when firing

E ~

It's hard to tell from that film, but I suspect its early Mg151/20 armed plane. The large flashes on the target skin would be common with the early mine rounds, which tended to detonate on contact. The flashes can over-expose the film in dim light and can look even larger than they really were (this appears to have been taken at dusk or dawn). If the cannon had been an MK108, I'd expect the B-17 would have exploded or broke in two from those hits.

Also, notice that the target B-17 has already been attacked in a previous run, as the outer left engine is already feathered.

Are you sure this plane was destroyed? Surface hits along that part of the B-17 can cause very nasty looking surface damage w/o killing it. My guess is if this plane went down it might well have required yet another attack run since there is no signs of critical damage or fire in this film.

=S=

Lunatic

I went back and looked on my film of this incident and it is a Sturmstaffel 1 machine with four 2cm weapons. No 3cm's as I originally thought. Also I believe it is of the April 29, 1944 fiasco...........

good head up

Whats the difference between the mk 108 and the mk103

mk 108 low velocity / mk 103 high velocity.

mk 108 short range weapon and different ammo, with short barrel

mk 103 longer range and a longer barrel. different ammo, used for ground attack work, very effective I might add in the Hs 129.

anyone else add 2 ¢

I thought the Hs129 didn't achieve great results because of under-powered engine. But then, we're talking about guns not planes so...

it was an excellent craft with SG 9

I actually don't know much about the Hs129. I know there was a variant Hs129-B (?) with a 75mm cannon that there were about 25 built, I think.

Erich:

Well, I played the film again, and by following your comments I believe you are right. It looks like a four cannon Fw190.

Some questions Erich:
The HE 2 cm shells (the extremely destructive ones) you ve talked about here got issued only to the sturmgruppen or were they also used by other jagdgeschwader?

I ask because if those shells had such a terrorific effect on the heavy four engined bombers, what of the effect of the same ammo on a far smaller single engined plane?

Also I ask because on several of the films I have, when the victims are Mustangs, they virtually got vaporized in the huge explosion. From the first shell hitting the target you can see a fire begins on the P-51, just to receive perhaps 1 or 2 more shells to have a huge explosion.

Sometimes the effect of the impacts on the Mustang are very different:
(i) In some you see the P-51 vaporizing in a fireball; (ii) in some others the Mustang is more than slaughtered, it gets vivisected (like a chef cutting a chicken for cooking the dish) each fraction of a second passing you see parts, of all sizes, falling apart from the Mustangs body but no explosion is visible, (iii) in a few ones the P-51 becomes a torch and begins its downward trajectory and (iv) simply you see a thick trail of smoke coming from the nose section.

In others, it is clear the German pilot fired one or two very well placed cannon shells (Bf109Gs in this case) sometimes mixed with a 13 mm MG burst to assure the Mustang went down leaving a trace of smoke.

Erich, do you happen to know what percentage of German fighters were equipped with gun camera? Furthermore, what was the pattern, if any, followed to fit a fighter with gun camera? Was it a random selection? Did it depend on the pilot? Staffel? Gruppe?

Eeeeeeeeeeeeks how much time do we have guys ?

yes your film shows HE hitting the fuselage of tha B-17. Probably not HEI or it would of caused even more of an explosion and fires as RG posted. In any case it is all happening so fast that we cannot of course tell if the a/c went down, but most likely there was such devastation within, everything shot to crap, men killed, oxygen bottles bursting and ammo going off, etc plus internal fire(s) that we cannot even see. The a/c was reported as going down and W. Maximowitz was given the victory.

Mine rounds first came out in 1943, as I own a yellow bodied round with the black M and 43 below it plus numerations.

In June of 44 they were refined and given out to all Jagdgeschwader-2cm.

the 3cm were also given out to the a/c of the A-7/MK in JG 1 and JG 11 plus Sturmstaffel 1 although I feel strongly that this last squadron was usally equipped with armored a/c that had four 2cm weapons.

Kameras were given out haphazordly at first and in no real amounts, meaning that not all pilots received one but as the war progressed it was found to build up moral that even the inexperienced should have one to watch the films after the air engagement sos the pilots could learn from possible mistakes. Hans Weik said in July of 44 thqt only the aces had the "special" HEI for their sturm machines but this does not prove right as I have films showing other pilots with 1-2 kills taking on the rear of B-17's and B-24's ripping the guts out of the a/c and the rounds causing fires to the wing surfaces and finally to the engines and fuselage. Also since the StumFw pilkts got so close, in many instantes the bomber is shown with flying debris everywhere with the point is that all you see is the a/c disentigrate before your eyes. No fires, just debris flying everywhere.....it's just plain terrible.

hahaah!

You can later tell me of your fees because of the interview Erich. 8)

Thanks a lot for the guncamera comments.
It seems like a very smart thing to do and show the new pilots how their combats were and learn of possible mistakes and of tactics taught by the experienced boys.

Ok, so if after June 1944 the 2cm version of that destructive shells were issued out to all JGs then i am convinced some of the shots I have were fired from fighters equipped with those.

yes I beleive what you have on your films indicates the terible HEI 2cm rounds. I am looking at a pic right now of Schwarze 1 und 15 of 2./JG 11. both a/c are Fw 190A-7/MK's equipped with outboard 3cm weapons, mg's and inboard 2cm guns. Black 1 was flown by Fritz Engau and in his book he describes in the spring months of April and May of 44 of the wing attacking B-17 formations from the front (Frontal durch die Bomberpulks), his description of hitting the nose of the B-17's-cockpit and literally blowing off the front of the heavy bomber are wrenching. the main tactic besides hitting the cockpit was the engines as they seem to be a large target although it only took several seconds for the German pilot to set himself and then fire when attacking from the front, any longer and he would overshoot the bomber and the rest of the heavies

hope this pic turns out. article written by my good Engliosh bud, Neil Page with my help. In SAM magazine.

14.Sturm/JG 3 with Schwarze 14 SturmFw in the background, piloted by Oskar Bösch who is the second from the right in the summer weight flying uni

Erich said:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeks how much time do we have guys ?

yes your film shows HE hitting the fuselage of tha B-17. Probably not HEI or it would of caused even more of an explosion and fires as RG posted. In any case it is all happening so fast that we cannot of course tell if the a/c went down, but most likely there was such devastation within, everything shot to crap, men killed, oxygen bottles bursting and ammo going off, etc plus internal fire(s) that we cannot even see. The a/c was reported as going down and W. Maximowitz was given the victory.

Mine rounds first came out in 1943, as I own a yellow bodied round with the black M and 43 below it plus numerations.

In June of 44 they were refined and given out to all Jagdgeschwader-2cm.

the 3cm were also given out to the a/c of the A-7/MK in JG 1 and JG 11 plus Sturmstaffel 1 although I feel strongly that this last squadron was usally equipped with armored a/c that had four 2cm weapons.

Kameras were given out haphazordly at first and in no real amounts, meaning that not all pilots received one but as the war progressed it was found to build up moral that even the inexperienced should have one to watch the films after the air engagement sos the pilots could learn from possible mistakes. Hans Weik said in July of 44 thqt only the aces had the "special" HEI for their sturm machines but this does not prove right as I have films showing other pilots with 1-2 kills taking on the rear of B-17's and B-24's ripping the guts out of the a/c and the rounds causing fires to the wing surfaces and finally to the engines and fuselage. Also since the StumFw pilkts got so close, in many instantes the bomber is shown with flying debris everywhere with the point is that all you see is the a/c disentigrate before your eyes. No fires, just debris flying everywhere.....it's just plain terrible.

Click to expand...

Mine rounds came out in 1940 or 1941. The "M" in MG-FFM (the 20mm on the 109E and some other German planes such as the FW190A-4 outer pair) could only fire mine rounds. By mid-1942, mine rounds were in widespread use. The MG151/20 could fire mixed ammo types, and this was typically done because the mine rounds had advantages and disadvantges over other types. Especially earlier in the war, one big disadvantage of the mine round was it was contact fused. When striking the target, it would detonate on the surface, which causes superficial damage which may or may not destroy the target. Putting a delay on the round was experimented with all through the war, but the results are mixed, as delaying the fuse could easily result in a "dud" as the thin casing could easily be striped away and the payload disintigrate before the fuse detonated it. Also, approximately 25% of all fused HE rounds were pure duds.

As for effectiveness on fighters, again the results are mixed. The mine rounds had relatively low velocity (compared to allied guns) so they were harder to score with. If they did hit, 25% were duds and would have less effect than other ammo types. If contact fused, they would make a big hole in the sheet metal which, depending on the location and the speed of the plane, might allow airflow to rip even more sheetmetal off the plane, which could make it unflyable. Otherwise, it would have to make surface contact very near a critical component or it was not likely to do serious damage. 20mm mine rounds were known to detonate on contact with the behind the pilot armor of P-47's (on the canopy or on the sheetmetal of the pre-bobble tops) and cause no serious damage to the plane/pilot other than possibly taking out the radio.

It depends a lot on the target. I point out that British studies showed the 20mm Hispano firing HEI ammo was about equal to the .50 BMG firing BALL AMMO against a Bf-109F from the rear at various angles after indexing for RoF difference. The only place where the 20mm did better was in starting fires when hitting the fuel tanks, and I suspect that had it been compared to M8 API ammo for the .50, the .50 would probably have come out superior (after indexing for RoF), but also that against tougher targets the 20mm would start to show advantage.

Also, I do not think O2 bottles were used on US aircraft. The British and Americans used O2 generators almost excusively. The Germans mostly used O2 generators but I've also read of O2 bottles being used sometimes. The Russians usually didn't have O2 or if they did it was usually in bottles (except in lend-lease planes). The Japanese... The IJA used O2 generators, the IJN used bottles - this is one reason why aiming at the cockpit was found so effective against IJN zero's.

=S=

Lunatic

oxygen bottles were used on B-17's as I have mission reports for January 14, 1945 where the US 2nd bg group were devastated by Sturm Fw's if II.Sturm/JG 300. Several cases of suriving crewmen noting this before bailing out.

thanks for clearing up the date of the M round,; makes sense. Yes it would have to be early M rounds to do little damage to P-47's. I have part of a cine film showing a P-47 being chased in january 45 of a JG 11 Fw 190A-8. 2 shots cleanly seen with major flashes, after the second one you can see the inboard section of the left wing crumple, down the jug went.

good work

O2 bottle most certainly were used in US aircraft. The F2 oxygen tank was carried in the P-51 and the P-47, probably several others as well. The bombers carried O2 tanks in static and portable configurations. Portables enabled them to move around the bomber when needed.

Aiming at the cockpit was so effective because there was no armor to protect the pilot.

the ONLY peice of armour plating in the lanc was behind the pilots head

Yikes! Might want to sit on a flak jacket to protect the pods.

yes the pilot was a lucky lucky man..............

He was the ONLY one.