Ground to Air combat

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parsifal said:
...Aircraft like the heavily armoured IL-2 could operate at hedgetop height with a degree of impunity and dropping bombs at this height made it easier to hit stuff.
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Agreed. Aircraft like the IL-2 and the Hs129 weren't going to be as susceptible to small arms fire as medium bombers or fighters were going to be.

A fighter's main armament is designed primarily to protect them from enemy aircraft fire from behind or to the sides, which is typical of engagement.

But when a fighter or bomber flies low over a bunch of scared and angry guys armed with rifles and SMGs, they are exposing their unarmored bellies.

Stressed aluminum isn't all that great at stopping a bullet...
 

Let's say that the soldiers knew to lead their shots on strafing enemy aircrafts, and considering that by WW2, most aircrafts are made of metal and the standard rifle and HMG ammo of the time were somewhere around 7.xx calibres, how great are said soldiers' chances at doing actual damage or wounding the aircraft's occupants?
 
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stona said:
I assume that refers to helicopters. Not quite the same as a 300-400mph WW2 ground attack aircraft.
Cheers
Steve
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Actually they trained against RAF fast jets. Possibly as they are committed to a trajectory at low level in a valley or because helicopter targets were more unusual in the area whereas low fast jets were commonplace so security was better maintained.
 

against an aircraft that is armoured, light rifle calibre weapons aren't a great chance of bring the aircraft down. against lighter un-armoured or underarmoured aircraft, which was the norm prior to 1942, rifle calibre wepons had a reasonable chance of bringing down an a/c, as the RAF experience in the BoB clearly shows.

HMGs (weapons with a calibre 12.7 mm or above) were generally able to cope with most a/c for the entire war.

The main problem with rifle calibre weapons, of any size is the amount of damage they could do. A single hit is unlikely to bring down an a/c whereas a single 20mm explosive shell might do it, and a 37mm shell will probably do the job . there are statistics on this, which I don't have, but I surmise maybe an average of 1-3 30mm+ hits, 5-10 20mm 10-20 0.5" and maybe 20-30 7.7mm hits might be needed to bring down an average aircraft.......
 
I think its worth remembering that the main point of AA fire isn't to shoot the enemy down, its to stop him hitting you. If you can throw enough tracer at the incoming aircraft you do have a chance of putting tem off. Now I wouldn't expect your average squaddie to have tracer but the AA guns normally did.
 
GrauGeist said:
Good photo of Russian snipers shooting at low flying aircraft.

The date was about 1943, if memory serves right.
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I would say it is posed.

As already noted that is an awful lot of snipers to located in one area. Also the field of view through through some of the those scopes is a bit restricted making acquiring the target and keeping it a bit problematic.

Some armies did make a doctrine out of all available troops firing at attacking planes. The Japanese even went to the extent of fitting AA sights to some of their rifles.


The horizontal swing out bars being the AA part. Notice the amount of 'lead' needed. I have no idea if the numbers refer to speed of the target or range. Without even this rudimentary arrangement pointing rifles skyward is the epitome of spray and pray.

I would note that there was a considerable period of time between the Fokker Dr 1 and the Typhoon. 1939-1943 saw an awful lot of ground attack being done by 200-300mph aircraft.

It was done, planes were brought down by this kind of fire. It may have been more of a morale booster than real defense. Being able to shoot back, even at really crappy odds often beat laying down and taking it. High speed aircraft had enough trouble picking out AA guns let alone riflemen in fields and bushes. There were no tracers to lead the pilots eyes back to the firing positions.
 
parsifal said:
I hope that was posted as a joke.......
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Of course it is. So sorry, I just can't help it. For some reason, this question is bugging me a lot more than it should. I've been thinking about it all day and it is annoying as hell. I thought to myself to take a break and do something else. Maybe watch something funny on the web.

So I browsed youtube.

For some reason, that video appeared in my recommendations.

So I just thought of sharing it here.
 

Try doing the math. 300mph airplane is doing 440fps. at distance where the time of flight for soldier to airplane is 0.2 seconds (around 175yds for the higher powered rifles) the plane will cover 88ft. at 300 yds the time of flight might be over 0.35 seconds and the lead needs to be about 150ft. Differnt speeds need different leads and even a plane flying at a steady speed will need a different amount of lead for every shot depending on how far away the plane is from the shooter. A bolt action rifle is going to be lucky to get off more than 2-3 rounds per attack, at least at anything approaching effective distance. 500 yds for a .30-06 could mean a almost a 0.70 second time of flight for the bullet and 300 ft worth of lead (roughly 9-10 plane lengths).
Planes were shot down this way, not often and it took thousands of rounds (more likely tens of thousands of rounds) fired on average per plane but it was done.
 
So simply put, it happened, but not in a practical sense to be considered an effective strategy.

Thanks for all your answers!
 
GarudaMP said:
So simply put, it happened, but not in a practical sense to be considered an effective strategy.

Thanks for all your answers!
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The P-51 was the exception though, which could be brought down by one well placed shot to the radiator
 
Anything with an unprotected fuel tank could be brought down with one shot. anything with an unprotected pilot could be brought down with one well placed shot. unprotected or inadequately protected aircraft were susceptible to accurate ground fire, whatever their vulnerability . If you couldn't shoot straight, you made up for it with volume of fire. not many were lost, but that's because only a few aircraft were risked in this way. those that ignored this, early on, like the French suffered heavy losses to small arms

Most pilots in these unprotected aircraft, if they wanted a career that lasted more than a few days or hours, flew higher than rifle fire could reach.

Armoured aircraft didn't have to worry about this so much
 
I think a major consideration for a soldier would be how many bullets he has and how quickly he can get more, I doubt that paratroopers were trained or encouraged to shoot at attacking enemy A/C but those on a supply route may well have been.
 
I have read that during WW1 British mess halls had a shortage of the lids for their cook stoves, They kept disappearing .
Apparently the aircrews were stealing them and sitting on them.

I know during Vietnam a lot of aircrew members sat on extra flak jackets.

I have seen a WW1 era picture of a whole platoon lying down in the grass with their rifles pointed skyward.
Was such a method ever actually used ?
 
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