One shot victory

One 20mm HEI round to a fuel tank and there's a real chance that an a/c will go BOOM. Or how about a 20mm HE round to the ammunition storage ? That should take a wing off...

I've seen films with Fw190's hit only by a few .50 caliber rounds which struck the ammunition storage resulting in the whole wing coming off in one second as the storage exploded.

davparlr said:

This wasn't so scary afterall, he was able to get the tail wheel down!

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Dave - he had no choice!

The tail wheel (and Strut) fell off when he hit the ground... This a/c miraculously was repaired and came back to service about a month later - going to 358FS as YF-H.

The rudder cable was nearly severed, the aft fuse fuel tank was shredded, the left side of the fuse had about a 2 sq foot (exit hole) rip between the longerons.

Flak train popped him - he was the biggest flak magnet in the 355th with four belly landings on the Allied side and one behind the lines.

Soren said:

One 20mm HEI round to a fuel tank and there's a real chance that an a/c will go BOOM. Or how about a 20mm HE round to the ammunition storage ? That should take a wing off...

I've seen films with Fw190's hit only by a few .50 caliber rounds which struck the ammunition storage resulting in the whole wing coming off in one second as the storage exploded.

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You're right - I forgot the 'obvious' but I was thinking about structure rather than secondary explosion and missed the probable highest probability impact to structure!

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Thanks for sharing that Bill. Interesting story and great pic!

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That was his last mission of his first tour on Nov 29, 1944. His crew chief told me he sat in the cockpit for about a minute and when he (Thompson) reached the cockpit, dad simply said " I think I need a rest Gerry".

The mission was one of those fighter bomber sweeps flying under the cloud deck where German flak gunners had perfect altitude fusing data. He had a premontion that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.

For projectiles of 20mm and below it would have to be an incredibly lucky shot if it was to cause some kind of structural failure. A high explosive 30mm round will however rip the wing of a fighter off quite easily just by effect of the blast alone.

IIRC Erich Hartman became quite good at one shot shootdowns, diving in from above and waiting until the last second before firing one 20mm at around 100 meters distance directly into the engine of the enemy fighter. This would usually bring down the enemy a/c right away.

Does anyone think range could be a factor? Would the ranges usually encountered in a dogfight be sufficient to cause a one shot victory (as improbable as it may be)? Or would it have to be point blank- as if standing right next to the plane?

gumbyk said:

The one time that I've seen an aircraft tthat lost 2 inches off the tip of the prop, it broke two of the engine frame attach bolts, and the engine was pointing 30º to the side.

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Yikes! Any pics of that?

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

This example is modern, but I have even seen an AH-64 Apache brought down by a single 7.62mm round.

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I wonder what got hit...

JoeB said:

In general, for single engine planes, I would think that a single one of several hits of small caliber was frequently or even usually the key hit which knocked out a key system or the pilot, rather than some combination of hits accomplishing that when no single one of them would have accomplished it. And then it was probably also common for several different hits to inflict damage sufficient to down the plane without the others, overkill. What would be relatively unusual would be one hit knocking down a plane when it was only hit once altogether, except by fairly large caliber rounds. For bigger multi-engine planes it was probably more common for each of several key hits to be have been necessary to down the plane, because of more redundant systems.Joe

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Good reply. So generally speaking, there is a direct correlation between the size of the aircraft and the size of the round necessary to bring it down in a single shot?

This may be going to the extreme, but could a single rifle shot take down say a C-5 not considering a shot to anything that can explode (fuel cells, oxygen bottle, etc.)? Solely bullet v/s structure.


Thanks for the replies everybody!

Here is a story told to me be a P-39 pilot that almost shot himself down with one bullet. On a mission they did a gun check and his gun interrupter gear failed. One 30 cal bullet went half way through his prop and then spun out to the tip of one blade. Not knowing this at the time his plane started vibrating badly, forcing him to turn back. The unbalanced prop tore up the shaft bearings, damaging the engine. Because of the location of the engine behind him, he did not realize he was making a thick black smoke trail, visible for miles until the air field controllers told him, as he limped back. He just made it back but the engine was ruined and he said he was lucky to make it back and that the Japanese were not sweeping the area as they often did. True or not I cannot say but he made a good story out of it.