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- #121
RAF gunnery was poor and it was a complaint of Dowding and later Leigh - Mallory. Little had changed in the eighteen months between the two complaints. Most RAF fighter pilots, most fighter pilots, couldn't hit the metaphorical cow's arse with a banjo. This is actually not at all surprising given the very difficult calculations, actually estimations or best guesses, that were required for good deflection shooting. Many, though by no means all, of the top scorers in the first half of the war simply negated the need for this by engaging from close to a six o'clock position with no or very slight angle off.
As alluded to in the document posted by Edgar later gun sights, particularly the very late war gyro sights, took a lot of the guess work (for want of a better phrase) out of the equation by compensating for the angle off and rate of turn of the attacking aircraft in the gun sight. Subsequently the accuracy of air to air gunnery improved dramatically.
The limiting range of many air to air weapons had nothing to do with the performance of the weapon and its projectiles and everything to do with the sighting system. The late war gyro gun sights were far removed from the early 'ring and bead' sights.
Cheers
Steve
As alluded to in the document posted by Edgar later gun sights, particularly the very late war gyro sights, took a lot of the guess work (for want of a better phrase) out of the equation by compensating for the angle off and rate of turn of the attacking aircraft in the gun sight. Subsequently the accuracy of air to air gunnery improved dramatically.
The limiting range of many air to air weapons had nothing to do with the performance of the weapon and its projectiles and everything to do with the sighting system. The late war gyro gun sights were far removed from the early 'ring and bead' sights.
Cheers
Steve