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When the aircraft and targets were standing still, the pilots didn't miss the butts, either.
Except for the speeds involved, of course.
I met Saburo Sakai at a Doug Champlin get-togeter in the early 1980's. He said he was flying a Zero and the Hellcats were following procedure to the letter.
One aircraft travelling at mach 2 being followed directly behind by another aircraft at mach 2 has no speed relative to its pursuer, only to the ground. Watch any combat gun cam your only perception of speed comes from your own knowledge and outside markers like the ground or clouds.
Maybe I mixed these two instances together in my mind
Must have been quite an experience!
I read something about him flying a KI-84 later in the war and he loved it as a combat airplane.
Maybe I mixed these two instances together in my mind
I said
One aircraft travelling at mach 2 being followed directly behind by another aircraft at mach 2 has no speed relative to its pursuer, only to the ground. Watch any combat gun cam your only perception of speed comes from your own knowledge and outside markers like the ground or clouds.
you said
If you imagine shooting at the car in front of you in the same lane on a motorway, both travelling at a similar speed (though you might be closing) that is a zero deflection shot.
Essentially the same statement, once again a series of contradictions entering a circular spiral. This all started with me not accepting "verbatim" that to be an ace you had to shoot a bloody grouse in the pre war years. I know about Gyro gun sights, thanks, they helped most pilots to do what some could always do.
Speed is a linear quantity, the discussion would run better by using velocity which is a vector quantity, relative vectors can be resolved to make sense of the situation.
It isn't my point, it's what the authorities, 75 years ago, said, so if you have a beef, take it up with them, though a medium might be needed. If you can't see any difference between men running at a maximum of 20mph, and aircraft jinking and turning at around 300, there really is no point in me trying to explain their view (I repeat, their view, not mine.)I cannot fathom what your point is at all. .
Which is not what I said, and you know it (language, tut, tut.) To repeat (yet again) it was felt that, due to their time on the shooting field, the likes of Tuck and Johnson had a better grasp of the niceties of deflection shooting than ordinary pilots, who might only get a chance to fire at a towed target. Bob Doe said that his only training consisted of firing a burst into the North Sea; "Difficult to miss the North Sea," he said.Essentially the same statement, once again a series of contradictions entering a circular spiral. This all started with me not accepting "verbatim" that to be an ace you had to shoot a bloody grouse in the pre war years.
I haven't seen anything about Saburo Sakai flying a KI-84, although it's possible.Must have been quite an experience!
I read something about him flying a KI-84 later in the war and he loved it as a combat airplane.
Maybe I mixed these two instances together in my mind
Bob Doe said that his only training consisted of firing a burst into the North Sea; "Difficult to miss the North Sea," he said.
If you imagine shooting at the car in front of you in the same lane on a motorway, both travelling at a similar speed (though you might be closing) that is a zero deflection shot. It is the easiest shot to make assuming you can manoeuvre yourself into a position to make it. The only calculation/estimation required of the attacker is the range. Many WW2 era pilots couldn't do this either.
For a deflection shot, that is typically when both aircraft are turning and moving relative to one another the crucial estimation is the 'angle off' of the target from the attacker. Few pilots got this right. Analysis of RAF gun camera footage in (IIRC) 1942 showed that the average pilot underestimated angle off by at least 50% and therefore had NO CHANCE of hitting such a target.
In your driving analogy it would be like trying to hit another car crossing a motorway bridge at ninety miles an hour!
The later gyro gun sights effectively did the sums for the pilot and input this into the sight. I explained it in another thread somewhere, essentially gyroscopes measured the rate of turn and tilted a mirror, moving the sighting graticule to give the correct deflection. With these sights, assuming a few criteria like the wingspan of the target/range had been correctly entered, simply placing the target in the 'cross hairs' would ensure hits.
In this way the 'pilot factor' at least in aiming was removed from the equation. Of course the aircraft still had to be flown into a position from which a firing solution could be established.
Cheers
Steve
On the topic of fatigue in a fight, I think all of the reasons mentioned are contributors, but the single biggest reason has to be the fact that the pilot had to muscle these aircraft around.
You can read about the stick forces of some of these aircraft - even at lower force levels a man can only last so long.
A couple of good anecdotes here from Wing Commander Hugh Godefroy DSO, DFC and Bar, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star (Fr) -- (though he was a Pilot Officer in the first quote and Flight Lieutenant in the second).
It isn't my point, it's what the authorities, 75 years ago, said, so if you have a beef, take it up with them, though a medium might be needed. If you can't see any difference between men running at a maximum of 20mph, and aircraft jinking and turning at around 300, there really is no point in me trying to explain their view (I repeat, their view, not mine.)
Which is not what I said, and you know it (language, tut, tut.) To repeat (yet again) it was felt that, due to their time on the shooting field, the likes of Tuck and Johnson had a better grasp of the niceties of deflection shooting than ordinary pilots, who might only get a chance to fire at a towed target. Bob Doe said that his only training consisted of firing a burst into the North Sea; "Difficult to miss the North Sea," he said.
Now here we have two mock combats with everything remaining constant except for the pilot of one of the aircraft - and we get completely opposite results.