Which was harder to shoot down, a P-47D or a FW 190A?

As I've been mentioning, on the MG-FF/M almost exclusively Mine Shells (with some older HE-tracers mixed in). But the belting on the MG-151/20's (in the wing roots, and carrying much more ammo -250 rpg opposed to 60 rpg of the FF's) was different. (I believe the Mine Shells were also introduced later in the MG-151, and in any case mixed belting was more common in this as well, except later in the war with interceptors which had mostly HE mine shells -now with the improved HE(XM) iirc)

And another note is, again the HE(XM) round with a further ~45% increase in explosive content at 25 g compared to the earlier 18 g.

that is incorrect normal He was approved for firing with AP in the FF cannon, the Mauser with the MG 151/20 and with experimentation at first with ace pilots the HE and HE I Minengeschoss were used in 1944 as well as the dreaded 3cm weapon/rounds. this is accepted through the day fighters as well as night fighters

Minen rounds had gone through a large series of workmanship with many tests as early as 43 for ground attack as well as anti-bomber a/c, this was also the case even in lighter Fla(k) arms, but it was not until spring of 44 in the Fw 190A-7 that the Minen round was used in an almost everyday occurance first with JG 11, portions of JG 1 then of course Sturmstaaffel 1 and later the Sturmgruppen - 3 of them

Then what is the "MG-FFM"?

from a German manual aka WW 2, no name sorry, many pages missing


the FF/M replaced the older unit-cannon, the M means high capacity round such as AP, AP/I, HE and HE I and also with tracer

We need more pictures of Johnsons a/c to assess the damage properly. From the looks of it his a/c was hit 21 times by 20mm rounds. Perhaps Johnson mistook some damage caused by 7.92mm incendiary rounds as that of 20mm fire, as a 7.92mm incendiary round would make roughly a 20mm hole in the fuselage.

His rear canopy seems to have been hit by a single 20mm round though.

Soren said:

We need more pictures of Johnsons a/c to assess the damage properly. From the looks of it his a/c was hit 21 times by 20mm rounds. Perhaps Johnson mistook some damage caused by 7.92mm incendiary rounds as that of 20mm fire, as a 7.92mm incendiary round would make roughly a 20mm hole in the fuselage.

His rear canopy seems to have been hit by a single 20mm round though.

Click to expand...

If I had to put money on someone's expertise in airplane damage, specifically from enemy rounds, I'd have to pick Johnson and his ground crew's over someone looking at two pictures 65 years later.

I have experience with FMJ 8mm Mauser rounds shot through junkyard car fenders. The hole left is smaller than a dime. The tracer aspect makes no difference in entrance hole.

tom

The much smaller holes of the 7.92mm rounds are visible in stark contrast to 20mm damage. (small peppering of holes below the canopy)

Many more pictures here: 8th Air Force Fighter Group - Littlefriends.co.uk

What amazes me is this:

Lt. Robert S Johnson. Lawton, OK. 61st Fighter Squadron. P-47C 41-6235 HV-P "Half Pint". Well known photo but worth looking at again as contrary to popular belief, this a/c was not written of but repaired and issued to the 9th AF's 36th FG where it was finally lost on 18 August 1944.

Click to expand...

kool kitty89 said:

Many more pictures here: 8th Air Force Fighter Group - Littlefriends.co.uk

What amazes me is this:

Click to expand...

I ran across that a while ago. I wonder if the new pilot to the plane ever got wind of what had previously happened to it.

If it had been a carrier plane, they would have shoved it overboard.

tom

I wonder why it is so often sited that it was scrapped. Perhaps that was the initial decision but later it was decided that it could be repaired.

Soren said:

Again history is written by the victors, it takes time for the truth to come out, that's how it is and has been with all wars.

The Jug 190 were probably roughly just as hard to shoot down, but size is usually a good thing when you're talking about absorbing damage, and the Jug was the larger of the two. But as an equalizer the Jug wasn't anywhere as maneuveable as the Fw-190, so in a match up it was the Jug which would have to be good at absorbing damage.

Click to expand...

soren do you have some knowloge about fw-190´s missions that they where severely hited but wasnt shot down ?

i found a .cz site very interesting, theres some stats about "thunderbolt killers" of luftwaffe:

P-47 Thunderbolt Killers

wow, if you look on that site, you can see so how many spitfires were lost compared to Thunderbolts and Mustangs. Joseph Pips got 68 Spitfires, a terrible number for the RAF if you think about it, all from one man!

The highest number of Mustangs lost to one Luftwaffe pilot is 12, Maj. Wilhelm Steinmann.

The highest number of Thunderbolts is 13, both Oblt. Wilhelm Hofmann and Maj. Theodor Weissenberger got 13.

Hptm. Franz "Nawratil" got 17 Lightnings, Oblt. Otto "Bruno" Kittel got 94 Sturmoviks.

On the subject of Luftwaffe 20mm ammunition:

Development of the Minengeschoss started in the 1930s - I have seen a drawing dated 1937. It was introduced into service in around May 1940 in the MG-FFM, which was first fitted to the Bf 109E-4. As already posted from an article on my website, the thin-walled M-Geschoss was much lighter than the traditional HE shells used in the earlier MG-FF used in the Bf 109E-3 (92g compared with c.134g), so even though the muzzle velocity was increased from 600 to around 700 m/s, it did not generate enough recoil to operate the MG-FF's mechanism. So the gun's reciprocating mechanism had to be lightened and probably the main recoil spring weakened, thus creating the MG-FFM. The MG-FFM was not able to fire to older ammunition, as this would have generated too much recoil and potentially damaged the mechanism.

The problem with the Minengeschoss was that its design didn't allow for a tracer, so the old HE-T shell was modified with a light-alloy fuze to bring the weight down to c.117g, and loaded to achieve 585 m/s. It then matched the recoil kick of the Minengeschoss and could be used in the MG-FFM.

AP ammo was not used in the MG-FFM until much later.

Existing MG-FF guns were gradually modified to MG-FFM so they could all use the same ammo. Once that had been done, the gun was sometimes referred to as the MG-FF, which can cause confusion.

The MG 151/20 used the same projectiles as the MG-FFM. Minengeschoss were used from the start (late 1940). There were two standard weights for them; c.92g for the M-Geschoss (fired at around 800 m/s) and c.117g for the HE-T and the later AP rounds (which were usually API or APHE) fired at around 720 m/s.

There were some later more specialised rounds: the Brgr 44 incendiary (essentially a thick-walled M-Geschoss for better penetration into fuel tanks) which weighed 106g and was fired at 745 m/s, and the bigger MX-Geschoss (105g at 640 m/s) which contained more HE: it had a lower velocity because it was so long there was less space for propellant in the case. These were both specifically designed for anti-bomber use.

Edit to add: Minengeschoss were used mixed with other ammo. A 1944 document I have lists the 20mm ammo mix for fighters as follows: 2x M-Geschoss, 2x HEI-T, 1x API

Soundbreaker Welch? said:

wow, if you look on that site, you can see so how many spitfires were lost compared to Thunderbolts and Mustangs. Joseph Pips got 68 Spitfires, a terrible number for the RAF if you think about it, all from one man!

The highest number of Mustangs lost to one Luftwaffe pilot is 12, Maj. Wilhelm Steinmann.

The highest number of Thunderbolts is 13, both Oblt. Wilhelm Hofmann and Maj. Theodor Weissenberger got 13.

Hptm. Franz "Nawratil" got 17 Lightnings, Oblt. Otto "Bruno" Kittel got 94 Sturmoviks.

Click to expand...

if you liked this site, take a look at this one:

Luftwaffe 39-45

this site have lots of features, like pilots confrots stories, medals, photos, best luftwaffe site i found. too bad for you is in portuguese but you can translate using google.

it worth to be visited, because you cant see that side of history in HC´s dogfights !

Tony,
That's what I'd thought on all of those subjects, although I wasn't sure if different belting mix for the 151/20's was used for interceptors/bomber destroyers.

It's just that Erich's statements seem to largely cotradict the timescale of development/testing and introduction of the Mine amunition.

It really all depends on the Plane's armament chasing you. Well a Bf-109 with a 30mm cannon.....the P-47 lost....

B-17engineer said:

It really all depends on the Plane's armament chasing you. Well a Bf-109 with a 30mm cannon.....the P-47 lost....

Click to expand...

It does not matter what kind of armament you have if the pilot can not get into a position to shoot the weapon. It really comes down to the pilot...

Whoops, didnt think of that.......

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

It does not matter what kind of armament you have if the pilot can not get into a position to shoot the weapon. It really comes down to the pilot...

Click to expand...

50% pilot, 50% the warbird

herr adler, did you know, in the first days of barbarossa, most of the russian aviators has around 15h of flight ? then you pick the low technology of the early soviet planes, like the polikarpovs instead the tops bf 109f´s and the expert luftwaffe aces and the result was almost like "throw meat to the lion"

also 1400 soviet planes was killed in the ground.

agree with you that a good machine is less eficient without a good pilot and vice versa. but a good pilot in a lousy machine have more chances than a lousy pilot in a good machine. by the reason you posted before.

regards

And armament is a different part of the equasion than performance/capabilities of the aircraft and pilot skill. If you've got an ace pilot in an a/c eqivelent to the 190D-12/13/ Ta-151, P-51H, etc, but all you've got for an armament is rifle calibur machineguns they won't have much chance of shooting down a P-47. (not to mention the tough US Heavy bombers, or medium bombers or attack-bombers for that matter)

Of course, such an armament would'nt make sense, but I think you get the point.