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While we are not taking part in the BoB and N. Africa why not look at history and not invade anywhere?
That scene scared my young self.Looking for the ark no doubt.
If Halifax was as good at defeatism as Churchill was at defiance who is to say it wouldn't/couldnt happen? No one knew at that time what a difference the Chain home + Dowding system would make.The premise of attacking Britain was to bring them to the table to negotiate a truce. Hitler even held hopes that Britain may join the Axis.
With Britain at least neutral, he would have had a decent shot at the Soviet Union.
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That's the ideology, it doesn't mean that he has to do it or people thought he would do it, his army that invaded Russia had 120 horses for every tank, and many of those tanks were not tanks in the modern sense with a turret and heavy gun.That contradicts entire basis of the nazi ideology: invading foreign countries to murder Jews (and Roma and a few other groups), depopulate Slavic nations, and enslave the relatively few survivors.
Had the USSR attacked Germany (and all of Western Europe) the British likely would have joined the fight alongside Germany. But that would have occurred in the late 1940s, and likely under a Weimar government, not Nazis.The premise of attacking Britain was to bring them to the table to negotiate a truce. Hitler even held hopes that Britain may join the Axis.
I thought that the whole idea of a turret was to have the guns securely mounted and smoothly traversed. When you see footage of waist gunners in B-17s with the movement of the plane, gun and gunner plus the recoil, the effect is that he is just firing bullets in a general direction.
That's the ideology, it doesn't mean that he has to do it or people thought he would do it, his army that invaded Russia had 120 horses for every tank, and many of those tanks were not tanks in the modern sense with a turret and heavy gun.
The attached report analyzes Luftwaffe fighter attacks on AAF bombers and fighter vs fighter combat, based on German gun camera films. Range fire was opened, duration, accuracy, etcGood points...
Particularly the point about the successful relocation of the factories being a decent indicator of the inevitability of defeat.
I would generally agree that it was unsuccessful had they lost?We can call that relocation "successful" because the USSR has won. But it has been very painful for the Soviet economy and it negatively impacted the situation on the front for many months in 1941 and 1942. Also, please note that the relocation itself did not make the factory immune from the German attacks. Please note my comment #171 above.
According to R Wallace Clark in his book "British Aircraft Armament Volume1" the RAF:I have a couple of RAF studies on fitting 12.7`s / 20mm cannon to bombers in early WW2 (lancaster etc), it states on more than one accasion that in their opinion, it was dramatically more effective to have a powered turret than a hand mounted gun of any sort. This was a discussion point because the turrets weighed an absolute ton.
Incredibly annoyingly I cant remember which damn file number it was in !!!
They liked the idea of a good rampage but not many times did he do it. He didnt rampage across North Africa and he didn't rampage into UK. Stalin contributed to Adolfs rampage in Russia which should never have got as far as it did. Germany didn't substantially out produce the UK in military equipment to take on Russia and the USA was just folly.Nazis not rampaging through Europe would a change in policy on the order of Jeff Davis telling the Confederacy to free all the slaves in 1862. It would cause a collapse of the government
They liked the idea of a good rampage but not many times did he do it. He didnt rampage across North Africa and he didn't rampage into UK. Stalin contributed to Adolfs rampage in Russia which should never have got as far as it did. Germany didn't substantially out produce the UK in military equipment to take on Russia and the USA was just folly.
They liked the idea of a good rampage but not many times did he do it. He didnt rampage across North Africa and he didn't rampage into UK. Stalin contributed to Adolfs rampage in Russia which should never have got as far as it did. Germany didn't substantially out produce the UK in military equipment to take on Russia and the USA was just folly.
Just for reference the high performance bomber was thisAccording to R Wallace Clark in his book "British Aircraft Armament Volume1" the RAF:
"When the Boulton and Paul Company introduced a new high performance twin-engined bomber, the Sidestrand, it was reported that gunners in the open cockpit were unable to align their guns with any accuracy against the force of the slipstream. The Air Staff were aware of the problem, and a development order was issued to Boulton Paul for a power-assisted enclosed gun turret to be fitted to the nose of the aircraft."
Chances are, the exact same thing will happen to the Luftwaffe's heavy bombers as happened to their medium bombers historically. The Luftwaffe's inability for the escorts to communicate with the bombers SNIPt.
A 4 engine Luftwaffe bombers effect on sea power would have been far more significant.This is all quite true. But so is GrauGeist's point about the USAAF's experience. The defensive armament of a bomber, no matter how good, is not going to substitute good or better fighter cover.
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For the MG151/20 I think 23 degrees when seated nearly 40 degrees when prone, it was enough. With the MG131 it was 70 degrees, there was a rotating blister to position the swivel point. An MG FF clearly stops the bomber being shot down. A 20mm hits gets noticed.Nice example but the angle of fire with a drum loaded 20mm would be far less than an LMG plus the poor ballistics of the FF would significantly reduce the chances of a hit. SNIP .
Maybe the fall of France took the LW by surprise as much as anyone, did anyone believe that they would be in a position to attack the UK in 1940 until they actually were.
fixed and where the Luftwaffe put MG 151 cannon on later bombers is only of moderate interest in 1940
Tony Williams says 11.5 grams for an AP bullet. Maybe he is wrong. Maybe 12.7 grams is for a lead cored bullet used in ground guns?
Here is where things start getting strange. Mathematically you are correct. Except the flexible 20mm MG/FFs guns seldom used a magazine that allowed for 4 seconds of fire. Both 15 round and 30 round magazines were used. 4 seconds at 9 rounds per second (540rpm) is 36 rounds.
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Add to this the bigger the barrel the more area the slipstream has to push against. SNIP
View attachment 581796
Granted this is the nose gun of a He 111 but you get the idea compared to a MH 15.
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As has been pointed out, these positions would have been manually operated in 1940 - the Germans did not have a workable power turret at the outbreak of WW2 and did not install such a thing in an aircraft until the maritime patrol variants of the Fw 200 in late 1940/1941. As it was proposed, the Ju 89, by 1940 is not a very potent machine and the
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And
It has nothing to do with air currents and everything to do with trying to hit something flashing by you doing hundreds of miles an hour.
Park would continue his pealing away the fighters tactic so the deeper into England they go the more units they are engaging, you have to remember that they have to fight into the target and back out again,View attachment 581894 that means taking on all three fighter groups the further you go as well as 11 group again on the way back out, .
I think the argument was the projectiles were disturbed by air currents, not the gun barrels?, by your example a bigger 20mm barrel would be harder to train than a thinner shorter .303/7.92mm so the gunners would be further disadvantaged using bigger guns.
I was too busy to read the entire convo, so my apologies if I missed something or the context of this post. But wind does affect the trajectory of a bullet, ANY bullet, and any size round, just as it does to any flying object. It is simple physics and aerodynamics. Some call it Wind Drift.
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I thought that the whole idea of a turret was to have the guns securely mounted and smoothly traversed. When you see footage of waist gunners in B-17s with the movement of the plane, gun and gunner plus the recoil, the effect is that he is just firing bullets in a general direction.
Without the benefit of experience of any sort in aerial gunnery, I can say that with the little knowledge I do have of the subject that it wasn't simple to just plonk gun positions onto existing aircraft types, even when gun positions and turrets were designed into the aircraft, their impact on aerodynamics had consequences. The Manchester suffered severe vibration when that awful FN.7 . SNIP
I'm sure such things almost certainly would have affected the Germans in their new turrets as well.
I'm curious about the optimal arc of fire for the 20mm's proposed to be defending the do19's or ju88's. Reading accounts generally indicates to me that one of the RAF favoured approaches was beam attacks on bombers. Given the speed of these two bombers that wouldn't exactly be difficult to position a spitfire or hurricane for even if they were overhauling the bombers.SNIP
The wind velocities are much lower but the air density is higher. At 20,000ft or so the air density is about 1/2. the bullets slow down less due to the lower drag and and ability of the same speed wind would be roughly 1/2 also.
We may be worrying too much about minor details. In the example given by Sierra they are talking about a change in impact of around 3 feet at 600ds with the just over 10mph wind example. about 1 man in 1000 (or less) had any business at all it shooting from one airplane to another at 600yds in WW II. If I am right about the difference in air density then even a 40mph wind at 20,000ft is only going to move the bullet about 6 ft at 600yds.
SNIP.
No. Germany needs to take and hold ground, you do that with tanks, artillery, plain old soldiering and most importantly supply chain and logistics. Forget heavy bombers, if the Soviets have enough time to pick up their factories and carry them over the Caucuses to where the Luftwaffe needs heavy bombers to strike them, well Germany's already lost the war.
Now, give Germany triple the tanks, artillery, IFVs, trucks, etc. and supply chain they had on Day 1 of Barbarossa and you can make due with the Luftwaffe's twin engined bombers just fine. The Allies didn't win the war with heavy bombers, but with boots.
Of course, but the Luftwaffe took part in support of a lie, Sealion or the amphibious invasion of Britain, defended by the then most powerful navy in human history, with tug-towed river barges. The coming massacre of the German invasion fleet would have gone down into the annals of history's amphibious disasters, like the 1588 Spanish Armada (20,000 dead or 1/3 of Spanish troops/sailors) or the 1281 "divine wind," or kamikaze typhoon that wiped out the Mongol invasion of Japan (70,000 dead or 1/2 of Mongol troops/sailors). Can you imagine the poor bastards on the barges when a dozen capital ships, over 200 hundred cruisers and destroyers plus dozens of MTBs, all with RAF cover, plus at min. four dozen submarines and their lethal perisher-qualified commanders come to meet you.
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And forget about heavy bombers. Swap out every He.111, Ju.88 and Do.17 at the Battle of Britain with four engined heavy bombers like the Heinkel He 177 and the Germans still can't win the Battle of Britain or the war. You need boots on the ground.
Well yes, but any argument against the BoB prompts a similar argument against invading Russia, Adolf didn't have the equipment to do it. Churchill didn't become PM until just before Dunkerque. Without him it is possible to see the UK suing for peace, certainly the Germans could see it as a possibility. Many of the German high command believed they were winning until days before they gave up. "The massed raids on London would wipe out the last 50 RAF fighters" etc etc.
I would generally agree that it was unsuccessful had they lost?
The move caused terrible problems in the short term no one would disagree I don't think. But the war materials produced by the factories that were safer (if not invulnerable) from German attack would seem to carry the point of the plan's success I would think. What would the alternative have been? Repel Barbarossa at the outset I suppose.
Edited for additional
He didn't rampage into the UK because he was stopped.
The USSR was even more poorly prepared than France. There were several reasons for this, one was the USSR's relative industrial backwardness, second, was Stalin's propensity for killing competent senior military personnel, and, third, Stalin's refusal to believe intelligence reports that his buddy, Hitler, was massing troops on his borders to invade.