FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => Non-FE Discussion Forum => Topic started by: machoneman on August 21, 2015, 08:21:38 AM
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Ran across this l-o-n-g footage of fighters. Best I've seen so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCiHa0h-6Rs
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I've been fascinated by the WWII air-war since out of college my sales-manager whom I spent a week a month traveling with was a tail-gunner in a B-17, he had bad hearing as a result. First I got to say this film is from a very specific slice in time, obviously later in the war when the bombers were actually offered fighter coverage all the way to the targets as shown. Another thing I was thinking of while watching this film is if they bothered with recording sound on the in-plane film or if it was added on later in the studios?.... Seems like the guns in video's are firing non-stop, yet I read ammo needed to be used sparingly, I believe also sustained firing over heated guns?....
On the enhanced for the movie subject, I have problems understanding how close flak could get to a plane w/o destroying it - in movies they show the bombers literally bouncing on the flak and I'm thinking if the concussion shakes an entire bomber, that planes got to be taking on one hell of an awful lot of metal.
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All the sounds were added later....and they could have done a better job on that issue. Gun cameras of the era were just that....cameras w/o sound.
Harry Rupelt flew in B-17's and later B-24's as a true Norden bombsight bombardier, then togglier, dropping on the signal when the lead plane dropped his load. Rest his soul, Harry hardly ever, as most WWII vets, talked about his 24 mission accomplishment over Europe, but when he did we were all ears.
He said that the planes took a tremendous beating from damn close flak that left small, medium and large holes everywhere...and these were the ones that made it back to home base! Many of the planes that did make it home had hundreds of holes of all sizes that grounded some for weeks as they got patched up. They looked odd close up with zippers of patched up metal and round discs slapped onto smaller holes. Many were so bad they hit the on-base scrapyard where, like a auto junkyard, they were slowly stripped of all good parts for other planes. Then the Brits broke them up, melted the mostly aluminum parts at Spitfire and Lancaster bomber manufacturing sites and made new Brit planes. Talk about recycling!