Red Tails (2012)

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by moose1am

6 fifty cals converging at 800 ft should schred just about any plane or explode it with incindinary/armer piercing ammo.

"Should". A machine gun is much like a shotgun. At anything further than point blank range the vibration causes bullets to go pretty much everwhere but where they're aimed. I've fired .50s, and it's pretty funny to watch. The cute sewing-machine-like stitching seen in movies is nothing like the real deal.

Adding more guns compounds the problem. The sympathetic vibration transmitted from the guns to the wing makes the wing itself shake, and this is transmitted back to each gun, causing them to vibrate in odd directions. More bullets overall are put out in the general direction of the target, but less bullets from any single gun actually hit. Still, the trade-off was obviously worth it.

Couple that with the fact that an enemy plane is rarely sitting still in relation to the shooter, and it takes a very good pilot to shoot down his opponent with a single burst.

[Schöneboom]

Speaking of arcade mode: Here is the same trick maneuver shown in "Red Tails", attributed to the German squadron leader "Pretty Boy", then copied by the American hotshot, Joe "Lightning" Little:



Years ago I pulled a stunt similar to this in European Air War, in a Hurricane. Those were the days!

[Jimbuna]

BANG!!!....YOUR DEAD!!!

[MH]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"Should". A machine gun is much like a shotgun. .

Not that bad and not laser beam either.
0.5 well stabilized on tripod should shred any thing at 800ft.
On aircraft wing,i don't know but should work better than tripod i think.
Its one of its merits-the accuracy.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Schöneboom

Speaking of arcade mode: Here is the same trick maneuver shown in "Red Tails", attributed to the German squadron leader "Pretty Boy", then copied by the American hotshot, Joe "Lightning" Little.

Commonly called a stall turn. As described a very effective but potentially disastrous maneuver. As shown it the graphic absolutely impossible. The plane needs to climb until it is almost out of speed, followed by an intentional controlled stall. If they did it that way in the movie then they didn't talk to any pilots who've actually done it.

Originally Posted by MH

Not that bad and not laser beam either.
0.5 well stabilized on tripod should shred any thing at 800ft.
On aircraft wing,i don't know but should work better than tripod i think.
Its one of its merits-the accuracy.

Yes that bad. The barrel is rifled. As the bullet travels down it the barrel vibrates in a circular pattern. The next bullet is fired almost instantly, and is affected by the rotation already imparted. Yes, a tripod-mounted gun will shred anything at 800 feet, not because of its accuracy but because of the volume of lead being sprayed over the whole area. The chance of an individual being hit by automatic fire is fairly low.

The same is true with airborne guns, except that the plane itself is also bouncing around. The the more guns, the less the accuracy. This is offset by the fact that six times as many bullet are filling the area. It becomes a statistical game. Don't think for a second I'm dissing the .50, or it's use in aircraft. It was an effective, devastating weapon. First, though, you have to hit the target. The Germans did just as well with a single MG151/20 and two MG131s, all mounted in the nose.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Yes that bad. The barrel is rifled. As the bullet travels down it the barrel vibrates in a circular pattern. The next bullet is fired almost instantly, and is affected by the rotation already imparted. Yes, a tripod-mounted gun will shred anything at 800 feet, not because of its accuracy but because of the volume of lead being sprayed over the whole area. The chance of an individual being hit by automatic fire is fairly low.

As much as i remember the spread area is not very big at those distances.
I got to shoot this gun occasionally at rusty vehicles at the range-that's my experience with this gun.

I was thinking about effectiveness when one gets the correct aim not about the difficulty in doing so in fast airplane which was tricky under combat conditions.
So obviously the more guns you have correctly aimed at this split second the more lead gets to the target.

To my knowledge having the guns in the nose made it easier to put most bullets in a target without worrying about the range vs focus point therefore it sort of compensated sometimes.
With the cannon one or two hits could be enough.
It probably also made for more stable platform than wing under load.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MH

As much as i remember the spread area is not very big at those distances.
I got to shoot this gun occasionally at rusty vehicles at the range-that's my experience with this gun.

As I said, I've shot them too. What I remember is watching targets while others shot, usually at 100 yards. For every bullet that hit the target five or six hit all around it. Of course a one-second burst puts out about 12 rounds total which would mean only 2 or 3 hit a man-sized target. Assuming a solidly mounted gun would double that, it would indicate 4-6 hits on the target at 100 yards. That is devestating. That's plenty for a man. Six guns would put out 72 rounds in one second, maybe more. At the same ratio that would imply as many as 30 hits on the target at 100 yards. Even if factoring in vibration problems that would indeed shred an aluminum aircraft. At 300 yards, however, the problem is compounded, even more so if there's any deflection involved.

About 5% of all pilots scored 95% of the kills. Gun camera footage seems to show that most "shredding" shots come from very close. Longer-range shots, even with the guns sighted for "convergence" it starts to come down to random chance how many bullets hit where they were aimed. It's much like naval gunnery, which in World War 2 had an average hit rate of about 7%.

I think the six-fifty combination is just fine, because a good pilot is able to shoot at 200 feet, not 800, and at that range the mass of bullets is indeed devestating.