HELP, Jap aircraft

[Brady]

Your right we will never agree, we have been through all this before and to re hash it is pointless, patricaly your assesment of the gun packages, thier is a long discushion in the punted thread, Aircraft and the intercept.

[mdiehl]

Just so that you understand, Brady, the energy of a single .50cal bullet striking the wing of a Japanese aircraft from a range of 300 yards was approximately the same as the energy you would impart to that wing by dropping a Studebaker 6x6 (M135) truck and all its cargo on it from a height of about 1 foot.

[Brady]

Prety much all a 50 cal round would do to a wing is put a nice clean whole in it, read the other thread, if you have time, and the gas tank anoligy is full of wholes as well, some pun intended[:)]

[mdiehl]

You are incorrect. The .50 cal, like all bullets, will have a hydrostatic pressure effect. When a bullet strikes a surface it does not just bore a neat hole like an inchworm through an apple. It imparts energy to any fluid or gas in the area that radiates outward from the impact in a wide arc at sonic to supersonic speeds. If you hit a fuel tank with any fuel, that means a shock-wave hammer blow that is likely to burst a hole in the fuel tank unless said tank is heavily reinforced or has a tank liner designed to give a little (stretch) before contacting the fuel-tank's metal wall. If you hit a solid, the energy is imparted in a conic section and basically removes a conic chunk of metal expanding outward away from the point of impact. Ironically, the bigger the hunk of metal in the target, the worse the damage. So, for example, if you strike an engine, you end out driving a rod of the engine's own metal through the rest of the engine.

So the only instance in which a .50 will merely "punch a hole" through the target is if it only strikes a thin piece of aluminum or fabric. This is pretty much the same result that you'd get on a thin piece of aluminum or fabric from any 20-40mm cannon. If the cannon round fails to detonate the energy that it imparts will be substantially less than the comparable energy imparted by a .50cal. The .50-cal will also have penetration effects.

For a guy who claims to know about firearms, your comment is bizarre. Do you ever hunt? If you do, you must be aware that it is not blood loss or penetration effects that kills most large game when they're hit by a bullet. Even a lowly .30cal will put around 1500 foot pounds into a target and has the same fluid-hydrostatic pressure effect. What kills most game animals is shock from having a bread-loaf-sized chunk of flesh gelatinized by the impact, not the stupid hole.

[Brady]

When a Bullet like a 50cal, strikes a plane it loses potential engery as soon as it hits the outer surface of the plane, chances are it will not strike the plane at the optimial impact angle, so the degradation of engery will likely be signafagant, now once in the aircraft, it will likely encounter armor before hiting anything important, since late war fighters were designed to offer armor protection aganst 50cal rounds (axis planes I mean) this would prove the end of the bullets trip. This of course is the worst case scenario, best case 50cal goes through the cockpit glass and puts one in the guys head.

The hydrostatic effect you sight in the wing tank, is sbubject to many variables that would degrade it to mute at best. It is almost a certanity that the tank would not be full if hit in combat, likely empty, wing tanks were often burned first since they effected manuaverability. So if the bullet hit the tank their would be ample space for expanshion, that expanshion would follow the path of least resistance and the last place the primary force would be exiterd aganst would be the spar, which was arguable the strongest part of the plane. The lekely effect of wing tank, or any thank hits was fire.

A plane is not an animal, the effects of the bullets withen it can not be readly likened to the shock efects of bullets pasing through animals. Yes I have done a lot of hunting, and I know animals are not planes.

[Mr.Frag]

Brady, you are talking like Japan's aircraft could survive a single hit. They couldn't. It really throws off your discussion points.

Had the USA outfitted their planes with even smaller weapons, they still would have had enough residual energy to take down one of the paper thin boys. One of the reasons that Japan's aircraft were so limited in what they could drop bomb'wise was the super weak wing spar that held the plane together. Almost any damage at all would take it out.

This is why so much of the war footage shows Japanese aircraft literally falling apart when hit unlike other countries which went down in flames but still intact.

[mdiehl]

When a Bullet like a 50cal, strikes a plane it loses potential engery as soon as it hits the outer surface of the plane, chances are it will not strike the plane at the optimial impact angle, so the degradation of engery will likely be signafagant

That is pure speculation. More importantly, it it does not hit anything particularly solid it's just not going to lose much energy. Might be deflected to a new path, but energy loss will not be a problem. A few mm of aluminum alloy skin is not going to do diddly to impart energy loss/

now once in the aircraft, it will likely encounter armor before hiting anything important

You don't get it yet. Hitting armor is JUST FINE. You're not talking about hitting a tank. If you hit the armor you get excellent energy transfer from the bullet to the target. That means that you get the "full Studebaker" slamming into the armor and stressing out whatever holds the armor in place, assuming that the armor stops the bullet cold. If the armor does not stop the bullet you get a cone shaped chunk of armor that flies off in the direction that the bullet is going, and that cone-shaped chunk of armor does damage to whatever is in its path. The bullet, largely spent but still capable of damageing delicate things, follows the cone-shaped chunk or armor, and adds to the destruction. Some of the energy from the bullet is retained in whatever held the armor in place. On a weakly-armored Japanese aircraft, it may even detach the armor plate, causing a trash-can sized hunk of armor to come loose and now wobble around inside the aircraft the instance it attempts ANY sort of maneuver.

At night, the ice weasels come.

.50cal carries a f@cking huge wallop.

since late war fighters were designed to offer armor protection aganst 50cal rounds (axis planes I mean) this would prove the end of the bullets trip. This of course is the worst case scenario, best case 50cal goes through the cockpit glass and puts one in the guys head.

Few Axis planes carried armor enough to stop a .50cal and as illustrated above that does not necessarily save the plane. It probably gives the pilot time enough to react and prevent another .50cal slug from completing the job attempted by the first .50cal slug. More importantly, if the .50 really trashes your plane, the armor gives you time to bail out.

The hydrostatic effect you sight in the wing tank, is sbubject to many variables that would degrade it to mute at best.

Pure unbridled speculation. Indeed, transparently and demonstratably wrong.

When you see those gun camera shots from US aircraft that has the wing root separating from an Axis fighter, just wtf do you think causes that kind of damage? That's not from a .50cal hole bored through the wing and compounded by the stress of flight, that's almost wholly a result of energy transfer. Look closely at the footage or pictures if you can get ahold of some. When you watch strikes on the wing, even on an armored axis fighter, you will often see a huge burst of spray. That's the wing tank popping under the impact of the .50 cal and all the fuel bursting through the aluminum skin of the wing. Usually a few camera frames after that you'll see the wing starting to fly apart or you'll see the mess catching on fire.

[mdiehl]

Had the USA outfitted their planes with even smaller weapons, they still would have had enough residual energy to take down one of the paper thin boys.

I do not entirely agree with that Frag. The rifle cailber MG was not a 1-hit 1-kill weapon, even against cr@p like the Oscar. The problem here is that people think "MG" when they hear the phrase ".50 cal" just like they think "MG" when they hear the phrase ".30cal."

There's a sevenfold difference between the energy of a .303 and a .50.

Interesting factoid. The .50cal was not orginally designed as an antipersonnel weapon. It was intended, originally, to be an automatic anti-tank rifle.

[Brady]

"Brady, you are talking like Japan's aircraft could survive a single hit. They couldn't. It really throws off your discussion points. "

Shure they could and did, many did and went home to get patched up.

"This is why so much of the war footage shows Japanese aircraft literally falling apart when hit unlike other countries which went down in flames but still intact. "

Probably because you never see the fotage showing the ones that got away.

"That is pure speculation. More importantly, it it does not hit anything particularly solid it's just not going to lose much energy. Might be deflected to a new path, but energy loss will not be a problem. A few mm of aluminum alloy skin is not going to do diddly to impart energy loss/ "

lol, the pot calling the kettle black.

mdiehl, I realy beleave your grosticaly overestimating the effect of single 50cal hits and over stating your point hear to the point of absuridity. 50cals did kill planes and in general worked well for us. Late war Japanese planes were not the papper tigers the early war planes were howeaver, and they had effective gun packages on them.

......................

I have a cool clip of a 202, schreading a P40 somewear and a 202 had an awfull gun package.

http://www.lordpanzer.com/downloads/MACCHI-P40.wmv

[Mr.Frag]

I do not entirely agree with that Frag. The rifle cailber MG was not a 1-hit 1-kill weapon, even against cr@p like the Oscar.

Thats the part Brady seems to miss. It was *never* a one hit kill because of the sheer number of bullets flying. If one found you, a couple more generally found you too and the combined shock effect broke things in major ways.

This compared to the cannon debate. I only need 1 shot to kill you, bu it has to be the perfect shot because I only have 1 round to fire.

I think you'd find that the .303 would have done just fine against Japan's paper planes. The .50 was just plain overkill for what was being shot at.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Brady, you are talking like Japan's aircraft could survive a single hit. They couldn't. It really throws off your discussion points.

Actually Herr Frag, thats untrue though its far more likely to happen if one is talking an unarmored plane with no self sealing fuel tanks vs. one that has them. Even A6M's often took copious amounts of damage from .50 fire and survived. To over-generalize and say that Japanese aircraft couldn't survive a single hit is a rather gross exageration of the circumstances.

Any plane that gets caught in a bullet stream, .30, .50 or cannon, for any sustained period of time, is statistically going to be in trouble.

[Mr.Frag]

Any plane that gets caught in a bullet stream, .30, .50 or cannon, for any sustained period of time, is statistically going to be in trouble.

Yea Nik' i'm loosing it ... I fail to understand why the point that a wider "stream" is more effective then a narrow "stream" is just not getting through.

The odds on getting caught increase with the size of the stream. 6 .50's makes for a pretty big stream to luck your way through.

[mdiehl]

Late war Japanese planes were not the papper tigers the early war planes were howeaver, and they had effective gun packages on them.

They had better gun packages than the early war planes. Good enough to make the competitive with the gun load outs of late war US models, except for the P-47. They were also better armored for ex the vaunted Ki-84. That said, they still were not remotely as well armored as comparable US aircraft. Take your Ki-84... its still 1200 pounds lighter (empty weights) than a P-51 and 6000 pounds lighter than the P-47. That difference is not because the P-51 was carrying a piano or the P-47 an orchestra. The weight difference is primarily armor.

[Nikademus]

on a non flaming side note, i read once and interesting comment from a P-40 driver that he feared the Ki-43b more than the Zero because it had two .50's that could "send that stream" that you reffered to while the Zero needed to rely on it's cannon more.

[Brady]

"They had better gun packages than the early war planes. Good enough to make the competitive with the gun load outs of late war US models, except for the P-47. They were also better armored for ex the vaunted Ki-84. That said, they still were not remotely as well armored as comparable US aircraft. Take your Ki-84... its still 1200 pounds lighter (empty weights) than a P-51 and 6000 pounds lighter than the P-47. That difference is not because the P-51 was carrying a piano or the P-47 an orchestra. The weight difference is primarily armor. "

Well not realy, they (the US planes) were realy just Bigger over all, the P47 had a huge superchager system in that added a lot of weight, the gun system as noted above was considerably heaver and had much heaver ammo to boot, while they didhave more armor, this was certainly not the big part of the weight diferenitial.

[mdiehl]

The TSC on the P-47 was not that much heavier. Allied a/c were, it is true, larger. Their armor (we'll include fuel tank liners) was substantially more abundant than on any Japanese single engined design.

[Mr.Frag]

The TSC on the P-47 was not that much heavier. Allied a/c were, it is true, larger. Their armor (we'll include fuel tank liners) was substantially more abundant than on any Japanese single engined design.

Comes down to a design issue.

American design always seemed to be "make a plane then complain that it needed a bigger engine." The presumption was there would always be a bigger engine coming down the pipe to fix the weight problems. I think this pretty much was the case until the F8F, the very first aircraft that went *down* in weight.

Japanese design was "here's the engine you get, make a plane that fits it." They did the best they could within the contraints of the engine. Some aircraft were upgraded but it was not the normal course of events.

It really shows in the vast difference between the aircraft weights and the guns fitted to them. Can anyone think of a American made design that did not get at least 2 engine upgrades?

[mdiehl]

I don't think that's right. Can anyone name any a/c sent to production by any combatant that did not undergo at least 2 upgrades? Even the Ki-84 had its engine changed a couple times.

I think US planes were built around the engine available. Of course it was the prerogative of the pilot to bitch that his a/c was too heavy because a lighter a/c would in theory gain another 30 mph. I doubt that any of them bitched too loudly when their seat armor, the overdesigned wing spars, or their overdesigned engines to multiple 20mm hits and brought them home.

Ffrom Robert S. Johnson (P-47 driver) diary:

There are twenty-one gaping holes and jagged tears in the metal from exploding 20mm cannon shells. I'm still standing in one place when my count of bullet holes reaches past a hundred; there's no use even trying to add them all. The Thunderbolt is literally a sieve, holes through the wings, fuselage and tail. Every square foot, it seems is covered with holes. There are five holes in the propeller. Three 20mm cannon shells burst against the armor plate, a scant inch away from my head. Five cannon shell holes in the right wing; four in the left wing. Two cannnon shells blasted away the lower half of my rudder. One shell exploded in the cockpit, next to my left hand; this is the blast that ripped away the flap handle. More holes appeared along the fuselage and in the tail. Behind the cockpit, the metal is twisted and curled; this had jammed the canopy, trapping me inside.

Johnson walked away from a belly landing.

Joel Paris' (P-40 driver) comments on the P40 vs A6M:

I never felt that I was a second-class citizen in a P-40. In many ways I thought the P-40 was better than the more modern fighters. I had a hell of a lot of time in a P-40, probably close to a thousand hours. I could make it sit up and talk. It was an unforgiving airplane. It had vicious stall characteristics. ...
If you knew what you were doing, you could fight a Jap on even terms, but you had to make him fight your way. He could outturn you at slow speed. You could outturn him at high speed. When you got into a turning fight with him, you dropped your nose down so you kept your airspeed up, you could outturn him. At low speed he could outroll you because of those big ailerons. They looked like barn doors on the Zero. If your speed was up over 275, you could outroll it. His big ailerons didn't have the strength to make high speed rolls ...

You could push things, too. Because you knew one thing: If you decided to go home, you could go home. He couldn't because you could outrun him. He couldn't leave the fight because you were faster. That left you in control of the fight. Mind you: The P-40 was a fine combat airplane.

Saburo Sakai's a/c had 20mm:

When I was only fifty yards away, the Wildcat broke out of his loop and astonished me by flying straight and level. At this distance I would not need the cannon; I pumped 200 rounds into the Grumman's cockpit, watching the bullets chewing up the thin metal skin and shattering the glass.

I could not believe what I saw; the Wildcat continued flying almost as if nothing had happened. A Zero which had taken that many bullets into its vital cockpit would have been a ball of fire by now.

[Brady]

Ya his plane had 20 MM Type 99 MK I cannons with 60 rounds per gun and two 7mm cowel guns, but he says right their that he did not use the cannons just the MG's. ("At this distance I would not need the cannon" ) Wildcats were well know for the durabality.

Their are many incedents on both sides covering planes with tons of damage returing to base, and it is well knwon that allied planes were typicaly much more resistant to battle damage than their Japanese counterparts particulary early in the war.

[barbarrossa]

I was just thinking of Sakai......

He took more than one hit didn't he and made it back a very long way. I think the debate needs to include pilot skill as well as relative numbers of the combatants.