Gunfight

[Pavel]

2 km's at most. A good gunner would down someone at that ranges instantly

Man, you should be some kind of Terminator to gun from 2 km. It's not aimed shooting. In the times of Sabres MiG-15's guns were effective on 800 meters, again, in real situation they opened fire much later, to shoot for sure - 200-400 meters.

[sicsok]

I have to rely on a few experts from WW II.
Adolf Galland (mostly Me-109) ace said about 200-250 meters to pull the trigger from.
His frequent opponent (Spitfire-ace) told more like under 100 meters.
Well, the spinner.centered large caliber cannon could indeed shoot much further than that-if you wished to risk missing your target.
(The guns of the Spit were on the constantly twisting and vibrating wings, so they were not "hunters' rifles", they were "shotguns".)
The Fagot's 37 mm cannon was one thing that Sabre pilots soon learned to respect, yet the slower rate of fire gave some "wigle" time to get away, or be an elusive target of that cannon. It was "almost too much", as they said it. The Sabre had 4 x0.5 inch synchronised machine guns first (later more) and was the "Spitfire" against the Fagot "Me 109"...so to speak.
But even many others like Saburo Sakai or Ivan Kozhedub was not known (and even this one got obscured) to improve that much as a very modest, and by the story's time pretty sad and pissed, but most victorious German ace
when during the final months of the Second World War (and after more than 200 aerial duels won), Hartman came to station SW of Budapest, at Budaörs Airport. Each morning the Germans took off in a - by then hopeless - war against the mighty Russian attackink forces. As he returned about 20 minutes later that morning, his Hungarian mechanic did the routine re-arming and re-fueling, noting that three pieces of ammunition was spent only. He asked Hartman: "did you just test the gun up there?"
No reply, but at about early afternoon the post-flight briefings showed that day's gun-cameras. Clearly, on that morning sortie Hartman sent 3 opponents down.
Of course such things not only did not change the war by then, but Hartman himself could not be cheered up by much by the admiration on his "one bullet-one opponent" success.
He just shrugged saying something like:"When you do it as much as we had to, you get good at anything..."

[osuorsa]

Finnish fighter pilots in WW2 preferred to fly within 50-100m before opening fire...This was seen as the most successfull way for guaranteening a victory. Some Finnish pilots were so in to the tactic that they closed to 20m before shooting...and literally shoot after they could see the eyeballs of an enemy pilot.

[Pavel]

Yes, everything is right (actually that is why I've detailed - in the times of MiG-15, when effective guns range was about 800 meters, pilots have some freedom not to get so deadly close).

Janos - I'm not sure if this case was in Budapest, but in 'Blonde knight' it was told that he reported 3 planes shot down in one flight, after team started to celebrate, Heinz "Bimmel" Mertens (his mechanic) has come with worried face
- What has happened???
- Erich, I think you need to know. You've spend 120 bullets only.

It was taken as Hatmann's sniper abilities (which is true, he was a real sniper, something like 80% cone hits in academy - unbelievable result).

But there is a place for doubts in this story too - one of the reported downed planes was Il-2. All we know, that this flying tank quite hard to take down with one bullet only. Yes, there is always chance to kill a pilot with one bullet. But again, Il-2 is very reliable plane.

More of it, if to get back to mathematics, there is a rule, apprx 3 or 4 to 1 - it means on the 3 or 4 reported planes it is 1 really downed.
It is normal situation, black smoke is not always a kill. And in air combat there is no time to check if plane really hit the ground. And fotoguns is not a solution as well (it shows hits in best case, but not the result).

So I'm not so extremely excited by the "one shot - one kill" concept in this case. Real life usually a little bit differs from the numbers game.

Again, I appreciate Erich Hartmann EXTREMELY, he was a real fighter ace. As well as he was a little bit kid.

Back to the topic, 50m or 100m - in WW2 it was simple rule - 'as close as you can'. In soviet air forces it was told 'by the rivets' - if you can see rivets in the enemy plane surfaces - time to shoot.

One interesting thing too - it was one young pilot (Evgeniy Kramarenko, future Hero of USSR) who was afraid to shoot when enemy was too close. His leader said - controlled plane can change it's way. Plane with dead pilot - no. So if you shot close, you can be sure where plane will go after.

[sicsok]

The mechanic that wrote about this, and other comrades were confirming in life during th "Oldtimers' Rally" in 1989 August. But Hartman's camera have shown distances at the shots about 30 meters!

[zb10948]

Man, you should be some kind of Terminator to gun from 2 km

Yes, i overreacted, but i'll stand clear at 1-1.2 km range.

Radar gunsight. Each modern aerial gun system is fired in sequences of XX bullets, when you press that trigger and hold, it won't drain the complete stash. It'll go a sequence by sequence (if the system has been setted up for that kind of operation).

Gyro-controlled HUD crosshair, coupled with ballistic computer, shows exactly where your bullets are going to end. If you bank your craft a bit, crosshair will bank too, just much more, because that's how aerial gunnery works. Certain aircraft had the option of autofire...when the radar contact and crosshair overlap, gun autofires. So you don't even have to press the trigger, you just concentrate on dogfight and trajectories, the system will fire when it gets a positive envelope.

We weren't talking about WW2...we were talking about MiG-21 era, right? Well, the GSh-23L of MiG-21 has a 800 m/s ejection speed. That's just over a second for a bullet to reach 1 km range. If you drained someone's energy, and that's the "prime directive" of a gunfight, second is not a long period. Keep in mind that he can't maneuver around, and your ballistic computer will do the math for you.

Fifteen years ago, Croatian pilot downed a UTVA-75 from a MiG-21, with guns, over a 1000 meters range. He didn't close in, to stay out of MANPAD threats. Yes, that won't happen frequently, you'll want to get as close as you can, but this clearly shows that's possible.

[HunterFN]

Originally Posted by Pavel

Yes, everything is right (actually that is why I've detailed - in the times of MiG-15, when effective guns range was about 800 meters, pilots have some freedom not to get so deadly close).

With a fixed sight like in the MiG-15, 800m gunnery range is still quite frankly too much. Yes, for sure, the cannons were effective up to that range, no doubt about it, but this was not any different from German ww2 fighters either, it was the sight that dictated the engagement range.

But there is a place for doubts in this story too - one of the reported downed planes was Il-2. All we know, that this flying tank quite hard to take down with one bullet only. Yes, there is always chance to kill a pilot with one bullet. But again, Il-2 is very reliable plane.

I can understand the doubts but it is absolutely believable. Il-2 was a well armoured plane but had many weakpoints (radiator in the belly, wooden tail, in early single seaters the fueltank behind the pilot was not armoured from the top and Hartmann exploited this weakness by attacking from the side and above and photos exist of this, wingroots...) Also, at close range, not even Il-2's armour could stop 20mm MG-151/20 Armour Piercing shell.

More of it, if to get back to mathematics, there is a rule, apprx 3 or 4 to 1 - it means on the 3 or 4 reported planes it is 1 really downed.
It is normal situation, black smoke is not always a kill. And in air combat there is no time to check if plane really hit the ground. And fotoguns is not a solution as well (it shows hits in best case, but not the result).

Somewhat true but must be kept in mind every kill Hartmann made were witnessed by finding the wreckage etc. Same applied for Finland and after the war it turned out that according to Soviet loss statistics many Finnish pilots had more kills than they were officially credited for by the Finnish AF.

So I'm not so extremely excited by the "one shot - one kill" concept in this case. Real life usually a little bit differs from the numbers game.

Again, I appreciate Erich Hartmann EXTREMELY, he was a real fighter ace. As well as he was a little bit kid.

In real life about 5% of all fighter pilots are responsible for about 90% of all the kills. Very few have the inborn skill and hunters instinct required for it. Same principle is seen in ground combat but numbers are different. So yes, it is much different when we consider a large force, but when someone is dominatingly good... There is some room for "playing around"...

BTW, Every fighterpilot is a little bit kid, Hartmann was in no way an exception

Back to the topic, 50m or 100m - in WW2 it was simple rule - 'as close as you can'. In soviet air forces it was told 'by the rivets' - if you can see rivets in the enemy plane surfaces - time to shoot.

One interesting thing too - it was one young pilot (Evgeniy Kramarenko, future Hero of USSR) who was afraid to shoot when enemy was too close. His leader said - controlled plane can change it's way. Plane with dead pilot - no. So if you shot close, you can be sure where plane will go after.

With canon armament or with bombers, going very close was very often dangerous. There are many pilots accounts about going too close for the kill (~ less than 50m) and hitting the debris from the victims plane...

[sicsok]

This is not a story about a typical day and many replies seem to make me feel that is the way it was taken. Not likely that it could be repeated either by himself or others. Simply: it happened. And as an exceptional event that occured within the topics we discuss, it is more worthy to mention in the pursuit of excellence than - for example: Slinging mud on Saddam after he died for his country (and for mistakes too, but I am sure that did not matter to the judge...who committed suicide in exile since)..
So back to the firepower: The cannon in the prop-hub of the Gustav was a powerful beast. And by the expression of the WW II aces: you could always just "pip", not even click the trigger. It is both remarkable and sad when one becomes such an artist of destruction, with so well perfected reflexes and virtuosity...

[Pavel]

Regarding Il-2 - agree, there are known weak spots there, for sure. Still, I think to kill three Il-2 with one bullet in a raw - it's more extreme luck then something regular.

Regarding Hurtmann kills - did he always shut down planes over friendly territory? It was no kills behind enemy lines, when wreckeges can't be found?
What I want to tell - 3:1 it is normal statistical mistake in kills numbers in Luftwaffe. Yes, maybe Hartmann is not in this stats. But it is at least arguable - I wouldn't be so deadly sure about this.

And, about fact "in real life about 5% of all fighter pilots are responsible for about 90% of all the kills." - it's really interesting... can you support it with the numbers?

[HunterFN]

Originally Posted by Pavel

Regarding Il-2 - agree, there are known weak spots there, for sure. Still, I think to kill three Il-2 with one bullet in a raw - it's more extreme luck then something regular.

Regarding Hurtmann kills - did he always shut down planes over friendly territory? It was no kills behind enemy lines, when wreckeges can't be found?
What I want to tell - 3:1 it is normal statistical mistake in kills numbers in Luftwaffe. Yes, maybe Hartmann is not in this stats. But it is at least arguable - I wouldn't be so deadly sure about this.

And, about fact "in real life about 5% of all fighter pilots are responsible for about 90% of all the kills." - it's really interesting... can you support it with the numbers?

3 Il2 kills with one shell each? I can pretty surely say that is urban legend... Hartmann was good but that is a bit over the top... 3 il2's in one flight is more than possible but someone just made a "fishing story" of it.

Hartmanns kills, you can see the wrecks even if they are on enemy side, for example when friendly forces advance... Hartmanns kills are widely disputed mainly because 352 sounds like an incredible number, but the research has been done and many kills were witnessed by people who disliked him...

The numbers are indeed extremely interesting, a fact in airwar in that era was that roughly 70% of pilots shot down, never saw the attacker... I can't recall which book it was but i'll get back to you on that after asking around and maybe having a look at my bookshelf.