"Small arms and ground-attack" Topic

In my current WWII Game of choice, regular joe on the ground has no chance of harming a ground-attack aircraft.

I understood (admittedly I think from Len Deighton) that small-arms fire was surprisingly effective , if not at shooting planes down, at damiging them, distracting and alarming the pilot etc.

Thinking about it, I have no evidence for it working at all that I can nail a point to.

Was small-arms fire effective? I would expect , especially a target like a stuka that steady troops might well be able to hit and damage them. Is this the case?

Pat

Yes and no. Depends on the doctrine of the nation, the nation that practiced an "all arms air defence" it could be effective. If the nation did not then it could be dodgy at best. All arms air defence is a doctrinal concept where by all weapons in a unit are trained skyward and fired at approaching aircraft in a coordinated manner and under command. Un-coordinated manner would only give away a positions and create more targets for the pilot. A stuka, once committed to the dive is going to dive regardless of how much you shoot at it, thats physics.

"A stuka, once committed to the dive is going to dive regardless of how much you shoot at it, that's physics."

No it isn't, it's the nerve of the pilot. Sufficient AA fire might well cause him to break off the dive.

Shooting bolt-action rifles at airplanes would probably be more effective in rising up the morale of the men shooting than in actually damaging the airplane.

I have actually practiced this drill. The platoon fires in front of the approaching aircraft and the aircraft in theory will fly through a hail of bullets. Its a Hail Mary at best hoping for a lucky hit.

There is always that golden BB, but for the most part it is highly ineffective. The pilot probably wouldn't even know he was being shot at.

"Was small-arms fire effective?"

Not as effective as light AA:)

The only effective small arms in the AA role are going to be machineguns on AA mounts. Rifles etc might get lucky from time to time but as above, the pilot probably isn;t going to even notice – no tracer.

In air-air combat, machineguns worked fine.

The concept of all arms air defence requires volume, and as stated above, bolt action weapons just doesn't cut it. MGs might unnerve the pilot, but only if tracers are in the mix or you are actually hitting the craft.
Unless the shooter was not in the line of fire or specifically tasked to the AA role, the rounds from the plane would hit you first on a straffing run…takes lots of guts to stand in front and do that also ( a la Patton movie).
In the gaming sense, a platoon or company of SA fire would do little, unless lots of auto fire was available (MGs and assault weapons and not just a 5-10 round clip)

Well, I know that Sgt. Rock has been credited with downing 589 enemy aircraft with just his Thompson and his Colt automatic…

With MGs, having tracer tends to help the firing at aerial targets noticeably, since it allows you to spot and correct the fire (besides also helping to unnerve the pilot).

And you definitely need some sort of an AA-mount to be able to fire MG at aircraft – in a pinch even an improvised mount consisting of a cart wheel in the end of a pole is better than no mount. And some sort of rudimentary iron sights designed for AA-usage would be beneficial.

Some might be interested to hear that the Japanese at some point designed AA-sights for their bolt action rifles, while in the late war Finnish army experimented with turning anti-tank rifles into AA-weapons.

Hi

In WW2, it took some 28,000 rounds to effect a hit. Do your own sums. One 88, 75, or 40 will do the job. Genearally you need, on average, 8 x 20s to do it, or 30 x 30cal.

Thus, unlikely. HOWEVER, the guy being shot at doesn't know you don't have a chance. Morale checks.

It is similar, actually, to the concept of automatic weapons. A great shot shoots once, but most spray the area because, while they have a much lower chance of hit per shot or volley, the target doesn't know and responds.

R

Groumd troops seldom shot down ground attack aircraft because they routinely failed to lead the target sufficiently. Studies proved this was the case up through and including the Vietnam War.

The most recent example of ground fire being effectively used was early in Iraq when an AH 64 battalion got shot up by small arms because they failed to follow the first rule of occupying a battle position: "Look down and see who is underneath your aircraft."

Another issue to keep in mind is that even if you manage to hit, a single rifle round might not do massive amounts of damage to an aircraft unless you hit a vulnerable spot.

Automatic weapons have the advantage that if they manage to get the aim correctly, they might be able to score multiple hits.

IIRC the armamament of early Spitfires and Hurricanes (8 x .30 brownings) was predicated on a two second burst being required to down an enemy twin engined bomber.

8 brownings with ROF of 600 rpm, is 80 rounds per second or 160 rounds in the burst, fired from a couple of hundred yards, maybe 50% actually hit, so you are looking at around 100 hits from rifle calibre rounds to down a bomber.

The thing to keep in mind is that aircraft are for the most part sheet metal surrounding air. Punching a lot of holes in the skin is not necessarily going to cause destruction of the plane. It may cause the pilot to rethink his current actions however. Even large caliber weapons can simpy pass through wihout detonating or hitting anything vital. Whether the plane is hit and continues the mission, bugs out or departs controlled flight is a function of weapon caliber and fuze, and the number of hits to critical components relative to their impact on the aircraft's structural integrity and abililty to maintain an aerodynamic configuration.

There is also the issue that modern aircraft have been designed with redundant systems, sometimes a main and two backups, so unless you take out the pilot or the engine(s), a knockout punch is unlikely.

Hi

martin, the cone of fire of those aircraft is just over 1.5degrees wide, meaning that the target is way less than even HALF the cone base here.

Brits supposed a lot of things that didn't pan out, and the 8x303 was just one of them. s

Rocky

Yeah, note that the later US designs were using 6x or 8x .50cal, or 4x 20mm.

Only the P51G/K went *down* to 4x .50cal, and it was an interceptor.

Hi

"martin, the cone of fire of those aircraft is just over 1.5degrees wide, meaning that the target is way less than even HALF the cone base here.

Brits supposed a lot of things that didn't pan out, and the 8x303 was just one of them."

The original spec for the Hurricane and Spitfire was for 4 x 303.
The Air staff firing studies in 1935 reckoned on 250 hits to down a bomber. Hence the upgrade to 8 guns… 8 x 1,000 rounds a minute in a 2 second burst = 266.6 rounds in a 2 second burst….if their maths was so wildly out, why were those 2 fighters so successful? plus any number of other fighter aircraft which followed a similar armament configuration?

Interesting Facts………………….

During the Yom Kippur War the IDF lost far more aircraft to dumb bullets then they did to missiles.

Anwar Sadat's brother was a pilot during the Yom Kippur War and was killed by friendly artillery while flying his MIG.

The point is dumb bullets do bring down aircraft because pilots cannot see them, and cannot evade them.

That said they do try to limit their exposure to this fire by coming in low, fast, and hot. Even a Stuka in a steep dive is going to be real hard to hit because of its closing rate on the target below it. A vertical dive isn't really 'vertical.'

A second 'problem' is the target on the ground is more interested in not getting killed by the fire of the incoming aircraft and is often trying to find someplace safer to be rather then shooting back at the approaching aircraft.

All the statistics cannot override the human feeling of self preservation.

"martin, the cone of fire of those aircraft is just over 1.5degrees wide, meaning that the target is way less than even HALF the cone base here."

I was guessing what the hit rate was just to get an approximation for number of rounds needed, I did wonder if it might be even lower.

The 8x303 did work against early aircraft, it was just not so good against heavy bombers or well armoured later war fighters.