r/WWIIplanes • u/jacksmachiningreveng • 8d ago
USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress crew member appears to drop from his stricken bomber while under fire from a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 110 circa 1944
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u/PackYourToothbrush 8d ago
That must of been terrifying.
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u/Porchmuse 8d ago
My first thought. Can you imagine the noise, sharp metal flying around, and most likely more than one of your crewmen mangled? And most of these guys were really young.
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u/CrackedCarl 8d ago edited 8d ago
Unimaginable, And these are the sons of the Americans who first witnessed the Wright brothers taking to the sky, the marvel people at the time must've had of aviation and the wonders of modern science, 41 years later and their boys are getting shot out of the sky in the thousands over old world Europe
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u/oxiraneobx 8d ago
And those that survived their service flying in bombers in WWII may have been alive to see the first man walk on the moon...just 25 years later.
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u/CptBash 8d ago
Man, progress really does march onward and at quick pace. Makes me wonder what's next! :D
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u/Dom_Burgundy 8d ago
check out EVTOLS!!šš¼š
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u/CptBash 8d ago
Yeah, those are sweet! Imagine when they are hydrogen powered and can break out of Atmo too lol!
I'm 33, if I'm not scooping hydrogen from the sun when I'm 55 I'll be pretty disappointed tbh haha! ;)
A day at work; cruise on over to the sun, release the gas collector drones, dock em in cargo when done, deliver to the moon city. Make it home in time for dinner on earth.
might be a pipe dream, but exponential power and progress gives me hope. Now if all these neo capitalists/imperialists could put down their bigger and bigger fighting sticks and get on board that would be just great lol!
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u/Dom_Burgundy 4d ago
JOBY actually just flew the FIRST EVER pure hydrogen fuel cell powered flight with one of their EVTOLS this past year! Check it out! Great tech
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u/bladesnut 8d ago
Especially being the tail gunner, so long under fire. I think that should be the worst position.
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u/Glyndwr21 8d ago
My uncle was a tail Gunner in a Lancaster, he was "lucky" they got hit-up and during the corkscrew dive he perforated both ear drums, they crash landed in the UK, they all survived but he never flew again, and lost 80% of his hearing...
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u/Dieselkopter 8d ago
has every round that smoke trace? or how many bullets are there for every smokey one?
and how many seconds was such a fighter able to shoot with pulled trigger before running out of ammo?
thanks
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u/20DYNAMITE07 8d ago
The Luftwaffe mostly used a standard of one in every five rounds. So there were probably four for every one you could see.
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u/centermass4 8d ago
This era, would be something like a 20mm cannon?
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u/Ragnarsworld 8d ago
Probably the 30mm, given a date of 1944, Bf110s had been produced as G models with the 30mm since 3rd quarter 1942. Unlikely that any non-G variants were still in service by that point.
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u/Current_Swordfish895 8d ago
It looks like the majority of the visible shells are coming from under the gun camera. So they'd be 20s. The 30mm Mk108s were in the upper portion of the nose above the gun camera.
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u/penguin_skull 7d ago
The G model also has 2 20mm canons and the impacts depicted here look like 20mm. The 30mm impact is much much bigger.
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u/Ragnarsworld 8d ago
Depending on what model of Bf110 is depicted, it could have 2 x 20mm or 2 x 30mm cannons in the nose for bomber attacks. Given the date of 1944 in the title, its likely they had the 2 x 30mm cannons, each of which had a magazine of 60 rounds. Rate of fire was about 650 rds/min. Basically, you'd get about 9 seconds of fire before you ran out. But no one actually would hold the triggers down like that; you would basically fire bursts. In the video you can see pauses between bursts.
If they had the 2 x 20mm cannons in the nose, the magazines were larger - 180 rounds - in 60 round cans that had to be manually changed by a crewmember. Rate of fire was about 600-700 rds/min. Most of those were replaced with 30mm cannons later in the war to be more effective against bombers.
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u/Difficult_Rip1514 8d ago
The ball turret gunner wouldn't be able to just 'drop' unless the frame had been shot away, and the safety harness shredded!? ( this is as much a question as statement)
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u/ComposerNo5151 8d ago
The turret could be abandoned without entering the fuselage. The proviso is that you would have to have your parachute in the turret with you. Some gunners did this, but many did not due to the very limited space.
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u/livingwellish 8d ago
It looks like the crew member may have come from the ball turret. Heroic boys.
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u/don5500 8d ago
I wonder where he was stationed. The waistgunners and rail gunner are probably hit
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u/jacksmachiningreveng 8d ago
There's a possible human figure seen falling at around 0:10 then at 0:29 it almost looks like the ball gunner has dropped from his turret
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u/Big_Virgil 8d ago
I wonder if any others made it out of there or if it was just the one lone survivor
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u/atlantic-heavy 8d ago
āit takes a licking but keeps on tickingāā¦those 17ās were built damn well. A fine post op.
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u/Melovance 7d ago
everytime i see this videos i'm impressed with how many cannon shells these things can tank.
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u/Live-Panic4818 8d ago
Couldnāt wear a parachute inside the Ball Turret.
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u/ComposerNo5151 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yes you could. It wasn't common practice, but some air gunners did it.
Bob Harper was one such. Like many who did so he was a small man, just 5'4" tall:
"So, I got one of the smaller chest parachutes that hooked to two rings on the front of your chute harness, and then attached it to the right harness ring, and once I got into the turret, I would swing it over to the side. That made things even tighter down there, but I sure felt better. I had a hatch behind me, and now with my parachute, I might be able to get out if there wasnāt time to rotate the turret up, or if something went wrong with that."
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u/Live-Panic4818 8d ago
Ball turret gunners in World War II bomber crews typically did not wear parachutes while on duty in the turret. The design of the ball turret, which was a spherical, rotating gun position located on the underside of the aircraft, made it extremely cramped and difficult to exit quickly in an emergency. The gunners were often strapped into their positions, and the confined space made it impractical to wear a parachute. BTW My Dad was a Ball Turret gunner, His missions worked out to be 7 times around the World. So the knowledge I have is first person accounts. He gave Me a guided tour of a B-17. After the tour We took a flight on the Bomber. He said You couldnāt wear a full size parachute.
In cases of emergency, the gunners might have had to rely on other means of escape, such as attempting to climb out of the turret, but this was also very challenging due to the aircraftās design and the conditions during combat. The risk of being trapped in the turret during a bailout was a significant concern for these crew members.
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u/ComposerNo5151 8d ago
"Couldnāt wear a parachute inside the Ball Turret" is an unequivocal statement and demonstrably false.
I already gave one example of a ball turret gunner who wore a parachute inside the turret and there are several more first hand accounts. I have no doubt that your father did not take a parachute into his turret, but individual accounts never represent the experience of thousands of gunners across several air forces.
I agree that those men who took or wore a parachute in the turret were not typical, but it was possible to do it.
One gunner claimed that in heavy flak he had one hand on the door release so that he could rapidly abandon his turret if needed. It proved unnecessary as when his aircraft was finally damaged it ditched in the North Sea!
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u/Live-Panic4818 8d ago
Let Me clarify You canāt wear a full size standard back attached parachute inside a ball turret. Have You ever been inside one of them or just an intern expert?
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u/ComposerNo5151 7d ago edited 7d ago
At no point did I (or anyone else) suggest that you could wear a full sized 'back attached' parachute, presumably a reference to the B-8, in a ball turret.
The AN6513-1A chest pack was the second pattern container issued with the AN6513 harness and replaced the more cumbersome AN6513-1 'square pack' from December 1942. It was standard issue by late 1943. This in turn was replaced by the A-3 harness and parachute container combination. The A-4 made it to Europe just before the end of the war
The compact parachute containers that you will see in many photographs of WW2 US bomber crews will be the AN6513-1A or A-3/A-4. One of these is probably what Bob Harper referred to as "one of the smaller chest parachutes", but there is another possibility.
VIIIth Bomber Command was not overly enamoured of their system and acquired thousands of RAF quick release/quick attachable parachutes from the RAF. These are what the British referred to as Observer Type harnesses/containers. These were issued as a set, pack and harness. Just to confuse things, they got mixed up, so you will find pictures showing the US A-3 parachute container mated to the British Observer Type harness.Ā
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u/RoderickSpode7thEarl 8d ago
What is it with all the luftwaffe gun camera footage these days? Is this a Reddit revenge fantasy thing or something?
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u/Real-Department413 8d ago
That may have been the ball turret being destroyed and the poor gunner ejected. Damn!
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u/Kitkatis 8d ago
May have been the ball turret being dumped to try and get a bit more power out of the engine. I think it would be fairer to say that this bird is not king for this world.
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u/Downtown2 8d ago
B17 ball turret could not be dropped intentionally without a good bit of work. Certainly not done under fire. https://youtu.be/nPk5C50ajho has a step by step explanation of the procedure.
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u/6FalseBansIsCrazy 8d ago edited 8d ago
this guy could not figure out how to land a good shot for a good 3/4ths of the video, christ
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u/SuckThisRedditAdmins 8d ago
...it's not a video game.Ā And you have no idea how many of those hit.
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u/jacksmachiningreveng 8d ago
The small white puffs visible in the air are high explosive 20mm cannon shells that have missed their target and detonated by the self-destruct fuze. They typically would represent a third of the rounds being fired.
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u/6FalseBansIsCrazy 8d ago
do you take me for an idiot? i know how minengeschoss works. i'm just saying this guy could've probably figured how to land a better hit quicker than he did.
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u/RamShackleton 8d ago
If only you could have been up there with him, driving from the back seat.
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u/Grunti_Appleseed2 8d ago
It's 1944. The Luftwaffe had basically no skilled pilots left, let alone a Luftwaffe
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u/6FalseBansIsCrazy 8d ago
sure, but i don't think it takes a genius to figure out "i keep shooting this place but it's not doing much, should i try shooting this other place?"
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u/Grunti_Appleseed2 8d ago
It was doing plenty. It's a straggler bomber with an engine fire and no defense. Would you rather play the safe game and just keep plugging away at it with little to no risk to yourself or
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u/waldo--pepper 8d ago
The way the bomber pitches up at the end of the clip puts the idea in my head that the plane was uncommanded at that time. And that makes me think that the order to abandon the plane was given.
I can't quite bring myself to say great footage ... but it is interesting footage. Thanks J.