Added some Flak to my footage of a B-17. What do you think?
The Mighty Eighth - YouTube
clunckdriver
2nd May 2014, 13:37
Well, I hardly know where to start, but at low altitude the flak would be 20 or 37mm fire, not heavy predicted flack that you have simulated, many of these fairly "rapid fire cannon" were on quad or dual mounts, not something you want to get hit by. {a check of single engine fighters lost to these guns whilst on low level trips exceeded air to air loses after D Day}Many of the pilots lost were some of the high scoring aces by the way. The heavies were subjected to predicted 88mm flak whilst at altitude, only these guns had the ability to get up to the B17 normal bombing heights, it was also a really effective ant tank gun, but was not able to traverse as fast as the light flack, thus not a lot of use against low level "jinking" targets. The heavy flak also used "box barrages" thus bracketing the groups with lots of nasty bits of metal through -out the whole formation. The genuine WW2 combat films, although lacking modern film quality are to me far superior than any computer simulations, as a kid during the war we had our house re arranged by the Luftwaffe, nothing can simulate the bloody great bang or the blast that a 500 kilo bomb makes in ones front garden!
SamMcGowan
6th May 2014, 06:32
Having been shot at by everything from .50-caliber to 85 MM, I can attest to the fact that airbursts are just as prevalent down low as they are at high altitude.