Effective Ranges of WW1 aircraft guns

[LewisS]

I forgot which WWI ace said that to rely upon your tracers for aim was bad practice. That you should take your kite to the gun practice area and have the sights and guns aligned often.

[mustang]

During WW2 I trained on an aircraft fitted with twin Vickers synchronised guns. Identical to WW1 installations

We were taught that anything more than 100 yards was out of range, and attempting to "walk" the tracers (whatever that is supposed to mean) on to the target was a big no no. The flight path of tracers, as viewed from the cockpit of a fast moving aircraft is deceptive, and not to be relied upon to calculate lead or defletion distance ahead of the target. The gunsight and angle off in a curve of pursuit was the only reliablw method.

Mustang

[LewisS]

I think "walking" is like directing a firehose stream, definitely doesn't work for early Lewis equipped kites, what with 47 rounds total in the cartridge canister.

Was it the first French aces like Guynemer that started the trend of rationing shots because the upper wing mounted Lewis was a pain to reload in flight? I know that both he and Fonk spoke of kills they had with less than 5 rounds.

That my friends is shooting.

Mason's book about the Esc 124, the Lafayette, when they were stationed at Luxeil au Bains, they had just received their first Nieuport 17's and they were short on ammo for the Vickers. Their CO had to drive almost all the way to Paris to get more.

[mik]

Ballistics is a subject I have some knowledge of. However lets keep it simple.
All objects fall at a rate of 32.17 feet per second every second.
After half a second the bullet will be about 400 yards in front of you and have dropped 16 feet. What you do with a rifle is set open sights for 200yds at which range it shoots a maximum of about 2 inches above the sight line. It shoots at perhaps 4 inches low at 250yds and as range increases the trajectory becomes more rainbow like. It would make sense to set the guns at 200yds on the range. At 200yds from 6 o'clock an Albatros does not present a large target.

[Chock]

Another thing you would also have to consider would be the range at which you had harmonised the guns - assuming you have two of them that are the same. Not always as simple as it seems - the SE5 had two guns, but the DV and the Sopwith Camel for example, had a pair of guns, which is slightly different where harmonising is concerned.

Even though both guns on the SE5 fired the same ammo, there would probably be less point in trying to harmonise the guns on an SE5, as it is likely the Lewis gun mounting (especially the early one) would flex and spray things about a bit more than would the Vickers, which was bolted to the airframe, with consequently less chance for leverage on the mountings as it fired. This was the case with the fixed Spandaus on most German WW1 fighters too. Flexing of guns on auxiliary mountings is something which has affected numerous fighters over the years, notably the underwing cannon pods on the bf109G and the centreline gun pods on several jet fighters, such as F4 Phantom variants without an internal gun.

From a ballistics standpoint, and as most field target shooters (and probably snipers) know, how much ballistic drops affects matters is altered depending on whether you fire at an upwards or downwards angle, since when firing steeply downward, the gravity which causes ballistic drop effectively adds to the acceleration of the bullet rather than altering its trajectory, whereas when firing upwards the same distance, it decelerates the bullet and alters the ballistic drop effect by making the bullet travel through 'more gravity', since it is going a bit slower, but bizarrely, not by as much as it does when firing horizontally, since the gravity vector is closer to the trajectory line when firing upwards.

That effect may be more relevant to long range shooters on the ground than it would be to aeroplanes, since the ranges would probably render ballistic drop of little relevance when at close range in a dogfight, although it might have a bearing on firing a Lewis gun upwards at a two seater from underneath, and it could possibly be useful in a steep diving attack, especially in something like a SPAD, where you could effectively add up to around 280 mph to the muzzle velocity of your bullets if you fired when in a vertical dive.

Also likely to alter things a little, is the air density at altitude. At 18,000 feet, your bullets would encounter less air resistance than they'd get when being ranged on the ground, so ballistic drop would probably be a bit less when up high in a fight.

So there's a few reasons to disregard all that confusing stuff and simply fly right up someone's ass, where you could hardly miss.

Al

[tcrean7828]

Originally Posted by tttiger

My apologies.

My choice of words was not intended to be personal or harsh.

"Ignorant" does not mean "stupid." It means you don't know. I'm ignorant of many, many things. But if "I don't know" I look it up. Google is my friend.

Similarly, "worthless" means "of no value" since the comments of the thread starter were highly inaccurate due to the misuse of terminology. It doesn't mean the person himself is "worthless."

The accuracy of WWI aircraft machine guns was very low, especially at longer ranges beyond 100 yards.

The effectiveness of the bullets (which is a whole different matter) remains high at least to 1,000 yards.

I believe the original poster said exactly the opposite due to his unfortunate choice of terminology.

That doesn't make him a bad person.

Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers.

Sorry.

Mate,
Welcome to the flagship of the Aerodrome - where the greatest minds on the planet get together and talk about their favorite subject - WW1.

ttfn

tcrean7828

tom

P.S. Werner Voss fan here.

[R Pope]

Tests by the British army established that the absolute maximum range of a ground-fired .303 round was 4333 yards, fired at an angle of forty degrees upward. It was still capable of inflicting a mortal wound at that range, although of course the chances of hitting anything specific were non-existent!
I chuckled at the "more gravity" term in a previous post. Somewhat simplified, and just plain wrong! Firing at any angle from the horizontal, upward or downward, requires the shooter to aim lower than he would over the same range on a level shot. Gravity and ballistics notwithstanding, it is a result of the line of the sights being at a positive angle compared to the departure angle of the bullet. If you aimed straight up the bore would be pointed back over your head, causing the bullet to go back behind you a considerable distance. Downward fire will go "high" due to the same effect.

[Chock]

Originally Posted by R Pope

I chuckled at the "more gravity" term in a previous post. Somewhat simplified, and just plain wrong!

Chuckle at this then, I used the term 'more gravity' to simplify matters in the post, I never said anything about how it would affect the elevation of your aim point, because that's not what I was referring to. Here's the physics, of what I was referring to:



Al

[Simba]

I agree that flight sims 'dumb down' the flight and gunnery models and can't be regarded as 'the real thing' but at least we can try to gain some feeling of what it was like.

Back in the day when the Dawn of Aces flight sim was still enjoyable (before it was turned into the 'Flyboys' travesty), it was noted that the 'boom-and-zoom' tactic was almost impossible to carry out successfully because the gunfire was accurate and effective out to 800 yards or more. The result was that 'turn-and-burn' dogfighting became the only way to go; totally unrealistic, but the only way to avoid a bullet in the back from long range when extending.

The oracles were consulted, the books were read, the arguments were fierce - and we finally managed to persuade the programmers to make 300 yards the maximum range of all aircraft guns. Hey presto, a much better flight sim.

Cheers!

Simba.

[MiG-77]

So that everyone can compare how it looks in RoF. First image shows Dr.I'es in different ranges(.1 = 100m). Second Dr.I with max possible zoom in game. Third image show SPAD at 210m and fourth show typical engament range.

Now everyone can imagine how "easy" it is to shoot enemies at 300m when planes wobble/slip/bounce in RoF more than any game that I have played before