On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 01:30:02 +0100 (CET), Nomen Nescio
] wrote:

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From: David Dyer-Bennet

Anecdotally, I hear the army found it easier to teach people to shoot
who *didn't* have previous experience; they didn't have anything to
unlearn.

And I've heard that when the WW II GI got into combat, he had to unlearn what the
Army had taught him. That comes from my father, a kid from Bennington, Vermont that,
as a 2nd LT, had to do some of the unteaching to his "green" troops before they
landed at Iwo Jima and Okinowa.

I can't comment on retraining, it's just that actual combat is nothing
like training and never is. It doesn't matter how well you trained
back in the states or wherever, real combat isn't training and
training isn't real combat. Suffice to say that those who survived
the first day or so, learned VERY quickly.

Also during WW II, the military noticed that 10% of the fighter pilots were scoring
90% of the kills. What did they find when they studied it? That 10% were almost invariably
rural kids who carried a gun since they were old enough to walk. They knew how to
properly lead a target 'cause they'd been doing it since childhood with birds, rabbits, etc.
and just carried it over in their flying.

Carrying a gun and knowing how to lead weren't necessarily what made a
good fighter pilot. Those guys who got 80% of the shootdowns got them
because they aggressively sought the enemy. Not every fighter pilot
did that.

In addition, most fighter pilots didn't do very much "leading" when
shooting at an enemy aircraft, they just pulled in directly astern and
blasted away. No need to lead when you are directly astern. This is
what Erich Hartmann claimed he did most often as he self
depreciatingly called himself a lousy shot. Surprising the enemy from
directly behind is what got him the majority of his 352 shoot downs,
that and a "target rich" environment.

The Navy actively taught deflection shooting and promoted the
procurement of fighter aircraft from which deflection shooting was
possible. Both the F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat had steeply sloping
noses allowing the pilot to see over the nose at the target. When you
are pulling lead, this is an important consideration: you have to be
able to see the target over the nose. Being able to use the fighter
for deflection shooting wasn't the main reason for the good over the
nose visibility though, the Navy felt then needed that in order to
properly land aboard a carrier.

Several in-line engine fighters were nearly impossible to use for
deflection shooting because of the long nose in front of the cockpit.
The Bf 109 was one such airplane and the Spitfire another. This
didn't stop Hans-Joachim Marseille from using deflection shooting
anyway but he was pretty unusual. He used to practice his attack
approaches on his squadron as they were patroling, pulling off and
then coming in from all angles, sometimes inverted just to practice
getting the proper lead.

In actual combat, he wrote that he sometimes had to pull so much lead
that his target literally was out of sight below his nose. But for
him this was a matter of timing and situational awareness.

Getting back to the US Navy, the fighter pilots practiced full
deflection attacks constantly, pulling up parallel and above the
target, then banking in to the target and instantly having to bank the
opposite way to be able to pull lead. As you approached the target,
the lead was constantly changing so your angle of bank had to change
constantly. It was extremely difficult to achieve properly and not
every fighter pilot got real good at it. Butch O'Hare was one who WAS
very good at it as he proved in 1942 when he defended his carrier
against approaching twin engined bombers single handedly. His attacks
were all the highside method, which greatly complicated return fire
from the bomber's gunners. His shooting was so accurate that he
actually shot an engine off on of the bombers. This bomber fell out
of the formation and nosed down toward the carrier. It was
photographed close aboard the fantail in it's attempt to crash the
carrier in what was likely the first attempt of it's kind. It missed.

You can see this photo and read of O'Hare and his mentor James (Jimmy)
Thach in the book "The First Team" by John Lundstrom. An excellent
read.

Corky Scott