Instructors: is no combat better?

(Peter Stickney) wrote:

And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.

The "Real Man's Paintball?"
--

-Gord.

In article ,
"Gord Beaman" ) writes:
(Peter Stickney) wrote:

And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.

The "Real Man's Paintball?"

Something like that. It wasn't necessarily safe, though. Several of
teh RP-63s ('R' back then meant Restricted from combat duty) were
forced down, generally becasue of bullet fragments damaging the
radiator cores.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article , (Peter
Stickney) wrote:

In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
Seriously, would anyone care to speculate that if aircraft gunner was
still a tactically useful skill, how much virtual reality simulator
time
(e.g., in at least a 3-axis-of-motion device) would a gunner get
before
going to a combat unit? Aggressor simulators only, or perhaps a few
pilots that have flown the aggressor ship manipulating the target?

I suspect temperature, noise, fumes, etc. would all be part of the
simulator.

Heck, they used "simulators" of a sort like that during WWII. My dad,
who
was a gunner on a B-29, remembers standing in the back of a truck that
drove
along while the trainee took shots at model aircraft.

Somebody from the Film Industry (Might have been Disney) developed a
prejection system using a hemispherical dome with a turret inside.
They had some sort of system to measure tracking errors.

And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.


That is _very_ realistic. I think, all in all, we could do it more
cheaply with virtual reality. Operation Pinball could do G-forces
better, although a simulation platform with multiple degree of freedom
movement can get awfully close.

In article ,
Howard Berkowitz writes:
In article , (Peter
Stickney) wrote:

In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
Seriously, would anyone care to speculate that if aircraft gunner was
still a tactically useful skill, how much virtual reality simulator
time
(e.g., in at least a 3-axis-of-motion device) would a gunner get
before
going to a combat unit? Aggressor simulators only, or perhaps a few
pilots that have flown the aggressor ship manipulating the target?

I suspect temperature, noise, fumes, etc. would all be part of the
simulator.

Heck, they used "simulators" of a sort like that during WWII. My dad,
who
was a gunner on a B-29, remembers standing in the back of a truck that
drove
along while the trainee took shots at model aircraft.

Somebody from the Film Industry (Might have been Disney) developed a
prejection system using a hemispherical dome with a turret inside.
They had some sort of system to measure tracking errors.

And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.


That is _very_ realistic. I think, all in all, we could do it more
cheaply with virtual reality. Operation Pinball could do G-forces
better, although a simulation platform with multiple degree of freedom
movement can get awfully close.

For a bomber-type platform, G forces probably weren't all that
relavant. Not only were the G limits fairly low, but G onset was low
as well. What would be more important would be simulating the
environment of the guys firing manually operated guns, such as the
Waist and Radio Compartment guns on a B-17. There you've got a bunch
of factors that change - the force of teh windblast on the gun barrel,
the narrow field of view, the wind blast, and the intense cold of
standing at an open window in -50 degree air while a 140 mph wind
(EAS) blows past. (What they ended up doing was designing enclosed
gun positions, with power boosted gun mounts. Of course, the
computerized Fire COntrol Systems of the B-29 and later airplanes took
all of that away, with the gunner's skills changing more to mastering
the switchology of the system, and learning how to track smoothly in
Az?El and range. (Which is a lot like patting your head while rubbing
your stomach). When the radar systems came out, in the B-36 and later
bombers, gunnery was even more detached. The gunner detected teh
target on radar, locked the radar on, and followed up the automatic
tracking. That became something that could be done easily on the
ground, or practiced while in the air (Injecting synthetic targets
into the radar system using a signal generator) on regular flights.

Pinball actually stuck around for quite a while. The last SAC gunnery
class to use the RP-63s and frangible bullets was in 1948.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Peter Stickney wrote:
And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.

Wooden bullets, if I recall correctly. An old family friend,
now passed on, experienced some of this.

He said the ballistics of the frangible bullets were so far off
from Real Life (tm) that the usefulness was limited.


Jeff

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: "Jeff Crowell"
Date: 3/10/04 12:01 PM Pacific Standard Time

He said the ballistics of the frangible bullets were so far off
from Real Life (tm) that the usefulness was limited.


Jeff

Actually there was an error between regular rounds and tracer rounds as well.
On a strafing mission you could aim the tracers and see the ground kick up well
behind the tracers. Big difference in ballistic coefficient between the two Aim
the tracers and you would shoot over the target unil you corrected..


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
snip
Actually there was an error between regular rounds and tracer rounds as
well.
On a strafing mission you could aim the tracers and see the ground kick up
well
behind the tracers. Big difference in ballistic coefficient between the
two Aim
the tracers and you would shoot over the target unil you corrected..

Art, that's because of the make up of the tracer round :
Each "tracer round" has a firefly, with 5 years food, packed into the rear
of the round.
The firefly goes into a deep sleep and slowly absorbs the food.
When the round is fired, the shock wakes the fly and his/her arse lights up.
After 5 years, if the round is not fired, the fly dies and the round is
re-classified as Ball.
(it's all in the latest manuals) :-)

(ArtKramr) wrote:


Actually there was an error between regular rounds and tracer rounds as well.
On a strafing mission you could aim the tracers and see the ground kick up well
behind the tracers. Big difference in ballistic coefficient between the two Aim
the tracers and you would shoot over the target unil you corrected..


Arthur Kramer

Ok...what calibre rounds was that Art?. Your observations
certainly wasn't true for the .303 calibre Browning machine gun.

I've fired likely 20,000 rounds from them in ASW B&G flights and
I cannot see any difference between the trajectory of FMJ ball
ammo and FMJ tracer rounds. Our belts were set up with every
fifth round being a tracer and shooting at a smoke marker on the
sea surface it's very easy to see where the rounds are hitting,
likely much more visible than on land but I haven't done that
mind you.

I found it more effective to use the results of the water hits
rather than to use the gunsight actually. Get them shooting close
to where you needed to with the sight then watch were they were
hitting and correct slightly before firing the next burst and so
on.
--

-Gord.

In article ,
"Jeff Crowell" writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:
And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.

Wooden bullets, if I recall correctly. An old family friend,
now passed on, experienced some of this.

Lead dust in a Bakelite matrix, actually. There were .30 caliber
rounds with wooden bullets, though. They were used with some models
of Rifle Grenade Dischargers. Later models of Grenade Dischargers
used blank cartridges to propel teh grenade. (That's one of the
reasons that the M1903 Springfield was retained in the Infantry Squad
until late 1944/early 1945. It was real easy to fire grenade from
it. Garands required a whole lot of fiddling (You had to add & remove
parts from the gas system - not something you want to do in combat)
and you didn't get any better rate of fire, since the blank rounds had
to be manually loaded into the rifle.

He said the ballistics of the frangible bullets were so far off
from Real Life (tm) that the usefulness was limited.

Yes, the ballistics were different. But if you're not mixing
ammunition types in the same belt, that's really not all that
important. (And I'm sure that the RP-63 pilots would be a lot happier
if that didn't happen) The sights, and the cams & springs in the
lead-computing sights used at the time Late 1944 on) would be
recalibrated to provide the same sight picture that you'd get with
service ammunition in a .50 cal.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: "Dudley Henriques"
Date: 3/9/04 11:22 AM Pacific

Great stuff as usual Dudley. But even though I was forewarned I was still
surprised to see them come in on their backs. BTW, we could tell an
experienced pilot from a novice just by how aggressive and fast he got
set and
swept in on us. The timorous would never come in inverted and always pass
over
us as he completed his run while Bill Henderson (Pittsburgh) in the top
turret
would track him coming an going.
Of course passing under us was the better way to go since the top turret
had a
far greater field of action than the hand held waist guns fired by Bo
Taylor
(Texas). while on his knees. Lousy position. Clumsy way to shoot. worst
gun on
the Marauder.

One thing's for sure. Everybody learned fast or they didn't learn at all.
D



Yup. It was the shaky world of one strike is out.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer