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Instructors: is no combat better?
Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of instructors who have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an instructor who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to combat you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy. There is another factor. when you have an instructor who has never fought and probably never will, and you know that you damn well will, he goes down a notch in respect because he is in a job that "protects": him from combat while you will soon be sent into the thick of it.. So when we all talk of combat experiences and one among us says " well I wasn't there, I was an instructor in the states" he is now out of the loop.. Not that his job wasn't critically important. It sure was. . At any rate things sure have changed since WW II. We considered a combat veteran as an instructor a gift from the gods. Your mileage may vary. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
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Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Ed Rasimus Date: 3/9/04 7:00 AM Pac The intangible of demonstrated courage lends credibility, but it doesn't equate with best training. My mileage has most definitely varied--and there's been a lot more of it. Yes. You point that out at every opportuniity and I have gotten the point every time. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
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I think the position of most posters is that instructional skill is what
really matters. If the instructor also has relevant combat experience so much the better. But being able to tell "war stories" has little relevance to instructional ability. Dave |
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Art,
If I had to do it all over again, I would prefer the leavening of experience in the instructors that I had in the 60's. Learning it all the ATC way or the SAC way or the MAC way or the TAC way was not conducive to gaining general knowledge and learning "why" something needed to be done. The "how" came in crew training under the specific command that you were going to after initial training. It was nice to recall something that an instructor from another command had given you as a"tip" when you were lost for 14 hours with nothing working and about to bust an ADIZ or a miss an important item. The Air Training Command system of the 60's (You WILL do it this way!) wasn't always the best way, or easiest way or smartest way. An old B-47 Nav/Bomb taught me things about the radar set that no C-124 flight lunch inspector ever thought about trying. An old C-47 nav taught me how to repair a sextant that probably saved my rear at least once over the pond. A navy CPO nav taught me noon day fix proceedures that worked more than once. The main thing I got out of Air Teaining Command was accuracy and pacing. Experienced people from other places taught me how to improvement my "judgement" and smooth out the rough edges. Rick Clark GRID still sucks! |
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Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz Date: 3/9/04 8:32 AM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: Look at it another way. In the "grand old days", SAC had lots of pilots and aircrew, many of which might have WWII or Korea or Viet Nam combat experience. Let's say someone survived Linebacker and is now teaching. How does that qualify them to teach a low-altitude nuclear delivery run against the fUSSR? How does anyone who hasn't done it teach it? Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
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"ArtKramr" wrote in message ... Of course you are correct. We learn from everyone wherever and whenever we can. I remember one gunner telling me how to tell in advance whether an enemy fighter coming in at you will pass over or under you. It makes a difference because if he will pass over he belongs to our top turret gunner and if he will pass under he is the waist gunners meat. Anyway, he said that if the fighter starts his fighter approach and has dropped his inside wing and is swinging h s nose toward you. then rolls over on his back and makes his attack firing inverted, he will pass under you. But if he comes in straight, he will pass over you. And you know, that guy was right. Bless those who have walked the walk and lived to tell us about it before we found it out the hard way.. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer In conjunction with your comment about the gunner's remarks to you; if simple aerodynamics wasn't a part of every gunner's training during the war, it most surely should have been. What this gunner was telling you might have been from his training knowledge base or simply as the observed result of his personal experience. The end result would be the same for recognizing what the fighter was about to do, but the big difference would have been the advantage to gunners having this knowledge up front going into combat as opposed to finding it out through operational experience. Every gunner out there should have had at least some basic knowledge of positive and negative g as that knowledge relates to a firing pass by a fighter. Those who didn't had to learn the hard way. Gunners being taught a few simple facts about g and vectors would have saved many lives........ and as this knowledge relates to a firing pass, could have been taught in just a few minutes during training. The simple truth of it is that if the fighter rolled inverted during the pass, in order to pass over you he would have to bunt the airplane into negative g, and the odds of this happening vs going the positive g route under you would have all but been a sure bet that he would go positive under you; hence the lead would become predictable based on the odds. I should add that there were a few German fighter pilots who routinely would go negative, but never offensively, only defensively. Erich Hartmann was one of them, and he was not in the theatre. I've always wanted to ask a gunner from the period if simple aerodynamics was indeed taught in gunnery training to help with prediction lead solution, but somehow I've always forgotten to ask :-) If there are any gunners out there who can answer this, perhaps they will post. Dudley |
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