Subject: WWII-L Digest - 22 Jan 1994 to 23 Jan 1994

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 00:00:32 -0500

There are 8 messages totalling 263 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Re[2]: Movie realism
  2. Japanese Submarines
  3. Weapons: PPSh Machine Guns (2)
  4. Fighters with rear gunners (2)
  5. bullet speed
  6. UK Opens Files on WWII Massacre

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Date:    Sat, 22 Jan 1994 23:29:42 PST
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Movie realism

And the Finns.
The Finnish SUOMI submachine gun works superbly well in very
cold weather.  Served them particularly effcectively during
the Wo Winter War and subsequent combat against the germans
and Russians throughout their 3-step wars,1939-1945.
I understand the Suomi is still in service, too.

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Date:    Sun, 23 Jan 1994 02:25:57 CST
From:    Steve Alvin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japanese Submarines

Terry asked for more information about the Japanese use of
anechoic coatings.  I talked to a friend who owned the book I looked
at and he gave me more info.  The Japanese I-400 class were covered
with synthetic rubber and sand coating with a thin cement or plastic
coating.  No indication of how well it worked.  This infor is
from the book *Sub vs Sub* by Richard Compton-Hall, NY:  Orion
Books, 1988.

--
Steve Alvin
[email-masked]

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Date:    Sun, 23 Jan 1994 16:12:44 CST
From:    "[email-masked]. --Scherrer,
         Tim A." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Weapons: PPSh Machine Guns

To quote John Angolia and Adolf Schlict,

"The most widely utilized, captured machine pistol was the Russian
PPSh-41.  This weapon was held in high regard by German troops because
of its reliability and 71 drum magazine.  Since captured 7.62mm
ammunition was plentiful many of these captured machine pistols were
used by front line German units.  In 1944/45, with the reversals of the
war in the east, the ammunition supply dried up and some PPSh-41's had
to be converted to 9mm Parabellum by the Germans.

The earlier model PPD-40, the PPSh-41 and later model PPSh-43 were
widely used by German troops.  The following designations were given to
the captured Russian machine-pistols.

PPD-40: 7.62mm Maschinenpistole 715(r) PPD-34/38: 7.62mm
Maschinenpistole 716(r) PPSh-41: 7.62mm Maschinenpistole 717(r) PPSh-43:
7.62mm Maschinenpistole 719(r)

Other foreign maschinenpistole used were the Austrian Steyr-Solothurn
9mm Maschinenpistole 34(o), the Italian Beretta 38/42 (Maschinenpistole
738(i)), 7.65mm MAS French MAS m38 (7.65mm Maschinenpistole 722(f)), 9mm
Italian FNA-B Modello 1943 (9mm Maschinenpistole (i)), the Finnish Suomi
m42 (9mm Maschinenpistole 746 (d)), and the British Sten Mark II (9mm
Maschinenpistole 751 (E).

Lots of other rifles and machine guns were used by the germans, who made
extensive use of captured stocks of equipment.

Source: Angolia and Schlicht, _Uniforms and Traditions of the German
Army, 1933-1945, Vol 3, Bender Publishing, San Jose, CA 1987

************************************************************************
*  Tim A. Scherrer          "You'll be fighting WWII for the rest of   *
*  Facilities Supervisor     your life", Ron Scherrer, 1971            *
*  WP:816-785-5253                                                     *
*  HP:816-665-6704                                                     *
*  ID# [email-masked]                             *
************************************************************************

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Date:    Sun, 23 Jan 1994 23:22:12 +0100
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Fighters with rear gunners

On Fri, 21 Jan 1994, Charles Reace wrote:

> You really can't compare the various multi-seat "fighters" with the pure
> single engine/single seat fighters of WWII (or the single seat multi-engine
> P-38).  Though planes such as the ME210 or Beaufighter were loosely calledd
> fighters, they would never want to get in a dogfight with pure fighters
> (Me109, Spitfire, P47, etc.).  The true fighter had a primary purpose of
> shooting down enemy planes, and all other design considerations were very
> secondary to those of speed, maneuverability, and forward firepower.

'Speed, maneuvrability and firepower': the idea behind the twin-engined
fighter was to combine speed, heavy armament and range.  Maneuvrability
was less important (altough a Ki-45 probably could outturn many
single-seaters) but anyway, in combat maneuvrability was soon found to be
less important than climb and dive speed, sturdiness and armour,
reliability and range. There is no reason why a heavy fighter could not
have these advantages.  These twin-engined aircraft were certainly very
different to the single-engined single-seaters, but nevertheless they were
designed and built as fighters. Agreed that they would have to avoid
dogfights, but these were relatively scarce anyway -- and in theory the
primary goal of a defensive fighter is to shoot down enemy bombers and
reconaissance planes, not fighters.  Bombers are more expensive and do
more damage...

I admit that in reality they soon became fighter-bombers and nightfighters
but this had more to do with (a) an rather unexpected range increase of
the fighters, remember that the 1930s concept of an interceptor fighter
called for a short-range, fast-climbing aircraft. These made the heavy
fighter too vulnerable on daylight operations. (b) The need for an attack
aircraft with better performance than conventional bombers. On the other
hand, there were manny attempts to fit twin-engined aircraft with heavy
armament to attack the very sturdy US bombers: heavy cannon or rockets. I
believe that it was quite common for German Ju88s to attack US daylight
bombers with rockets. Japan even converted a twin-engined medium bomber to
attack B-29s with a 75mm cannon! In the strict sense of the word, these
are still 'fighters'.

Emmanuel Gustin

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Date:    Sun, 23 Jan 1994 23:27:50 +0100
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Fighters with rear gunners

On Fri, 21 Jan 1994, Ingalls Steven CPT wrote:

> I'll add to the list.  Hughes attempted to market an aircraft to the
> Air Force known as the D-2.  Billed as a 'convoy' fighter, it employed four
> remotely-controlled rear machineguns.  'Hap' Arnold asked Hughes to bring the
> aircraft to Washington, but Hughes refused.  Some say the airplane never flew.

I believe that the Hughes DX-2 was never built in its fighter version, but
was built as the A-37 attack aircraft.  It did fly -- I remember a story
that H. Hughes took someone up on a test flight, but refused to let him
see the airspeed indicator! It was destroyed under mysterious
circumstances. Later Hughes built the similar F-11 reconaissance aircraft.

Emmanuel Gustin

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Date:    Mon, 24 Jan 1994 01:00:38 +0100
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: bullet speed

On Thu, 21 Jan 1993, Ireneusz Jakobik wrote:

> Peter de Lange writes:
>
> >Assume the gun give the bullet a speed of 500 km/h and the plane
> >goes 500 km/h, the frontguns give the bullet a speed of 500+500=1000
> >km/h and you have a good chance to hit, but the tailgun gives the
> >bullet a speed of 500-500=0 km/h so the bullet drops straight to
> >the earth and you cant hit anything.

Well, all bullets will drop in the same way regardless of their horizontal
speed -- aerodynamic effect excluded. If dropped in the path of the
following aircraft, its relative speed towards it would still be 500km/h.
It would actually hit it harder than a bullet fired forward, because the
latter is slowed down by the air resistance and the initial relative is
also only 500km/h... But most bullets fly much faster than 500km/h.

> It looks mathematically correct, but how it really looks like? Isn't
> a bullet faster than 500 km/h? And I've got another similar situation:
> Plane goes 500 km/h, passes anti-aircraft gun, which starts shooting
> at it after 1.65 seconds. Bullets leave gun with the speed of 527 km/h.
> Will the bullets reach the plane? Will they have enough kinetic energy
> to damage it? Will anyone answer my questions?  :)
> -Irek.

Let's try :-). Forget about air resistance for a moment... An extremely
unrealistic assumption, but an easy one to begin with. We will assume
that the aircraft flies straight and level, and passes directly over the
gun. We start the stopwatch at time T=0. Measured from the machinegun the
trajectory of the aircraft is then:

  distance from gun   Xa(t) = T * Va    (Va = 500km/h)
  height              Ha(t) = Ha        (Ha = constant)

The gun is pointed in the direction the aircraft flies in, at an angle Ag
with the ground, and fires after a time Tg=1.65s a bullet with speed
Vg=527km/h. Due to the influence of the gravity, the trajectory of the
bullet is:

  distance from gun  Xg(t) = Vg*cos(Ag) * (T-Tg)
  height             Hg(t) = Vg*sin(Ag) * (T-Tg) - 1/2 * g * (T-Tg)^2

The question is thus: is there a set of parameters (T, Ag, Ha) for which
Xa(t) equals Xg(t) and Ha(t) equals Hg(t)? We forget about proximity
fuses. From the first requirement we get that

                Vg*cos(Ag)*Tg
        T  =  -----------------
                Vg*cos(Ag)-Va

Now this already looks bad. T must be positive, and that means that the
angle of the gun relative to the ground must be less than 18.4 degrees.
The maximum height of the bullet would be only 107m, reached after 4.7
seconds and at a distance of 781m. At that time, the aircraft would
already be 881m away. (Anyway, your gun would be unable to hit any target
above 1092m.) Air resistance would, of course, make things even worse.

If we substitute this T in the second requirement, we get an expression
for Ha in function of Ag... It looks complicated, but is mathematically
simple enough. If you calculate it, you see that it is always negative. So
no, you wouldn't be able to hit the aircraft.

Now I hope that I didn't make any obvious errors.... :-)

Emmanuel

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Date:    Sun, 23 Jan 1994 19:35:23 -0500
From:    Christopher Morton <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Weapons: PPSh Machine Guns

>
> To quote John Angolia and Adolf Schlict,
>
> "The most widely utilized, captured machine pistol was the Russian
> PPSh-41.  This weapon was held in high regard by German troops because
> of its reliability and 71 drum magazine.  Since captured 7.62mm
> ammunition was plentiful many of these captured machine pistols were
> used by front line German units.  In 1944/45, with the reversals of the
> war in the east, the ammunition supply dried up and some PPSh-41's had
> to be converted to 9mm Parabellum by the Germans.

The ammunition supply should never have TOTALLY dried up, since the Mauser
Models C96 and 711 were substitute standard and used the same round.

> The earlier model PPD-40, the PPSh-41 and later model PPSh-43 were
> widely used by German troops.  The following designations were given to
> the captured Russian machine-pistols.

That should be PP -->S<-- 43.  The PPSh was credited to Shpagin, the PPS to
Sudayev.

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Date:    Mon, 24 Jan 1994 14:30:05 +1000
From:    George PISZCZUK <[email-masked]>
Subject: UK Opens Files on WWII Massacre

I have been reading several articles (via Reuter) of the attempt to convict
SS Captain Wilhelm Mohnke of war crimes.

One article suggests that 22 files, marked not to be made public until 2021,
were in fact released early.  These files were described as containing
interviews with British and German soldiers describing the massacre of between
80 and 90 British soldiers in a barn at Wormhoudt, Belgium, during the 1940
retreat to Dunkirk.

I question the need to continue holding back historical records only to draw
on theif it can serve some political end.  T

George Piszczuk
[email-masked]

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End of WWII-L Digest - 22 Jan 1994 to 23 Jan 1994
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