"Red Tails" query

After all it's just a movie and sometimes you have to take poetic license with a grain of salt

Agreed. And there are some aspects of the movie that I really like.

Some years ago I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by two of the surviving Tuskegee pilots. One of the most fascinating evenings I've ever spent. One point the two gentlemen emphasized was that the term Tuskegee Airmen applies not only to the pilots but to the ground echelon as we'll. When I thought about it a second I realized - of course. The movie got that part right.

We're seeing right now a minor wave of WWII movies - the last ones that will appear while WWII veterans are still around. Generations of young people will get exposed to the story through movies like "Red Tails," "The Monuments Men," etc. The first time I saw "Battle of Britain" - in its first release, in a theater) I was bothered by the endless cliches in it. But to today's young people - including British and German ones - they aren't cliches. That movie may well be those people's first and only exposure to a great - and true - story.

But I do question whether it's necessary or appropriate to make up additional deeds for historical figures who, as far as I'm concerned, earned the label "hero" without help from Hollywood.

One sad aspect of all this. Since "Red Tails" was released, each time I've taught my "American military history since 1900 course, I've asked the students (mainly sophomores and juniors) how many of them have seen it. So far the number is zero.

Look up Lt Gwynne Pierson, who did the deed while flying a P-47 along with the rest of his flight. Then ship in question was a former Italian Torpedo Boat Destroyer, the Auriga. In DKM service she was rechristened TA 27. The event was captured on gun camera film and used in the HBO movie "Tuskegee Airmen".

Verrrry interesting! So the movie is in error only in describing the ship in question as a destroyer- the sort of mistake an Army pilot could easily make. (The silhouette of the ship in the movie is too vague for me to identify.) And we surely an forgive the substitution of the Mustang for the Thunderbolt.

I did find out that the Tuskegee Airmen did indeed. Shoot down two ME-262s in one day. Wikipedia faults the movie for claiming that those were the first German jets shot down, but I think that's a bum rap. I didn't hear anybody in the movie make such a claim.

It's nice to find out that the movie was more accurate than I thought. I'll continue recommending it to students. Thanks, Stikpusher.

If you ever get the opportunity to here one of these old gentlemen speak, for heaven's sake do it. Time is running out.

I have heard several times of P-47s sinking destroyers, with 8 fifties.  The story goes that if you can hold fire on one section of hull right at waterline, for several seconds, it would puncture hull.  Seems like it wouldn't be a very big hole.  I do not doubt that repetitive 20mm cannon fire might be more effective for those fighters so armed.

Seems to me with the eight fifties that at the speed you would make the attack, you would pass through the range where guns are converged at for only a short period- before and after that point fire would not be concentrated.  I'll bet a GAU-8 would sink one quickly though!

JT, the ship in question was no small craft like a MTB. She was built as part of the Airete Class Torpedo Boats for the Regia Marina. In the US Navy or Royal Navy she would probably have been classified as a Destroyer Escort or Corvette. They were just under 274 feet long, weighed in at 1100 long tons fully loaded, and were armed with 2 x 100mm guns, 10x 20mm guns and 6x torpedo tubes. In DKM service she was renamed TA-27, and was sunk by the Tuskeegee Airman on June 9, 1944.

According to what I have read on that particular incident, Lt Gwynne's gunfire went into an open hatch and the explosion occured after he walked his fire into that opening. A previous pass by another P-47 had already started fires on the ship.

As far as the Red Tails movie goes, I enjoyed it, but felt it could have been made so much better. It reminded me of a John Wayne or similar 1940s type war movie like Flying Tigers or such. Not what we are used to seeing in a war film in the past 30 years. When viewed in tandem with the HBO Tuskeegee Airmen movie, I think the two movies tell their tale fairly well. Of course with artistic license. 

Don, the GAU-8 is made to pierce 4 inches or more of hardened steel armor. It would shred the hull plating of a destroyer or similar sized surface combatant with the DU slugs.

Agreed 100 percent, Stikpusher - especially with the old-John-Wayne-movie analogy.

Some time back I read an article in Aeroplane Monthly about the making of the movie. If I remember right, they used six real airplanes: three Mustangs, one P-40, one C-47, and one B-17. All the others are computer graphics.

The movie super-sized the combatant for dramatic effect. ;)

Yeah, but I'll bet it was nothing like skip-bombing in the Pacific or using that 75mm in the nose of a B-25...

Shoot, or skip-bombing before the gun-nosed B-25 came out.  Where it was all done by pilot eye and nerve.  I have often wondered if the crew chiefs who were field modifying those B-25 noses did so just for the sound of AA fire coming through the perspex on the way in on a bomb run.  Or, if guns and ammo were simpler than repairing sheet metal bulkheads in the nose.

The problem with using a GAU-8 as a "can opener" is that you'd need some unique circumstances to get one close enough (particularly now that DepAF has seen fit to send them all to the boneyard).

I read a story about a crew putting a 3" cannon in the nose and every time they fired it the plane felt like it stopped in mid-air.  The gun was so damaging to the plane that they ended up removing it.

The 75mm M4 equipped B-25G was built in large numbers; 400.

I understand that it worked pretty well.

So they must have modify the frames on later models.  I didn't know that until now, thx.

I've heard you can stall an a10 warthog if you fire the main gun too long,but don't know if ther is any truth to that

I knew a pilot who crash landed a P-61 with no controls, ie flaps. He loosed off all four 20mm cannons to kill his airspeed.

Raualduke

I've heard you can stall an a10 warthog if you fire the main gun too long,but don't know if ther is any truth to that

Average recoil of the GAU-8 is about 10,000 Lbs. Each of the A-10's TF-34 engines produces about 9,275 Lbs of thrust, so with two at full thrust, the A-10 theoretically has an excess of thrust. However, suddenly adding 10k of drag will definitely change your energy profile. Early aircraft could suffer from engine flame out from the gun exhaust gasses, however, which is a stall of sorts.

Alas it is just a myth.  Firing short bursts is more about barrel life, as I understand it, even though the GAU-8 is a multi-barrel gattling gun.  In fact, I read somewhere that initial testing of the gun/plane showed that the expelled gasses caused flame-outs on prolonged firing...but that may be apocryphal.  The gist if it all seems to indicate that the gun barrels would burn out long before enough recoil inertia could cause a stall.

Brian

Tracy White

Raualduke

I've heard you can stall an a10 warthog if you fire the main gun too long,but don't know if ther is any truth to that

Average recoil of the GAU-8 is about 10,000 Lbs. Each of the A-10's TF-34 engines produces about 9,275 Lbs of thrust, so with two at full thrust, the A-10 theoretically has an excess of thrust. However, suddenly adding 10k of drag will definitely change your energy profile. Early aircraft could suffer from engine flame out from the gun exhaust gasses, however, which is a stall of sorts.

Perhaps that's why they usually fire the gun in a shallow dive to compensate for the muzzle blast? Gravity will make up for the difference...

But the majoprity of the gun gas, going below or to the sides, looks like it will not be ingested by the engines...

If any of the vets out there who have fired a M-2 HB can tell you. the fire power of just one is devastating. Now multiply that by 8 !. I have punched through thick armor targets on the gun range with this weapon. so I fell confident that 8 of them could punch a pretty good size hole in the side of a tin can. Just my 2 cents.