"Rod" wrote in message
...
dennis@home wrote:


"Rod" wrote in message
...
dennis@home wrote:


"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Rod wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Andy Dingley wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 21:20:13 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

The Hurricane won the battle of Britain as the spitfire didn't
have the fire power to bring down the bombers

BB period, Hurricane firepower ? Spitifire firepower?

Both of them had just the same eight .303 wing guns. The Hurricane
IIb
did have twelve, but didn't show up until after the BoB. Both
were
later re-armed with the 20mm Hispano cannon, but the Spitfire got
these
first.

So, just another Dennisism...
I think he menas that there were abut 3 times as many hurricanes
available.

You might be right - but Dennis claimed there were 10 times as many
and phrased it in a way that seemed to say that the numerical
superiority was on top of individual aircraft firepower power
superiority.

Well the whole issue of firewpwer was predicated on a completely
false set of assumptins that unravelled as soon as combat in te real
sense happened.

The thory was you atackecet at 800 yards with 8 machine guns, and
that wold be enough to take the buggers ouit. In fact it soon became
clear from 'enemy attacked and driven away eastwards' tat harmonising
ti 200 yards or less, and concentrating firepower in certain areas -
wing roots, fuel tanks and the pilot, was the key.

And when the germans equipped with cannon, that one canon shell was
likely to do a lot more damage then 50 303 bullets.

There is some devastating footage of IIRC a Tempest doing ground
attack on lorries and so on with cannon fire. Things simply
disintegrate when hit.

I can be thankful that the Luftwaffe continued to use at least some
machine guns. My father was hit by a bullet from one of their guns, in
the chest, just above his heart.

We have the mangled pair of scissors that just happened to be in his
pocket at the time. This was the worst (maybe even the only) injury he
received in 67 ops over occupied territory, plus flying service in
India, Burma, etc. Had that been a canon shell... well, I might not
have been able to be thankful...


If it had been a cannon it probably wouldn't have hit him,
the machine gun bullet must have been pretty spent or they were
extremely good scissors.


They certainly looked to have been good quality, solid Sheffield steel.
Sort of kitchen scissor size. (Why he had them with him, I have no
idea.) The two parts were completely separated. Each curled round into a
near-semi-circle. Some parts discoloured and lost a bit of chrome.

It seems entirely likly that the bullet had passed through some part of
the structure to get to him - possibly a Wellington or, more likely, a
Lancaster. Probably wireless operator's position.

Probably just an old soldiers tale.



Which bit?

All of it.