Favorite world war 2 plane!

red pill · Post by **red pill** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 12:37 pm

the lancster. with out a shadow of a doubt. this bomber kicked serise ass and was so dame custmisble. spitfire is a closs second, and the hercan comes in 3rd.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 2:55 pm

Propyro wrote:i'm not going to bother reading the whole thread ... so i'll jsut say p-51d mustang ... sure it was a flying gastank and it turned into a giant firecracker as soon as it got hit ... but it had amazing manuerability and was a p[retty fast plane ... plus it was jsut cool looking.

It was still a good plane. A lot of famous planes are really flying gastanks. Another famous WWII gastank is the previously-mentioned Me-262. That made it particularly vulnerable on takeoff and landing. It also had a nasty tendency to catch on fire if you moved the throttle up too fast...

All planes have their weaknesses, will tell ya that

Mroni · Post by **Mroni** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 7:43 pm

red pill wrote:the lancster. with out a shadow of a doubt. this bomber kicked serise ass and was so dame custmisble. spitfire is a closs second, and the hercan comes in 3rd.

Lol the only way I remember is it was in Gi joe I think maybe issue 21 it's been so long but they get destros help to fight these guys using spitfires and a lanc. I agree it was a very tough and dependable bomber.

Mr Oni

Mroni · Post by **Mroni** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 7:44 pm

Otohiko wrote:
Propyro wrote:i'm not going to bother reading the whole thread ... so i'll jsut say p-51d mustang ... sure it was a flying gastank and it turned into a giant firecracker as soon as it got hit ... but it had amazing manuerability and was a p[retty fast plane ... plus it was jsut cool looking.
It was still a good plane. A lot of famous planes are really flying gastanks. Another famous WWII gastank is the previously-mentioned Me-262. That made it particularly vulnerable on takeoff and landing. It also had a nasty tendency to catch on fire if you moved the throttle up too fast...

All planes have their weaknesses, will tell ya that

The P 51 was pretty tough so I don't think you would have to worry about it being a flying gas tank.

Mr Oni

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:32 pm

Well, the P-51 was quite a dependable platform... I believe it was even used in Korea, and I hear it made a solid ground attack plane.

The most famous 'flying gas tank' of all time has to be the SR-71 though, hands down

Because that's what it really was.

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:44 pm

What sort of guns did these planes carry? I've always wondered that.

/too lazy to look it up.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:54 pm

Which are you referring to? If SR-71 (the last plane mentioned in the thread), while initially designed to be a fighter these were used only for recon and never carried any actual weapons.

If P-51... for the earlier versions -

One of the shortcomings of the P-51 was its limited firepower of only four machine guns. In addition, the guns in each wing were aligned at rather odd angles, requiring a severe bend in the ammunition belt feeds and resulting in frequent gun jams.

For the D model (and probably above) -

The P-51D gun installation was completely redesigned, and the result was the installation of three MG53-2 .50-caliber machine guns in each wing, all of them mounted upright and all fed by straight ammunition belts. The inboard guns each held 400 rounds, and the others 270 rounds each.
P-51Ds had underwing hardpoints not only for bombs and fuel tanks but also for various types of air-to-ground rockets. These included zero-length stubs for six 5-inch rockets or as many as ten if no drop tanks were carried. Alternatively, "Bazooka" tubes could be carried in triple clusters. There were a few field conversions for special armament, examples including two drop tanks and six 100-lb bombs, four 100-lb bombs plus 36 fragmentation bombs, or four 75-Imp gallon drop tanks.

So, WWII planes generally carried heavy, large-caliber machine guns. Some, like P-39's and many Russian planes, also carried powerful but slow cannons which shot explosive rounds.

Does that uh... explain it?

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:55 pm

Yep, confirms what I thought.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:56 pm

So, was that... about SR-71 or WWII planes?

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 9:00 pm

WWII planes and their armaments.

The M2 0.50 caliber machine gun has served our military well for DECADES

. Since the 1920's, at least.