Grumble
Posts: 471
Joined: 5/23/2000 From: Omaha, NE, USA Status: offline
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quote:
It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming. This was a mistake. Tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. This was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.
Never read this in any AAR I've seen. Actually success went up (in USAAF and RAF) when the guns were synchronized for 300 yards or less, this was more due to higher Pk than tracer issues. In both services, guns were originally synchronized for 600yds or more; much too far away for effective shooting. At this range, yeah tracers would have a SLIGHTLY different trajectory. Inside 400-500 yards, the ability to sight through the reflector while observing fire was quite an advantage (still is), with very little difference in trajectory.
Round counters (such as the Germans had at the beginning of the war) were certainly better than using tracers, but the disadvantage is not necessarily that the enemy realizes you're "winchester". If you are engaging, the target will go defensive until he realizes you aren't a threat. Assuming the guy survives to see your flurry of tracers, he still has to get you off his six and get into position to fire on you. I would doubt anyone would have situational awareness to track which of the bad guys is winchester and who isn't. The problem is one of mission management: I don't know how much ammo I have left, so do I separate and go home, or stick around.
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"...these go up to eleven." Nigel Tufnel
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