WW2 .50cal AMMO
James P Girardeau
Does anyone know if U.S. .50cal MG's normally fired explosive bullets?
Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci
In article <33A8C3...@ix.netcom.com>,
James P Girardeau <j4...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Does anyone know if U.S. .50cal MG's normally fired explosive bullets?
Normal .50 BMG loads are solid "ball"(just a plain jacketed lead bullet)
with maybe some tracer added as needed. 20mm was the smallest commonly
explosive round for aircraft.
Emmanuel.Gustin
James P Girardeau (j4...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: Does anyone know if U.S. .50cal MG's normally fired explosive bullets?
No. 20mm is usually considered the smallest practical calibre for
incendiary rounds.
.50 ammunition usually consisted of a mix of solid armour-piercing,
incendiary, and tracer rounds.
Emmanuel Gustin
Brian Ernst Balster
how much did one of these cartridges wiegh?
specifically, how much did a belt of 600 wiegh?
(including connectors, ammo box, etc)
and while we're at it, how much did one of the guns wiegh?
i'm trying to figure out how much would be saved by excluding
the radio compartment gun on a b-17.
thanx!!
John Szalay
Rod Shannon wrote:
> > >Does anyone know if U.S. .50cal MG's normally fired explosive bullets?
> >
> > with maybe some tracer added as needed. 20mm was the smallest commonly
> > explosive round for aircraft.
> disposable link .50 Cal ammunition. I think it came out of one of the
> liberators or flying fortresses that operated out of Longreach,
> Queensland, Australia toward the end of the war. The shells are marked
> with 3 different colours on the tips. I think the sequence is something
> like 2 blue, 1 red and then 2 black. Now, assuming the red one is
> tracer, what would the other two colours represent?
>
>
Black tips normaly denotes armour piercing ammo.
Rod Shannon
Cheers,
Rod.
P.S. I have also heard that the bomber crews stationed in the area were
asked to stop firing tracer from the aircraft, as they were starting
grass fires.
--
________________________________
Rod Shannon
Microcomputer Support Officer
Library, USQ
Toowoomba, Queensland, 4350.
AUSTRALIA
Email: shannon(no-spam)@usq.edu.au - Remove the (no-spam) when
replying.
Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci
In article <5obsd9$j7$1...@news.iastate.edu>,
For a wild shot in the dark, maybe 400lb or so to be rid of the MG, ammo,
and related hardware. Possibly less. (50+ for the MG, 200+ for ammo, then
misc.) Not much real savings overall for the airframe.
Norman Filer
Yep, sure did!!
Had several different rounds available. HE, HEI, AP, Tracer, and
Ball.
Generally speaking, the load depended on type of A/C and mission. Some
loaded tracers every 5th round. For fighters, the rest were often HEI
(high explosive, incd.) All kinds of mixes of ammo loads could be
linked. Many loaded a bunch of tracer at the very end of the belt to
indicate you were about out of ammo. Armor Piercing, was often used if
the planned mission was against ground targets.
--
Norm Filer
"Sadly, it seems, man does not live by reason alone.
All too often we live by drippy intuition and foggy
reasoning with no sound basis in fact."
"You have to be on your guard to keep the two from
gaining the upper hand". -- Clive Cussler
SoBernardo
100 rounds of belted .50-cal. ammo weighs 30 lbs. Each gun weighed between
62 and 70 lbs., depending upon what was attached to it.
Ken Devlin
>On Fri, 20 Jun 1997 09:10:04 +1000, Rod Shannon <sha...@usq.edu.au> wrote:
>Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci wrote:
>>
>> In article <33A8C3...@ix.netcom.com>,
>> James P Girardeau <j4...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> >Does anyone know if U.S. .50cal MG's normally fired explosive bullets?
>>
>> Normal .50 BMG loads are solid "ball"(just a plain jacketed lead bullet)
>> with maybe some tracer added as needed. 20mm was the smallest commonly
>> explosive round for aircraft.
>On the wall of the gunroom at home, there is a 20 round section of
>disposable link .50 Cal ammunition. I think it came out of one of the
>liberators or flying fortresses that operated out of Longreach,
>Queensland, Australia toward the end of the war. The shells are marked
>with 3 different colours on the tips. I think the sequence is something
>like 2 blue, 1 red and then 2 black. Now, assuming the red one is
>tracer, what would the other two colours represent?
>
Black usually denotes Armour Piercing, at least the 30.06 mil ammo I
have is, blue would most likely be ball ammo.
kbd
Ken Devlin
CDB100620
Blue tips are API aren't they?
Ken Devlin
Ken Devlin
>On Sat, 21 Jun 1997 17:10:54 -0400, Dan Ford <d...@christa.unh.edu> wrote:
>
>On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Ken Devlin wrote:
>
>> Black usually denotes Armour Piercing, at least the 30.06 mil ammo I
>> have is, blue would most likely be ball ammo.
>
>Given three types of round in a belt, wouldn't one be tracer, one
>incendiary, and one armor-piercing? That way you try to kill his engine,
>set his fuel tank on fire, and check where those rounds are going.
>
>In an aircraft, what is the practical difference between ball ammunition
>and armor-piercing?
>
>(I guess it's time to tell that story again. In basic training, the
>bazooka instructor lectured us: "This type of weapon has two rounds. One
>is your AP or armor-piercing round. The other is your anti-personnel or AP
>round." Swear to God!)
On reflection, undoubtably you're right.
The black tip 30.06 I have, have a steel core app. the size of a .22
rnd inside with a little "cap" of lead at the tip, ball would be all
lead inside. Ball would also (IMHO) be the most accurate round.
However, I can certainly see where ball would be superfulous, given
the AP, but wouldn't tracer provide the desired incendiary effect??
kbd
Stacey Cherwonak
In article <19970621203...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
Nope; blue tips are the identifiers for M1 Incendiaries, while silver
tips are M8 Armor-piercing Incendiaries. Stacey C.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
CDB100620
Did silver tips indicate API in WWII?
deh...@indirect.com
In <19970625155...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, cdb1...@aol.com (CDB100620) writes:
>Did silver tips indicate API in WWII?
I'm not an expert-but I saw a lot of WW2 ammo which was used in
aircraft-I never saw a silver tipped API round during that era. That
one must have come along later. I could be wrong!
DH
s...@vcn.bc.ca
In article <19970625155...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
After November 1943; they became standard issue after that because they
had better success against the frontal attacks German fighters were
using. Stacey C.
F 94C
In article <867211...@dejanews.com>, s...@vcn.bc.ca (Stacey Cherwonak)
writes:
>Subject: Re: WW2 .50cal AMMO
>From: s...@vcn.bc.ca )
cdb asked:
>> Blue tips are API aren't they?
Stacey Cherwonak answered:
>Nope; blue tips are the identifiers for M1 Incendiaries, while silver
>tips are M8 Armor-piercing Incendiaries. Stacey C.
In my experience blue anything (bullet, rocket, grenade, missile, shell,
bomb or whatever) was inert ordnance. Orange was for dummy ordnance.
Both used for display, training, etc.
By M1 do you mean .30 cal. rifle?
What's an M8?
Will
F 94C
Dan Ford wrote re: blue, red, black tipped shells:
>Given three types of round in a belt, wouldn't one be tracer, one
>incendiary, and one armor-piercing? That way you try to kill his engine,
>set his fuel tank on fire, and check where those rounds are going.
Did you know they made not only ball, armor-piercing, tracer, and
Incendiary
cartridges but also API-T (Armor Piercing Incendiary Tracer) for those who
couldn't make up their minds?
It seems likely the belt was not a live belt to be actually used but put
together as a souvenir with some assorted souvenir .50 cal rounds
inserted.
It has been my experience that red tip = tracer
black tip = AP armor
piercing
blue anything = Dummy (for
training safety)
no coloring added (au naturel) = regular ball ammo
(jacketed lead)
>In an aircraft, what is the practical difference between ball ammunition
>and armor-piercing?
Ball ammo bounces off the a/c armor plating. Ball ammo may mushroom
on first contact and not be able to keep going and penetrate critical
wires/lines/components. That's why they make AP in first place.
Depending on range fired from, the ball ammo may not even penetrate the
a/c skin when AP does.
Will
F 94C
Dan Ford said:
>>Given three types of round in a belt, wouldn't one be tracer, one
>>incendiary, and one armor-piercing? That way you try to kill his engine,
>>set his fuel tank on fire, and check where those rounds are going.
>>
>>In an aircraft, what is the practical difference between ball ammunition
>>and armor-piercing?
Ken Devlin replied:
>The black tip 30.06 I have, have a steel core app. the size of a .22
>rnd inside with a little "cap" of lead at the tip, ball would be all
>lead inside. Ball would also (IMHO) be the most accurate round.
>However, I can certainly see where ball would be superfulous, given
>the AP,
> but wouldn't tracer provide the desired incendiary effect??
Probably not. API would. A tracer bullet is like a (ball) lead bullet
hollowed
out 60% in rear and filled with a fireworks like composition that's is
ignited
by the propellant powder on firing. Then it's like a comet trail until it
burns
out, which may be before it hits anything. Its only purpose is to show
gunner his stream of fire. By time it impacts there is not much mass left
to penetrate anything. Tracer spacing is a matter of preference. People at
other end also see the stream and where it's coming from. For some reason,
I seem to remember every 5th being a starting point and every 8th or 10th
not unheard of.
An incendiary cartridge, on the other hand, is designed to penetrate and
burn.
It has a chemical that does not ignite and burn until impact (a big
factor).
Will
Dan Ford
> >In an aircraft, what is the practical difference between ball ammunition
> >and armor-piercing?
>
> Ball ammo bounces off the a/c armor plating. Ball ammo may mushroom
> on first contact and not be able to keep going and penetrate critical
> wires/lines/components. That's why they make AP in first place.
> Depending on range fired from, the ball ammo may not even penetrate the
> a/c skin when AP does.
Then why would it ever be used? Even if the intent was to strafe enemy
troops, AP rounds would do the same job (a military round by international
agreement must be jacketed so as not to mushroom on hitting flesh or bone)
and protect the plane better if it were intercepted.
- Dan / http://www.cris.com/~danford
Flying Tigers / Brewster Buffalo / Germany at War / Japan at War
s...@vcn.bc.ca
In article <19970723045...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
I was talking about the various tip colors on .50 caliber ammunition
used to identify which type each round is; the standard U.S. color codes
are: red: M1 Tracer orange: M10 Tracer blue: M1 Incendiary 2-tone blue:
M23 Incendiary brown: M17 Tracer black: M2 Armor-Piercing silver/green::
Mk211 Mod 0 Armor-Piercing Incendiary silver: M8 Armor-Piercing
Incendiary and various others
> By M1 do you mean .30 cal. rifle?
Nope; that's the ordnance "Model" (as opposed to a "T"-"Test" number)
issued to describe a round that's been accepted for standard service.
There are LOTS of different "M1s" in U.S. military service.
> What's an M8?
A silver-tipped .50 caliber round that has an armor-piercing core and a
point filler of incendiary mixture. When it strikes a target, this causes
the aluminium/magnesium mixture in the nose to burst into flame and spray
out in a fireball, while the AP core continues into the target.
dave pierson
In article <Pine.OSF.3.96L.97072...@christa.unh.edu>, Dan Ford <d...@christa.unh.edu> writes...
>> >In an aircraft, what is the practical difference between ball ammunition
>> >and armor-piercing?
>> Ball ammo bounces off the a/c armor plating. Ball ammo may mushroom
>> on first contact and not be able to keep going and penetrate critical
>> wires/lines/components. That's why they make AP in first place.
>> Depending on range fired from, the ball ammo may not even penetrate the
>> a/c skin when AP does.
>Then why would it ever be used?
Lots of targets aren't armored.
Lots of parts of lots of a/c aren't armored.
>Even if the intent was to strafe enemy troops, AP rounds would do the same
>job (a military round by international agreement must be jacketed so as not
>to mushroom on hitting flesh or bone) and protect the plane better if it were
>intercepted.
And be arguably less effective against all manner of soft targets,
from unarmored (in WWII: some fabric) a/c, trucks, supply dumps,
soft vehicles.
I suspect that (even jacketed) ball is cheaper to make than AP
(no hardening stage).
the .50 was INVENTED to punch holes in (lightly) armored a/c of
WWI, tho i dunno how much the ballistics changed by WWII...
thanks
dave pierson |the facts, as accurately as i can manage,
Digital Equipment Corporation |the opinions, my own.
334 South St |
Shrewbury, Mass USA pie...@gone.enet.dec.com
"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J Raffles
Me@Here
It sounds like I have an M8 .50 caliber round and belt link. I was
wondering how safe it is to keep around as display (certainly dropping it
on the primer is a no-no). How stable is the point filler? This one is
supposedly over 50 years old though was refrigerated for almost 50 years
exactly. I didn't know it had incendiary in the tip but it sure has silver
on the tip - painted silver from the tip to about 1/2 inch back. The
markings on the base around the primer are clockwise: L C 7 8 though the
way they are printed looks like:
LC
87
the way the letters are oriented.
Any info on this shell would be appreciated. It supposedly is from a very
famous airplane. ;-)
-RF
F 94C
F 94C said:
>> Ball ammo bounces off the a/c armor plating. Ball ammo......
Dan Ford said asked;
>Then why would it ever be used? Even if the intent was to strafe enemy
>troops, AP rounds would do the same job (a military round by
international
>agreement must be jacketed so as not to mushroom on hitting flesh or
bone)
>and protect the plane better if it were intercepted.
I have a feeling Stacey can give you an intelligent answer.
I can only speculate. Cost, speed and ease of production, availability
of lead vs hardened steel, more effective on certain targets. USA tests
ammo to figure out best ammo for various targets/missions.
I'd think an AP round might go riight through a wooden building, boxcar,
etc. Instead of just 2 holes, ball ammo might flatten some while
penetrating
first time and tumble/bounce around dissipating its energy inside and
doing a
lot more damage. Just my guess.
Will
F 94C
Part of Stacey's wisdom:
> I was talking about the various tip colors on .50 caliber
> ammunition used to identify which type each round is;
> the standard U.S. color codes are: red: M1 Tracer orange:
> M10 Tracer blue: M1 Incendiary 2-tone blue: M23 Incendiary
> brown: M17 Tracer black: M2 Armor-Piercing silver/green::
> Mk211 Mod 0 Armor-Piercing Incendiary silver:
> M8 Armor-Piercing Incendiary and various others
I'm overwhelmed. ....If I may ask,
How about standardization?
If those and "various others" are all .50 cal. and then you
think of all the other ordnance families, much less individual
items, how does anyone know what's what?
There's 9 mm, .45 cal., 38.cal., various rifle cal., various
mortar sizes, various artillery shell sizes, various grenades,
rifle grenades, rockets, recoilless, and on and on. Is there
a common code for all these together?
Was USAAF color coding of .30 & .50 cal. machine gun and
20 mm. ammo same color coding whether used in a/c,
on ground, on boat, on vehicle? Would an ARMY .50 cal.
next to a USMC and a USAAF .50 cal. machine gun position
around an airfield perimeter all be using same color coding?
Were, and are, all services using same code?
You got me curious, Stacey.
Will
pilots@planet.net Dave Sutton
> f9...@aol.com (F 94C) writes:
> How about standardization?
> If those and "various others" are all .50 cal. and then you
> think of all the other ordnance families, much less individual
> items, how does anyone know what's what?
They go to school and are either "Gunners Mates" or
"Aviation Ordnance Technicians"...... As a pilot, who
gives a shit? Ya shoot what the ordnance guys load up.
It's the Frag that dictates what's loaded up......
> There's 9 mm, .45 cal., 38.cal., various rifle cal., various
> mortar sizes, various artillery shell sizes, various grenades,
> rifle grenades, rockets, recoilless, and on and on. Is there
> a common code for all these together?
You bet. Get a copy of "Gunners Mate 3rd/2nd class" and read up.
It is a STANAG system (standard for all NATO signatories).
> Was USAAF color coding of .30 & .50 cal. machine gun and
> 20 mm. ammo same color coding whether used in a/c,
> on ground, on boat, on vehicle? Would an ARMY .50 cal.
> next to a USMC and a USAAF .50 cal. machine gun position
> around an airfield perimeter all be using same color coding?
Yup. 20mm is more complex as there are more versions.
> Were, and are, all services using same code?
Yup (for what they have that's interchangable, which isn't a lot.)
It's not only standard within US services, but standard within NATO.
**********************************************************************
* David Sutton, Red Star Aviation pil...@planet.net *
* Personal: HTTP://www.planet.net/ppilots/ *
* Red Star: HTTP://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RedStarAviation.html *
* Russian Aviation Page HTTP://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RAP.html *
**********************************************************************
Erik Shilling
F 94C
Erik Shilling enlightend me with::
>Additional info regarding colored ammo.
>Before the war when a flight was shooting at tow targets, the the
>tips of the bullets would be dipped in various colored paint. When
>the bullet would hit the sleeve it would leave traces of its color
>on the fabric. Since each pilot was assigned a color,
Ah yes, I had forgotten that.
>by counting like color holes in the sleeve and dividing by 2,
>the number of hits for each person in the flight could be
>determined. I don't remember what the ammo make up was
>but I believe it was ball ammo with each fifth round a tracer.
>Tracers were designed to burn out at 600 yards, which could
>help in determining range.
>
>Erik Shilling
That I didn't know. Thanks. I know you are just waiting for me
to bite so here goes.<grin>
Why divide by 2?
Will
dave pierson
In article <19970727064...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, f9...@aol.com (F 94C) writes...
>Part of Stacey's wisdom:
>> I was talking about the various tip colors on .50 caliber
>> ammunition used to identify which type each round is;
>> the standard U.S. color codes are: red: M1 Tracer orange:
>> M10 Tracer blue: M1 Incendiary 2-tone blue: M23 Incendiary
>> brown: M17 Tracer black: M2 Armor-Piercing silver/green::
>> Mk211 Mod 0 Armor-Piercing Incendiary silver:
>> M8 Armor-Piercing Incendiary and various others
>I'm overwhelmed. ....If I may ask,
>How about standardization?
Targets do not come standardized.
>If those and "various others" are all .50 cal. and then you
>think of all the other ordnance families, much less individual
>items, how does anyone know what's what?
By the colors & the labelling on the crates.
And the TMs
>There's 9 mm, .45 cal., 38.cal., various rifle cal., various
>mortar sizes, various artillery shell sizes, various grenades,
>rifle grenades, rockets, recoilless, and on and on. Is there
>a common code for all these together?
Yep. Also, some of those do not come in all familes (eg: AP Incedniary
is NOT Much Used in 9mm.)
Nor is WP much use 0.50.
>Was USAAF color coding of .30 & .50 cal. machine gun and
>20 mm. ammo same color coding whether used in a/c,
>on ground, on boat, on vehicle? Would an ARMY .50 cal.
>next to a USMC and a USAAF .50 cal. machine gun position
>around an airfield perimeter all be using same color coding?
I believe so. Tho again, some fo the loaings may nto have been used
in some services/applications.
>Were, and are, all services using same code?
Where applicable, and as possible, and if the beuareaucrats allowed...
s...@vcn.bc.ca
In article <19970727064...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
f9...@aol.com (F 94C) wrote:
>
>
> Part of Stacey's wisdom:
> > I was talking about the various tip colors on .50 caliber
> > ammunition used to identify which type each round is;
> > the standard U.S. color codes are: red: M1 Tracer orange:
> > M10 Tracer blue: M1 Incendiary 2-tone blue: M23 Incendiary
> > brown: M17 Tracer black: M2 Armor-Piercing silver/green::
> > Mk211 Mod 0 Armor-Piercing Incendiary silver:
> > M8 Armor-Piercing Incendiary and various others
>
> I'm overwhelmed. ....If I may ask,
>
> How about standardization?
> think of all the other ordnance families, much less individual
> items, how does anyone know what's what?
Gunners are expected to know what each service round is, plus this
information is marked on each package delivered to them (by the box,
case, pallet-load, etc.)
> There's 9 mm, .45 cal., 38.cal., various rifle cal., various
> mortar sizes, various artillery shell sizes, various grenades,
> rifle grenades, rockets, recoilless, and on and on. Is there
> a common code for all these together?
Not really; there's generally a rough standardization between members of
NATO, but the markings for individual rounds can vary from country to
country.
> Was USAAF color coding of .30 & .50 cal. machine gun and
> 20 mm. ammo same color coding whether used in a/c,
> on ground, on boat, on vehicle? Would an ARMY .50 cal.
> next to a USMC and a USAAF .50 cal. machine gun position
> around an airfield perimeter all be using same color coding?
Usually, yes, but there are/were some differences. In .50 caliber
ammunition, for example, the tip color red was used to denote "tracer"
for both ground and air service, but some of the ammunition produced
strictly for air service was actually the M21 Tracer, instead of M1
Tracer. You wouldn't have been able to tell them appart merely by looking
at the tip color (both red), but it would have been marked on the boxes
this ammo came in. The actual difference between these rounds was that
the M21 Tracer was loaded with a trace mixture that burned much brighter
than that in the M1 Tracer. These were called "headlight" tracers,
because they burned brightly enough that you could actually see the
tracer burn from the FRONT of the bullet if it was fired at you. This was
intended to un-nerve enemy fighter pilots, who would tend to break off an
attack rather than dive into a nest of golf-ball-size bullets. (I know it
would scare the hell out of ME :-)) Most of the HE/high-explosive 20mm
cannon rounds used in WW2 were marked with a mixture of red and yellow,
sometimes with stripes to denote a tracer round. There are also
interesting cross-overs; many of the early Lend-Lease .50 caliber
Armour-Piercing rounds made for the British are marked with a GREEN tip,
instead of Black, as was the case for U.S. use. This can sometimes get
confusing, because some of the experimental rounds were marked in the
same way as service rounds. One experimental round was a
Lachrymatory/Tear-Gas round, intended for use against aircraft to disable
the crew; these were also marked with a green tip, but the project was
dropped before it went into full production. German color codes are a
study in themselves, because they used a mixture of tip colors and primer
annulus colors to denote each round type.
> Were, and are, all services using same code?
Today, for the most part, they are. There are still some exceptions
though. The newest API round is the Raufoss, a design from Norway that
originally used a blue tip code. Since blue was already in service as the
M1 Incendiary, the U.S. Navy (who first adopted the new round) decided on
a green-over-silver tip code. This round is standardized in the U.S. Navy
as the Mk 211 Mod 0, but other branches of the military haven't got
around to their own designations yet.
> You got me curious, Stacey.
>
I'll do my best to answer any questions, if you've got any.
s...@vcn.bc.ca
In article <01bc9895$a8c0fbe0$448874cf@lightning>,
"Me@Here" <post-a...@newspost.zippo.com> wrote:
>
> It sounds like I have an M8 .50 caliber round and belt link. I was
> wondering how safe it is to keep around as display (certainly dropping it
> on the primer is a no-no). How stable is the point filler? This one is
> supposedly over 50 years old though was refrigerated for almost 50 years
> exactly. I didn't know it had incendiary in the tip but it sure has silver
> on the tip - painted silver from the tip to about 1/2 inch back. The
> markings on the base around the primer are clockwise: L C 7 8 though the
> way they are printed looks like:
>
> LC
> 87
>
> the way the letters are oriented.
This round is marked as being produced at the Salt Lake City Arsenal in
1987, and it's as safe as any other round of small-arms ammunition. The
incendiary mixture in the nose requires a great deal of pressure to set
it off, so you don't need to worry about that. Even the powder in these
rounds doesn't become dangerous with age, unless it's tumbled to the
point where the grains break down into a finer grade. (This increases the
burning surface area of each grain, which cause pressures to jump
rapidly). I've got rounds dating back to the early 20's, and though they
shouldn't be fired, they're not about to go off by themselves through
normal handling. Stacey C.
s...@vcn.bc.ca
In article <Pine.OSF.3.96L.97072...@christa.unh.edu>,
Dan Ford <d...@christa.unh.edu> wrote:
>
>
> > >In an aircraft, what is the practical difference between ball ammunition
> > >and armor-piercing?
> >
> > Ball ammo bounces off the a/c armor plating. Ball ammo may mushroom
> > on first contact and not be able to keep going and penetrate critical
> > wires/lines/components. That's why they make AP in first place.
> > Depending on range fired from, the ball ammo may not even penetrate the
> > a/c skin when AP does.
>
> troops, AP rounds would do the same job (a military round by international
> agreement must be jacketed so as not to mushroom on hitting flesh or bone)
> and protect the plane better if it were intercepted.
>
Actually, in both WW2 and the Korean "police action", AP ammo ended up
being the STANDARD load for both rifles and MGs, simply because there was
so much of it and it was more likely to do an extra bit of damage at the
end of its flight. From a Hague Convention standpoint, this meant less
unnecessary suffering (though a hit from ANY high-power rifle or
machinegun, let alone a .50, can amputate an arm or leg.) Ball ammo was
still being made and used for training and the National Matches, though.
Today, almost all of the standard small-arms ammunition made for military
use has either a mild steel core (or point plug in front of a lead core),
but ammunition for LMGs and HMGs is still standardized on a mix of API
and API-Tracer. Stacey C.
Iskandar Taib
In article <19970729171...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
F 94C <f9...@aol.com> wrote:
>Why divide by 2?
Entry and exit "wounds"? The target was a big sock-like thing, I
think..
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Iskandar Taib | The only thing worse than Peach ala
Internet: nt...@copper.ucs.indiana.edu | Frog is Frog ala Peach
Home page: http://bigwig.geology.indiana.edu/iskandar/isk2.html
Iskandar Taib
>German color codes are a
>study in themselves, because they used a mixture of tip colors and primer
>annulus colors to denote each round type.
Reminds me of the three cases of WWII German green lacquered steel
cased 7.92x57 that showed up at a local gun shop some years ago. One
case had primers rimmed in red, another in green and the third blue. I
seem to recall that the red was armor piercing (steel core, encased in
lead, gilding metal jacket - or was the jacket mild steel?), the blue
semi-iron piercing (whatever that means - smaller steel core?) and the
green was ball (lead + jacket).
Jeff Barringer
> >by counting like color holes in the sleeve and dividing by 2,
> >the number of hits for each person in the flight could be
> >determined. I don't remember what the ammo make up was
> >but I believe it was ball ammo with each fifth round a tracer.
> >Tracers were designed to burn out at 600 yards, which could
> >help in determining range.
> >
> >Erik Shilling
>
> That I didn't know. Thanks. I know you are just waiting for me
> to bite so here goes.<grin>
>
> Why divide by 2?
>
> Will
Because a target sleeve is like a windsock with the end(toe?) cut off,
or in other words it looked like a sleeve torn from a shirt...
Dragged thru the air it would inflate, thus producing a cloth tube
behind the aircraft....
a bullet would penetrate one side of the sleeve and exit thru the other
thus 2 holes....
kedzierski
want your rounds to go all the way thru your target so they were mixed
with the other rounds. Example an armour piercing round could pierce a
light tank and go out the other side. Senmi-Armour piercing would
penetrate and then bounce around inside tearing up everything there.
That was what you wanted.
Mark
F 94C
More of Stacey's wisdom:
>M21 Tracer was loaded with a trace mixture that burned much
>brighter than that in the M1 Tracer. These were called "headlight"
>tracers, because they burned brightly enough that you could
>actually see the tracer burn from the FRONT of the bullet if it
>was fired at you. This was intended to un-nerve enemy fighter
>pilots, who would tend to break off an attack rather than dive
>into a nest of golf-ball-size bullets. (I know it would scare the
> hell out of ME :-))
Me too! Never heard of that. Glad you mentioned it.
>One experimental round was a Lachrymatory/Tear-Gas round,
>intended for use against aircraft to disable the crew; these
>were also marked with a green tip, but the project was
>dropped before it went into full production.
Everything was useful. These two items were of particular interest
to me. Thanks for posting.
Will
Jim MacKenzie
>>One experimental round was a Lachrymatory/Tear-Gas round,
>>intended for use against aircraft to disable the crew; these
>>were also marked with a green tip, but the project was
>>dropped before it went into full production.
Missed most of this thread - so if this has been covered before -
Oooops sorry.
In 1967 I saw a .50 cal round that had been recovered from a
crashed B-24 south of Goose Bay Labrador. The tip was painted 'green'. I
don't suppose it was the experimental round noted above - however does
anyone have any idea what type of round it was. Also don't know if it was
a USAAF or RCAF/RAF aircraft. Estimated crash time was in the
mid-1940's. Wow - that's a lot of non-information I've provided
isn't it? Thanks - cheers, Jim.