Avro Lancaster Wing panel

I am glad that you are not upset by our discussing (and ‘rubbishing’ of) your panel. I am glad that you posted the photographs and I am genuinely interested in analysing how it came to be the way it is.

I was reading an account only yesterday of a Schrage Musik attack where shells hit the cockpit, the ‘Elsan’ toilet and an engine…

…but like any other form of air-to-air attack the range can vary and this aircraft survived!

Twenty-five metres is less than the wingspan of a Lancaster; that is awfully close even for an ‘experten’! In fact, an ‘experten’ wouldn’t get that close deliberately.

Interesting hypothesis; and nice to see some arithmetic applied to the analysis.

In my view ground-to-air fire can be ruled-out absolutely; the range would have to be extremely low (25 metres) to avoid ‘spread’ due to the ammunition and at that range the target tracking would need to be perfect and is outside the capabilities of manually trained weapons.

That leaves air-to-air firing; and this is where your mathematics falls down a bit.

What is important here is the relative speed of the two aircraft; in a good attack this should be close to zero.

If this is the case that gives another problem with this scenario; the deviation of the rounds seems to be more left/right than fore/aft.

Since the rounds are fired near vertically the deviation due to shell velocity (and gravity) should be small but the other deviation should be equally ‘random’ in any direction.

The holes are defiantly for/aft, it was very clear before the damaged panel was unceremoniously broken away from the rest of the wing. Thank you all for taking the time to investigate this. All contributions are very gratefully received and very carefully read.

Interesting hypothesis; and nice to see some arithmetic applied to the analysis.

In my view ground-to-air fire can be ruled-out absolutely; the range would have to be extremely low (25 metres) to avoid ‘spread’ due to the ammunition and at that range the target tracking would need to be perfect and is outside the capabilities of manually trained weapons.

That leaves air-to-air firing; and this is where your mathematics falls down a bit.

What is important here is the relative speed of the two aircraft; in a good attack this should be close to zero.

If this is the case that gives another problem with this scenario; the deviation of the rounds seems to be more left/right than fore/aft.

Since the rounds are fired near vertically the deviation due to shell velocity (and gravity) should be small but the other deviation should be equally ‘random’ in any direction.

Hi NOTAM

In photo ‘Wing016’ on post no.3 there are what looks like 3 ‘pairs’ of holes furthest from the camera. Is the distance the same between the two holes in each pair?

(Edit: From photo no.1, not quite, it would appear)

Let’s try another hypothesis: Unlikely to be ground to air fire? If the rate of fire of a (typical?) 20mm flak / cannon was 520 rpm, after the first hit the other 9 shells would take just over a second to be fired. At 200 mph a Lancaster would have travelled roughly 100 yards in that time (mph divided by 2 = yards per second, give or take). So what would be the likelihood of a ground-based cannon punching a nice neat row like that in an a/c that had changed its position by 100 yds? Rather small?

So for my money, a small chance of it being air-to-air fire, but more likely ground-to-ground target practice or something like that?

But then I have been wrong before and am happy to be corrected!

Ian

Obviously I am going to be a little bias, however let’s look at the facts. This panel was removed from a much larger wing section, one of the picks shows some of it, unfortunately someone is standing in the center and I don’t have his permission to publish his image. The rest of the wing had no holes or battle damage at all. Now who is going to drag such a large piece to a range and only run across it once. I am led to understand that the Schrage Musik did not use traces so very little could be seen in a night attack. And the first thing the Lanc crew about the attack was when the wings folded up.
Could it be damage from one of the Tirpitz,s 58X20mm guns or from the AA guns on Haakoy. The speculation just goes on and on. As for the grouping issue would you not need to know the type of gun, aircraft speed and height, if the gun was mounted on a moving aircraft or a ship or on the ground. Perhaps someone that worked at Lossiemouth could read this one day.

I must admit I was suspicious as hell when I first saw this panel. It looks exactly like what somebody might ‘expect’ to see on a damaged panel; a neat line of 20mm holes. But there is something almost too neat about them; a slightly random line right down the middle between the rivet-lines.

I don’t know; there is just something about it that doesn’t seem quite right.

I beg to differ … I’m struggling with this. Yes perhaps these are holes created by 20mm calibre (how big are they), they certainly look like bullet holes.

But Schrage Musik? Everything I’ve ever read about it (and that’s a decent amount) says …
(a) The belt load was typically a repeating mix of armour piercing, HE and incendiary. That’s 1 of each, repeating (to penetrate fuel tanks and set them alight). Surely that would give rise to an inconsistent looking series of strikes if you could see more than one after the fact?
(b) Into a fuel tank cover? That’s certainly where the crews were trained to aim … but that many hits? Surely that’s bye, bye, Lanc? It only took one or two hits in the right spot (namely the fuel tanks!) to bring a dikke auto down.

So I’m more inclined to think this was someone taking a few shots at a removed panel.

That or this panel has astonishing story to tell!

Even on a 25m range you would be lucky to get a nice pretty grouping like that confined to one panel. Most definately the victim of a Knights cross holder and bar in my opinion.

Could it be a relic from a range which was recovered to Lossiemouth?

I stand corrected; you photograph ‘wing 014’ shows exactly the sort of damage I would expect to see. It was difficult to judge from the other photographs that you posted (and I am still a little surprised that the panel has cracked into so few ‘petals’).

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Just a few closeups.

The 20mm holes are spaced roughly at 14cm and 18cm centers. They go from the front to the rear of the wing at approximately 70deg.

So consistent with a Schräge Musik attack.

I am still surprised by the apparent neatness of this line of 20mm holes; it may just be my cynical nature but I am amazed that the holes are spread so evenly (even at the close range of a Schräge Musik attack).

I would also have expected to see a different sort of penetration of the panel; even if all the rounds that hit it were non-explosive.

Now I am no ballistics expert but judging from alloy armour I have seen that has been penetrated by cannon-shell I would have expected to see a greater number of ‘petals’ surrounding the penetration with the sheet permanently curved round back-on-itself leaving the full 20mm (or slightly greater) hole clear of any of the panel material.

Something VERY similar to this on Ebay a while ago?…

No you were correct it is stbd. The tank fuel pumps are outboard of the fuel dump panel so that makes this a stbd tank cover.

Thanks Peter, I had it as Stbd. The riggers at The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Center RAF East Kirkby insisted it was Port.

Lancaster inboard fuel tank panel from the Number 2 tank Stbd inboard wing centre section..

As pure speculation I did wonder if the inspection stamp was Northern Aluminium Company…however they were metal suppliers rather than component manufacturers and am unsure if the ally manufacturers would stamp the ally sheets in that way or just ink them as for spec/batch numbers.

There is a nice pic of their Banbury factory here…

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CD0QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.britainfromabove.org.uk%2Fimage%2Fepw049500&ei=ds8HUoLeCIG7Oe3GgFg&usg=AFQjCNGoK60Vy3JTIu2_vf8J_1iHxMOIkQ&sig2=tGo19wHI49NXUvAyMn349A

They made Alclad for a/c manufacture and eventually became part of Alcan !

That is an inspectors stamp. I do not know its origin off-hand but if you contact the British Aviation Archaeology Council they may be able to help as I understand they have a list of these stamps.

The distribution of the holes looks a bit odd to me

I will contact the BAAC Thanks. I have already tried The RAF Museum at Hendon, the Department of Research & Information RAF London, the Imperial War Museum, the Avro Heritage Group/Center say “the records were lost in a fire, however it remains on file with them just in case.
The 20mm holes are spaced roughly at 14cm and 18cm centers. They go from the front to the rear of the wing at approximately 70deg. It also has one exploding flack hole and a repair from a previous damage.

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The rivet pattern and the one remaining stringer on it in the picture is a dead give away. Any chance of posting the pictures of the large panel it was removed from?

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This is at Lossiemouth, for transport reasons the damaged section had to be removed. I am told it was from one of the Lancasters that were dismantled there in 1945.

That is an inspectors stamp. I do not know its origin off-hand but if you contact the British Aviation Archaeology Council they may be able to help as I understand they have a list of these stamps.

The distribution of the holes looks a bit odd to me