Flak at the Mohne Dam

Yes. Probably the biggest known drawback with tracer. For that reason I understand some rounds are delayed to ignite a short time after leaving the muzzle, somewhat minimising this risk. Of course in the case in question the ‘targets’ were moving at more than 200mph so not an “easy” shot – but then they were also shining bright spotlights which were a bit of a giveaway, tracer or not.

Out of interest: a still of tracer being fired. I’m beginning to think I got it about right first time!

http://flickr.com/gp/garyeason/S5b356

tracer

One other thing, if you are on the wrong end of tracer fire would you see the rounds coming at you. It would make the flak gunners job easy if all they had to do was follow the tracer back to the source?.

Each picture I make, I find myself learning more and more arcane details about how things functioned. I can feel a book on air armament may be required…

Meanwhile how’s this, revision 3:

http://flickr.com/gp/garyeason/h88995

I have a nagging doubt about whether the gun on the other (south) tower had actually been disabled at this point.

synch

Well it’s an interesting question: if they do, is that wrong? Does anyone know the mechanical operating properties of the FN5 turret? Solenoid activation of the firing mechanism? Per gun or linked? etc…

I suppose that’s what I’m asking in a round about way:D

… who was manning the front turrets of the Lancs? Wasn’t that normally the Bomb Aimer? …

Thank you Don. Excellent point and yes it was. But, tossing it back: what were the mid-upper gunners doing in these crews? 🙂

Interestingly in AJ-C, which was coned by searchlights and shot down (blew up in fact) on the way out near Hamm, Sgt Frank Tees had swapped places for the trip and was in the rear, not front, turret. The turret lost power when the engines were knocked out but incredibly Tees survived the fireball. He came to on the ground badly burned and became PoW. The others all died. [Sweetman’s book]

In the movie they mention about the front gunners legs getting in the way by dangling down into the bomb aimers area. They devise a harness to hold the legs up and out of the way during the bomb run, so i guess there were 2 up front.

I’m following this thread with fascination and I’ve taken a look at your website Gary. Wonderful work, I am very impressed.

But I just stopped and thought for a second – who was manning the front turrets of the Lancs? Wasn’t that normally the Bomb Aimer?

Thanks, Don

Well it’s an interesting question: if they do, is that wrong? Does anyone know the mechanical operating properties of the FN5 turret? Solenoid activation of the firing mechanism? Per gun or linked? etc…

tracers

I went to some trouble to ensure they are not in perfect synch as you can see if you look at the picture(s), though presumably each barrel would fire at approximately the same rate?

But if each barrel fired at “approximately” the same rate then they would not come out in perfect synch, looking at the pic the tracer does seem to be coming out of each barrel side by side?

Are the tracer rounds put in the magazines so they are in perfect synch …

I went to some trouble to ensure they are not in perfect synch as you can see if you look at the picture(s), though presumably each barrel would fire at approximately the same rate?

Not nit picking either but Star Wars lasers are *precisely* what tracer seems to look like up close (melding to dots further off). For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOlRKbWwGTo

And remember the Lancasters were using 100% tracer. I think if anything they ought to appear as almost a constant stream or “rope”, as the air gunners themselves described it.

But to return to the OP, the question was: what colour? I think red – in fact I suspect red on both sides, but this is what i wanted advice on.

tracer

Mmm, Are the tracer rounds put in the magazines so they are in perfect synch going in to each barrel to come out side by side as in the pic?, not nit picking but it looks a bit Star Wars to me, I do like it though:D

UPDATE: How’s this?

http://flickr.com/gp/garyeason/VHz065

… may I suggest a slight tweak that will add to the realism? …

That is helpful, thanks. Usually in these scenes I try to work out what you would actually see. So the aircraft is doing nominally 232 mph; in my mind’s eye, in the perspective of the picture, it is some 25 yards from the viewer. That’s the equivalent in time of a quarter of a second. The .303s fired at about 20 rounds per second. So you’d see five or thereabouts. Someone check my reckoning – I’m probably failing to take something into account ! – but I think if anything there are too many 20mm rounds visible.

It never occurred to me to have them bouncing off the far shore – which is about 1,500 yards distant, by the way (I adhere to the idea that Gibson opted to attack straight in, over the Heversberg peninsula). None is hitting the water.

EDIT also I had the .303 tracer redder but figured they were very bright, up close (one of the issues the bomb aimers had to contend with).

That looks fantastic but may I suggest a slight tweak that will add to the realism? The Brit tracer needs to be a more bright post office pinkish red looking colour, shorter tails but more in number. For the German tracer hitting the water, from previous experience tracer rounds always tend to change direction on hitting things even going through a 180 degrees and appearing to come back at the firer. A bit like emptying a bucket of water onto the floor. Probably no deflection off the water surface but very likely from the far bank of the lake.

Please don’t take this as criticism, i wouldn’t usually comment but it’s such a great piece of work that I thought I’d try and help.:)

My dad once dropped a naval 20mm down the chimney pipe of a room mates doorm heater. Didn’t arf go bang. He got jankers for that. Interestingly it didn’t do as much damage as you might expect.

Well, you can see what I finally opted for:
http://www.garyeasonphotography.com/-/portfolio/aviation/dambusters/-/medias/d54dafa4-6c79-11e2-8f03-0dd8c15ee199-p-popsie-attacking-the-mohne-dam

There were three 20mm guns on the dam. At the time of Martin’s attack the one on the south tower had been put out of action. Or at least I think so! It might well have been his weapon exploding on the bank that dislodged it.

Thanks for all the help.

Ta. More reading later – summarised by this extract from a long and very detailed article by Dan Mouritzsen:
http://www.tiono.com/model/Flak-from_a_modellers_viewpoint.pdf

“A 5mm-wide red, green, yellow or white band on or just above the shell’s driving band on the calibres from 2cm to 4cm. The rest had a 1cm-wide band. The band reflected the shell’s tracer colour. Red was the most common.”

And British .303 tracer … was likely red?

By looking around at other artists work I think if you have colours fading from an light orangey yellowy white glow to the tracer you cant go wrong. light Orange for stuff closer to the viewer and greyer white for the distant tracer.. There aren`t many around who are going to question it. 😉

I put a blow torch to a tracer 303 round many years ago and from racking my memory cells these are the colours that stood out :diablo:

Trying to remember but try allied pilot reports or stories.The 20mm flak gun in a single mount was pretty standard.

So, summing up: no-one seems to know what colour the tracer was … ?