What are these things?
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Are These 20mm shells strapped to the guy's legs at left?
Jun 10, 2011
7 Replies
Seems to me I did a similar figure and the instructrions called them flares. Next question - what does he do with them?
Val Kraut
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I seem to recall reading somewhere that Luftwaffe pilots wore emergency flares on their leg like that...this pic of an Adolf Galland figure shows they don't appear to have bullets fitted to the shell casing -
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Here's an actual 20 mm shell as used by the Me 109 cannon -
Different rounds, to be sure.
he's carrying an awful lot of flares!
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would be flares for the German equivalent of the British Verey Pistol.
Regards
Syke
Yes. An Me 109 in particular has a port in the cockpit for firing flares while airborne. Brief treatise here, scroll down:
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I've read such before in reference books, but never what the flares were actually used for - I could think of two uses offhand; 1) mark or signal coordination while maintaining radio silence, or 2) to blind or otherwise confuse a pilot/gunner in pursuit.
Anyway, quite a few Luftwaffe aircraft (and not just fighters) had flare ports for being able to fire flares from a flare pistol while airborne.
You missed the most important one: Visual IFF "firing the colours of the day".
Did it need a flare pistol or did they just shove the flare into the port and set it off? I can see arguments for either way.
Yup...one more!
They used a pistol like this one -
...and an actual cartridge belt and spent carts -
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