Did He-111's really strafe in WWII ?

Watched Patton recently and was curious if the 111 was really used as shown in the movie, as strafing convoys, troops, etc..... or was it just that there were no German fighters, real or replica in existence?

I think I've seen the 111 in other movies doing the same thing......never saw a German fighter in the movie

thx - Craig

Reply to
crw59
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" snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@h40g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

According to the Wikipedia article on the 111, it was certainly capable, and had a wide variety of uses.

cd

Reply to
Carl Dershem

Dunno about ground support - but one thing you can be sure of is He 111s didn't fly below the horizon and set off 55 gallon drums of gasoline to simulate their demise. ;-)

Considering the lack of concern for accuracy back in the day, we're lucky they didn't use AT-6s to strafe Patton with.

WmB

Reply to
WmB

They could have used some of the Spanish 109s from "BoB". The time frame was roughly the same.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Reply to
Mad-Modeller

From what I've read, the 109s had been sold or were otherwise unavailable when Patton was made.

Dave

Reply to
Dave Williams

I always did wonder why we had SBD's bomb Pearl Harbor...

Craig

Reply to
crw59

According to eye witnesses, yes.

I once had the misfortune to live in the most boring street in Coventry. It was called "Craven Street". In WW2 it was used by German pilots to locate the nearby Standard aircraft factory which is directly in line with (although not connected to) the western end of Craven Street. Residents who were children at the time are adamant that they were straffed by low flying Heinkels on their way to bomb the factory as they played in the street.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

-snip-

Or the Bf 108 which served as a surrogate for "Pips" Priller's fighter in The Longest Day. (Well, it -sorta- looked like a Messerschmitt Bf 109 but, alas, Priller actually flew a Fw 190!)

And didn't one of the Indiana Jones movies use Ar 96s?

Cheers,

Reply to
Bill Shatzer

I have an aunt who as a child in Stromness, Orkney remembers running through the street with bullets bouncing off the chimney pots as German bombers approaching or returning from attacking the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow machine-gunned the town.

JP

Reply to
JP

i thought they had 108's and that casa built 111

Reply to
e

They were Swiss Pilatus aircraft. P-2s, IIRC.

Tom

Bill Shatzer wrote:

Reply to
maiesm72

Bullets from the planes or falling shrapnel from the multitude of AAA guns?

Civilians are not all that good at distinguishing the two.

We KNOW there is going to be a lot of shell fragments coming down during and after an air raid, more or less indiscriminately. The strafing is a lot more problematic for several reason.

A significant number of the civilian casualties at Pearl Harbor were the result of falling AAA shells and shell fragments.

Cheers,

Reply to
Bill Shatzer

Rechecking, the Last Crusade aircraft were Swiss Pilatus P-2s - which sorta resemble Ar 96s from the cockpit forward.

Cheers,

Reply to
Bill Shatzer

Yep - 'coulda saved myself some work if I'd read your reply before doing my checking.

But, I figured it out.

Cheers,

Reply to
Bill Shatzer

Or why they used every black and white horse in California to stand in for the real Diablo in "Cisco Kid" shows. I never noticed that when I was a kid but now that I'm uh, mature it bugs the heck out of me. I think I counted at least 20 different stand-ins before I lost track of the different colour patterns.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Reply to
Mad-Modeller

I watched one flying around at an airshow. The pilot was keeping it just maybe 75' above the runway it was very impressive to see such a large plane glide by like that nice and low.

I have no doubt that it could have been used to great advantage as a ground attack aircraft and to make strafing runs.

Such big wide wings making it Sooooo very nimble to maneuver. Just a few of those ''under wing'' machine gun pods mounted up to each wing , say 4 of 'em under each wing. Yeah , that I think that would do it. Maybe a mix of Machine Guns and Cannons to strafe ground units. The only one draw back that I can see is that those Big Wings make such a very Wide and very Big Target.

It would be nice to build one with ''gun pods'' to see what it would look like as a Ground Attack aircraft

... Carl ..........

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Reply to
cyberborg 4000

Probably both. German planes were in the habit of straffing civilians at every opportunity. My family were straffed as they fled Holland in a civilian convoy. My great-grandfather had taken the precaution of borrowing an armoured van used to deliver industrial diamonds so the bullets just bounced off it.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

Then this will bug you even more. In every Judy Garland movie where a horse is featured they had to use a stuffed horse because Judy had a phobia about working with the real thing.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

Because of technical problems in the equipment used for early black-and-white television broadcasts, the first episode of "Mr Ed" (the one with the talking horse) showed unacceptable colour gradations on the horse. The problem was solved by using a zebra instead. The stripes on the zebra were cancelled out by the technical problems. As zebras are smaller than horses, the stable set was build as a 75% model so that Mr Ed looked like a normal horse.

Reply to
Enzo Matrix

wow, i thought there was something odd about the barn scenes as a kid. my folks said i was nuts.

Reply to
e

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