TheFluff posted:

The mother of all oil leaks?

quote:

Ed King, P-47 Pilot
347th Ftr. Sqd, 350th Ftr. Grp.
MTO, ETO WWll, 1944-45


January 12, 1945, Strafing Attack
Bresica, Italy Railroad Marshalling Yard


On January 12th, the weather condition over the Poe Valley was reported as unsuitable for dive-bombing. The Valley was covered with layers of solid to broken clouds, plus a broken to scattered low scud deck. A mist of rain also filled the air.

Since flying conditions on the south side of the Apennine Mountains were good, I was assigned to lead a flight of four on a combination weather and armed reconnaissance mission into the far reaches of northern Italy.

Upon arriving over the Bresica Area, we were able to spiral down and around the clouds to a relative low altitude. An active railroad marshalling yard, crowded with rolling stock, was spotted through a break in the scud below. Also, sighted alongside, was a protecting anti-aircraft battery.

In the belief I could take the gun pit out-of-play myself, the others were radioed to orbit out-of-range until called. There was just not room for all of us to maneuver in such close quarters.

As I was closing in on a firing pass, the gun pit opened fire, scoring a direct hit in my aircraft’s engine. At once, a heavy oil spray flowed from under the cowling, completely covering my glass canopy. My first reaction was to climb for altitude into the clouds because in my mind, a bailout was close at hand.

The other flight members were notified of my plight and advised to return to home base. Weather conditions would have made finding me very difficult if not impossible.

While in a climbing mode, the canopy was opened in preparation for abandoning ship. As the canopy opened, a heavy spray of hot oil hit me full in the face. For some reason, I had always carried a clean rag in the cockpit, to be used for whatever the need. In this instance, the need was to wipe the oil out of my eyes. I also discovered that by leaning well forward the oil spray missed my face.

Upon reaching a comfortable altitude, the ship was leveled between a layer of clouds. The Area Radar Controller was contacted and the situation explained. He was also told of my decision to remain with the aircraft for as long as the engine kept running. At this point, my location was approximately 140 miles from my home base at Pisa, of which 120 of those miles were over enemy territory.

In a calming voice, the Controller gave me a heading towards the nearest coastline. In the event open sea could be reached, an air/sea rescue may be possible, even though I would still be behind enemy lines.

All clouds were cleared as I approached the coastline near La Spezia. After passing over the coast, a turn was made towards the south. As I proceeded down the coast, the enemy anti-aircraft coastal batteries apparently decided to make my situation a little more interesting because they opened fire. By this time, I was in no condition to take evasive action even though flak was bursting all around me. It was of utmost importance that my altitude be maintained. Fortunately, there were no hits scored by their gunners.

At around the 10 to 15 mile range from home base, more and more throttle had to be added, in order to hold my altitude. Engine oil starvation was evidently beginning to set in.

In the meantime, an aircraft had sent to guide me the rest of the way home. As he joined me from the left, he was waved-off. It was apparent my engine would not hold out for a long straight-in- approach.

A high down-wind leg was entered. By now, the throttle was in an almost full forward position and the engine instruments were about to blow their tops.

Turning onto a close base leg, gear and flaps were dropped. Upon reaching the “now or never point”, the aircraft was put into a steep sideslip on the way down to runway level.
At the same time, the engine came to a grinding halt with the propeller frozen in an upright position. Touchdown was made about a quarter of the way down the runway and the aircraft coasted clear at the far end.

One of the things I remember clearly was the Tower Operator screaming for me to “level out” as I was nearing runway level. It must have appeared to him that I could not see well enough to break my glide. However, with that big four bladed prop acting as an airbrake, I had to make sure there was enough airspeed to maneuver the aircraft into a landing position.

After coming to a stop, the emergency crewmen who met me had looks of dismay on their faces. Their looks were justified because the whole of me, the cockpit and the aircraft were a black, greasy mess.

Upon leaving the cockpit, I was quickly ushered to the Flight Surgeon’s Dispensary.
My face was cleansed and my eyes flushed out. Outside of being somewhat excited and my eyes burning, I appeared none the worse for the experience.

Within the hour, a return was made to the aircraft for a picture taking and debriefing session. One of the pictures taken that day is on display in the Air and Space Museum, WWll Army Air Corps Section, Washington, DC. A picture of that “oil covered” P-47 that brought me home safely, is posted along with several other aircraft that made it back on a “Wing and a Prayer”.

Party Plane Jones posted:

BlueBull posted:

I've been cross-lurking various history threads here, and it struck me that basically US armed forces are in the same place right now as Nazi Germany was back in the days, with the Luftwaffe blocking carrier aircraft for the Kriegsmarine and also trying to establish ground troops to compete with the SS / Wehrmacht, the SS getting all the cool toys over the Wehrmacht, the U-Boot forces pissing into the Kriegsmarine's cornflakes and vice versa, all whilst everyone is licking arse with the politicians to fund their latest pet projects?

Is this a correct assessment of arms procurement in the US armed forces right now, especially in terms of aviation?

BlueBull posted:

I've been cross-lurking various history threads here, and it struck me that basically US armed forces are in the same place right now as Nazi Germany was back in the days, with the Luftwaffe blocking carrier aircraft for the Kriegsmarine and also trying to establish ground troops to compete with the SS / Wehrmacht, the SS getting all the cool toys over the Wehrmacht, the U-Boot forces pissing into the Kriegsmarine's cornflakes and vice versa, all whilst everyone is licking arse with the politicians to fund their latest pet projects?

Is this a correct assessment of arms procurement in the US armed forces right now, especially in terms of aviation?

Cyrano4747 posted:

1) the KM didn't really want naval fighter development because they really didn't want carriers.

Servicio en Espanol posted:

They were right on this. Honestly there was no real reason for the Germans to ever go for a capital ship fleet in either World War II or World War I and the Kaiser's desire for one was counterproductive, ultimately disastrous, and a waste of money.

Kaiser Wilhelm II: Insufferable Manchild of Destiny.

Cyrano4747 posted:

hilarious anecdotes about the margin doodles

FrozenVent posted:

I for one make sure to always doodle stupid poo poo in my margin, just in case I become historically important and someone has to slog through my personal papers.

Sperglord Actual posted:

This sounds like it could be comedy gold.

Party Plane Jones posted:

What was the highest number of U-Boats deployed at sea at once, low 50s?

Cyrano4747 posted:

The Nazi-era KM commissioned around 1250 uboats of all types between dumping Versailles and the end of the war. I have no idea how those were spread out, but 50 at sea at once seems low, even factoring in how quickly they were getting sunk by the middle and end of the war.

edit: some quick googling shows May of '43 to be the worst month for them, with 40 uboat losses that month alone..

*shrug* maybe 50-ish at sea at once during the worst bit of it might be reasonable after all, once you factor in the ships resting after patrol, down for repairs, etc.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Yeah, I've got a fantasy project where I basically just flip through all his papers that I can find and photocopy the doodles. The descriptions I've heard of them are pretty hilarious.

Interestingly someone's already done something similar with US Presidential doodles:

I just recently tossed a super cheap used copy of this book in on an Amazon order. It hasn't gotten here yet, but I can't wait.

PhotoKirk posted:

I have that book, it is truly fascinating. Ike was a very talented artist.

Blistex posted:

Please describe Clinton's doodles.

BIG HEADLINE posted:

1) Cost overruns.
2) In the Gulf War, Kosovo, 2003 Iraq invasion and occupation, and Afghanistan, Apaches suffered more damage than any other aerial weapons platform. Even if they have a high rate of functionality while damaged, damaged Apaches that managed to return to base were often eventually written off as total losses. Developing a 'stealth' attack helicopter with even thinner armor and a lighter potential payload was largely seen as a bad idea (tm), especially in the new 'threat culture' where a single hadji with an AK could potentially cause hundreds of thousands in damage to something like a Comanche.
3) If you're not strafing villages wholesale at ground level, attack helicopters are pretty useless in a theater like Afghanistan (and Iraqi urban environments).
4) It's much more cost-effective to maintain the OH-58s in the scout/recon role as parts for JetRanger helos are easy as gently caress to get one's hands on, even while forward-deployed.
5) It was billed as a stealth helicopter that was designed to support the Apache, a decidedly *unstealthy* helicopter.

The Comanche's program manager was a real peach, too. Go ahead and look up its Wiki page for a nice little nonsensical block quote from him that effectively translates to "this helicopter does everything our existing helicopter fleet does, but we should still buy it because I've hitched my career to it." As a 'cautionary tale,' this is why he's now the CEO of a DoD 'training' company with no Wikipedia page instead of a Senior VP at Boeing. Losing your contract means you get hosed over.

Breaky posted:

Can't imagine that type of design being good with an engine failure.

Party Plane Jones posted:

Sort of an odd question but did anybody else bother getting these things in the late 90s?

Party Plane Jones posted:

Sort of an odd question but did anybody else bother getting these things in the late 90s?

Cyrano4747 posted:

No, not really. In the US it's the result of huge industry lobbying for expensive projects, inter-service rivalries, and politicians looking for ways to spend DoD money inside their state so they can run adds at election time triumphing how hard they've fought in washington to bring jobs to wherever.

In Nazi Germany it had a lot more to do with the completely fractured nature of the government and everyone in the civilian bureaucracy trying to carve out their own little internal empires and power bases. A few things you mentioned:

1) the KM didn't really want naval fighter development because they really didn't want carriers. The officers who survived the lean inter-war years with their jobs were all pretty much the junior acolytes of the old Imperial-era big gun battleship lobby and thought that fast, heavily armed, cruisers and pocket battleships were the wave of the future. This is why the KM entered the war so woefully under-prepared for submarine combat and a huge part of why the U-Boot fleet had to fight tooth and nail for every DM they could convince Hitler to spend on them.

2) The KM wasn't pushing to have their own private army, that was the Luftwaffe. Why did the Luftwaffe need so many ground troops? Because Göring carved the Luftwaffe out as his own little private empire and if that rear end in a top hat Himmler got to have infantry in his private army Göring wanted infantry too.

3) The SS didn't get all the cool toys. Far from it in fact, they spent most of the war fighting with refurbed WW1 era equipment and poo poo they were able to procure via civilian channels. Himmler was trying non-loving-stop to get independent SS-run factories of his own precisely because the Wehrmacht command hated the very idea of a secondary army they didn't control and tried to give him hind tit on everything from rifles to armor. He was able to pull enough political strings to get first-run equipment by late in the war, but that was a long time coming. That's also the reason why he was so keen on the idea of starting up arms and ammo production in concentration camps, since he controlled those and could better ensure that anything they produced got fed into his section of the supply pipeline.

4) the U-Boot force was the redheaded stepchild of the KM for basically the whole war and Dönitz was screaming from day one that they needed an entire order of magnitude more submarines to do the job he was being asked to do. They were resource starved from the get go and, while they certainly got proportionally more of the KM budget as the big ships sank or hid in fijords while the subs made headlines, the KM in general got an ever decreasing amount of the budget as poo poo got very real in the east and it became clear that land forces were what the Reich needed.

5) the politicians were the ones loving up military projects, not the other way around. The number of projects that Hitler personally hosed up to disastrous effect is goddamned huge - both the StG44 and the Me262 would have come out YEARS earlier if it wasn't for his direct and personal involvement. The fact that the former was produced at all had a lot to do with a bunch of engineers quietly pushing forward under a different name.

Servicio en Espanol posted:

some rabid champions of Big Blue in here to vociferously defend the Air Force's fidelity to CAS

gfanikf posted:

since concentration camps inmates aren't really committed to the Nazi war effort, any truth to that or just Internet bullshit?

Party Plane Jones posted:

Sabotage was more a part of the resistance by inmates at Dora-Mittelbau than other subcamps from what I recall (probably because it's easier to get away with sabotaging a rocket that needs high precision and has thousands of parts).

Dead Reckoning posted:

Oh hey, what's up.

You keep saying that the Air Force hates the A-10 and the whole idea of CAS, and I've wrote out a few long posts already explaining why you're wrong, but you keep saying it anyway. So I'm just going to keep this one short and say that literally everything you wrote in that post is false.

mlmp08 posted:

I think the Army "wants" the A-10 only as a way to pressure the Air Force. I have a distinct feeling that if the Air Force didn't fight at all and freely offered up the A-10, the Army would then realize all the additional costs and problems and decline the offer.

Dead Reckoning posted:

Oh hey, what's up.

You keep saying that the Air Force hates the A-10 and the whole idea of CAS, and I've wrote out a few long posts already explaining why you're wrong, but you keep saying it anyway. So I'm just going to keep this one short and say that literally everything you wrote in that post is false.

Godholio posted:

The chief of staff is an A-10 pilot by trade.

Mortabis posted:

Didn't A-10s also destroy something around half the targets hit in the Gulf War?

Godholio posted:

The chief of staff is an A-10 pilot by trade.

iyaayas01 posted:

And he's the one proposing that we send them all to the boneyard, which (when combined with the money we spent on the PE upgrade and wing SLEP, intending to keep the things in the air through 2040) should really tell you all you need to know about how utterly and profoundly we are hosed from a budget perspective.