Today, infamy

[DadSmith]

This is in a frame in my reloading room.

 

[oze]

Well, the punch would have been the Crusaders and Intruders.
The battleships would have been a hard nut to crack. Most of our stuff now is designed for an enemy with thin skins.

Certainly. But I was hoping for a few dozen air-to-air kills, as they teased me with in the movie. Even though a Sidewinder, Sparrow or Phoenix would have been worth more than the planes they shot down.

 

[oze]

I love these scenes of the 14 against the zero

Good thing the lady, the old man and the dog ducked. That 6" of water over their heads spared them the fate of the non-swimmer from the strafing!

 

[actaeon277]

Good thing the lady, the old man and the dog ducked. That 6" of water over their heads spared them the fate of the non-swimmer from the strafing!

I think it's more that they were hidden. The pilot is seeing miles of ocean.
And without those jackets, and a bit of water above them, makes it harder to pick them up with your MK1 eyeballs.

Also, the higher the velocity of the bullet, the less penetration it has in water. The bullets disintegrate.

 

[actaeon277]

Certainly. But I was hoping for a few dozen air-to-air kills, as they teased me with in the movie. Even though a Sidewinder, Sparrow or Phoenix would have been worth more than the planes they shot down.

I thought that also.

But... how expensive is the Tomcat?
Or the Nimitz?

Keep going in there to machine gun a Zero, and you risk losing a Tomcat.
The Zero is at a disadvantage in speed, yes.
But maneuverability? In it's day, it was outturning it's contemporaries.
And the turning circle on a Tomcat is MUCH larger.

 

[actaeon277]

Oh, and those really aren't Zeroes.

The North American T-6 'Texan' is a single-engined advanced trainer used by many nations in the 1940s and 1950s. Whilst known as the 'Texan' in the US, it was commonly called the 'Harvard' elsewhere.


The Zero's wings had no 'sweep' in them
These Texans have a slight sweep to them.

 

[actaeon277]

14 inches to stop a .50 AP round.

And the zero used Armament: Two 20mm cannon, two 7.7mm machine guns

 

[jwamplerusa]

Holcomb had ordered them flown at half staff until sundown today.

Well, I was returning from the east coast, so...