Questions for tacticians about stray air battle rounds

[Tallbald]

I was unable to join any branch of our military and have no personal experience from which to draw. *From our hearts though Miss Penny and I work always to approach those we meet in uniform, wherever we may be, and offer them our thanks and gratitude for their selfless sacrifices on behalf of our freedom.
I watch true battle documentaries from historical interest, and film footage is particularly mesmerizing to me. Air combat always makes me wonder something however.
When personnel and non-combatants on the ground observe that overhead rages a fight with automatic weapon fire, rockets and such everywhere, do they attempt to take cover from stray aircraft or anti-aircraft rounds falling to Earth? A silly question perhaps but I don't remember any film documentary with actual footage taken from a ground position that shows people seeking cover from overhead fire not directed at them. I know and understand that pilots cannot always consider where a projectile may land except to hope it finds its intended target. And I understand that on the ground, fighters can be completely absorbed in their own fights and thus unable to contend with additional threats in the sky not directed at them in particular. Is distance from an air battle taken into account by ground forces when deciding to seek cover or not?
For those on the ground is the air battle sort of surreal,maybe not registering as an addressable threat? Or is it a situation where there's little that can be done to avoid the threat and it therefore is simply accepted?
I guess the person or crew filming events may discount air threats from stray projectiles in order to capture images. But I don't recall ever hearing much from narrators about ground casualties from overhead fire or hearing of orders to take cover being issued.
I appreciate informed education. Right now all I have is my own speculation. Don.

 

[bobski]

bombs are still killing people from ww1 in Europe.

 

[Fox Mike]

I believe what tallbald means is the bullets shot from aircraft to aircraft, that don't hit the aircraft, have to fall to the ground somewhere. Has anyone ever seen or heard of someone receiving a wound, or something else being hit, by 'falling' ordnance?

 

[Bob Wright]

Not only bullets, but ejected cartridge cases and fragments from exploding antiaircraft fire. Many casualties occurred from shell fragments falling.

A friend of mine had an uncle wounded at Normandy on D-Day. He was on the deck of a hospital ship waiting to be taken below when he was killed by falling shell fragments.

WW II sailors have told me that the decks of their ships were littered with fragments after an air attack. And at least one destroyer was damaged by a low fired AA round.

Also heard of a farm family being killed by the crash of a B-17.


War is a dangerous business for all concerned.

Bob Wright

 

[bobski]

go to websites in England. youll see numerous accounts of this in daily newspapers from ww1/2.

 

[Pal Val]

I asked my uncle about this. He fought in the Pacific in WWII. He told me that they were too worried about the bullets and artillery shells flying from the Japanese side to worry about stuff coming down from the air. I guess that when you're under fire, you don't go thinking about any other stuff.

 

[Paul B]

I've seen common footage of some of the battles in the Pacific where when trying to shoot down an attacking jap bomber or torpedo plane all the "stray" bullet splashes and ricochets were all flying toward friendly ships in the background. Wonder how many casualties were caused by all those strays?
Paul B.

 

[rugerguy]

kinda like when folks go out on New Years or whatever holiday and shoot their guns up in the air.....years ago when we had our gun shop, we called all 3 TV stations in the NE Ohio area and asked as a "community service" reminder to advise folks NOT do this, use blanks...all 3 said they could NOT be bothered, besides ,"made and sold news" and yes that year, a parish priest in Cleveland, died from a stray bullet.............

 

[Wyandot Jim]

Very good question about what happens to all the junk that comes from the sky. I have asked this question several times myself. Just think about all the brass, spent bullets, real big parts from blown up planes and such. At least in the sea battles there was some protection from the ships armor and your helmet while you were at battle stations .
Not like in the skies over Europe where the huge air battles took place. A lot of the Sea battles took place over open water.
Mom and Dad are sitting around their table for Sunday Chicken Dinner when a 1000# engine hits their dinner plate. :wink: I have never read anything about what took place on the ground from all the falling stuff.

 

[bogus bill]

On a lower level, every night on the news we watch mid easteners shooting habitually in the air for evidently the fun of it for every slight event. On top of that the "so called" soldiers, rebels, freedom fighters etc seem to be gleefully shooting from their hips, over their heads etc at targets 3/4 mile away. Either they want to make a show to their comrades they are doing their part or whatever but it looks like it must take 100,000 rounds of ammo that way to score a hit. Looks pretty dumb (IS dumb) to be gleefully applauding every event by shooting a clip straight up. Must be fortunes spent on ammo. I always wondered about supposedly the Mid Easterners living on something like $12 a month yet seeing kids walking around with $1,000 guns and shooting off God knows how much money in ammo at the clouds.

 

[exavid]

I remember a story about a fighter shooting itself down. In fact I just found a link to the story.
http://www.tailsthroughtime.com/2011/09/fighter-that-shot-itself-down.html
http://aerofiles.com/tiger-tail.html

 

[Taterman]

Interesting topic and some great posts here too.

 

[blume357]

Well, in this vane.. when flying down to Belize this August the flight went down the west coast of Florida, over the Keys and then to Cuba and turned right (west) toward Mexico.. as we flew along the coast of Cuba I got up and went and used the rest room.....

 

[Mobuck]

Somewhere, I read about the clusterflip that occurred in California during WW2 when the local defense battery fired a buttload of shells at "phantom" Jap bombers. There was a whole list of friendly fire damage on the ground.

 

[smoke-eater]

I remember reading about the persecution of Maj. Eric Hartmann, the Luftwaffe's top ace (and the highest scoring ace of all time), after he was turned over to the Soviets after he surrendered to the Americans ( :evil: ).
He was tried and convicted on charges that his spent ammo fired during aerial combat was responsible for the deaths of Russian citizens on the ground. It was all a farce, but Hartmann rotted away in the Gulag for ten years before being released, a broken, sickly walking skeleton. He did recover, and became a General in the new West German Air Force.

Jeff

 

[GunnyGene]

Not many WWII style dogfights anymore. The bigger issue in VN was CAS runs. Which was one reason why air/ground communication is important. When you call in a run, you not only tell the pilot where the target is you tell him what direction to come in from. Understand that the debris from 20mm, etc. will fall under the flight path of the plane, so you don't want your guys to be under that path. One of the issues in Nam was that the USAF and the Army/Marines on the ground often couldn't communicate with each other because of different equipment/frequencies, etc. The Marines much preferred to call in Marine or Navy air support for that reason. That's been pretty much remedied in the last 30 years or so.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

The rest of the story

After his capture, the U.S. Army handed Hartmann, his pilots, and ground crew over to the Soviet Union on 24 May, where he was imprisoned in accordance with the Yalta Agreements, which stated that airmen and soldiers fighting Soviet forces had to surrender directly to them. Hartmann and his unit were led by the Americans to a large open-air compound to await the transfer. The number of prisoners grew to 50,000. Living conditions deteriorated, and some American guards turned a blind eye to escapes. In some cases they assisted by providing food and maps.

Soon after being handed over to the Soviet armed forces, Hartmann experienced the following:


The first thing the Russians did was to separate the German women and girls from the men. What followed was a brutal orgy of rape and debauchery by Red Army soldiers. When the greatly outnumbered Americans tried to intervene, the Russians charged towards them firing into the air and threatening to kill them if they interfered. The raping continued throughout the night. The next day a Russian General arrived at the encampment and immediately ordered a cessation ... Later when a few Russians violated the order again and assaulted a German girl, she was asked to identify them from a lineup. There were no formalities, no court martial. The guilty parties were immediately hanged in front of all their comrades. The point was made.[

 

[smoke-eater]

The barbarism perpetrated upon German civilians, POW's, and even their own repatriated POW's by our victorious Soviet "friends and allies", long after the cessation of hostilities, may well have been the darkest chapter in the history of WWII.
What a pity the Allied High Command didn't follow the advice of General Patton.

Jeff

 

[UmpquaCharlie]

In Nam we had to occasionally worry about fired 20mm shells falling on our positions as well as flare canisters.
Infantry platoon sergeant with 173 Airborne Central Highlands 68-69

 

[Critch]

Eric Hartmann, the WWII German Ace was convicted of killing civilians with his errant rounds by a Soviet court and sent to a prison camp.

 

[nhdon]

Page 316 317 of Craig Nelson book on Pearl Harbor has section covering 48 dead from anti aircraft fire into Honolulu . Don K

 

[Don Lovel]

Dad was at the Remagen Bridge on the Rhine at Remagen Germany with the 9th armored division. He was a radio operator in a half track for the Military governor's group. He said there were intense air battles in the skies above them for a three day period with not only air to air shooting by the American and German planes but ground fire at aircraft from both sides of the river by Americans and Germans. He said he was in the half track and hear rounds hitting the woods around him and the top of the half track. When the air battle stopped he went out and found still hot to the touch projectiles and fired cases everywhere.

 

[Mike Armstrong]

Every memoir I've ever read of civilians in the London Blitz mentions the "shrapnel" (flak fragment) collections that every boy picked up and cherished. And they all mention civilian casualties from those anti-aircraft fragments falling on people, especially volunteers who were usually the only people out of shelters and buildings during an attack. "What goes up...."

 

[Colonialgirl]

RE: Navy Cameramen and Filming;

One of the "combat films" I remember was of fighters (Corsairs) returning to the carrier, it was being filmed from alongside the "Island" when the tail breaks off one of the planes and it swerves directly at the cameraman. He films it all the way !! There is another section of film showing the cameraman filming, the plane swerving toward him and finally impacting the island right where he was standing. Yes he was a fatal casualty. Sadly there was no where he could run or duck to avoid the plane.

 

[roarindan51]

I've broached this subject before,,, and I dinna git a satisfactory splanation neither.

 

[Tallbald]

I'm glad I posed the original questions. Just sorry I've spent almost 50 years before asking. Thanks everyone. And to those here with first hand experience in our armed forces, a special thanks. Don

 

[Wyandot Jim]

I'm glad I posed the original questions. Just sorry I've spent almost 50 years before asking. Thanks everyone. And to those here with first hand experience in our armed forces, a special thanks. Don

Thank you. I have asked this same question several times and no answers about what took place over Europe.
Forget the Pacific and the one day battles along with the Navy Cameramen. Yes they all did an outstanding job with sacrifices.
The airwar over Europe lasted 6 that is a BIG SIX years.
What happened to all the junk that fell from the sky???

We need to go do some research to find the answer. Anyone up to it. I have given up.

 

[WestTex]

Not to be glib or insensitive, but I have only known one person in my whole life ( a salesmen showing me a car at the time) that had bird poop suddenly land on his head while just standing there.

The OP original question brought this to mind. But his point is interesting given the confined spaces of combat.There must be, I would think, many cases of death/injury from this collateral damage in war.

Just think of all the innocent people shot by "drive bys" that were nowhere near the scene.

 

[gtxmonte]

Everything in the air hits the ground somewhere eventually. The only thing that would totally vaporize or disappear would be fuel. Everything else is coming down

 

[GunnyGene]

I'm glad I posed the original questions. Just sorry I've spent almost 50 years before asking. Thanks everyone. And to those here with first hand experience in our armed forces, a special thanks. Don

Thank you. I have asked this same question several times and no answers about what took place over Europe.
Forget the Pacific and the one day battles along with the Navy Cameramen. Yes they all did an outstanding job with sacrifices.
The airwar over Europe lasted 6 that is a BIG SIX years.
What happened to all the junk that fell from the sky???

We need to go do some research to find the answer. Anyone up to it. I have given up.

A lot of it was/is collected by local folks and recycled, and not just stuff from the sky. Some is made into souvenirs and other trinkets, pots and pans, etc., or melted down to make other stuff. Still happens in war zones today.