Jump to content

Pzkpfw-e

Members
  • Posts

    1,269
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Pzkpfw-e

  1. They weren't worth the cost of shipping them back, Europe & the US was littered with surplus aircraft.

    Remember that there were hundreds of Japanese planes sat on airfields in Indonesia, the Philipines & various islands into the 1960s, before it became viable to either take them to a smelter or bring the smelter to them.

    Heaps of P38s were buried under Clark Field, planes were pushed off carrier decks, which comes to another "crated aircraft dumped" story, all those Seafires & Corsairs supposedly dumped in their crates somewhere off Australia.

    More rumoured dumped kit here http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/dumped.htm

  2. I have seen this craft many times over the years, at the Headcorn museum, if you are saying this one is not a piloted version, then it must have been the Air Ministry or whoever was in charge of it who have "modified" it, as photos of it at Farnborough in 1945 show a canopy on it. :undecided:

     

     

    Or have I misunderstood your post?

     

    No, I'm taking my information from Phil Butler's "War Prizes" book.

    He notes that the Reichenburg displayed at Farnborough, was "Almost certainly captured at the Dannenburg V-1 factory in the US Zone. The fate of this aircraft is unknown; one of the surviving V-1s in England is a standard pilotless aircraft modified to appear like a piloted version"

    This, to me, says that the Headcorn one, isn't the same as the one displayed at Farnborough in 1945.

    lO9TvuMS.jpg

    Farnborough '45

     

    article-2259619-16D3AFC2000005DC-494_634x352.jpg

    Lashenden's version. Note different cockpit canopy & nose profile.

  3. The heavies were, by and large, designed with a belly turret - a retractable "dustbin"- going back to the likes of the Handley Page Heyford

    heyford_1.gif

    The Whitley had one too.

    Even if installed, they were often removed, because they were heavy & when extended, caused a lot of drag, thus degrading performance.

    The crews' choice was to fly higher & faster, especially during the early war at night, when no effective Luftwaffe nightfighter force existed.

    It was only once this force was developed and especially when the Schräge Musik was in service, when the lack of a belly gun was looked upon as being an issue.

    Some crews fixed up a hand-held, downwards-firing .5 to cover this blind spot.

  4. A bit of media bull****.

    Certainly our "Cockleshell Heroes" were extremely brave, but you may aswell claim that the Dambuster's raid did the same, as that lead to deployment of more Flak guns & crew to defend these and other dams.

  5. A major issue with the DD launched towards Omaha, was they were launched in the wrong place, realised this & turned broadside to the swell, to try to head towards their correct landing spots.

    This was discovered when their positions & orientations on the seabed were plotted.

×
×
  • Create New...