Radial Anti-Aircraft Mounting 1944 (#VickersMG photo analysis)

[Richard Fisher]

I think using .303 against an aircraft when it has 20/30mm cannon and can open fire on you from extended ranges is folly. I know they taught us all this happy garbage too but practice and use are quite different.

I suppose it's a case of doing what you can with the weapons you've got. It gave an MG platoon its own in-house anti-aircraft protection when the only other option was the Bren. These would have given them a much better chance and were developed when ground-attack aircraft were still largely using the same calibre weapons really.

Was there much barrage use of the Vickers in WWII as there was in WWI, or was that also a "lost art" between the wars? By that I man 20-40 gun sort of barrages. A high angle mounting like that would have been quite useful for barrage work I suspect.

Yes, indirect fire was used extensively for harassing fire and the 1944 and 1945 advances in Germany used a 'pepperpot barrage' of which the MMGs were one part, alongside the 40mm Bofors, mortars, and 25-pounder field guns. It didn't need a greater angle firing as the elevation on the Vickers fired out to 4500 yds anyway. There were 36 guns in the MG Bn and the crossing of the Rhine used three Bns working together (108 MMGs). Also used at El Alamein and Monte Cassino with multiple MMG units working together.

You speak of "Plunging fire" and now it's called "Indirect fire". Now means simply a target being engaged when you can't see it by direct line of sight because of obscuration by smoke, fog or slight rise in ground. The days of raining ammunition down into trenches was over when static warfare ended. It wasn't as lost as it was outdated. The theories of plunging fire were still in the machine gun book before the C6 (MAG 58) came into CDN service.

See my comment above. The German defences in 1945 were very static and not always with overhead cover so still valuable for suppression in that sense.

No pilot likes seeing tracer coming towards him. Lots of tracer would make him attack from farther away, making it less effective.

Completely agree but interesting that the Vickers ammunition which came pre-packed didn't include tracer in the belts, and the manual doesn't cover it specifically. Brens were used with tracer to get onto target. Something I'll have to look up a little more.

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[browningautorifle]

No pilot likes seeing tracer coming towards him.

Not the same testimony I got from gunners shooting at aircraft in WW2. They spoke of being watched with impunity as the sparklers flashes as they hit the aircraft and the pilots paid no attention to .303. When they got the .50 it was a different story...

not always with overhead cover so still valuable for suppression in that sense.

Yes, that was what it was designed for.