My Great Uncle flew the P-47 with the 12th Air Force. He once told a good story about strafing a train. The Germans would hide 2cm flak guns in a couple of dummy boxcars along the train. When a pilot would line up and commit to his run, they’d pull a lever and drop the sides off the boxcar, train the guns out and open up. He found this out the hard way. Literally pieces of the engine hanging out of the cowling and it was still running. Made it almost all the way back to base when it finally ran out of oil and seized. Had to belly land in a field about 5 miles out. He got another plane and was back in action by the end of the week. The Jug was tougher than a 2-dollar steak.
I know somebody who was a child, riding in one of those trains used for "Kinderlandverschickung". Civilians (mainly children) were moved out of heavily bombed cities. His train was attacked, one fighter fired some warning shots, everybody got out of the train, and then the fighters shot up the steam locomotive and the train. Many civilians were less lucky and met fighter pilots who just opened fire on sight.
One interesting fact is that in most gun camera footage of pilots strafing trains is they always come side on to the train rather then the front or behind. You’d think it’s more optimal to attack from the front or behind so you can strafe down the length of the train. However with my own experience attacking trains in single player / campaign missions in dcs (in the mustang anyway) is actually to do exactly what the pilots from ww2 did. Due to the position of the .50s on the wing you bullets will hit more on either side of the locomotive due to gun convergence And there will be a small window where the guns are hitting the locomotive itself. Coming in at a low side angle brings all guns to bare and you have the full side on profile of the train to hit and if in a slow turn you can hit multiple train cars in the same way.
The gun camera footage I've seen looks the same. It also seems pilots would fire a brief burst and use the tracer rounds to better aim for a full strafing run.
Also the guncam footage looks like they are shooting from much farther away. I don't know why everyone playing DCS waits to get so close to the target to start shooting.
@@rubiconnn probably because of the gun convergence problem and I guess wanting to save ammo. have to wait until you get close if coming at the train head on as bullets will just go either side of the train.
@@rubiconnn I think it has to do with everybody zooming in too much in DCS. When you zoom in too much it throws off your depth perception and speed perception, so you don't feel like you are as close as you are and going as fast as you are, but then you realize too late. Same thing happens in War Thunder with the right click zoom. Unfortunately, unless you can afford a 4k monitor and the hardware to run DCS at good framerates in 4k, then the resolution is really just not quite enough to simulate reality.
gonna be mission specific, if you're just stopping the thing, you got one target. if you're aiming to destroy the supplies and expect quasi soft, side is as good as anything. enemy spotting and considerations for speed necessary to consider.
Nice, cap. I recall that fighter pilots were later encouraged to hunt locomotives and other targets of convenience on the way back from escort missions.
I've not flown the Bf109 much, but I have found that setting the elevator trim a bit nose-up really helps with pullling out of strafing runs. You have to push the stick forward to keep the nose down & aim, but pulling up is less buttock-clenching.
German aircraft supremacist here, before watching the video I would say probably the P47 Thunderbolt. It is big and heavy and has a few stones and rockets.
Couple things I noticed was you were waiting to fire until you were already on top of them several times you could have gotten multiple trains on 1 pass if you fired a bit sooner, as well as when going in for a gun run, pull back on the throttle. Goin to quick to have enough time to line them up and fire. Keep up the awesome work and keep uploading these interesting scenarios.
If "get another one" was a thing back in my active duty days, I probably would have advanced much further.... But I probably would have gotten out in debt to the government. "Next episode : The Trains Fire Back!"
Great job, but first „The more u fly the better u become” (P-51 underrated), second if your plane can´t destroy a loco in one attack you could change the tactic. Divide your team in 2 and fly circles right and left of the track, start on one side of the track and attack, after approximately 25 locos you turn around (in the circle) and target the same aims again. Important is only not to cross the track. You should combine the snake way with up and down. At the end, I like your channel very much Greetings
I always enjoy this kind of "research", but maybe a follow-up with some other planes too? You could chose for example some different jets of different generations (NO clusterbombes!!!). I was missing several WWII-fighters, like the P38, the Typhoon, maybe for fun a Zero or a Russian competitor... Maybe another reason to redo this fun one? Or a series of these?
Shame the steam locomotives in DCS don't explode like they do in real life. They would explode with steam vertically sometimes taking out the attacking aircraft like pressure cookers.
Without watching, the P47. I’ve a train on my own private WW2 target range and the Jug consistently does the most damage per load out, and is the easiest to put weapons on target
Hi I have a challenge, I don't have DCS personally so not sure if this is possible.. I was thinking any planes set up a massive Sam field something like a mile square set back off the end of a run way so you have something to gauge your shots and distance with and do inverted kind of spit S unguided bomb lobs.
Great flying.. Spit appeared to be a very stable gun platform but the Wooden Wonder was always gonna be the pick of the bunch.. Devastating machine in this environment.. Matrix was in his element... Thanks all all GR'S... 👍👏👏
I don't know if the tempest is included in DCS but given his reputation as a ground attack aircraft it would have been interesting to see it too Great video nonetheless
Fun content as always, but sometimes it seems to me like Cap is purposefully trying to avoid learning how to be accurate in this game. Come on Cap, those train cars are huge, you should be putting every bullet and every other rocket in them. You really need to pick a plane that doesn't have any PGMs or CCIP and concentrate on learning how to do ground attack without a piper to tell you exactly where your bullets are going. You are cutting off and devaluing many effective ground attack aircraft by only being proficient in the ones that do all the work for you. Once you get used to it, manual aiming is fun. There is a great sense of satisfaction from nailing Tanks with HVARS from a P-47, or shooting up trucks with the 7.62s on the L-39 by walking in your tracers. Unassisted bombing is going to take awhile for you to learn because it requires feel, so concentrate on unassisted rockets and guns. You had a mission awhile back where you used an A-4, took your time, utilized LABS and nailed a tank with a 500 pounder on your first shot. You then dropped the other 8 bombs you were carrying without using LABS or aiming, and they missed everything. Accuracy is king in this game when it comes to armored or tough targets. Splash won't do anything.
IDK if the P-38 is modelled in DCS, but it would have been an excellent candidate for this test, similar to the Mossy. It had a 20mm cannon. In fact, you could argue it was the best allied fighter in the war.
I prefer the P47. Rockets and guns. The Mossie has a bit more firepower, but is a huge target, has liquid cooled engines and is slow to turn around for another pass.
Cap, should do this mission again with really good gun ships. Ac130(with more crew members) maybe some attack helos, and a10 vs...Russian a10? Frogfoot? I forget. But that's a great video!
@@robbergerson4915 Brains are weird, I once forgot for about an hour the word for "cherry" in my native language. While easily recalling it in English at the same time. And that at the age of about 7, so not age-related.
@BoraHorzaGobuchul understood! Learning second and more languages is a challenge. I whish I had started that young! I forget words while I'm speaking them at this point hahahahahha
Hi Cap I was wondering, a fair bit ago you did a test of NATO air defense systems throughout the years against planes, would you possibly be able to do one against cruise missiles any ones you decide
The story of a German plane shooting a train when the train exploded and a peice flew and severed the pilots head and both train driver and fireman both survived
"Internet Expert" here....I wonder how it would turn out with significantly more German AAA. I will admit to my P-47 bias here...but the P-47 wasn't great at ground attack b/c of its 8 .50cals.....it was great because it had 8 .50cals, with a high rate of fire, a metric S*** ton of ammo and the ability to soak up hits. Although its hard to argue with the power of 4 (four) 20mm rounds impacting simultaneously from the Mossy being far more destructive, i think the damage from the P-47 is close at the proper range. I don't know how the game processes penetration on train engines or the energy of impact but im betting that while a single .50 caliber armor piercing incendiary round traveling at over 900 meters/sec (3,000 ft/sec) is going to have no problem slicing through those boilers and make quite an impact doing it, the energy released when 8 (eight!!) .50 cal API rounds hit the same area of the target virtually simultaneously- when target is at proper convergence)- has to be tremendous (more than 2 20mm rounds?). Several P-47 pilots described hitting trains at the proper convergence range and actually knocking rail cars over on their side when hitting them with a one second burst (so about 60-80 rounds). So, i would think , the P-47 would perform this task much better than a Spitfire (and a P-51) both in damage dealt and its ability to soak up enough damage to continue re-attacking BUT, i suspect that you would do more damage- and do it much easier and more extensively) with a Mossie as you have 4 20mm rounds hitting the same area regardless of range
i wanted to add that I'm no expert; but i have seen what happens when a .50cal AP round strikes the front of a 2006 ford crown Victoria. Much more impressive then a .50cal "ball" round, the AP round hit the side above and a bit behind the front left wheel. The hood flew open and debris shot out everywhere as the car rocked back and forth (and then started smoking). A closer inspection revealed that the round hit the side of the V-8 engine block passed through it while blowing apart two of the cylinders (throwing debris everywhere which was what blew the hood open), was redirected downward and slightly forward and passed into the steel wheel/brake disc assembly of the front right wheel coming to rest inside the tire (which was the thing we saw smoking.) I cant imagine what it would have looked like if 8 .50Ap rounds struck the front/side of that car at the same time...let alone 60-80 (eighty!!!) AP rounds hitting the front of the car in 1 second ( approx 500-600 rds/min is aboout 8-10 rounds/sec each gun right?)
When yall were talking about speed holes and weight reduction for the damage on your plane. Make me laugh because Derek from Vice Grip Garage says the same thing.
@@grimreaperswell damn, I didn't even realize they'd recently made a movie of it, I just remember reading the book by Frederick Forsyth when I was a kid. Synopsis here... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shepherd
There's a cheesy home grown animated version here. I dunno, just seems like something a bit different you could have some role playing fun with. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XV-ILCXGyxQ.htmlsi=4kqFwZaqJhTKMmwU
How about a group defense of or an attack on a V-1 launch site? Role reversal, play the Germans defending against an AI piloted allied group that outnumbers defenders 4 to 1?
kinda defeats the challenge when you mess up half the ordinance. wonder how many more kills you could get with 6 bombs, or if you used the rockets properly. or even with less excuses and improper engine/feul management. how many more kills can you get if you dont used WEP the whole time and run out of feul in less then 10 mins, or damaging each other. or pancake. if you did it right. more like what planes are the GR best at using, not what war plane is the best.
I would like to see something more modern and while not perhaps realistic it would certainly demonstrate how effective or not this course of action would be. Imagine if the US government told the Mexican government that they had to stop all the convoys of illegal migrants from passing through Mexican territory on their way to illegally invade US territory. Either Mexico stops them or the US will. The Mexican government refuses so the US issues the orders for a B-52 Arc Light strike with full SEAD and fighter coverage. Have at it boys...
As heavy as the train engines were, there's no way .50bmg wouldn't tear through them, especially if they loaded in some api and ap in the belts. The footage of train strafing seams to back this up, they blow up pretty quick.
If I had to pick a warbird for this it'd either be an F4U-7 fully laden with type-23 SNEB rocket pods or a B-25 H with the 75mm nose mounted howitzer. Neither of these are probably in DCS though.
I wonder how many of those old gentlemen trainspotters got started by being RAF pilots assigned to spot and massacre German planes... Did they spend the rest of their lives quietly hunting them and remembering the good old days? Makes those harmless-seeming kooks quite sinister if that's the case.
My late mum worked in a factory in Sydney in WW2 pot riveting the bellies to mosquito bombers, in her last few year she would say I wonder how many people I helped kill, it really worried her
