If you were a German soldier with an MG42, do you think you would be able to hit...

[Bulletpoint]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKDbUq6czE

...an L-4 Cub? Armed with bazookas? Coming down to tree-top height and within 110 metres effective M9 bazooka range?

The story of "Bazooka Charlie" always struck me as incredible, and lately I have begun to wonder if it were all a propaganda stunt by the US army.

Now, I don't mean to disrespect anyone pulling off the incredible in battle or in life in general. But I don't see how Charlie would have been able to strafe Tiger tanks with his DIY bazooka airplane while the German soldiers apparently fired back with the accuracy of storm troopers out of "Star Wars"

[YankeeDog]

The Germans often avoided opening fire on L-4s, for the obvious reason that opening fire on an observation plane tends to reveal your position, which is exactly what you don't want to do with an enemy plane that may have several battalions of artillery on the other end of a radio link.

But regardless, Charles Carpenter's Rosie the Rocketeer did get hit by small arms fire, many, many times. It's just that none of those hits ever brought him down.

It's harder than you might at first think to bring down an aircraft with rifle-caliber ammo. This was actually realized late in the First World War as airframes became stronger and aircraft began to move faster. This is why pretty much everybody gave up on rifle-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun mounts and moved up to at least 12.7mm, and more often 20mm+ stuff with exploding shells by mid-war.

Personally, I suspect the overall success (# kills, etc.) of Lt. Col. Carpenter's ground attack missions may be considerably inflated. But there's no doubt in my mind that he flew them.

[womble]

My first reaction is that your average Landser would never have engaged anything moving as fast as a plane, and little at the altitude difference/azimuth angle that you could expect the plane to be operating at. So yes, I'd expect them to miss, a lot.

Secondly, the target is quite large, so they might well hit it, but the vital bits of the target are quite a lot smaller than that.

So, I'd say it's not beyond the realms of plausibility, though I'd be inclined to think that the converse of the MG42 gunner's problems would mean that Charles would have a somewhat lesser chance of hitting anything smaller than a parish, so would not be surprised if it were all a stunt.

[Trooper117]

Quite possible... I've hit much smaller low flying target drones with a 7.62mm GPMG.

[Quintus Sertorius]

We are talking about a very slow-moving plane, slower than a Stuka. If you were able to mount bazookas on it and get a few practice shots so you could predict the impact point at a specific altitude, attitude, and airspeed, I think you could hit a stationary or slow-moving target. Firing a bazooka rocket from a diving plane ought to improve its range and accuracy over firing it from a stationary position. Certainly you would be vulerable to small-arms fire though. On the other hand, it doesn't seem likely that an MG42 gunner would squander his ammo firing at a plane. I would think ammo for that particular weapon would be precious.

It's interesting to think about, at least.

[Trooper117]

Taking into account the rate of fire from a WWII MG 42 (not the dumbed down versions that are in service today) the German logistic chain for any formation would pay particular attention to keep that ammo supply functioning.

I think it was in Guy Sajers book 'Forgotten Soldier' and James Lucas 'War on the Eastern Front' that I remember it being said that it was paramount to keep the guns fed with ammo.

[YankeeDog]

Taking into account the rate of fire from a WWII MG 42 (not the dumbed down versions that are in service today) the German logistic chain for any formation would pay particular attention to keep that ammo supply functioning.

I think it was in Guy Sajers book 'Forgotten Soldier' and James Lucas 'War on the Eastern Front' that I remember it being said that it was paramount to keep the guns fed with ammo.

True, but everything was falling short for the Germans by late 1944 when Lt. Col. Carpenter was doing his Rosie the Rocketeer hijinks. Food, fuel, artillery shells, 7.92mm was no exception.

There are accounts of infantry units going into battle with only a single belt of ammo per MG42. Fat lot of good that high ROF will do you when you can't feed it...

As a side note, it wasn't manufacturing enough 7.92mm (or any other caliber of small arms, for that matter) that was the problem for the Germans. Even after the war was over, there was plenty of ammo sitting around in warehouses. The problem was supply chain. The Germans never fully motorized their supply chain as the Allies did, and Allied air supremacy from mid-1944 on took a huge toll on the horses, trucks & locomotives necessary to keep ammo moving to frontline troops.

They actually did remarkably well considering the circumstances long as they were fighting in relatively static positions, as ammo could be cached well ahead of time. But as soon as the Germans attempted (or were forced into) a war of maneuver, supplies quickly ran short at all levels, and forward units found resupply rare, at best.

[Bulletpoint]

I really want the story to be true, but it just seems like a perfect propaganda stunt to me..

The lone American inventor using his personal ingenuity and bravery to beat even the best the Germans could muster (the psychologically important Tiger). David vs Goliath.

"The kind of fighting man I want in my army", said Patton. Well, soldiers, go out and do your bit, if Bazooka Charlie can do it, so can you!

Not sure if I buy the part about deliberately not firing on reconoissance planes either. If you don't open fire, the airplane just goes on to do more recon.

And those were before the days of GPS. When you're up there flying and suddenly bullets rip into your airplane, how do you know where they are even shooting from? The best you can do is return and say "I took a bit of fire around this sector. Could be 1 or a 1000 Germans, or it could be friendly fire".

If you get shot down then you won't have time to report much on the radio, and in the days before precise tracking, HQ would not be able to pinpoint the location you went down.

In any case, losing an airplane and (more importantly, a trained pilot) just for a vague idea that there might be enemy in a sector would be a pretty costly form of recon.

I think the most clever part of this propaganda - if that's indeed what it was - is that I'm pretty sure that the guy did actually rig bazookas on his airplane, and yes, he probably did take off with them. That's the part lots of people saw.

The system was probably perfectly functional. He would flick a switch and the bazooka would fire. It's just the part about actually using it in combat that I doubt. As far as I know, our only source for this is the man himself. Unless he had a camera on board as well to document his kills?

[JonS]

Not sure if I buy the part about deliberately not firing on reconoissance planes ...

FWIW, the British and Canadian Air OP pilots were largely immune to AA fire - the front tended to go very quiet when they were around because the Germans learnt soon after D-Day that, although the Austers themselves weren't terribly fearsome, they had mightily scary friends immediately available on call. And the planes were surprisingly hard to hit and knock down.

I assume the US L-4s had the same kind of effect, for much the same reason.

I agree with the rest of your post.

[Quintus Sertorius]

I guess I'm most interested in the functionality of firing a bazooka mounted on a recon plane. No way to test it...

...unless anyone here is a pilot and has a bazooka sitting around somewhere, in which case, what are you waiting for?

[YankeeDog]

I guess I'm most interested in the functionality of firing a bazooka mounted on a recon plane. No way to test it...

...unless anyone here is a pilot and has a bazooka sitting around somewhere, in which case, what are you waiting for?

Exactly what intrigues you? He basically strapped the tubes to the wing struts. His first set up was a crude mechanical setup that used lanyards running into the cockpit to trigger the bazookas. Later, he installed an electrical trigger system. Technical knowledge required could be attained in a high school level industrial arts electrics class.

As for how they worked when fired, the Bazooka projectile pretty much follows a ballistic trajectory; the rocket propellant is nearly burned out by the time it leaves the tube. So in a forward-firing setup from an aircraft it's like aiming any other unguided, ballistic weapon -- estimate range, account for projectile drop and wind, etc. Simple.

Simple, but not easy. As mentioned previously, I don't have any reason to doubt Lt. Col Carpenter made his aerial bazooka attack runs. There are numerous corroborating witnesses both on the ground and in the air and if the story were made of whole cloth, somebody in the know would have fessed up by now.

I just seriously doubt he caused anywhere near as much damage as some reports claim. Maybe he got lucky and destroyed a halftrack or two and immobilized one or two tanks somewhere along the line. But his official tally of 6 tanks plus numerous lighter armored vehicles and dozens of infantry I find highly doubtful. Maybe 1/4 what was claimed, or less.

This may also partially explain why he was never shot down. If the damage he actually caused was far less than claimed, the Germans were probably far less concerned about his attacks than they might otherwise have been, therefore finding it wiser to hide and avoid revealing their positions, rather than opening up on a low-value, hard-to-hit target.