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Unsloved history-Who killed the Red Baron

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Has anybody seen this before?I never thought about it but when you put your guns on the cowl it vibrates so badly that the aim point jumps as much as a foot and add to that the torque effect the fact that the pilots were ever able to hit anything is amazing.The planes were flying around 100mph is what they were saying is average speed.

Oh yeah..now they are saying that Brown didn't shoot him down but that he was killed by ground fire.

If you modelled the real effects of the gun fire everyone would scream how it's almost impossible to hit anything.It seems only about 1 in 10 shots over 150 yards hit,and they tried to get as close as 30 feet before they fired.

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If its the same show that was out a year or two ago, yes I have seen it. MVR was supposedly shot through the chest? IIRC. Hard to say without direct forensic evidence...even then an aircraft is capable of rotating about three axes so how can you conclued exactly where a bullet came from?

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(S!) ALL hi ;-)

 

Who killed the Red Baron?

 

I did!… :yes:

I kill him every time I play FE… :biggrin:

Skin loaded #1 on the Dr1… :biggrin:

 

 

your friend in the FE sky

v. Deutschmark

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Was it on, or is it to air soon?

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was on the other night..I was thinking that if someone modelled a flight sim that was real how EVERYONE would be screaming how it was almost impossible to hit something and they needed to mod it to make it easier.

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Well, the flip side of that is planes in reality took far fewer hits on average to be shot down or at least knocked out of the fight. For every "miracle plane" with 100 holes in it there were numerous others that went down after just a burst or two.

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Oh yeah..now they are saying that Brown didn't shoot him down but that he was killed by ground fire.

 

Actually, they've been saying that since I was a kid (about 21 years ago). Story I heard was that Brown shooting him down was a load of old bollocks and that it was groudfire from Sergeant Cedric Popkin from 24th Machine Gun Company, A.I.F. If it was, it was a lucky, lucky shot. But we Aussies have traditionally had more ass than class so it's possible. :blink: Experts say his death was caused by a single .303 round and that he only lived for a short time after being hit; Time enough to land in a nearby field. Unfortunately, it doesn't get much scruitiny here as there's a sort of nationalist belief that there were a tonne of things accomplished by Australians that the British took credit for because we were "colonial riff raff".

 

Personally, I don't want to get involved in who shot Mr. Burns other than to say, if it was Brown, it must've been a stray shot as MGs have a tendency to mince their targets. Or if it was ground fire, it must have been a very lucky shot. Like I said, more ass than class. :yes:

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Well, in for a penny, in for a pound then... Since the Aussie has spoken I better chime in for the colonial view from across the pond :smile:

 

Brown was Canadian, so am I. We have much the same problem as our colonial brethren down-under (but at least you had your own airforce in WW1); Canadian accomplishments in WW1 are generally lumped under "British" deeds. There is obviously a lot of pride in the GWN [Great White North] in the actions of Canadian war heroes like Brown and Billy Bishop, so the continuing debate/debunking Brown as victor in that dogfight will be on-going... well, at least from those who care...

 

Whether machine guns "chew up" targets I think depends on the context: stationary gun will riddle the target to confetti yes; moving gun in 3 dimensions vs. moving target in 3d = no big surprise that only one bullet from a burst can hit a pilot... Afterall, its not like one bullet is immediately behind the other, and not likely the Red Baron was flying level and steady in a dogfight...

 

RE: whether FE models damage and MGs realistically? I think it is doing a fine job. I have "hard" settings (except targeting & HUD) and have found the range of damage expression to span, well, the gamut: I have shot AC down with literally one bullet (lucky pilot hit) and other players have reported similar things from their AI flights (1 bullet 1 kill in stats screen), yet also I have come across "Kevlar" planes where I pump drum after drum of Lewis and belts of Vickers to no avail... and again others have also said they've seen that. So, I see no problem...

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Well as far as shooting down planes in FE I tend to wait till the wingspan from the plane in front of me just about fills the screen and go for the pilot head shot kill.... less armor on that leather helm he is wearing.

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Brown was Canadian, so am I. We have much the same problem as our colonial brethren down-under (but at least you had your own airforce in WW1); Canadian accomplishments in WW1 are generally lumped under "British" deeds.

Bloody Poms always taking credit for our deeds! :tongue:

 

Whether machine guns "chew up" targets I think depends on the context: stationary gun will riddle the target to confetti yes; moving gun in 3 dimensions vs. moving target in 3d = no big surprise that only one bullet from a burst can hit a pilot... Afterall, its not like one bullet is immediately behind the other, and not likely the Red Baron was flying level and steady in a dogfight...

A very good point actually. I made a bit of a generalisation and damn your Canadian logic making a lot of sense! :blush: You're absolutely right plus, I was also thinking of explosive rounds. And since cannon weren't fitted to WWI aircraft that I know of, that makes the ground fire theory seem even more flukey! :grin:

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Well as far as shooting down planes in FE I tend to wait till the wingspan from the plane in front of me just about fills the screen and go for the pilot head shot kill.... less armor on that leather helm he is wearing.

 

I hear you! But of course that ain't always possible when you've got several NME AC around--you take your best shot when outnumbered, sometimes any shot, when you get it... I seem to be pretty lucky with leading deflection shots lately...

 

As far as filling the screen, do you mean your computer screen? :blink:

 

SayWhat [my favourite pub in Toronto is named C'est What]: NOT trying to inflammatory here, but "POMs", I always thought that meant "Prisoner of His/Her Majesty" which referred to some [most?] of the Brits "relocated" to Aussieland, no? Thus I've heard Brits refer to Auzzies as such... [man, maybe I'm putting my foot in it here...]

 

WikiLink Actually both perspectives are mentioned here, maybe Wiki is trying to be PC...

Edited by B Bandy RFC

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I hear you! But of course that ain't always possible when you've got several NME AC around--you take your best shot when outnumbered, sometimes any shot, when you get it... I seem to be pretty lucky with leading deflection shots lately...

 

As far as filling the screen, do you mean your computer screen? :blink:

 

SayWhat [my favourite pub in Toronto is named C'est What]: NOT trying to inflammatory here, but "POMs", I always thought that meant "Prisoner of His/Her Majesty" which referred to some [most?] of the Brits "relocated" to Aussieland, no? Thus I've heard Brits refer to Auzzies as such... [man, maybe I'm putting my foot in it here...]

 

WikiLink Actually both perspectives are mentioned here, maybe Wiki is trying to be PC...

 

I saw the documentary also, for the first time last night, and whilst it made fascinating viewing with regards to restrospective forensics and the amazing methods of detection displayed in an effort to come to a conclusion, I couldn't help thinking in the broader context that it's strange that anybody would wish to take credit for actually killing someone. It could be argued that the intransigence of politicians killed the Red Baron, along with millions of others that had no part in the original argument......( I'm having a realistic moment).

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Who killed von Richthofen?

A bullit, this is sure. Who fired it? In Germany it is common to think it was groundfire. But perhaps he was hidden by a plane. Who know.

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Many years ago, I read a book by an author named P.J. Carisella, called, I believe, "The Day the Red Baron Died." If I remember correctly, it contained a diagram drawn by British doctors at the time which showed the path of the fatal wound. It struck him in his lower right ribcage, traveled upward, struck his backbone, deflected, and exited his upper left ribcage just below his left nipple. It actually lodged against a wallet he carried and was recovered by the British, according to the book. The book convinced me that it was a ground gunner who killed him, probably Cedric Popkin, because many ground observers said that the Red Triplane flew on for quite some time after Brown's Camel fired its one quick burst and sailed out of sight. The Baron would have had to have been in a steep turn, or Brown would have had to been at a lower altitude for the bullet to have struck the Baron this way if fired air to air. It took him a few moments to die, that's why many ground observers on both sides of the lines said he appeared to crashland, when, in fact, he struck the ground at about a thirty degree angle, crushing his face. And it was because of this misinformation that his friends and compatriots in JG-1 spent an agonizing afternoon and evening waiting for word from the British that he had been captured, but when the news came, it was the worst.

 

Why was Roy Brown given official credit? According to Carisella, politcal pressure to award the kill to the newly formed Royal Air Force, because it was considered fitting that they should vanquish their most famous and formidable foe. Brown's report is reputed to have said, "I fired at a red triplane, that was observed to crash by Lieutenants Mellersh, and May." As Carisella pointed out, neither pilot, being heavily engaged, was really in a position to see, especially May, who was at low altitude, and high speed, running for his life. Carisella claimed, right, or wrong, that many a confirmation of a kill during the war was more of a gentleman's agreement than an actual confirmation.

 

I apologize for the graphic nature of this post, but I think we sometimes forget the men we're talking about and what they suffered. This one was a hero, whoever killed him. A hero who continued to fly in combat after a grievous head wound in July of 1917 that never properly healed and caused him chronic, and often debilitating, headaches for the balance of his short life, which ended in a few final moments of agony over the Somme Valley. A hero, who, according to the books, told the Kaiser himself that the man in the trenches can't go home, how can I....

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