Your life in their hands?

[Red-Dog 3]

Ever thought what it must of been like for the poor fellow in the back seat? No control over what happens, you had to have faith in your pilot. So with this in mind i put my best bomber pilot in the back seat for the whole mission and it was a real eye opener.Try holding your aim while him up front is trying to lose an attacking fighter,you soon get a feeling of the bottle it took to be a passenger.

To all the brave soles who did this during the war i:salute:

[itifonhom 6]

As I already said in an other post, I simply wouldn't have all these guts to do anything close to to it!!! Those men, in the air, sea and land, in this war, they were all heroes in my eyes.

 

itifonhom

[Olham 164]

Yes, I did some observer tasks in the Roland.

You have to have a good stomach, to begin with (ever 'stood on the brakes' as some

wild car driver's passenger?).

Then, aiming at and hitting a fast scout coming in on you in a curve is very hard, and I never hit

anything, to be honest. And then, the last thing the observer could do for his pilot was to be a

living sandbag to protect him from the tracers.

 

Thinking of how they had to intrude deep into enemy terrain under lousy circumstances,

makes me feel really sad for these boys, who should have had their whole life yet to live,

but so often where butchered, burnt, or bleeded to death. Salut to them all.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

As I already said in an other post, I simply wouldn't have all these guts to do anything close to to it!!! Those men, in the air, sea and land, in this war, they were all heroes in my eyes.

 

itifonhom

 

Or indeed any War

[Blue781 0]

Thinking of how they had to intrude deep into enemy terrain under lousy circumstances,

makes me feel really sad for these boys, who should have had their whole life yet to live,

but so often where butchered, burnt, or bleeded to death. Salut to them all.

 

Yes I do also agree.. They truly were the knights of the sky.. It was sheer suicide and most of them knew it..

 

Salute to them all...

 

I was at the grave of Ernst Udet here in Berlin the other day.. (in a very nice Cemetary i may add.. Richthofen was there up until 45 in which they were afraid of russian army vandalism so they moved him somewhere else..) Quite an eerie experience knowing how great of Aces both of them were.. I should go and take some pics and upload em here.. well see

 

Another day over the trenches looms...

Edited October 3, 2009 by Blue781

[Bullethead 12]

So with this in mind i put my best bomber pilot in the back seat for the whole mission and it was a real eye opener.Try holding your aim while him up front is trying to lose an attacking fighter,you soon get a feeling of the bottle it took to be a passenger.

 

I've never had a plane stay in the air when I've jumped to the gunner position. What were you in?

 

I used to fly Fees a lot and still do occasionally. That plane is unique in that the pilot has no gun and has to rely his observer's shooting to accomplish anything. I figure it's something like what you did in reverse, but I look at it as teamwork. The AI gunner won't shoot if you're doing crazy maneuvers so you have to fly to a point where you can hold still for a few seconds for him to shoot, all the while being mindful that the guy you're chasing has friends....

 

To all the brave soles who did this during the war i:salute:

 

All combat is teamwork. Only superheroes can wipe out the enemy singlehandedly. I think the need to have somebody backing you up in a fight was the main thing that drove the development of so-called civilization. Why else would you tolerate being around other people, most of who are jerks and are extremely dangerous and unpredictable when put in large groups?

[Red-Dog 3]

I've never had a plane stay in the air when I've jumped to the gunner position. What were you in?

 

I used to fly Fees a lot and still do occasionally. That plane is unique in that the pilot has no gun and has to rely his observer's shooting to accomplish anything. I figure it's something like what you did in reverse, but I look at it as teamwork. The AI gunner won't shoot if you're doing crazy maneuvers so you have to fly to a point where you can hold still for a few seconds for him to shoot, all the while being mindful that the guy you're chasing has friends....

 

 

 

All combat is teamwork. Only superheroes can wipe out the enemy singlehandedly. I think the need to have somebody backing you up in a fight was the main thing that drove the development of so-called civilization. Why else would you tolerate being around other people, most of who are jerks and are extremely dangerous and unpredictable when put in large groups?

 

I was in a Rolland CII and we did crash after some Neup's attacked us but it was more the AI pilot than the Neup's that did us,he decided to do some low level aerobatics and mis-judged the height.......

[Olham 164]

Your last line explained well to myself, why I hate being in groups.

In groups, it seems to me that there is an unspoken common agreement

as to lower everyones IQ to the lowest one present.

Also, a lot of chain reactions are triggered in groups brain cells, which often

lead to results, you'd later be ashamed of.

In other words: to be in large groups, you best get drunk before.

[Check Six 2]

Bad enough being a rear seater at any time, as you would have no notice of when you were about to turn unless the pilot gave you the heads-up over the intercom, but if you didn't have an intercom...and if you were evading the enemy...nauseating! But the gunner here would be, for the most part, a passenger in straight and level flight. Imagine being in the rear seat of a stuka! One minute flying straight and level, the next, your heart and stomach contents are in your mouth, diving at 90 degrees vertical.

 

From the fly leaf of the biography of Hans Ulrich Rudel, highest decorated combatant of the Axis side in WW2, who was THE Stuka virtuoso. Astounding figures. Imagine being HIS rear-seater!

 

As far as Rudel goes...the most highly decorated soldier of German Forces in WW2 had, at war's end...

"519 Soviet tanks (17 of them in a single day) and among others, one battleship, one cruiser, one destroyer, 70 landing craft, 9 attested aircraft, hundreds of motor vehicles, numerous artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft positions, as well as armoured convoys and bridges. Twelve comrades - six Stuka crews - were saved by him from capture or death. When he tried to rescue another crash-landed crew in 1944, he was taken prisoner, fled with a bullet in his shoulder, covering 50 km through Soviet hinterlands, and reached his lines. Shot more than thirty times by ground fire - never once by a fighter plane - wounded 5 times, the fervent sportsman took a direct anti-aircraft hit and lost his right leg. Just six weeks later, despite being forbidden to, the stump of his leg still bleeding (he flew with a four x two taped to his stump so he could operate the rudder) he was back in combat."

"Rudel takes the place of an entire division" Field Marshal Ferdinand Schorner. "What a shame he wasn't wearing our uniform" Pierre Clostermann.

After the war, and with an artificial leg, Rudel became the first man to scale the peak of the 6920 meter Llulay-Yacu in the Andes, the world's higest volcano. (That's just from the fly leaf of his biography by Gunther Just).

A truly remarkable man.

 

 

[Flyby PC 23]

I'm fairly sure it was Cecil Lewis in Sagitarius Rising who put it in perspective. Despite all the danger they faced, pilots often slept in their own beds and got regular leave back in Blighty. The poor sods in the trenches were his heros.

 

Under fire night and day, seeing mates blown to bits and / or sinking in the mud. Gas attacks, shrapnel, and the ever pesent threat of being buried alive, eaten alive by rats or lice, or ordered over the top to walk into the murderous machine gun fire.

 

All things are relative, but if I was an Observer in the back seat, I'd be busy navigating, or keeping my eyes peeled for bandits, but under my breath, I'd be counting my blessings too...

[Bullethead 12]

From the fly leaf of the biography of Hans Ulrich Rudel, highest decorated combatant of the Axis side in WW2, who was THE Stuka virtuoso. Astounding figures. Imagine being HIS rear-seater!

 

He wrote an autobiography that I've read--ripping yarns. Anyway, early on, he had a rear gunner who was quite a character; laconic and unflappable. But this guy was shot down while riding with another pilot fairly early in 1941, and after that Rudel doesn't mention his gunners for the rest of the book.

[Rickitycrate 10]

I've gone up as observer a few times. It is a whole new game to assume that role. I use a USB gamepad instead of my flightstick when I do this.