LW Policy for Installing Gun Cameras

[Boomerang]

Gentlemen:

What was the LW policy for installing guncameras?

Much of the guncamera footage I have seen appears to be extracts from the Deutsche Wochenschau, taken for propaganda purposes. On the other hand, there is LW guncamera footage with 'film numbers' up to 9999, which suggests more common use of guncams:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0PjDEPnjq8g

IIRC, I did read about the LW using guncam films to assess the percentage of rounds fired which struck American bombers and the number of rounds needed to shoot down a bomber. And of course there are guncamera stills in books.

So, was it the LW's approach to use guncameras to gain operational intelligence, shoot propaganda footage, verify claims, etc?

Cheers

Don W

[George Hopp]

All of the above.

In his book, "I flew for the Fuehrer", Heinz Knoke mentioned that the propaganda people mounted a camera on his aircraft for combat footage. In 1944 the Germans began building aircraft with a mount for a gun camera. And there is a manual on assessing gun camera film issued in 1944.

[NickM]

Guys: I notice in several of the clips there seems to be a camera that starts to film before the guns start to fire & continues filming after the pilot ceases fire (for ex: the P47 portion); technically are those 'gun cameras' or are they 'something else'?

nm

[George Hopp]

The gun camera could be started either by the firing circuit (by pressing the trigger for the fuselage and wing-root weapons) or by a button on the throttle lever. Once started, the camera had an automatic cutoff at 3.75m (12.3 feet) of film. This permitted four film runs of from 43 to 57 seconds duration each. (This is from the 190 A-8 manual, others may be different).

[Boomerang]

Gentlemen:

Thanks for the replies. I particularly appreciate the clarification about why you see film being exposed when the weapons would not have been firing.

Don W

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi

Don't know much about the policy, the equipment seems to have been quite scarce, but some of the high-scoring aces did in fact send in requests for cameras in order to document their efforts.

Some installations were made, and luckily for those interested in the JG 5 an entire instruction film for attacks againts soviet and lend-lease aircraft were made from guncam footage taken by pilots in this unit (amongst them Ehrler and Müller). The entire installation of the guncam in Müller's Bf 109 F was in fact recorded by a photograph also...

Regards,
Andreas B