Tracer ammunition in aerial weapons?

[hanshauprich]

Part two:

Night Operations:
In the event of more than 300 rounds being fired from each gun of the rear turret, the top right-hand gun was made "safe" leaving three guns available for combat. It was considered that under reasonably light conditions, the small percentage of day tracer would not interfere with sightning, in which case the top right-hand gun could have been used. It was considered unlikley tha more than 300 rounds per gun would be fired from the mid-upper or front turrets.

Day Operations:
The 300 rounds of night ammunition in the top right-hand gun ammunitions tracks were removed befor the guns were used operationally. The first 300 rounds of each belt in the mid-upper and front turrets were removed and the tanks replenished with daylight sequence before the turrets were used.

Tracer Ammunition:
The points infavour of the discontinuance of the use of tracer were summarised as follwos:
a). The very reald danger of the gunner "hosepiping" tracer in the direction (approximate) of the fighter, disregarding this sight altogether.

b). In view of the adoption on the zone method of sighting, tracer ammuntion only served to indicate line accuracy. In the corkscrew this value was lost.

c.) It was considered that the use of tracer ammunition was so distracting, that with qyro gunsight Mark IIC, the gunner could not properly track a target with the moving graticule.

[hanshauprich]

Part three:

Bomber Command planes with 0.50-in Ammunition:
By No. 2 Group from 18th September 1942 onwards:
40% A.P., 40% Incend., 20 % Tracer

From:

17th January 1944: 3 A.P.I., 1 incend., 1 night-tracer

10th February 1944: 1 A.P.I., 2 A.P., 1 incend., 1 night-tracer

29th January 1945: 4 A.P.I., 1 night-tracer

30th April 1945: 100% A.P.I.

[Graham Boak]

After a combat of 7th August 1941, Kingaby (92 Sq, Spitfire Mk.Vb) commented that his ammunition had included no tracer, and if they had the results would have been much more positive.

[Dave Homewood]

A bit of trivia for you, tracer rounds were invented by New Zealander John Pomeroy, along with several other types of ammunition. See more about him and the equally intriguing Victor Penny on this old thread on my forum:

http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi...ead=402&page=1

[glider1]

Its worth remembering that tracer bullets often had very different ballistics to 'normal' rounds so they could be misleading. I have read that some units didn't use tracer until the end of the belt to indicate a lack of ammo. Others used tracer in only two guns (talking about 8 x LMG here) with the other six adjusted so they did match the tracers and the majority that had some tracers in all guns. It seems to be an area where some squadrons did their own thing.