Pom Pom | Vickers' 40mm anti-aircraft firestorm
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ธ.ค. 2020
- The Vickers 2-pdr QF-VIII Pom Pom is one of the most distinctive weapons of World War II. Stacked in mounts of eight or four, the 40mm anti-aircraft autocannon served on almost every Royal Navy warship of the era. Here are its characteristics, requirements - and problems - according to those who served as gun crew and fire-control directors.
My grandad was a navy gunner based in Plymouth, he told me about having a stoppage on one of the guns whilst they were firing and being shot at, he hurried to clear the stuck brass using his bare hands to get the gun running again and it was only afterwards he realised he'd burnt his fingers. He didn't feel much in the moment due to the adrenaline. He also said recognition of planes was difficult and friendly fire was an issue. RAF pilots began dipping their wings on approach to signal to RN they were friendlies, but it didn't take long for canny Luftwaffe pilots to realise this and mimic the wing dipping move before opening fire.
To all these guys that took part in this documentary. This country owes you so much. Thank you x
Almost as much as you owe the Americans for winning the war.
The engineering that went into these weapons was incredible. All designed and built long before computers and CNC machine tools.
John Browning is underrated.. Multiple guns still in use from the 40s.. Think he made the 1911 as well?
@@mandelorean6243 yes. I prefer his last pistol design that his assistant and apprentice completed: the Browning Hi-Power 9x19mm Luger/Parabellum. He started the Hi-Power but he died before he could see it completed, leaving it to his assistant and apprentice, Dieudonné Saive to complete and perfect. He became quite an arms designer in his own right, developing the FN-49 and later the FN-FAL
Even more incredible is that Hiram Maxim designed the original 1-pdr pom-pom already back in the 1880s. This in part explains why also the 2-pdr used a rimmed case that required extraction backwards from the belt and consequently a very complicated feed mechanism with the ensuing the problem of case separation mentioned in the video. Why they never went to a rimless case that would have allowed a much more simple, robust and snag-free feed mechanism and would have lightened the weapon as well is justa as incredible.
😅
My father was a gunner on the pompom on HMS Indefatigable. He passed away in October aged 95.
Sorry to hear... thanks for his service there... my father passed away in 2013... served on a destroyer escort in the pacific.
@@johnbattista9519 Thank you they were the greatest generation and we will miss, but remember them
Total respect!
may we all live to such a grand age but may we never see the things they saw
Brave Warrior RIP🤘🇺🇸🤘
5:10 Old scouse accent there. I grew up listening to men like this through the 60s to the 80s, good solid working class accent, I go into Liverpool now and struggle to understand what half of people are saying nowadays, and I grew up and lived on a Liverpool Council estate.
God I miss that generation of people.... both men and women.... absolute salt of the earth.
Thank you for keeping these recollections alive. Utter respect to the people who lived through that time.
These were the reason for my dear old Dads loss of hearing, bless them all.
Roger that! What will happen the next time the free world is in crisis? Oh yes, it is now.... from what i can see, the latest batch of spoiled soy boy latte sipping punks arent anything like this, our greatest generation
@@brianshook3289 you guys weren't the free world then. Not when 99% of the adults in the British Empire didn't get to vote.
@@brianshook3289 You have a either a poor view of the current generation or a vaunted view of past generations. I would put my money on the younger generation. Give them a worthwhile cause, explain it, and they'll be every bit as good as any previous generation. It is leadership that counts - that us, the old and the wise. To bad mouth the young is to admit failure and give the reason for the failure in the same breath.
@@graemesydney38 Today's kids would do better at defense not because of better skills or higher bravado, but because the weapons of today are orders of magnitude superior to the guns of WWII. One computer-guided round of ammunition today is far more effective than 1,000 dumb rounds blindly thrown up into the sky of yesteryear.
@@danielch6662 if the colonies of any empire got a vote, it would not be an Empire. The clue is in the name.
But how bad was that really? People from all over signed up to fight for their empire. If it had not been for them, the empires would have quickly become German owned.
My Dad was a gun captain/layer of a 4 barrelled pom-pom on HMS Quadrant. He wrote down his memoirs before passing away in 1992.
Hi Tony is your dad's memoir an extensive one say 70 to 80,000 words? I can help you get it published if you are interested, let me know :)
how many planes did he shoot down
@@kingsman3087 none that he owned up to.
@@timjonheath thanks for the offer, but only about 40,000 and incomplete, as he died before finishing them.
Did your dad ever speak about the noise? How did these men not go deaf for the rest of their lives with this level of sustained fire??
The guy on the far left at 5:35, I believe is my Grandfather Frank Edwards known to all aboard Furious as either Bungey........naval slang for cheese - since he loved the stuff, or grandad lol as he had joined as a reserve well before the outbreak of war, and at that point in this pic was a married man with two young daughters and nearly ten years older than the rest of his crew. He served on Furious for the entire war from the declaration right up until she was paid off for scrapping, the stories he told me many many years ago when I was a young boy about life aboard her will live with me for ever, I hope when my great reckoning arrives as it surely will I can be considered even half the man him and his brave shipmates were.....rest in peace Grandad you did your "bit" proudly.
Nothing but absolute respect for one of this these islands greatest generation's,wife's family had 5 members serve in WW2 ,4 of which were in the Royal Navy ,her father saw action in the Salerno landings ,that's as much as we could coax out of him ,he absolutely did not want to talk about it.RIP all those brave men and women.May the Good Lord go with them all.
My Uncle Charlie was a pompom gunner onboard HMS King George V, he remembered in particular the kamikaze attacks off Okinawa in 1945..
Hugely informative. So much malicious nonsense is written about these pom-pom guns today, that you'd think they didn't work at all. The truth, from these gentlemen's accounts, would tend towards a middle ground, where there could be problems, but if the crew were on top of their game they worked and they did a vital job.
The staggered firing and use of discrete selector switches too - amazing machine and great guys who manned them.
Many thanks for the upload, AC.
As an American, I'm fairly familiar with the Bofors. I've seen many images of the pom-pom, but very little information. THANKS for putting this video together!
Apparently, pom-pom was rejected by the US Navy in favor of Bofors.
@@fadlya.rahman4113 It was said in a 1993 obituary of a senior British naval officer that top people at the Admiralty had been quite happy to fit British warships with inferior anti-aircraft guns because it suited Vickers' interests. The same officer stuck his neck out to get them to fit the superior foreign Oerlikon/Bofors types instead. Who knows if business pressures saw the fitting of .303s to R.A.F. bombers instead of (say) .50s that might have evened the odds a little against cannon-armed German fighters?
@@fadlya.rahman4113 the Bofors was the superior weapon and unlike the pom pom they DID make hits in fact they were the main aircraft killer in the pacific
@@None-zc5vg clearly untrue naval regulations are struck
@@None-zc5vg the 303’s were still a Browning design but were more readily available over the .5
Thanks for this. Explains why there are so many videos of pom poms not firing all barrels.
I heard a sailor (engineering) heard "Action Stations" they paid attention. When the 4 or 5 inchers fired they made sure their life jackets were on. When the 40mm fired they knew they were targeted and tightened their helmets. When the 20mm fired they braced for impact.
"In the Mediterranean range was measured by AA ammunition rather than fuel." That statement says it all.
Which explain why British carriers often have to refuel in Pacific campaign, but boy, do they shrug off kamikazes attacks like nothing. Attacks that could cripple a US carrier at the time, barely left a minor ding on British carrier.
@@muhammadnursyahmi9440 eh. That's not actually true either. That's the often repeated story, by the British, but not true.
In the Pacific they were never subjected to the level of suicide attacks the american ships were. For example while the US fleet was hanging around Iwo Jima and Okinawa the BPF was mostly sent to raid Tiawan. A side show. It's also arguable that if they had more aircraft they could have destroyed those kamikazes on the ground or before they got to the carriers. That's a lot of what if though so who knows. What we do know is that several attacks the sizes of the ones that hit the BPF never got to the American carriers. It's hard to count attacks that didnt happen.
What we can say is the armored carriers were designed to resist 500 pound bombs. Most kamikazes had a hitting power double that.
@@navyreviewer I believe the British carriers were designed to take hits that just weren’t capable of being brought about by carrier born aircraft, plus I think hms victorious took a couple kamikaze aircraft to her deck and only a couple AA mountings were damaged. I mean, British carriers were designed with armoured decks for taking big hits and keeping smaller hits out all together, while American carriers from what I’m aware had completely unarmoured decks and even a single kamikaze could deal significant damage.
There’s all sorts of things to take into account here. But here’s the gist of both factions carriers.
British: Armoured, few but high performance aircraft, beefy AA armament, moderate range.
American: unarmoured, lots of aircraft w range, strong AA, long range.
Both capable of similar feats in certain areas, some others lesser or more so than others. But for simplicity it’s British survivability vs American quantity.
@@splatoonistproductions5345 yes, British carriers were indeed armoured against bombs that could be carried by land-based aircraft as they were built to operate in the Atlantic and the Med where they'd often be in range of land. Fewer aircraft was also a consequence of choosing to store all a/c below the flight deck as Atlantic storms could have washed any up top overboard.
@@navyreviewer “All USN fleet aircraft carriers built since 1945 feature armoured flight decks.” Says it all.
Remember reading in Destroyer Captain of a pom pom crew who hit 2 or 3 aircraft, the last one crashed into the mount and killed the gun crew.
In his next ship the pom-pom was replaced by an all singing all dancing radar directed Bofors which never hit anything.
( My memory may be in error, I read this thirty years ago, but still have the book somewhere
So nice to see an in-depth video on the Pom Poms. As a kid, I always enjoyed seeing them in action in old war documentaries like The World at War.
That said, whenever I see a 4-barrel Pom going at it, I “see” the cannons on the Millennium Falcon - LOL
That's an interesting point - I wonder if it did influence Lucas as we know he was using a lot of real WW2 footage as placeholders until the final scenes were filmed
@@73North265 Many of the original models were kit-bashed from WW2 models so there are bits of German tanks and B-29 parts stuck together. I think the original concept for the Ty-fighter was a rear transmission from a truck kit with some floor plates stuck on each end :)
@@73North265 yes, he straight up copied lots of ww2 vehicles, air and land, of course he'd do the same with weapons
@@solofilmproduction ah touche' about the rear axle, its a dead ringer
My grandfather was a quad pompom gunner on HMS Manchester.
My Grandfather, as a young Midshipman, had his action stations at a Pom-Pom in the Med. He recalls that, once, the gunner with the joystick control became paralysed with fear and was firing blindly into the sea. What a waste of ammo my Grandfather told me!
Heard a similar story at Midway, Halfway through the battle, the crewman handling the elevation controls undid his buckle and said it was a good day for a swim and jumped overboard.
Thanks so much I always admired the Pom Pom as a kid in the fifties . Good to see them again.
The incredible work of Dr Smith with such realistic sound added after this film was shot which was silent.
The testimony about the GRUB is golden. Super rare stuff!
I used to live in Edith, SE London, and an area near me was called the Pom. It was Vickers test site for the Pom Pom guns when they were test fired outside he factory, all the residents heard the PomPomPom of the gun!!
A very fine documentary, with prime source accounts..
The story about the human torpedo is incredible.
The photo at 17:01, I believe, was taken on the bridge of HMS Euryalus during the second battle of Sirte in the Mediterranean. My father served in the RN throughout the war and was in the magazine on that ship in that battle. He told me about the POMPOMs when I was a kid. I seem to remember him referring to them as "Chicago Pianos," or some ush thing. Anyway, I enjoyed the video. Thanks for making it.
The U. S. Navy sailors referred to their prewar 1.1-inch quad AA mounts as "Chicago Pianos" as well, which were replaced as quickly as possible as the Bofors and Oerlikon light AA guns became more available.
The subject is awesome. I think that you were trying to do kind of minor effect of pushing the Veterans's voices hard panned but it is distracting at least to me. You might want to consider a remix. Those guys over there in the Royal Navy; tough. Strong. They gave everything they had to protect Britain. God love them
To be the crew of the turretless/unarmored gun mount in a cold/hot Cramp open space and the only protection they had for the gunner is a thin piece of sheet metal only for protection/shield against splinters (some didnt even had gun shield) in an air attack required such a huge balls!!
Respect to all pompom gun crews..
Thank you for your service all the old sailors speaking, well all old service men and women, but especially Tommy Cockram you make my old Scouse heart proud lad, god bless you, god bless all of you.
@MichaelKingsfordGray And you sir, are gratuitously rude, irrelevant and off topic.
Great stuff. Nice to see detailed work on Pompom.
Great stuff. Always liked the look of the pom pom
looking at the pictures and not a single ear cover to be seen. its amazing they let these poor lads have so much noise inflicted on them
Imagine firibft the pompom after rum ration given out
Pretty much all of them ended up with hearing loss, but hey I'll take that over being blown up.
Saw a couple of ear covers under the flash protection. Maybe the men used ear plugs.
The history is beautiful, the lads wonderful.
My great Uncle was a gunner on the Laforey class Force K destroyer HMS Lively Able Seaman Jack Tweddle. I have always wondered what gun he would have manned. This video gives a brilliant thorough picture of the guns and the role of the gunner. Thank you.
Thanks to all the brave men 🙏 and there family for their service.
Excellent piece, didn’t realise they had a cut out. I was surprised to see that they had tracer as I thought that was one of the criticisms from the Prince of Wales sinking that without tracer the pilots pressed on.
The thing is, nothing was uniform. Different mounts were of different vintages. And ships were in such demand that gun/radar modifications and upgrades were usually partial jobs rushed through during brief visits to suitable ports. And the UK had massive stockpiles of old 2pdr ammunition. These were largely languishing in the colonies ...
@@ArmouredCarriers One of the reasons the swedish navy disliked pom poms in the twenties was that shell and casing often parted during loading. I was amazed when i learned that the problem persisted in dec -41.
wow great history and technology of a great generation here.Great show!
0:50 That's some quality audio mixing. Archive footage is perfectly centered between L and R channels, and the interviewee's voice is L only. Truly a stellar mark of competence.
The survivors of the POWs (Prince of Whales) complained about that lack of Tracers in protecting the ship from the Japanese because seeing the tracers would drive them off
Prince of Wales. Wales is a country. Whales are large marine mammals.
Prince of Whales, lol
Thing is, Prince of Wales' gunners shot ahead of the Japanese aircraft, which was standard if they had tracers, which was hoped to discourage the attack runs. However, the Japanese couldn't see the tracers and kept flying, plus they were already trained to ignore tracers and keep on their attack runs even if there were tracers flying past ahead of them.
@@Kaga184 the heavy AA guns (134mm I think) shot ahead of Japanese airplanes, the 40mm shot directly at the aircraft but still tracers would have been useful
@@Kaga184 being trained for something and going through it as planned are two very different things
Pom poms, my old may was on one, only spoke a bit about it, had a few keepsakes which where allowed in those days a 303, the night time torch with a cross type pattern. War screw with their heads, and I wish he never had to go through it, ship got sunk and that was one of his worst times
God bless all our brave servicemen and service women
Thanks for this excellent documentary. Great work.
My late father served on HMS Barfleur, Black Prince and Anson, he said the single barrel Pom Pom was the worst, always had a sledge hammer next to the gun to give it a whack when it jammed which apparently quite regularly
The swedish navy bought a few, got fed up with them and asked Bofors if they could something. Bofors did something.
@@stefanspett7790 and apparently, the US Navy caught wind of that, and the rest is history
@@muhammadnursyahmi9440 Indeed. The poor pom was still a very good medium AA weapon for its time (for God's sake, the German 37mm was a *single shot* weapon), but the Bofors was better.
That said, as for the original commentor, for all their possible shortcomings in AA, the British have the USA squarely beat in one very important field: ship names.
Hermes. Invincible. Black Prince. Basilisk. Ark Royal. Dreadnought.
What do we have? "Ronald Regan." "George Bush." "Gerald Ford." Just... ugh...
@@andrewgause6971 yeah, what happened to names like Lexington, Hornet, Enterprise, Intrepid etc? I think those names should be used for new US carriers.
@@muhammadnursyahmi9440 I miss those names too.
About 10:00 -- Regarding water cooling, it was a big oversight not to have a condensation system like the U.S. M1917 .30 cal MG had. The heated water's steam was drawn off and collected.
Totally get the difficulty of ID-ing aircraft from silhouettes.
Awesome video Jamie, thanks!
My uncle bill was a master gunner on a battleship before the war on The Hood and during the war on another battle ship no ear defence in those days....
I feel sorry for those blokes standing in front of the mount. The muzzles are 2 feet from their heads. Ouch.
Thank you to these brave men .
Another great video and what subject matter! What we whinge about today and what they went through as hi-lighted on your excellent videos. We all need to learn from these. Cheers
@Armoured Carriers Really interesting. It is always fascinating to me to hear the men who actually used them talk about naval weapons. I would love to hear from some other guns crews, etc.
I'll tinker along. This is a hobby I try to squeeze in between work and family. But I'll keep going as much as I can.
I feel so honored listening to these dudes talking about their past lives at war.
Long ago I remember seeing an NHS form which made special reference to Pom Pom gunners and deafness.
What's always amazed me was how much stuff was thrown into the air but you never heard about anyone copping shrapnel coming back down.
proper documentary thanks x
I remember at school in Southsea during the 1960's, every so often we would hear pom-pom gun fire and it was the pom-poms at Fort Cumberland doing practice firings, with blanks, at a Hunter flying along the sea front.
This is great stuff! Thank you!
THESE were men of RENOWN!!!
Definitely one of the coolest looking AA
What a great video. Thanks
I could see a gun similar to these returning to the battlefield. With the increasing number of small drones being used, there is a need for explosive ordnance to be used against swarms of drones. Missiles are fine against larger and faster targets. Drones are unarmoured and by their small size and compact design are vulnerable to multiple damage points. Quad .50cals or these 2lbs guns are ideal. As they produce a large conical spread of fire, rather than a narrow direct point of fire.
Bofors has proximity fused shells, man portable lasers are testing for use against small drones
CWIS have made such weapons obsolete for many years. Can shoot down an artillery shell in flight with automated controls.
Drones are no threat to first tier armies. Vehicle mounted lasers and electro magnetic pulse weapons can easily sweep the skies of drones.
perhaps, but a large(ish) 30mm-57mm auto cannon is more likely for this type of threat these days. auto tracking and more importantly smarter ammunition would be the solution that'd be implemented in any well funded army.
auto fire control would make the aim easier, and the part that'd really be the key is proximity or timed fuse shells full of light shrapnel. scoring direct hits on something like a drone is a task not worth trying vs implementing a virtual antiair shotgun, where close enough... is actually enough.
now... an 8 gun pom pom mount with proximity shells.... yeah that's an absolute cloud of drone death
The 30 and 35mm you see on most modern SPAAGs are far superior and will lay a good blanket of fire while providing over 1500 rounds per minute.
Thank you
Excellent vid :)
I didn't realise you had a TH-cam channel, as well as the excellent website. I'm well-preased.
Glad you enjoy it!
My late father said he hated those things, actually didn't like his time on the big ships. Always preferred destroyers and below. When I came along he was on HMS Carysfort (D25) in Malta 1960.
At 2 mins….the man describing the interrupter levers is from South Bank, Middlesbrough, by his accent.
At 6:32 they had a nice belt going. Great picture showing the men feeding this "Beast" weapon.
8:15 excellent photo. Did this gentleman go on after the war. What was his name,any info would be interesting. Just curious ⚓old Navy family
I recently read Lt Com. Roger Hill RN book on his wartime destroyer exploits (HMS’ Ledbury, Grenville & Jarvis). On Ledbury (of Pedestal fame) he had this brilliant Pom-Pom crew who he describes as “rogues” whom he loved. They wore flat caps and football shirts and wanted to kill everything - including the helpless crew of a ‘79 they just shot down as they scrambled out of their sinking plane into their dingy. They moaned and bitched when Capt. Hill told them that they could “not fire on a defeated enemy!” Great book - highly recommended. Destroyer Commander I think it’s called.
Destroyer Captain by Roger Hill, I’ve just ordered it on eBay!
@@lesterbeedell9725 That’s it. I was lying in me scratcher and was too bone idle to go downstairs and find out! It’s really good though. He so down plays his role in Pedestal with the Ohio that you can’t help but like him a lot. Doesn’t do anything to alter my opinion that the RN is one big death cult, though.... When he talks about PQ18 - which is heart wrenching - he said he wanted to try and ram the Tirpitz! Nutter!
@@geordiedog1749 thanks for the Nudge!
If you liked that, I recommend Stand By For Action by Willy Donald who Hill regularly mentioned in his book (the incidents with the Ship’s boats being hilarious but Donald didn’t mention his side in his book sadly)
If you liked that, I recommend Stand By For Action by Willy Donald who Hill regularly mentioned in his book (the incidents with the Ship’s boats being hilarious but Donald didn’t mention his side in his book sadly)
Thank you. It`s been very interesting
You are welcome
I always loved the look of those insanely complex steam organs of death😎
great video ! thank you so much
I've never heard of pom poms shells exploding at range before. And without fuze setting? Was this self detonation to prevent live shells landing on friendly ships?
Yes. It was the dual purpose of reducing 'friendly fire' and providing a visual cue (before tracer) to the enemy that they were being fired at.
Best looking gun with the best name, but shame I have so few opportunities in life to mention pompom.
In 1968, we had two tracks which each had the4 barrel 40 mm pompom guns just outside our. 25 ARVN Div HQ in Duc Hoa, RVN. The artillery advisor could give fire orders directly to these guns which were used for indirect fire support to the riverine forces on the Vam Co Dong River. As the intelligence advisor, I could provide targeting coordinates to him to fire on the infiltration routes for NVA coming from Bha Thu, Cambodia. Loved to step outside and watch the rounds going skyward toward the targets I developed!
Sounds like 40 mm “Duster” units.
I had some of my fathers WWII plane ID books when I was a kid.
I'm a Kraut myself, but I love British accents, the Northen ones as well as Cockney.
Great video! Thank you.
The fella with the balloon was a bit giddy.
As a kid I saw a book Pictorial History of WW-II which had a picture of this.
My Grandfather (RN) called them 'Chicago Pianos'.
I have always thought of it as being a very underrated weapon system
Everyone compares it to the Bofor's, which didn't actually arrive in real numbers until 1944 for either the UK or US. The Pom-Pom was the best in service, automatic, anti aircraft gun for the majority of WW2. The Oerlikon was the only real competition for that spot, but for different reasons (cost, ease of production and numbers).
@@dogsnads5634 Bofors guns were also used by the German navy
@@dogsnads5634 Bofors actually made the Flak 38 for the Germans
Great video👍respect for the sailors👌
Wonderful video. Extraordinary amount of labour involved in keeping this system going.. Hugely impressive looking weapon but key question at the end... Did you ever hit anything?
It all goes to: It was a team effort. If you have a whole convoy escort group firing away with all weapons, continuously, you greatly increased the chance of hitting something. As to who got the kill, I can empathise with him. Not like fighter pilots squabbling over kills back at base. Not at all. Success at sea was clearly gauged by how many enemy bombs or torpedoes hit or missed and I think, from reading, that the key role of AA fire was in putting the attackers off and not giving them a clear, easy run in to their targets.
They could have done with a bunch of these in San Carlos Water in the Falklands.
The Brits took the 40mm cannon to the next level
Really awesome stuff. I always try getting my younger nephew's to watch this stuff,just for a few minutes if I can. They are just oblivious to history. Kinda scary. But unfortunately as the saying goes they will probably see it for themselves some day?! I pray not.
Хорошие видосы получаются, спасибо!
20mm Flakvierling 38, Pom Pom, and 25mm Japanese Type 96 triple are the most iconic AAA in WW II.
I think the 40mm Bofors is the most iconic, it’s even still being used today by IFV’s and AC130 for different purposes
@@MrOiram46 Because 40mm Bofors and 12.7mm M-2 are still being used actively, even today, I categorised them as "legendary AAA in history".
40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikon are also most iconic aa guns in ww2
Iconic? The Type 96 guns were the Yamato's undoing, even tho' she was retro-fitted with more. Too slow and too short ammunition clips that led to constant reloading. Crews got slaughtered out in the open by the first waves of US planes, of which they only managed to shoot down two (the others got caught in the blast when she exploded), despite there being swarms of targets and plenty of guns. The planes concentrated on one side of the ship, leaving it defenceless, then bombed it at will. Compare that with the "Turkey shoot", where hardly any Japanese aircraft got through. There seems to be a huge discrepancy between American and Japanese anti-aircraft performance in WWII. Apart from lacking radar and not realising their code had been broken, arguably the Japanese navy's biggest mistake was rubbishy AA.
บรรพบุรุษของพวกคุณแต่สุดยอดมากเลย
Good stuff. :-)
The first wave of aircraft attacking ships focused on heavy suppressing machine gun fire to disrupt or terminate AA activity. They won’t show the carnage on the deck that resulted from the strafings. Properly executed, the suppression fire by the attacking aircraft was devastating and could leave a ship largely undefended from the bomb attacks that followed.
Yeah I always thought they should have had some armor plates around the gun to protect the crews but maybe that would make the whole thing to heavy and it wouldn’t rotate fast enough.
That’s what the USN, RAAF etc did in the Pacific, once they had enough aircraft with enough cannon and machineguns to be able to do it effectively. But it took time and experience to develop the machines and tactics to do that. For whatever reason, it wasn’t a feature of German or Italian air attacks on RN ships but the Fleet Air Arm used it against Tirpitz in 1944, when Wildcats and Hellcats used their guns to soften her up before a divebomber attack.
@@DrCrispycrossthe Mitsubishi Zero had the big range to accompany the bomber, while a Messerschmitt barely had 5min for fighting over England. So the germans just didn’t have the fighters for strafing at the places their bomber needed to go…
They had proximity fuses later in the war (WW2) that detected, in real time, when the bullet is passing a target, which would blow it up, greatly increasing the number of hits. I don’t know if that is these guns or not.
From memory, VT (proximity fused) ammunition was limited to 4.5in and 5in guns at the time as 40mm projectiles - be they Bofors or Pom Pom - were too small to contain the components.
@@ArmouredCarriers I recall reading somewhere that postwar, a number of American ships had their quad Bofors replaced with 3"/50 or in a few cases 3"/70 guns in part because of the availability of VT fusing, as well as the better "stopping power." I don't think a proximity fuse for a 40mm came around until the late 60s or 70s.
@@copperlemon1 Thanks. My recollections were similar. I just haven't gone looking for the appropriate books yet ...
当時最高の対空砲ですね。手動でスムーズに動くのも凄い👍
I've always wonder what pros and cons were with the pompom ver the bofors.
I will do an episode on the bofors in the not too distant future.
@@soulsphere9242 I forget the source now but I did recall seeing that the RN did similar trials. Iirc they came down on the pompom over the the Bofor at the time (mid-late 30s I think) basically as it put up a thicker stream of shot up over the bofor. At the time aircraft were slower and less effective, so the longer range/harder punch of the bofor was not considered as necessary as just getting a good stream of shot up which would increase hit chances or put off the pilots from pressing their attacks closer. I think the idea at the time was that AA fire was more about disrupting attacks rather than expecting to destroy aircraft (hence barrage tactics from gun like 4.7”). Fire control wasn’t very good prior to the war. With faster and more dangerous aircraft, plus better fire control, the bofor became the better option. The Pom Pom mount became very heavy too (iirc as heavy as a destroyer’s turret), which also counted against it
Cab these pompom guns also be used as anti personnel weapon system?
The original 1 pdr (37mm) pom-pom was used as an anti-personnel weapon in the Boer War.
Decent Scouser Tommy.
🇬🇧I've always been impressed by the Pom Pom gun. An endless wall of lead .🇬🇧
Now they can make the fuses proximity fuses.
cool weapon
Grandaddy of the CIWS !! Brave men manned these AA guns and without any ear protection. That would have been something in those days. Respect & honour for those lads and officers who fought bravely .
Not providing the crews with ear protection was criminal.
@@golden.lights.twinkle2329 Agree. Guess it was a part of their job to suffer the noise. And no one was bothered.
@@golden.lights.twinkle2329 um sorry different days..,like espestos everywhere and then getting a lung full of cancer thirty years latter...
What purpose did the 'trumpet' on the barrels on some of the installations serve?
It's a flash hider. It designed to direct the muzzle blast forward and keep the gunners from seeing it so it doesn't interfere with their view of the plane they're shooting at and they aren't dazzled in low light conditions. The flash happens once the propellant gasses enter the cone and mix with the air, and the idea is that it'll have mostly burned out once it reaches the end where the gunners can see it.
You can see it if you compare 2:47 and 5:46. The second one, without the flash hider, has a much brighter flash when a barrel fires.
@@Ralph-yn3gr Thank you for the excellent explanation!
As it is approaching Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday (two days) I would like to encourage everyone to observe two minutes silence on Saturday 11th of November 2023 at 11:00am no matter where you are or what your doing, stop and pay your respects to the fallen and those who have,are and will serve their country, and again on Sunday morning for the Remembrance Sunday parade at the Cenotaph, show the world how much we appreciate our armed forces and civilian emergency services and respect everything they stand for.
What is the purpose for the flared muzzle?
Can anyone explain how they didn’t go deaf? They have virtually no ear protection in most of the footage.
Short answer, they did. Probably millions of veterans had hearing loss due to none or very primitive hearing protection.