arisaka 7.7

[d-o-k]

Welcome to the guide Roudy . Yeah you've got to wonder about those Anti air craft sights ? Who ever designed them was a great optimest !(or a bloody idiot )

Dave

[versifier]

I have heard three firsthand accounts from WWII vets about hitting lowflying aircraft with small arms. All three were from the ETO and involved German fighters strafing at very low levels. Two saw the pilots killed with shots fired from Garands, and one destroyed controls of the airplane hitting it in the wing with a load of OO Buckshot from a trench gun. The shotgunner, no longer with us, was one of the best wingshots I have ever seen and if anybody could have done it, he was the one. I have never heard personally of any instance in the PTO that involved a fighter on either side getting hit by small arms fire, but only a fool underestimates what a trained Marine can do when he has to (and never more than once). Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but neither have I been actively trying to find the stories. I suspect that the sights were some Japanese pencil pusher's idea of a poor man's antiaircraft gun. They have them in every government, that's why our troops are carrying 9mm's instead of .45's and get no training with them whatever in their use or maintainence.

[Mosko]

The "AA" wings on the Japanese rifles are basically designed to allow for the "leading" of the flying aircraft.

The notches, are used depending on how high the aircraft is. The general idea was (by the Japanese), a straffing aircraft, will make several passes at a fairly low altitude, and a constant speed. Therefore, the wings are calibrated for that general condition and the balistics of the 7.7X58mm round.

You can see that an American aircraft for instance making 2 or 3 straffing passes on Japanese troups, then subsequently several hundred of the troups firing at the aircraft on pass number 2 and 3, would yield some hits.

As a matter of fact, an old veteran that lives near here was a marine pilot stationed on the USS Bismark Sea. His group supported every Marine landing up until Iwo Jima when the Bismark Sea was sunk.

He told me that after three operations including Iwo Jima, his plane had near a hundred small arms hits. One radio operator had been killed, and one bombadier wounded by small arms.

[mod586]

my gundoes have aircract sights,also bayonetw/scabbard