Goddam that was epic. Nice sift.

Captain_Caveman is on a roll. Welcome to the sift.

Edit: And yes, that was an awesome sift.

lol nice , but it did seem like the majority of the German piolots were complete noobs. be nice to here the story from the other side.

>> ^westy:
lol nice , but it did seem like the majority of the German piolots were complete noobs. be nice to here the story from the other side.


"Wir waren betrunken."

Kudos where kudos are due...but the 109 was no match for the P-51D and it was very easy to outmanouver those ME-262s. They were very primitive jets with only speed in a straight line on their side.

Man, I love where computer graphics has taken us. Even a cable tv show has enough resources to bring such a great story to life, and show it in a way laymen like myself can understand. Wonder what the future holds.

Even if the events unfolded just the way Candelaria reported them, there's one small detail missing from this video: his enemies, the Bf 109s, were "Schulungslehrgang Elbe", a suicide ramming squad with pilots who barely knew how to keep the airplanes airborne and planes without radios, armor or armament except for a single MG131 with very limited ammo. The squad might have been led by Oberst Hajo Herrman, a bomber pilot and night fighter pilot - not a proper fighter pilot for single seater like the 109.

You'll notice how they are basically climbing straight up to the bombers. That's either inexperience or they had no time to set up for a proper attack. Normally, you need to gain the altitude advantage in a 109, so you can dominate the fight without resorting to turnfights. As for the Me 262s: they could have easily outclimbed the Mustang, despite his initial altitude advantage. They played his game instead of forcing theirs upon him.

The defensive formation described as the circle was practiced by Bf 110s when they were used as escort fighters, because they were not nearly maneuverable enough to engage Hurricanes or Spitfires. Thus they resorted to a defensive formation, rendering them utterly useless for bomber protection. If 109 pilots employ this "tactic", you know they are as green as they get.

By the way: the fight between Sonderkommando Elbe and the bombers took place over the "Steinhuder Meer", a lake not even 20km from where I'm writing these very words. A memorial can be found in Celle, about 30km from here.

A survivor of the unit, who didn't take part in this sortie though, is Dr. Fritz Marktscheffel, who was active every now and then on Luftwaffe-Forum.de while it was still online.

>> ^Engels:
Kudos where kudos are due...but the 109 was no match for the P-51D and it was very easy to outmanouver those ME-262s. They were very primitive jets with only speed in a straight line on their side.

Can't leave this uncommented, sorry.

The Bf 109K4, deployed at the time of the engagement, outclimbs and outaccelerates the P51D at almost any altitude and has a similar top speed at high altitude. If used correctly - only BnZ, no TnB -, it can dominate the Mustangs. G6, G10 and G14 could hold their own as well. Even though they were inferior, to say they were "no match" is oversimplifying and/or exaggerating. Most Luftwaffe fighters simply had a different flight profile than the others.

Same for the Me 262 - keep to BnZ and no piston engine fighter will stand a chance. Unfortunatly, it's a luxury you can't quite afford if you have to shoot down bombers as quickly as possible, because they are already over your territory. Mustangs could easily outturn them, but they couldn't catch them either unless they started with a significant altitude advantage.

I'd give anything to be a WWII fighter pilot. The performance and capabilities of today's jets are amazing, but I don't think modern air combat would be as exciting or fun.

continued... (part 5)

^thanks alzarin. Wanted to see the end! Good stuff.

Sorry, I left a link under my description called "2nd half: Conclusion". I'll have to make stronger reference to those next time.

Did anyone else have trouble with the sound?

Every time Candelaria talked there was this deafening clanging going on in the background.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, September 7th, 2009 5:06pm PDT - promote requested by MycroftHomlz.

This is a story not just about Candelaria's performance, but also about the enormous amount of work and ingenuity on the part of scientists to create his machine of war, and on the part of planners to get the pilots like Candelaria excellently trained and in the right location at the right time.

If you're near London, I suggest you hit the Imperial War Museum. They used to have the rudder of a Bf 110 on display the last time I was there (maybe 2004), don't know if they still do. It's not just any Bf 110 though, it's the plane of Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer with all the kills marked on it: 164 night sorties, at least 114 four-engined bombers destroyed (Halifax, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster). On 02/21/45, between 20:44 and 21:03, he shot down 7 Lancasters.

Just to illustrate that at night, even the cumbersome Bf 110, He 219 and Ju 88 could slice through bomber squads like cheese. It's a good thing that neither Messerschmitt nor Focke-Wulff nor Henschel could build a proper two-engined fighter like the Mossie or P38 or else the losses would have been even more horrible than they were already.

Fascinating.

Also I agree with chilaxe, all through the two vids I kept thinking how impressive those machines were for the time.

This is the kind of scenario you see in Wing Commander or Free Space, not real life! Amazing.

I want to downvote voiceover-man but upvote everything else. I guess I won't punish Candelaria for television melodrama, though.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:
Did anyone else have trouble with the sound?
Every time Candelaria talked there was this deafening clanging going on in the background.


I see what you did there.

I don't think anyone else got it...

>> ^direpickle:
>> ^MycroftHomlz:
Did anyone else have trouble with the sound?
Every time Candelaria talked there was this deafening clanging going on in the background.

I see what you did there.

It's a Candelaria massacre!

Wow, that was exciting. Totally gripping. Totally upvoted.

Awesome. Doubt there were only 8-9 planes in the Luftwaffe, but amazing sift nonetheless.

I used to watch shows when i was in america and one thing that drove me to absolute fucking despair was the frequency of the adverts. It felt like every 2 minutes there were adverts and then a recap to sit through which lasted 30 seconds so you only ended up with 90 seconds of content in every 8 minutes. Used to make me rage

Now, i watch shows that were originally on american tv shown on sky tv or such, and every few mins we get a fleeting black screen followed by a recap, cos we don't have the frequency of adverts

Great sift, many thanks for posting that!

Damn, the graphics look a little like IL-2 Sturmovik. Nice sift!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-51_Mustang

My "flight experience" is solely with simulators so devalue my opinions accordingly.

I always found the 262 to be too fast for dogfighting. It was great for hitting bombers which were practically stationary targets, but it was very difficult to get a bead on another fighter before you shot past them.

The P-51 is quite fast and powerful, of course, but not especially maneuverable. USAF craft generally weren't as agile as RAF and Luftwaffe craft, IMO. Of course, by the time the Mustang saw heavy service, the US was on heavy offense. It was necessary to sacrifice some maneuverability in exchange for increased flight range for bombing runs and escorts.

As for the guy at the end stating that the Mustang is the WW2 plane everyone wants to fly, I say "fuck no." Give me a Spitfire XIV any day.

^Appropriately devalued, thanks.

Now if only Americans could make automobiles that are better than German ones...

/obligatory