Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire .50 Tracers Eliminated in WW II Planes

This is something I never knew. In WW II, the Army Air Force eliminated using tracer ammo in its Browning .50 machine guns as they distorted the vision of the gunners. From childhood on, I always heard "One tracer in every five rounds." Does anyone know if the "No Tracers" policy still exists in our air combat usage?? An interesting video.



L.W.

Interesting

The info I have read and heard from older guys that were ordnance personnel was that the tracer ammo was of slower MV than the non-tracer ammo therefore was giving the pilots a false reading needed in the amount of lead required for deflection shots. From my passed away buddy who was an ordnance guy in Korea with the USAF and in charge of zeroing in the MG in the F-86 aircraft he advised that the 50s in the F-86 were driven by an electric motor and fired much faster than those say mounted on the turrent of a battle tank! As to the above comment reference to the false lead given by the tracers because of less MV....I'm inclined to believe that this is most likely bulls hit!!

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

Ron

Didn’t F-86 Sabres have auto ranging between the sights and the gun. Made a big difference in whichever plane it was put into.

Ron

I believe the F-86 had a radar gunsight as mentioned above. How that worked I don't know, but it must have helped out guys shoot down those MIGs.

Tracers also weigh less the longer they burn. They're not gonna track with FMJ.


Okie John

Not directly on point, but the muzzle flash from the 23mm and 37mm cannons in the MiGs blinded the pilots. Probably worst at night.

Heckuva good video, LW!
I hadn’t given it much thought about the ballistic differences between AP and Tracer, but it makes a pile of sense!
During my service in the Army from ‘85 to ‘89, we fired the M-2 (Ma Deuce) from an ammo can, and every 5th round was a tracer. I know this because they often caught the dry grass of Yakima Firing Center on fire! Several times some Range Officer would yell cease fire, and we’d all go down range to put the fires out!😀
From a tripod or a ring mount, they were always fun to shoot!😀
I hadn’t really considered that the lighter tracer would fall off from where the heavier AP were going.
Reon

Cool

I've read more than one fighter pilot didn't want tracers because the enemy would see them and know he was being fired at and would take evasive action.

Yes. This was a significant factor as well.

Tracers also tell the enemy where you are.

I never recall loading tracer rounds in an F-16, just standard TP and HEI. The A-10 guys do, but I never loaded those.

Puff the Magic Dragon (Vietnam) threw out tons of tracers air to ground. The guns, however, had side door mounts so were likely not affecting the pilot's activities. Guns are pretty much a waste of time and effort in modern fighters. They're rarely close enough to be of any use at all.

Tracers were loaded in the “tactical load” of our M-61s in the Tomcat when we were on cruise. I don’t recall what the ratio and/or other types of rounds included. The RTGS (Rube-Type Goldberg Sight😊) in the F-14A was terrible so tracers made a big difference.

We were also cautioned that if we had to fire an A-A missile at night, try to remember to at least close one eye.👁️ Our A-7 drivers were trained to do the same if they were firing the old Shrike or Harm at radar sites at night.

We attended a debrief by some Israeli fighter pilots after the middle east dust up in the mid ‘80s. Seeing all the gun camera footage vs missile firings, we were curious and somebody asked why so many of their kills were with their guns. Their response…”their enemy pilots were poorly trained and AIM-9s cost too much (about $250,000 at the time vs ~ $9 per 20 mm round) 😁

the USAF said the exact same thing in late 50's-early 60's when they spec. the F-4 Phantom with no guns ..In Vietnam against NVN AF using older planes ,they learned the hard way they did need them, missels not work good or they use all of thier missels , then they had to add guns to it .... guns another tool in the tool box ..when you need it ..you really ,really need it. the more things change ,the more they stay the same

I only had guns in fighter school. No tracers loaded there. As a FAC, the only tracers were those "inbound" and they helped me a lot more than the bad guys. I not only could judge how good a shooter they were, but knew exactly where they were. The ones who unloaded 30-round mag after mag and shot behind me were dead meat. The short burst guys who could put tracers ahead of me were "9-level" gunners and were bad news.

Interesting video, thanks for posting.

I saw something on the Military History Channel recently. They claimed that on SOME planes designed specifically for night fighting that they did not use tracers. IIRC this was in the Pacific. The US planes had radar and could locate enemy planes and shoot them down. But they were blind to the Japanese. Had they used tracers the Japanese could locate the American planes and make it easier to hit them with ground fire.