The dude already had a light machine gun. What the hell does he need an assault rifle for?
No, this makes his plane worse.
An AK-47, or any other assault rifle, is not an especially powerful weapon, and granting each one 50 rounds means that Richtofen’s aircraft is carrying LESS ammo; if it has 4 AK-47s it can fire four rounds per cycle, but you’re blowing off your rounds in five seconds at the AK-47’s rate of fire. The AK-47 also has inferior muzzle velocity and the bullets are about half the weight of the 7.92 Mauser ammo German planes actually carried for their MG 08s, so it’s really no advantage at all in the destructive power delivered, and would make aiming harder.
Even if you figure out a way to feed way, way more bullets into each rifle the inferior ballistics will probably just be frustrating.
Bear in mind “More, smaller guns” is something tried elsewhere are which rarely ended up being an ideal solution. The RAF’s Spitfire and Hurricane fighters started with an armament of eight .303 guns, which was a lot of guns but the smallest weapons any major fighter mounted I am aware of… and they phased that arrangement out, with later models going to a mix of cannons and guns, or eventually (especially with later planes like Tempest) just four cannons. Four 20mm cannons offered far less ammo and rate of fire but was a clearly superior solution.
The assault rifle is a useful weapon because it is carried by a human, and weight and ease of use is absolutely critical in that situation. There’s a reason armies prefer to mount larger, often slower-firing weapons on vehicles, rather than a mass of M-16s.
Four AK-47? How about 88 PPSh-41 sub-machine guns?
Wrong war.
This is the greatest thread ever! Every post a fuckin gem. Except this one. Damn you, Lothar!
What if Samson had a modern-day assault rifle when he tangled with the Philistines?
And here, I was picturing his plane’s weapon loadout being the same, but him carrying an unmodified AK47 with him in the (open) cockpit. So he could, for instance, fly side-by-side with a Sopwith Camel, pick up the rifle, and manually aim it at the beagle flying the other plane.
IIRC, the first weapons on airplanes were in fact the pilots’ sidearms, used in much this way. And the pilot had to just be careful to not intersect their line of fire with their own propellers.
Just for the heck of it.
I think early pilots also threw bricks and chains at each other (hoping to damage the propeller or wings, more than the pilot).
Assuming the beagle was a complete moron and let an enemy just pull up beside him.
Well, true, but being able to aim in any direction one chooses would surely be an advantage over only being able to aim in the direction one’s vehicle is directly pointing.
The Baron had a significant number of victories that didn’t kill anyone - so he must have had some success in damaging planes instead of pilots
But you still have to fly the plane to “aim”, even if you are are firing broadsides. Even a dim beagle is going to be able to easily out maneuver a pilot trying to hit him from an unpiloted plane.
“I never get into an aircraft for fun,” Manfred von Richthofen once wrote. “ I aim first for the head of the pilot , or rather at the head of the observer, if there is one.”
Ace of Aces: How the Red Baron Became WWI’s Most Legendary Fighter Pilot - HISTORY.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
I am aware of the difference. I was talking generally about aircraft armament.
The fact that they stopped doing this and went to forward-firing guns would suggest it’s not worth the bother. Of course larger planes had gunners, but such guns were usually on mounts and used by people not flying the plane - and even then they aren’t as effective as fighters with fixed weapons.
One Version of the Hurricane had 12 .303 guns. I had heard a story, not confirmed, that a Hs 129 pilot thought it was hailing but it was rather a Hurricane with the 12 .303 shooting at him (and bouncing off his armor)
The Typhoon was originally going to do this as well. I don’t think that version was ever used operationally but some were definitely built that way.