[Milsurplus] tracers

[W2HX]

I had always heard that the ballistics on tracers was sufficiently different than the regular rounds that they did not provide a very accurate picture of where the real rounds were going. But that could be just an "old wives tale" I've heard.

-----Original Message-----
From: Milsurplus [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Hubert Miller
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 1:17 AM
To: Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Milsurplus] tracers

I think, useful as far as aircraft use. You want to see where your bullets are going, and you can't hide regardless. In fact, i believe in the last few weeks i read something where a gunner recounted exactly that, but i'm wondering where now ....i go thru a lot of publications. It just occurred to me this applies to surface vessel AA machine guns also.
I just looked at Wiki and FWIW it says the usual aircraft load was 1:4.  It also says that later in the war U.S. air gunners were emphasized to rely on the gunsights
rather than tracers due to an "optical illusion of hits" on deflection shots. ( I don't understand this. )   
I recall reading a Pacific War memoir recently where the U.S. Marines had tracer rounds set aside beside their holes, not using the  tracers for the same reason of not giving away their exact location. ( I can't recall that the narrative explained why they had tracers. )  The narrator grabbed some tracer rounds by mistake when reloading under attack and shot with a tracer round one attacker coming up on his hole.
-H

>We were always told, "Tracers work both directions..."

I still cannot imagine a scenario where one would need .45 cal tracers...

Not used in airplanes.

Ken

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