[Milsurplus] Fwd: Re: tracers

[George Babits]

For starting fires the military uses incendary rounds.  I once bought some 
surplus 303 British ammo and about half of it was incendary.  They had a 
rebated tip and were filled with white phosphorous.  Instant flame when 
exposed to air.  I think a lot of the machinegun belts for the aircraft 
alternated between AP, tracer, and incendary.  The British stuff wasn't 
color coded, but the US stuff was.  In the 50 caliber tracer was brown or 
orange; AP incendaty was red or silver; incendary was blue.  Unfortunately, 
they mixed up the colors from lot to lot so you also need to know what 
particular version the stuff is.  The color coding also varies for different 
calibers.

Regards,
George
W7HDL


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Gentry" <ka2ivy at verizon.net>
To: "Milsurplus" <Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 11:27 AM
Subject: [Milsurplus] Fwd: Re: tracers


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> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] tracers
> Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2017 13:25:43 -0400
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> Wouldn't tracers be good for setting fires? If an infantry soldier fired
> them into a vehicle and hit the fuel tank or line, it should increase
> the chances of starting a fire. Likewise for firing them into haystacks,
> barns, gas stations, and other buildings to quite literally smoke out
> the enemy. It would probably be equal to tossing a match in the window,
> but under the right circumstances that can be quite effective.    Bruce
>
> On 3/14/17 12:12 PM, W2HX wrote:
>> 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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