The .50 Cal VS Aircraft. My take . . .

A

Aqeous

New member
Generally the argument as I understand it is this: Taxing (and/or) taking off aircraft VS the 50 cal.

Now granted the big 50 is known as an anti-materials round, but an aircraft is far from an armored vehicle. It is composed of easily permeable aircraft aluminum. Even a .22 caliber rifle can pierce it's hull with ease.

The second argument is range: but the standard .308 cartridge can make it out to 1000 yards. As can every rifle caliber above it all the way up to the 50 cal. What distances are you worried about? Meaning at what range is a bullet dangerous to aircraft? 500 yards? 700 yards? Most any bolt action rifle (in any caliber) is capable of punching holes at that range. Not to mention hitting something the size of 747 is the literal equivalent of hitting the broad side of a barn.

Third: what kind of damage might we expect from a 50 cal hit onto an aircraft being that it has never before happened? When metal hits metal you get a hole, and in the case of the 50 you get a hole that is exactly 1/2" in diameter. If neither fuel or engine is hit what kind of damage might we expect? And if Fuel or engine is hit will a .511" hole be more devastating then a .338" hole that could theoretically be created by a standard Elk rifle?

Not every one is knowledgeable firearms and ballistics, but one could simply check out Youtube or watch the Mythbusters and learn that:

1.) Bullet Vs Gas tank does not = explosion unless you use illegal incederiary rounds. It doesn't matter what caliber you use. (propane tanks not included :) But there is no Propane on a 747)

2.) A hole in an Aircraft does not equal "explosive decompression" like you see on the movies. It just equals a hole . . .


I can go on and on but the fear of big guns and terrorism does not out way the rational awareness of those hunters, hobbiest, and collectors who simply no better. I do not own a .50 caliber rifle, nor do I have any plans to at this time, but I have always had a fascination with aircraft. Even as a kid I LOVED the airport. I could just watch them take off and land all day long. And I know that some paint ball guns have nearly the range necessary to tack blue botches onto the bottoms of Boeing 747's as they land.


I feel that these people are monopolizing and adding to the fears of a nation.

http://www.50caliberterror.com/ :mad:
 
Hitting airplanes aint exactly easy, but even when they are flying it's possible. A guy I went to tech school with says his Talon 2 got shot somewhere over the south with what was probably a 30 cal of some sort.
 
I could just watch them take off and land all day long. And I know that some paint ball guns have nearly the range necessary to tack blue botches onto the bottoms of Boeing 747's as they land.
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How, exactly, do you know this? ;)

I feel that these people are monopolizing and adding to the fears of a nation.
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I'd say your feelings are justified.
 
"How exactly do I know this?"



Lots of airport Time . . . and lots of waiting . . .:eek:

And just a little experience with paintball guns . . .;)
 
Wow, I didn't realize that I as well as all of you are just "one bad day" away from becoming a criminal....

Fortunately, in this incident, things turned out as well as they could. But an incident like this only proves that every "law-abiding gun owner" is just one bad day away from becoming a criminal.

http://www.gunguys.com/?p=2161
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Aqeous: 2.) A hole in an Aircraft does not equal "explosive decompression" like you see on the movies. It just equals a hole . . .
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Commercial aircraft leak like a sieve. They are only pressurized to the equivalent of 8,000 feet (I forget the actual pressure but it isn’t much) and it takes a LOT of air flow to keep it there. You could punch several holes without causing a problem.
 
OMG, there are model Rockets out there that pose more of a treat.

As a kid I had a Box Kite up to 2400 ft over a period of a week. The guys in skinny ties came and said to me to take it down or they would.

There has been people pointing lasers at air craft, Radio beams.

When is the last time you heard of anyone shooting at one with a .5o?


Side Note: They keep commercial air craft pressurized to about 8,000 ft. This is why you get tired. It subdues you. If the crowed is rowdy they will make it 10,000 ft........Say Good Night!
 
They're looking at the wrong hobby...

Funny, a rifle round that is used almost exclusivly by benchrest shooters is hyped as a "plane killer" when even in combat it takes many, many of these rounds from full autos to down a plane, and most of the sporting .50s are single shot.

Folks like me who are into 'spensive radio controlled toys know that you can buy, for the price of a good semi .50 and a lot of ammo, a jet powered model aircraft that can carry quite a "payload" and, unlike a rifle bullet, is controlable in flight. They even have guidance electronics and gyrostabilizers that were developed for anti-aircraft missles. Have you seen what people are doing with model rockets these days? Altitudes that show curvature of the earth with onboard cameras, speeds approaching mach 1, payloads that can certianly haul some serious ill intent.Thousands of r/c guys and a few other geeks to cover the stuff they're not so sure about could build a guided missle for around 5 grand. All of the technology is off the shelf now. Terrorists aren't as smart as we think.
 
The .50 BMG is one of the best "plane killers" ever!!!!

Just look at the thousands (actually more likely tens of thousands) of enemy planes "killed" by the .50 cal BMG during WW II !!!

After the first few months of the war, if it flew, and was armed, and belonged to the USA, it carried at least ONE .50 caliber machinegun. our fighters carried two, then four, then six, and some carried eight .50 caliber machineguns. Our bombers carried them too! Some of ur bombers carried over a dozen .50 caliber machineguns! Most tanks, many halftracks, some trucks, and even some jeeps carried .50 caliber machineguns for defense against airplanes! Even the most rabid nutball antigunner, and many, many, millions of sane Americans have heard of how our guys with .50 caliber guns shot down enemy airplanes! This is a propaganda windfall for the Anti's, because 60+ years of history have exposed millions to the fact that .50 cal guns are used to shoot down airplanes!

All the anti's have to do is leave out the (important) word "machine" in front of the word gun, and their statement is both historically and factually accurate. And lots of people, even those who have little or no interest in military history know that modern commercial airplanes are not built to be resistant to gunfire like military airplanes. So combine the two, that the .50 cal _______ gun is made to shoot down airplanes, and civilian airplanes are not made to withstand being shot, add in the Hollywood fiction of "explosive decompression" (which huge numbers of people actually believe), and millions will swallow the lie, hook line, and sinker! Because they know it is true!

And they know that today, .50 caliber rifles are being used by our military as long range sniper rifles. Mix this in, add some more Hollywood crap from bad movies and worse TV shows (all being peddled as if it was fact), and you have a huge predisposition of opinion in those who are uninformed and generally uninterested in the reality of civilian .50 cal rifle use and ownership.

Then add in the fatal flaw in democracy (and human nature), the fact that if you can convince enough people that something is true (especially when it isn't) they will act, and look to you for guidance and direction. And today, you don't even have to convince enough people, you just have to convince enough of the right people, the movers and shakers and the ones who write laws, and the ones who enforce the laws.

And the true history of the .50 BMG round makes for a difficult argument using the traditional hunting and self defense logic. The big .50 is defensible on pure 2nd Amendment grounds (after all, it ain't about duck hunting!) but many people don't understand, or don't accept the validity of that argument, and of course, the antis dismiss it out of hand, and do all then can to convince everyone else to do the same. "You can't fight them (a tyrannical govt), they have planes and tanks, and etc.,etc." So having arms to overthrow a tyrannical govt is a useless concept. How many times have you heard that, or something similar, whenever anyone mentions the true intent of the 2nd Amendment?

And that being the case (in their eyes), the only possible use for a .50 caliber rifle is as a terrorist weapon. There for, they must be banned.
They care nothing about target shooting. It isn't a valid sport to them. Olympic shooting is some kind of aberration, which they will barely even acknowledge, because it is an embarrassment to them, let alone offer any kind of support!
I am reminded of an incident reported a few years ago, a 16 year old girl, who was in the tryouts for the Olympic pistol team lived in California, and was having hassles, because the Olympic target pistol used in competition was, under CA law, an assault weapon. This was because the .22 semi-auto used has the magazine in front of the trigger, and under CA law any handgun that uses a detachable magazine, and that magazine does not go through the pistol grip is an assault weapon. She and her family contacted their state representatives, asking for help, possibly a variance for the (obvious) target gun. The answer they got back was cold, uncaring, and showed the typical elitist contempt for sports involving guns. She was told, in effect that, if she wished to continue to pursue this sport, she should move to someplace other than California.

The elitists (and I would put all anti-gunners in that group) just don't care, or they are actively against anything involving sport shooting. Try to defend the big .50 as a target gun and with them, you will get nowhere.

Using facts and logic usually doesn't get us far when dealing with anti-gun opinions, because the elitists don't respect you argument, and their dupes are operating on emotions, not facts. But that doesn't mean we can't try. If we can convince even one person to open their mind to the facts and not the emotional arguments, it is worthwhile. So go ahead, and when they bring it up, tell them things like the .50 caliber rifles weigh nearly 30 pounds and are very hard to use on a moving target like an airplane. That they are single shots, and the one semi auto is even bigger and heavier. That even hitting an engine or fuel tank is not going to "knock the plane out of the air", and even hitting the pilot (which is a pretty tough thing) may not cause an airliner to crash instantly. Tell them things like that, and more, so they can understand how the antis are lying to them, only telling them part of the truth, the part they want them to know. It might help. And be sure to tell them one more thing.

That, on September 11, 2001 a group of fanatics caused the crashes 4 airliners, and the destruction of one of the world's tallest buildings, and killed thousands of people doing it. And they didn't use a single gun. No .50 caliber rifle, no assault weapon, not even a cheap pocket .22 pistol.

And then ask them how a law banning expensive 5 foot long 30+ pound long range target rifles would have saved anyone that day.

Ask them if they think Indy racing should be banned because of drunk drivers.
Or if they should always eat cold food because arsonists use fire.
Or if we should get rid of the police because they beat Rodney King.
Or any other rediculous comparison you can think of, and see if they can actually get their mind to work, instead of just parroting what they hear. Remember, stupid people get the same vote as the rest of us.
 
A few years back, an Aloha Airlines 737 became a convertible in flight, losing a fair amount of the fuselage roof. Other than a few people who were not belted in and were sucked out the enormous hole, the plane landed normally (well, other than the obvious issue).

A .50 cal is no threat to downing an airliner. Even a direct hit to an engine wouldn't be enough, and that hit would have to be at landing or takeoff, when it would be low enough to even think about it. I'm not even sure a man portable SAM would have enough juice to shoot one out of the sky at landing or takeoff.

If a terrorist were truly serious about downing an aircraft, there are other more certain ways.
 
Just look at the thousands (actually more likely tens of thousands) of enemy planes "killed" by the .50 cal BMG during WW II !!!
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Puleeze! Has anybody watched the history channel, seeing those Japanese planes dodging everything from quad 50s, 20 mm and 40 mm Oerlikons to 5 inch guns? All these guns throwing tons of lead into the air while the planes dropped their bombs? If it was that easy we could have just sent a rowboat with a single shot 50 to guard Pearl Harbor. If it was that easy all our pilots would have come back as aces.
 
I am not ignoring all the other calibers

and I didn't intend to make it sound like it was a single .50 cal in a rowboat that took out the Luftwaffe and the Imperal Japanese air fleets.
Puleeze! Has anybody watched the history channel, seeing those Japanese planes dodging everything from quad 50s, 20 mm and 40 mm Oerlikons to 5 inch guns? All these guns throwing tons of lead into the air while the planes dropped their bombs? If it was that easy we could have just sent a rowboat with a single shot 50 to guard Pearl Harbor. If it was that easy all our pilots would have come back as aces.
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But when you consider all the enemy planes our fighters shot down, as well as those strafed and destroyed on the ground, and all the enemy fighters downed as they attacked our bombers, I think numbers in the 10,000 range might not be too unrealistic. Ok, several ten thousands is probably way too high, but considering things like during three days of battle in the Mariannas in June 44 the Japanese lost over 400 aircraft (one source says 426), and while I'm sure AA got a lot of them, I think the .50 cal guns of our fighters got their share as well.
 
44AMP, I agree that the .50 did a lot of damage. But I think that point folks are trying to make is the number of rounds it took to achieve it. Air-to-air was the best match-up but they were only a few hundred yards apart. And it took a fair burst to get the job done then. Surface-to-air was an entirely different story. I would bet that it averaged several thousand rounds per plane simply because they were so hard to hit. If you could land five rounds into an airliner with a semi-auto you would be doing amazingly well. And one of them would have to be a very lucky shot to hit something vital. It is highly unlikely and totally unworthy of the anti-‘s hoopla.
 
Just to confuse this thread further, the P-51 Mustang had the guns bore sighted to converge at 300 yards... The alignment was considered nominal when the shot pattern was about 3 feet diameter
(My father was the factory rep. for the engines on P-51's so I grew up immersed in this stuff)
But, the crew chief for each plane would set up the guns the way the pilot wanted... Some like convergence further out, some liked it in... Several aces liked their guns at 150 yards... They would fly right up the tail on the bogey and rip him up when they could count rivets... Richard Bong was a better shooter than he was an aerobatic pilot and liked his guns set further out.. There were some pilots who mainly strafed boats, trains, etc. and liked their guns to converge out as far as 1000 yards...
Also, the top shooters refused tracer rounds mixed in... If they missed a shot from behind they did not want the other pilot to see where the rounds were going and warning him which way to break...

As far as planes being thin skinned, of course they are... It isn't the skin that put them down from a shot, it was severed control cables, and hydraulic lines, and burning fuel tanks, busted engines, and dead pilots....

denny
 
My point is (I think)

That many people only take a little bit from history, and that is something the antis are counting on. We know how difficult it would be to actually shoot down an airliner (with anything), but a lot of folks are only going to hear "history, .50 caliber, shot down airplanes", and all too many of those kind of people will just fall in line and drink the kool-aid without any more thought.

The fact is that the .50 BMG rifles are virtually unknown to the non shooting public, except when they see them in some Hollywood fantasy, and when they do, it is almost always something bad being done with them. They are a niche in the shooting world, not well understood outside the gun culture (and sometimes not within), and so because of the historical link between the effective devastation that the Browning .50 cal machine gun has wrought upon our enemies, the .50BMG rifle is a vulnerable target for the antis to demonize.

I worked with and on the Ma Deuce when I was in the service, they are a fine gun, a true testament to Browning's genius. They have their flaws, but to date no one has come up with anything superior enough to cause their replacement. It will happen, it needs to happen eventually. but it should only happen when a new design that is actually worthy of it comes along. I clearly remember the M85 .50 caliber machinegun. That wasn't it.

.50 BMG rifles are target guns, and "liberty teeth" (although it would be kick a@@ if you could afford to varmint hunt with them:rolleyes:) without the general hunting and self protection uses that the less radical antis reluctantly tolerate. Look for them to be banned for civilian ownership (or at least restricted like machineguns) in the next AWB. Sad.:(
 
I think in a sense Barrett inadvertently gave Pelosi et al. an opening when he touted it's "anti aircraft capabilities" to the military (meaning you could shoot an enemy aircraft on the ground and disable it).

The anti-gun lobby neither knows nor cares that the attempt to shoulder a heavy bolt action rifle with a high magnification scope in order to properly lead an airplane at any distance is a fool's errand.

Downing aircraft is best accomplished over open sights with full-auto fire.
 
Old WW2 Aircraft used to pack 50 cal M2 Brownings in banks of 4,6, and 8. The military replaced the 50 cals shortly after Korea, because they weren't capable of quickly performing enough damage quickly end a dogfight. Thats why we use 20 mm gatling cannons with HE/Frag ammo.

"But but, what if the bad guy is using HE or incendiary bullets with his .50 cal rifle?"

Then he's breaking the law. He broke the law when he got the ammo, he broke the law when he started shooting at planes at the local airport, and he broke the law when he conspired to commit a terrorist act. Either way, he still won't manage to bring down an airplane, and making it illegal to own the gun, when he's already breaking so many laws to begin with, won't make a damned difference.

50 cal as an AAA weapon? I have a rifle in .303 British, the Brits had .303s machine guns on thier Spitfires and Lancasters, does that make my Enfield an AAA weapon? What about 30-06? the rear mount machine guns on SBD Dauntless dive bombers were chambered in 30-06.

The truth is, if you shoot enough holes into any aircraft you create the potential to bring it down. Considering the distances involved, you can hit a plane with almost any caliber of weapon if it is on final approach, directly over head, and you can generate a rapid enough rate of fire. So if you want to bring down a plane, you need a crap load of ammo, as many trigger pullers as possible, and preferably a large quantity of automatic weapons with high rates of fire patterned out for a crossfire solution. Even with those, I doubt you'll bring down a modern twin engine plane. The pilot is on a glide path home. He's going to get his wounded bird down on the runway. Even if you manage to FOD out both engines. What you really want is a Stinger Surface to Air missile.

So yeah,
Ban He/blastfrag/Incendiary projectiles (Check)
ban truck-mounted crew served-Gatling guns, (Check)
ban Surface to Air missiles (Check)
Arrest those who attempt to buy or use said weapons for the purpose of killing innocent people. (Double check)
 
I don't even think a Stinger (or any other man-portable SAM) has the ability to down an airliner on final approach. If the pilot lined things up well enough and the weather isn't horribly hairy, even blowing all the engines on the thing won't cause it to fall out of the sky. It will continue on its glidepath and land on the runway (but there won't be any go arounds). Small SAMs are IR guided, and as such, will go straight to the heat sources- the engines. They won't blow off wings, they won't explode the thing in midair- the warheads are too small (it would take a VERY lucky hit of some of the shrapnel through a fuel tank).

Now, one might be able to do that on takeoff, presuming the plane is so heavy it needs all engines in order to get to altitude, but even then it may well have the ability to immediately circle in for a landing (somebody who knows more than airliners than me needs to answer that).

Man portable SAMs just don't have the grunt to blow an airliner out of the sky. I wouldn't want to be in an airliner hit by one (the pilot had better be on his game), but we aren't talking about taking an SA-2 or a Patriot PAC-3 amidships, here.

Thinking that even a semiauto .50BMG rifle could do it is just plain laughable. It might be doable with a full-up M2, but even then it wouldn't work more often than it would.

If you want to create mayhem, downing airliners is a rather inefficient way of doing it. I'd think you'd have more luck going after other targets that don't move.
 
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