ARR and guncamera

There was a sole ARR victory against a Junkers Ju 188, made by Cpt. av. Lucian Toma, on Sept. 25, 1944. However, I doubt this is a still from Toma's gun camera (if it existed), as his 'Gustav' was also shot down and crashed nearby the Ju 188, in the vicinity of Cluj/Kolozsvár.

Col. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 09, 2004 02:54 am

DENES

What is your feeling about the acft......I cant opt for the JU188 theory at all .the photo may be distorted due to the g forces and vibrations as well equipment performance....it looks like a P-38 but itsnt ...it could be a PE-2 and I dont agree with those saying is a CB-2 or SB-2 Tupolev's had different shapes....could it be a UFO who confused Roumania with area 51 ,a SR-71 who went through a time machine or just anything of the above ?

After all you are the expert

Alex

Another suitcase, another room...
Polish K-28 guncamera under Potez 25 upper wing.

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...and film from training fight.

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Interesting shot Woj! The one showing a Polish guncamera under a Potez 25 upper wing...
I am inclined to think that the photo showing the twin-engined machine from behind is from some sort of practice against bombers. The aircrat does not look very much like a Ju-188, for it has a much smaller canopy. I think it is a Ju-88. With the fighter pilot playing the "hunter" and the bomber's playing the "hunted", as C-2 said.
As for the events described by Dénes, I too think that it would be a tremendous coincidence to have found a still from Cpt. av. Toma's... it is nearly impossible and we can rule out the hypothesis of a Ju 188 altogether.

Ruy

If I'm not mistaken,I heard from Gen Dobran that Toma Lucian's plane was found totaly distroyed and burned.
The film couldn't survived.

I've followed this "puzzle" topic for a few days already because it's an interesting riddle for any WW II warbird passionate.
I didn't find the Ju-88 solution satisfactory and I tried to 1) enhance the pics a bit (the 1st one is almost unusable, though, and besides I'm not quite sure that the pics are of only one plane) and then 2) run the European Air War sim (a versatile, cool-looking and quite accurate simulator IMHO) and see which plane model featured by the game resembles the most the 2nd, more recognizable photo.
And, lo and behold, the most similar plane there is the Me-410.
I could post the Ju-88 photo experiments, but I guess it'd be too lengthy a demonstration. To make a long story short, I ruled it out because I found that the Ju-88 body is too long and has too large a diameter for an observer to see simultaneously both the engines with both their upper and under-sides from a 7o'clock-and-almost-horizontal point-of-view. Also, the engines on the Ju-88 aren't as large relatively to the rest of the plane as the engines of the plane in the photo.
I must say that aside from the Me-410 there could be another somewhat possible "suspect", the Hs-129, but the EAW doesn't have it and also the Hs-129 profile doesn't have the prominent cockpit that stands out in the original photo.
Below is the result of my experiment, to be taken cum grano salis

This post has been edited by valachus on December 11, 2004 12:46 am

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Nice resurch but but look at thouse bomb racks under the right wing, they are the same as JU-88, Me 410 did not have such racks.

Also check the elevators & vertical stabilizer: at 410 they meet in a different place, in the real picture they meet lower.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on December 11, 2004 09:37 am

Look and compare, but notice the fact that the light comes from diferent angles, so the wings and the tale reflec it diferent.

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Cip...is indeed a JU-88 undoubtedly , just a shaken photo due to poor gun camera performance ......speed, eventual g's etc

ALex

Fine, fine, it's a technical KO for you
EAW simply has not such detailed models. Above anything it didn't have the Ju-88 upper engine canopy prominent enough.
External bomb racks could be found on the Me-410, warbirdsresourcegroup.org mentions that it had external racks or gunpods and that "Rarely does any aircraft show a versatility in armament arrangements equal to the Me 410, which had over 140 different permutations ".
But the photos are beyond any doubt.What program did you use, Il-2 or a CFS variant?

This post has been edited by valachus on December 11, 2004 11:21 am

I used IL2 FB AEP PF

Guys, what made me think of a Ju-88 possibility were, in the first place, the big engine nacelles, secondly, the underwing bomb racks, placed between the nacelles and the fuselage, and, last but not the least, the big horizontal stabilizers and the ventral gun station.
Nice thread!

Ruy