Me-323 massacre

18 machine guns !?!?!?!

That's allot of bullets flying around in the air.

A bit off math then:

16 Me-323 times 18 = 288 machine guns.

They could fight back those things on that transport.

 

I have a question, if there are only 5 crew, how are 18 MGs being fired?

 

That's a good question. I figure it would be three sets of six. I don't know whether these are in a row or in turn. This deserves to be checked. Could some Mg's be twinned for more fire power, or could more than one gunner fire from a same place? I really don't know, but considering the huge size of the cockpit I wouldn't be surprised if there are two or three sets of Mgs instead of one.

 

Here' an interesting site. Luftwaffe Resource Center, that mentions a Waffentraeger (Weapons Carrier) model that had 11-20mm MG 151 cannon and 4-13mm MG 131 Machine Guns, as well as extra armor and bullet proof glass. It goes on to point out that this version was discontinued in favor of providing escort fighters.

Wiki points out that the standard crew was 5 (two pilots, two engineers and a radio operator), and that later models had two additional gunners in turrets on the wings.

World War 2 Aircraft reports that the standard armament, with the two wing turrets, was one 20 mm (0.79 in) MG FF cannon in each of two turrets (one on each wing), two 13 mm (0.51 in) machine-guns in nose doors and five 13 mm machine-guns firing from the flight deck.

h-m-m-m-m-m..... 5 guns on the flight deck..... two pilots....

when the lead starts flying.....who's flying the airplane?????
(...boy, I'll bet there was a lot of yellin' goin' on up there!...)

..interesting...

-whatever

-Lou

 

I also focussed on a crew of five. When you take the pilot and the funker away , that leaves three men who could be used as gunners. Seven would have perfectly possible, but highly improbable, considering the heavy losses of the Luftwaffe: every man that could be saved for another purpose was welcome.

 

So double mg's it is then. Doesn't mean that all the mg's where in the plane. maybe 18 was the theoretical strenght.

 

I remember reading somewhere that most of the theoretical 18 MGs where fired from the side windows of the cargo bay by any troops the plane was carrying. So when transporting supplies the aircraft was more vulnerable.

 

agreed. 18 was indeed a theoretical fire power. It would have been impossible to use all of them, because of lack of menpower, but also because of the postions. Thanks for the indiciations as to the side windows Joe, that's what I thought too. The gunners were in a precarious postion there too to say the least, but since there were no turrets, it was probably the best place.

 

A good view from the Germans too. Sparing men off the luftwaffe by letting infantry-men shoot.

 

That pic abouve of the Me 323 with it's "wheels down" is normal. The 323s were converted from gliders and the landing wheels were fixed.

This whole story is actually the fabled Palm Sunday Massacre. I once interviewed one of th Bf 109 pilots, Fritz Stigler about that mission. The 8 escorts were not Italian but German from JG/27 and they did not cut and run when attacked. Stigler had escorted many transports to Tunisia without incident and overwhelming numbers of escorts were never employed.

The total number of transports of all types was about 100 including 16 Me 323s. Most were Ju 52s. They formation was intercepted about 10 miles off Africa by some 60 P-40s. Of course the 109s were targeted 1st so as to neutralize them. Stigler was real busy in the cockpit as the P-40s were everywhere he looked. He threw his 109 around to evade and finally hit a P-40 fin the wing root with a short burst from 75 meters. After some more fancy corkscrewing he caught a P-40 with a 3-4 second burst from 20 meweters in the belly.

Just then hit took their toll on his instrument panel and a hole appeared in the fright fuselage. He threw the plane into a spin and dropped away. The 109 had no fire so he leveled out and gained his bearings. He was a ways off from the main melee. If he tried to head for Africa he'd have to get into tha fight again and the rough running engine precluded that possibility so he headed back for Sicily. The engine quit 5 miles from shore and he made it the rest of the way in his dinghy with favorable winds.

Fritz corrected some of the fantasy that surrounds the mission. There were Bf 110s claimed and the Luftwaffe had ceased using them as day fighters. The business about Macchi 202s being in the formation was pure BS. Back in 1980 even the fact that the Me 323 Gigants were there was only relayted in one Allied telling of the story which Stigler thought odd.

 

Here is a picture of a gunner

 

Good info. THanks for sharing

 

Nice ! the profile answers all my questions, great pic of the gunner too!

 

Thanks glad it helped

 

The earlier 323s had more 7.9s than crew but they simply changed stations to fire as needed. When troops were carried loopholes in the sides allowed MG 34 gunners to add their weapons' fire.

The 323Ds added 2 13mm gun positions in the front loading doors. The Me 323E-1 and E-2 got rid of the 7.9s as they were too light. A turret atop each wing housed an MG 151 20mm cannon and 13mms replaced the aforementioned 7.9mms. One plane designated the Me 323E-2/WT (Waffentrarger or Weapons Carrier) was heavily armored witha crew of 17 mounting a total of 11- 20mm cannon and 4- 13mm MGs. Of course it was too slow for escorting anything......

 

Thanks for these additions Twitch. Do you know whether the 323E-2/WT was actually built or was this a project or a prototype? 17 men seems amazing. No wonder this idea was abandonned . It would have meant 17 casualties every time a 323 was lost...

 

THat was some nice info twitch thanks for sharing.

 

Says there was one Me 323E-2/WT built.

 

So we can consider this an abandonned prototype, probably too expensive for men and material. I suppose that considering the prize it was converted to a regular Gigant or used with less men. While I was looking for info in Lerche's book "Testpilot", I came accross several Me323 pictures, one attracted my attention : it was built was two propeler blades instead of three blades per propeller!

 

Nice picture skipper. Could you scan the picture into the Computer. THats interesting