I've often wondered about the literal fallout from dogfights and bomber interceptions. All that metal falling from the sky - just how dangerous was it? This is not about deliberate attacks such as bombing and strafing, but about spent ammunition from fighters and bombers hitting the ground. Reading about many air battles, I've never seen this issue mentioned. Googling produced this short thread, in which someone asked exactly the same question. Two examples of casualties were given, right at the end of the war. But surely there must have been more? On a related question, how dangerous is a round fired from an aircraft gun at, say, 20,000 feet - by the time it reaches the ground? Is it still supersonic? Or subsonic and tumbling? What if a civilian was hit by a .303 fired from a Spitfire at 18,000 feet? Or by a .50 cal fired by a B-17 at 30,000 feet? Cannon rounds would obviously be harmful from any altitude. As far as I know, though, German aircraft cannon shells were designed to self-detonate before hitting the ground. Nevertheless, there would still be shrapnel, both from these and from heavier AA guns. I guess my question boils down to this: If you stood out in the street to watch an aerial battle overhead (assuming they were not bombing your town), how much danger would you be in?
http://www.sonoma.edu/users/p/purser/Anth322/children's shrapnel.pdf Page 116 "Tales of injuries and near misses from falling shrapnel are remarkably common in the sample, including head wounds where shrapnel hit or pierced steel helmets (A2216963; A4040164). In Britain during the First World War the number of deaths caused by falling AA shrapnel almost equalled those caused by German bombing (Haldane, 1938: 17). With friends, neighbours, parents and teachers being killed and injured by falling shrapnel there is no doubt that many children were well aware of its very real dangers." The Battle of Los Angeles 1942 (please ignore the UFO aspect); The Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942 "In fact, the only casualties were caused by the falling shrapnel" 1939-45: World War Two on the Edmonton home front "Frank Clarke reports that during the blitz, the site later used for the Italian Prisoner of War Camp housed an Ack Ack battery and most nights when they fired, it was more scary than the bombing. A great source of shrapnel for the kids but too dangerous to be out during a raid. Ack Ack was the name given to anti aircraft gun fire (a hold over from WW1 and the use of Phonetic Alpha.) The aircraft on the receiving end called it Flak. A Battery of guns, usually 6-12 was very mobile and could be rushed to various places when needed. Special guns with a high elevation and handling about a 3 inch shell were guided by a crude sonic direction and optical range finder and the shell could be fused to explode at a certain height just before firing. The casing split into hundreds of pieces called shrapnel, potentially dangerous to planes and airmen. It was highly prized by us young schoolboys after a raid but during a raid it could be hazardous to be in the street. Hence the police, firemen and ARP wardens wore regulation steel helmets. Shrapnel also caused some damage to tiles and chimneys on roof tops." Iraq War; AP: Iraq war killed 3,240 civilians - aliraqi Community "Several surveys have looked at civilian casualties within Baghdad, ... by falling Iraqi anti-aircraft rounds aimed at coalition warplanes, ... was killed by shrapnel from a U.S. missile that tore into his living room." There are more - it would appear that it did happen, but not so much as most people stayed under cover. I have heard that an empty rifle calibre bullet casing could easily kill you if it hit you after falling from a plane at bombing heights, but couldn't find the exact reference. Here's a bit of 'science' about the issue; does a bullet fired into the air have the velocity to kill when it returns to earth? Hope this helps
This helps a great deal, Nigel! I have learned more in one reply than over years of reading. Thank you very much.
One would expect casualties from falling shrapnel. But, only the larger pieces (say over an ounce or so in weight) would really be dangerous as spent metal. Anything under that weight simply would be too light and moving too slow to really be dangerous. This means for your typical heavy flak round that there are about 50 pieces of metal that could do serious hurt to people on the ground. The USAAF did an extensive study of flak and discovered that high bursts were the least dangerous as most of the resulting damage was from falling shrapnel, just as it would be on the ground. Now, in terms of German flak there are instances of them firing box barrages using as much as 30,000 rounds in a matter of a few minutes in these. There is going to be lot of left over metal falling from that.
That's good information, too. Shrapnel, of course, is randomly shaped for the most part. So it will tumble on the way down, and this will limit its velocity. Same goes for bullets fired straight up from the ground - though it seems that it's undecided exactly how dangerous these are. There's some good information on a link from Spartanroller's link: Bullets are designed to be aerodynamically efficient. So, what happens if, say, a fighter aircraft armed with six .50 machine guns is diving onto an enemy bomber, and some of the bullets miss? Will they still be spinning and point-forward when they reach the ground? If not, how much damage could they do? The above article seems to indicate that even a tumbling .50 could be quite dangerous. I'm not trying to argue or disagree with anyone - I'm just speculating on a subject that has interested me for some time, but on which I've seen little information.
My only personal experience vaguely close to this is of 5.56mm rounds ricocheting roughly straight up in fairly large numbers from a slate covered hillside up which we were training. Many of them fell near us, everyone was quick to try to take cover even though there wasn't any, and one guy (me) had an averagely nasty flesh wound to the shin. Not lethal by any stretch of the imagination, but more than enough to make you want to get out of the way. and that was 5.56 that had already dumped most of it's energy in the ricochet. Another aspect to maybe consider is that AA shrapnel is very hot when it falls; http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/sep/07/share-your-blitz-stories and more from ww1; "kicked into a few minutes later, was a piece of shrapnel casing, and there is no doubt that the casualties from anti-aircraft-gun projectiles are very considerable" http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Zeppelin_02/Sharks_01.htm WW2 soldiers story; "The guys with me cut my pants open and told me it looked as if someone had pushed a pencil through my leg. It was a bullet from one of our own .50-caliber anti-aircraft guns that had gone through my left thigh" http://www.bensavelkoul.nl/Bernard_Haas.htm And another civilian one; "and concentrated anti-aircraft batteries firing at a V-1 often caused more casualties from falling shrapnel than from the V-1 itself." http://www.questia.com/PM.qst;jsess...Pyg2rk!1602411919!1771601890?a=o&d=5036251124
As an aside to this subject, contemporary stories of the Battle of Britain are full of civilians being 'machine-gunned by Messerschmitts'. Subsequent research has proven that the Luftwaffe really had little time during the Battle to go around looking for civilians to shoot at ; although they may have belived it at the time, civilians were in fact experiencing 'overshoots' from the aerial battles above. With regard to debris, writer Vita Sackville-West in her diary memorably refers to taking a dustpan and brush to regularly sweep the lawn of Sissinghurst Castle in Kent free of cartridge cases and links. The above doesn't apply to the much later 'tip-and-run' Fw190 raids where civilians were harassed.....
Britain At War magazine did an article on this problem in one of its early editions; over 7,000 civilians were injured or killed in the Home Counties during the BoB and Blitz up to the end of 1940. Spent ordnance and AA shrapnel was SO common, that it was a common game for boys to fish in ponds and firefighting cisterns the day after raids for choice bits of brass! A bit like scientists today looking for meteorites in Arctic and Antarctic snowfields...
In the era of massed antiaircraft gunfire spent metal would be an excellent argument for people to have something like a Robinson Shelter in their backyard. That is, a small "bomb" shelter that really doesn't protect you from a bomb but rather protects you from spent shrapnel better than a wood and shingle or tile roof does...
Depends on the country! British slate tiles were apparently quite tough - but European clay tiles would be far more fragile. Regarding protection from shrapnel/spent ordnance - the magazine article was liberally illustrated with pics of cars with their Blackout-whitened bumpers and runningboards....and doors and mattresses tied to their roofs!
This subject came up on another board, and a link was provided to "Hatcher's Notebook" which was referenced above in this thread. This reference has a "Section XX" titled "Bullets From the Sky" which addresses the issue in depth. A .50 caliber bullet was found to have a terminal velocity of almost 500 ft/sec on return to earth, obviously possessing lethal force. The book is subtitled: "A Standard Reference Book for Shooters, Gunsmiths, Ballisticians, Historians, Hunters and Collectors" "Hatcher's Notebook" can be found here: http://www.castpics.net/s...ssicWorks/default.html
Another lethal possibility would have been the larger AA rounds (88mm and above) where the time fuze malfunctions/doesn't go off, the projectile falls to earth and the contact part of the fuze still functions and explodes the munition!
