Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 21, 2023 21:28:26 GMT 12
This is interesting and something I'd not heard of. Does anyone knw what these lights really were? Is the story true? From the New Zealand Herald from 21st of May 1940.
AERIAL WARFARE
FLYING SEARCHLIGHTS
GERMAN EXPERIMENT
DOUBT CAST ON VALUE
[From OUR OWN Correspondent] LONDON, April 30
British pilots visiting Germany have commented on the contribution to the decorative scheme of the enemy's air defences afforded by coloured searchlights. One theory is that orange or violet light penetrates clouds and mist more easily. Another, that it enables anti-aircraft gunners to identify friend and foe by painting their own aircraft in "sympathetic" colours.
Now there is a suggestion that the German Air Force has been experimenting in a new direction—fitting searchlights into aircraft. The idea is that the crews of night bombers could thus see their objectives from the air in spite of a rigid black-out. Alternatively, with searchlights fitted to fighter aircraft, defending pilots would be able to pick up hostile bombers even though they were not detected and held by the ground defences.
The idea of showing a powerful light from an aircraft in action is in opposition to accepted tactics of air fighting. A first principle, applicable to fighter and bomber aircraft alike, is to remain unseen by the enemy as far as possible. The orthodox method of illuminating a target from the air is by dropping parachute flares, while fighter pilots engaging raiding bombers by night can rely on the co-ordinated searchlight defences to light-up their quarry.
German ground searchlights have frequently been "doused" as a result of the fire of raiding British bombers, aiming their guns down the beam of light. And no German pilot is likely to relish advertising his exact location by shining a tell-tale searchlight in the presence of enemies, whether hidden in the darkness around him or on the ground below.
AERIAL WARFARE
FLYING SEARCHLIGHTS
GERMAN EXPERIMENT
DOUBT CAST ON VALUE
[From OUR OWN Correspondent] LONDON, April 30
British pilots visiting Germany have commented on the contribution to the decorative scheme of the enemy's air defences afforded by coloured searchlights. One theory is that orange or violet light penetrates clouds and mist more easily. Another, that it enables anti-aircraft gunners to identify friend and foe by painting their own aircraft in "sympathetic" colours.
Now there is a suggestion that the German Air Force has been experimenting in a new direction—fitting searchlights into aircraft. The idea is that the crews of night bombers could thus see their objectives from the air in spite of a rigid black-out. Alternatively, with searchlights fitted to fighter aircraft, defending pilots would be able to pick up hostile bombers even though they were not detected and held by the ground defences.
The idea of showing a powerful light from an aircraft in action is in opposition to accepted tactics of air fighting. A first principle, applicable to fighter and bomber aircraft alike, is to remain unseen by the enemy as far as possible. The orthodox method of illuminating a target from the air is by dropping parachute flares, while fighter pilots engaging raiding bombers by night can rely on the co-ordinated searchlight defences to light-up their quarry.
German ground searchlights have frequently been "doused" as a result of the fire of raiding British bombers, aiming their guns down the beam of light. And no German pilot is likely to relish advertising his exact location by shining a tell-tale searchlight in the presence of enemies, whether hidden in the darkness around him or on the ground below.
