MovieChat Forums > The Blue Max (1966) Discussion > gunS were jammed?

gunS were jammed?

posted 16 years ago by TerryThomasPhotos
4 replies | jump to latest

Wait a minute!

I can understand one gun jamming but BOTH at the same time? That doesn't make any sense. Certainly the airplane's guns did not have a common ammo feed. So why would one gun jamming stop the other from operating? It just doesn't seem to make sense.

Are there any WWI German fighter airplane experts out there who can say if one gun jamming would stop both from working?

Thanks.

Terry Thomas
Character Actor and Film Unit Stills Photographer
www.TerryThomasPhotos.com

[–] slokes 16 years ago

That's a very good question, Terry. The guns's internal mechanics were interlocked for purposes of synching (so they could shoot through the propeller without shredding the blades), so perhaps either one's jamming affected the other.

I was wondering if Willi maybe fixed it before they left the ground, to keep the pilot from shooting down any planes. But as his wingman, that would have been borderline suicidal.

[–] HenryCW 16 years ago

Willi would never have done that because in the film he was of the arrogant but honorable type. I think your first paragraph might be the answer. The machine guns were synchronized to fire through the propellers, and thus a fault in the interruptor gear could have caused the guns to stop firing. Also, it might just happened that both guns jammed at the same time. Machine guns appeared to jam quite often, as we learned from the pilots' reports.

[–] slokes 16 years ago

Yes, that makes a lot more sense, HenryCW.

[–] deadlypen 8 years ago

It was possible to fire either machine gun independently (at least on German aircraft). Experienced German pilots sometimes chose to fire just one gun to 'persuade' enemy fliers to jink away from the stream of bullets and steer towards a point which provided the aggressor with a better angle of attack.