Aircraft ground attack using guns
Strafing
is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted
automatic weapons
.
[1]
Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such as fast boats, using smaller-caliber weapons and targeting stationary or slowly-moving targets.
[
citation needed
]
Etymology
[
edit
]
The word is an adaptation of
German
strafen
(
pronounced
[??t?aːfn?]
ⓘ
), to
punish
, specifically from the humorous adaptation of the German
anti-British
slogan
Gott strafe England
(May God punish England), dating back to
World War I
.
[2]
[3]
[4]
Description
[
edit
]
Guns used in strafing range in
caliber
from 7.62?14.5 mm (0.300?0.571 in)
machine guns
, to 20?40 mm (0.79?1.57 in)
autocannon
or
rotary cannon
. Although ground attack using automatic weapons fire is very often accompanied with
bombing
or
rocket
fire, the term "strafing" does not specifically include the last two.
[5]
The term "strafing" can cover either fixed guns, or aimable (flexible) guns. Fixed guns firing directly ahead tend to be more predominant on
fixed wing aircraft
, while
helicopters
tend to use gimballed weapons which can be fired in many different directions independent of the direction the aircraft is pointing in (in most cases, flexible guns on a fixed wing aircraft are for defense purposes only, although they can sometimes be used to fire on ground targets to limited effect).
Some fixed wing aircraft, like
fighter-bombers
, are capable of flying either
air-combat
missions or ground attack missions (
P-47 Thunderbolt
), while others are dedicated ground-attack types (
Il-2 Sturmovik
). In cases where an aircraft is capable of both types of combat, when it is assigned to a ground attack role, and thus expected to be using the guns mostly for strafing, the fixed weapons are often mounted so that the
convergence point
is lower and at a greater range than would be used for air combat. This is helpful because it allows the pilot to aim at a target without having to dive towards the ground as steeply, decreasing the risk of collision with the ground and increasing the amount of firing time available before having to pull up, and it also increases the range from the target, helping avoid
anti-aircraft
fire and potential damage from exploding targets. Consequently, several types of aircraft-mounted
gun pods
like the Soviet SPPU-22 allowed for a mechanical depression of their barrels.
Because of the low altitude and relatively low airspeed required for accurate strafing, it is very risky for the pilot, who is exposed not only to the risk of
flight-into-terrain
and obstacles such as power lines, but also to anti-aircraft weapons, including
surface-to-air missiles
(both vehicle mounted and
hand-held
), anti-aircraft artillery and small caliber weapons fire (such as
machine guns
and
small arms
). Planes purposely designed for ground attack may include additional
armour
around and underneath the cockpit and other vulnerable areas such as engines to protect the pilot and key flight components, while aircraft designed mostly for air combat tend to have most of their armor placed to protect directly ahead or to the rear, where fire from other aircraft is most likely, leaving them more vulnerable to fire from directly below or to the sides, where much ground fire often comes from.
History
[
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]
World War I
[
edit
]
While the earliest use of military aircraft was for observation and directing of artillery, strafing was frequently practised in
World War I
. Trenches and supply columns were routinely attacked from the air in the second half of the war. Strafing with
machine guns
was used when precision was needed (facing small targets), but non-strafing attack methods (primarily small bombs) were preferred for larger targets, area targets, or when low-altitude flying was too risky.
The German army was the first to introduce a class of aircraft specially designed for strafing, the
ground-attack aircraft
. Planes built specifically for strafing include the German World War I
Junkers J.I
, which was armored to protect it from ground-based gunfire. The Junkers J.I. had two downward-facing machine guns that were used for strafing.
World War II
[
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]
These developments continued through
World War II
with dedicated aircraft including the concept of the heavily protected cockpit or "bathtub" to permit the pilot to survive counterfire from anti-aircraft batteries.
The Luftwaffe's best strafing plane was the
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka
. The Ju 87 G variant had two Rheinmetall-Borsig 37 mm (1.5 in) Flak 18 guns each mounted under the wing.
For the RAF, the best ground attack plane was the
Hawker Hurricane II
. It was armed with four 20 mm (0.79 in) wing-mounted cannon.
[6]
The
Hawker Typhoon
and its derivative
Hawker Tempest
were used in the later stages of the war. They also had four 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons, while also being able to carry up to 8 "60 lb"
RP-3
rockets.
[7]
For the US, the
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
was one of the key ground attack planes. It was armed with eight .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns. Another aircraft that was important in that role was the
North American B-25 Mitchell
. It was used for low-altitude strafing runs in the Pacific War.
The Russian
Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik
was one of the key Russian ground attack planes. It had heavy armour around the engine, underside and canopy. It was armed with 20, 23, or 37 mm (0.79, 0.91, or 1.46 in) cannon, depending on the model.
[8]
An
RCAF
Spitfire
of
412 Squadron
piloted by
Charley Fox
strafed the command car of
Erwin Rommel
on 17 July 1944 near
Sainte-Foy-de-Montgommery
, affecting his possible participation in the 20 July 1944
Operation Valkyrie
coup.
Postwar
[
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]
In the
Korean War
(1950?1953),
US Air Force
planes strafed targets deep behind the front line and had a perceptible impact on the progress of the ground war, but the concept of strafing was already in decline.
In the 1960s, when
precision-guided weapons
became widespread, strafing temporarily fell out of favor as unnecessarily risky and some American
fighter aircraft
or
attack aircraft
(such as the
F-4 Phantom II
and
A-6 Intruder
) then did not have built-in cannon or machine guns. In the
Vietnam War
, that was found to be a deficiency, and improvised "
gunships
" had to be used in strafing missions. Gunships like the AC-47 Spooky, AC-119 Specter, and early models of the
AC-130 Spooky
gunship proved to be devastating defenders of besieged US Special Forces camps.
The
A-10 Thunderbolt II
is an American twin-engine, straight-wing
jet aircraft
developed by
Fairchild-Republic
in the early 1970s which is the only United States Air Force aircraft designed solely for
close air support
of ground forces. The A-10 was built to attack
tanks
,
armored vehicles
, and other ground targets with limited
air defenses
, often through strafing.
The A-10 was designed around the
GAU-8 Avenger
, a 30 mm (1.2 in)
rotary cannon
, which is the airplane's primary armament and the heaviest such automatic cannon mounted on an aircraft. The A-10's
airframe
was designed for survivability, with measures such as 1,200 pounds (540 kg) of
armor
for protection of the cockpit and aircraft systems that enables the aircraft to continue flying after taking significant damage. The A-10's official name comes from the
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
of
World War II
, a fighter that was particularly effective at close air support. The A-10 is the main US plane designed to do strafing runs.
Since 2001, Coalition pilots in
Iraq
and
Afghanistan
have used strafing runs to support ground forces in areas where explosive ordnance could cause unacceptable civilian casualties. Strafing runs done by
F-16s
are very risky for the pilot. The cities of
Damascus
and
Aleppo
were strafed by helicopter gunships in the
Syrian civil war
.
[9]
[10]
In 2004, the United States Air Force accidentally strafed one of its own country's middle schools while training in the
strafing of the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School
incident.
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms 8 November"
(PDF)
.
Joint Publication 1-02
. U.S. Department of Defense. 2010. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 28 February 2017
. Retrieved
19 January
2011
.
strafing ? The delivery of automatic weapons fire by aircraft on ground targets.
- ^
"Oxford Dictionaries ? Dictionary, Thesaurus, & Grammar ? "Gott strafe England" as origin of "to strafe"
"
. askoxford.com. Archived from
the original
on March 12, 2007
. Retrieved
4 September
2015
.
- ^
Richard B.H. Lewis,
The Art of Strafing
, July 2007, airforce-magazine.com
- ^
"Definition of STRAFE"
.
Merriam-Webster
. 2023-10-10
. Retrieved
2023-10-12
.
- ^
William B. Colgan (10 January 2014).
Allied Strafing in World War II: A Cockpit View of Air to Ground Battle
.
ISBN
9780786458356
. Retrieved
19 January
2011
.
- ^
"Image: sgun.jpg, (400 × 315 px)"
. quarryhs.co.uk. Archived from
the original
on 11 November 2020
. Retrieved
4 September
2015
.
- ^
"Image: typhoon_IB_rockets_loading2.jpg, (750 × 459 px)"
. historyofwar.org
. Retrieved
4 September
2015
.
- ^
"Image: IL-2Bg.jpg, (750 × 345 px)"
. allworldwars.com
. Retrieved
4 September
2015
.
- ^
"Attack helicopters strafe Damascus suburb"
. Reuters/Financial Times. July 2, 2012.
Archived
from the original on 2022-12-10.
- ^
"Syria conflict: Aleppo districts 'under fresh assault'
"
.
BBC News
. 9 August 2012.
External links
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Strafing
.
Look up
strafe
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.