P-51D, 3 types of flights online

I seem to recall some 4-odd years of live fire testing where the .50 cal did just fine.

This. Kurfurst, you need to stop flying the filing cabinet and worry about flying airplanes.

 

Now, it seems my memory misserved me, I must have had the Spit's armor plates in my head. At least on the P-51B - and I assume the P-51D was similar - the armor back plates were 5/16" (7.9mm) with a 6/16" (9.5mm) head piece, though there is considerably less "stuff" behind them to slow down the bullets, except for at head level where some radio sets were put.

 

 

Note that its just a bulkhead behind the pilot, but there is no "butt" or curved head armor to give some protection against deflection shots from under/above.

 

In short the P-51s armor protection for the pilot is pretty simple, and apart from piercing the skin (which isn't a small factor as it hits at high angle and could lead to tumbling of the bullet) and truth to be told, it provides rather marginal protection even against the 13mm rounds with their weaker ballistics, see the German pen curves - the cc. 8mm back seat seems to still penetratable at 300 m if the round passes through a 1.5mm skin first at 70 degrees deflection and a 20 degrees sideways deflection, same for the head plate since it doesn't have skin to penetrate first, despite its greater thickness.

 

Actually, the upper portion of the Mustang's pilot armor is 7/16". That's 11.1mm. And it covers from head to middle of the shoulder blade (the bottom edge being below the bottom of the radio mounts).

So... to recap, you are claiming 8mm on K4 cannot be perforated by a 640 grain 12.7mm API moving at 2910 feet per second, but a 594 grain 13mm API moving at 2329 feet per second readily defeats 8-11mm armor on Mustang? A .50 cal delivering 16,432 joules at the muzzle, with a more aerodynamic bullet and less energy loss to drag, is markedly inferior to a 13mm delivering 9,776 joules at the muzzle? Even though the relative energy delivered gets MORE disparate as range increases? Am I understanding you correctly?

Oh, and hey, the canopy is about as resistant to bullets as, and as a thicker, lower-density medium, MORE likely to precipitate bullets tumbling, than is the aircraft skin, so your notion that the 13mm can easily perforate the 11.1mm of pilot armor after penetrating the canopy is a joke. Let's not forget that when firing at any deflection angle above maybe 5 degrees, all the .50 cal has to contend with on the K4 is.... yep, just thin aluminum aircraft skin and 8mm pilot armor.

How, exactly, does this justify the 13mm being more likely to kill pilots? Failing to see the logic here.

Well dude, you need to re-read I guess. Starting with the sources I have posted.

Well dude, you need to re-read I guess. Starting with the sources I have posted.

What a compelling argument. You can't make a coherent counter-argument, so you just deflect. *YOU'RE* wrong about the armor on the Mustang (twice! Wrong TWICE!), therefore *I* need to re-read? Physics don't apply to 13mm, because you assume I haven't read? :megalol::lol::megalol::lol::megalol:

Ok, "dude". I'll get right on that.

I see you try very hard to a stance of superiority and I find it very impressive that you are familiar with basic KE formulae. Not to mention plexiglass deflector shields that fend off heavy machinegun bullets. :D

Also, to answer your question, if a "a 640 grain 12.7mm API moving at 2910 feet per second" hit the said armor plate, I think the most certain outcome is a barrel rupture on the M2.