Talk:Schräge Musik

message: This is a great new diagram - can we have another one - maybe a simple sketch showing where the actual mirros were placed?Engineman (talk) 19:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, but it needs to be moved down into the WWII section. Just to note that the lead does not currently summarise any of the largish section of pre-WWII information. Template:Infobox aviation could be added to good effect. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Great points, this is still "a-work-in-progress" and any suggestions, advice, and help is greatly appreciated. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Aren't they all Bill?!! I often wondered what that curved rail was for on an SE.5, I thought it was to bring the gun down to reload it? Maybe they did that as well (but how many magazines could be carried in the small cockpit?). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I just read that bit, ignore me!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Diagram

message: Its is still not clear to me how the pilot sigghted the shot visually after being talked in by the radar guy.  With the barrels way back in the fuselage, surely impossible to have an optical system using simply mirrors to relay an actual gun sight mounted onthe gun barrel.
If not how was it done?
An indpendent optical site at the front of the plane would have to be adjusted by firing the gun so how would they do that?  Did they tipe the plane on its nose and fire at a ground target for adjustment - seems unlikely?
Engineman (talk) 13:19, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The usual method was to use a separate normal Revi (reflector) gunsight mounted in the canopy roof pointing upwards, so that the pilot just tilted his head back and looked-up through the gunsight at the target bomber. The nighfighter then had two separate gunsights, one for normal, forward-firing use, the other for the Schräge Musik guns - likewise for the gun-firing buttons, one for the forward-firing ones, another, separate one, for the Schräge Musik ones.  As for the alignment (harmonising) of the Schräge Musik cannon, I must admit to not having a clue - I suspect that some sort of sighting-tower was used, the guns being aligned with a target at the top, but I may be wrong.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.59.8 (talk) 17:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: sighting adjustment

message: "What a contrast with SCHRÄGE MUSIK! Again the technique was to approach deliberately at a lower level, but this time all the night fighter pilot had to do was slow up a little, rise up below the bomber and hold formation. An NJG experte could follow his observer's directions, acquire the bomber visually, close and destroy it within 60 seconds. The firing position, with the bomber 65° to 70° above the fighter, was an almost ideal one. The fighter could see the bomber clearly, as a darker silhouette either blotting out the stars or against paler sky or high cloud. It presented the biggest possible target and reflected any light from searchlights, ground fires or TIs. With the two aircraft in close formation, there was an ideal no-deflection shot. And the fighter was perfectly safe, because it was well below the MONICA beam and could not be seen by any member of the bomber's crew. The only snag was that the Luftwaffe's guns were so effective that the night fighter usually had to get out of the way very fast. It was rather like 1916, except that a Lancaster with one wing blown off tumbled downwards and backwards faster than an ignited airship.” [18]
This part of the article has no reference to who is actually being quoted- it is referenced but needs a preamble to put the quote into context. Can anyone expand from the Gunston reference? Thanks Harryurz (talk) 13:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing quote in the article 

message: The section "Operationan Use" mentions that the pilot Manfred Meurer died because of an mid-air collision. I would understand the relevance if he had actually collided with a bomber he had previously shot down with Schräge Musik. But according to what is written in this article, he collided with a Bf 110. The wikipedia page on the pilot mentions he collided with a Lancaster. I don't have the book used as reference here, but whoever has, can maybe clear that up? Sansmalrst (talk) 16:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why mention Manfred Meurer? 

message: Fascinating insight into RAF Bomber Command's initial failure to discover Schräge Musik and develop effective countermeasures to it is provided in this web-accessible article from MIT by prominent physicist Freeman Dyson, who recalls the time he spent developing analytical methods to help the British Royal Air Force bomb German targets during World War II: "A Failure of Intelligence" | By Dr. Freeman Dyson on November 1, 2006 | MIT Technology Review Magazine | November/December 2006
Page 4 of 6
I later applied the same method of analysis to the question of whether experience helped crews to survive. Bomber Command told the crews that their chances of survival would increase with experience, and the crews believed it. They were told, After you have got through the first few operations, things will get better. This idea was important for morale at a time when the fraction of crews surviving to the end of a 30-­operation tour was only about 25 percent. I subdivided the experienced and inexperienced crews on each operation and did the analysis, and again, the result was clear. Experience did not reduce loss rates. The cause of losses, whatever it was, killed novice and expert crews impartially. This result contradicted the official dogma, and the Command never accepted it. I blame the ORS, and I blame myself in particular, for not taking this result seriously enough. The evidence showed that the main cause of losses was an attack that gave experienced crews no chance either to escape or to defend themselves. If we had taken the evidence more seriously, we might have discovered Schräge Musik in time to respond with effective countermeasures.
Fascinating stuff. Check out the full article, which is applicable to many subjects here on Wikipedia, not just jazzmusic... Azx2 18:55, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: (a belated reply): I've read the article with interest, but I think Dyson may have been beating himself up unnecessarily over this. If the RAF were designing aircraft that had oblique-firing guns for attacking bombers in the 30's, and in fact had invented the system during the First World War, it seems a little remiss of the hierarchy not to have considered the possibility of the same system being used against them during the Second. It was hardly Dyson's fault. Xyl 54 (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

text: PS: Another question that springs to mind is why the RAF didn't feel the need for such a weapon system for its own night-fighters in WWII, but achieved satisfactory results from aircraft with forward-firing guns for most of the conflict.  One answer, maybe, is that the British night-fighters (eg the Beaufighter) had a considerable power advantage over the German bombers they faced, so they could approach and strike rapidly from any direction; whereas the Me 110 was barely 20mph faster than, say the Lancaster, making a climbing attack with forward-firing guns impractical. Just a thought... Xyl 54 (talk) 22:53, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  2006 article in MIT's Technology Review Magazine 

message: @ , : Following on from the last suggestion, above, we could, instead of hacking lumps out of this article, move it to a title that reflects the content.</br>
This was written in May 2003; by April 2007 it had expanded to include the development of the weapon in WWI, and by October 2010 it was broadly as it is today. So I would suggest that for most of its existence this has been a general article on oblique/upward firing weapons systems, rather than simply about the German Schräge Musik system; or, putting it another a way, the term Schräge Musik is being used (incorrectly, and anachronistically) for all applications of the system, including those that pre-date the WWII German example. 
So, I would suggest moving the page as it is to a more general descriptive title, and redirecting Schräge Musik to the "German developments" section here: or maybe after moving it splitting out and summarizing the Schräge Musik stuff to its own article. Thoughts? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Schräge Musik is a perfectly good article name, quite adequate to describe the widely known German development in WWII. I would not want to see the Schräge Musik material moved entirely to another article about guns firing at an angle. Instead, the tangentially related stuff in this article can be moved to the new article, whatever its name will be, and a brief section of it can refer the reader to Schräge Musik. Binksternet (talk) 00:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't disagree that Schräge Musik is a perfectly good title to describe the German weapon system; my point is that this article isn't just about that, and hasn't been for a long time. If we were having this conversation in, say 2007 (or 2010), it'd make sense to move the more generalized stuff out to a new article. But as it is, after 9 years worth of edits on the wider subject, it now makes more sense (IMO) for practical reasons, as well as for attribution purposes, to do it the other way round (ie move everything here, with the edit history, to the generalized title, then split the German development section (and any other relevant bits) back to Schräge Musik leaving a summary and main article link here. D'you see what I'm getting at? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move? 

message: Freeman Dyson says in the video that the Allies didn't know about Schraege Musik until after the war. Can that really be right, though? The page photo shows a captured Schraege Musik setup in 1944, I mean, come on. Surely Dyson was oversimplifying. --Jtle515 (talk) 18:59, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discovery