Hi all,
So one thing thats always annoyed me about movies involving a dogfight at some point in WW2 is that there are usually loads of shots of one plane being entirely still in it's movements before being shot down by another plane that comes from behind it - which to me doesn't make sense as to avoid being shot down it would make sense to maintain erratic unpredictable evasive manoeuvres. Example of annoying footage: https://youtu.be/ykPnJdgGcWM?t=29
Obviously excluding bombers as they weren't expected to out manoeuvre fighters. So I then went about finding actual footage of real dogfights and found that almost all the gun-mounted camera footage was of the same situation. The opponent taking no evasive movements, and being shot until disabled.
Examples I'm working off:
So why is this the case? Is any of this footage real scenarios or are these all taken from dummy target tests of some kind? Would fighters really not attempt to be evasive, or were the planes simply not as manoeuvrable as Hollywood would lead us to believe? Or were they simply not trained much in evasiveness?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: For example, I'd be expecting more footage to look like this: https://youtu.be/L-P7pPgniGA?t=92
I'm not a historian or expert, but this is an area of interest to me and I hope that I've followed the rules appropriately in writing this reply.
The following is a description of a combat encounter from a pilot of the era, John Godfrey, who was an American ace:
Breathlessly I watched the 109 in between the breaks in the clouds as I dove. At 12,000 feet I leveled off and watched him up ahead. In diving I had picked up speed, and now had hit 550 miles an hour. I was about 500 feet below him and closing fast. Quick now, I've got time. I checked all around, in back and above me, to ensure that no other [Germans] were doing the same to me. My speed was slacking off now, but I still had enough to pick up that extra 500 feet and position myself 200 yards dead astern. The 109 flew as straight as an arrow, with no weaving. As his plane filled my gunsight, I pressed the [trigger]. (1)
In this description, Godfrey specifically mentions that his opponent, a German BF-109, did not attempt any maneuver to avoid attack. This is presumably because he was totally unaware he was under attack until he was hit, which is the most obvious reason the planes in the videos may not be maneuvering in the way you might expect (surprise attack or an attack from a foe which a pilot is not actively keeping track of due to distraction), but this example leads us to another reason that may explain this behavior:
This sort of attack (diving onto an opponent from a higher altitude before striking) is effective because by the time the attack altitude is reached, the attacking plane may be going much, much faster than the plane under attack. After the shots are fired, if there is enough speed remaining from the dive, the attacking aircraft can then rapidly convert that speed back into altitude by pulling up, forcing the lower and theoretically slower target plane to climb at whatever climb rate it can maintain if it wants to make chase.
Air combat buffs will refer to this as a "boom and zoom", but the technical term is energy management, and it refers to the maintenance of kinetic energy (speed) and potential energy (altitude). A high altitude plane can get a speed boost by diving, and a fast moving plane can escape to a higher altitude by climbing, but a low, slow, plane can only climb as quickly as its engine will allow. Generally the aircraft with the higher energy state is said to have the advantage over aircraft which begin the engagement lower and slower.
This is possibly why British WW1 flying ace Mick Mannock often encouraged his squadron to engage "always above; seldom on the same level; never underneath." (2)
Turning an aircraft sharply bleeds a significant amount of speed. It's very possible that by the end of the engagement (the part we see in the footage) that the target aircraft has bled off most of its energy during the fight and further drastic maneuvers are not possible without stalling the aircraft. They may also be too low to dive further and regain the sort of speed they would need to make fast vertical maneuvers. At this point the pilot would have to attempt to climb as best he could and try to maximize engine output to escape or regain the advantage, or turn as best he could without stalling in hopes of presenting a more difficult target.
If the pilot's plane was, as a factor of engine performance, more powerful than that of his attacker, he might be able to regain the energy advantage and escape or re-engage, but if the attacker had the superior aircraft from a climbing perspective, this would be unlikely.
The following is a description from Sgt. H Chandler, a Spitfire pilot:
Attacked e/a which seemed to be above. Attempted to get on his tail, he immediately turned left to return the attack. We manoeuvered for a long while, during which he fired quite a fair amount. I got two short bursts which had no effect. After about 12-15 minutes he tried to out-climb me, I immediately went into fully fine pitch and easily caught up. The instant at which I opened fire, he rolled over and went straight down. I followed him and he started to smoke and eventually went into the sea. I steered 300° and after about 6-8 minutes made a landfall 3 miles West of Dungeness. (3)
Thirdly, it's possible that the aircraft in the footage have already been damaged previously in the engagement and cannot evade. In the first example you linked, the aircraft at about 0:10 has its left landing gear fully down, and its right landing gear apparently stuck partway down, suggesting hydraulic failure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHKj3CZK3WY
Finally, it's likely that for newsreel purposes only the steadiest, most easily comprehensible footage would be chosen, which would skew the balance toward footage where the target aircraft was attacked unexpectedly, the late stage of an engagement where the most dynamic evasion had already taken place and the target was in a low energy state, or footage where a damaged "sitting" duck was shot straight on. The shots are usually only a few seconds long, and may not depict the more exciting maneuvers which led up to the attacking pilot being in such an advantageous position.
Footage which was very shaky or involved "snap" shooting which may have damaged an aircraft passing the nose of an attacker during significant maneuvering, but which didn't clearly depict a downed aircraft, or footage where the engagement happened at a very long range and wasn't clear would not likely have been included where better footage was available.
Also, a lot of the footage in that first link you included is footage of the British shooting down bombers during the Battle Of Britain. The bombers would have been primarily defended by their own defensive gunners in turrets, and the escort planes that flew with them. These bombers flew in fairly tight formation (as shown in this photo of Henkel bombers from Germany: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L-DkWidW-Ck/WW2gHUqn1kI/AAAAAAAANbE/nGn6LlZZp9sYaWYSMrs2x3DzhVYddFd-ACLcBGAs/s1600/Battle_of_Britain_in_pictures%2B%25282%2529.jpg) and weren't able to outmaneuver fighters, so they would largely not have attempted to do so.
However, it's worth mentioning that in some of the examples, the attacking plane is turning rapidly WITH the target fighter - who is actively evading but still remains static in our view, as in the third example you linked at 1:45:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aqJwHdMDK0
That said, the aircraft of the period were absolutely capable of impressive maneuvering, as seen in this instructional video from the period which depicts some fairly acrobatic maneuvering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbDZIGcfKG0
Pilots from the era do describe some pretty "Hollywood-esque" maneuvering taking place, including inverted fighting etc.
https://www.ocregister.com/2012/06/22/wwii-pilot-90-recalls-the-dogfight-of-his-life/
(1) Shaw, Robert (1985). Fighter combat : tactics and maneuvering. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-059-4
(2)Franks, Norman L.R.; Saunders, Andy (2008). Mannock: The Life and Death of Major Edward Mannock VC, DSO, MC, RAF. Grub Street. ISBN 978-1-906502-12-6
(3)http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html - in which a photograph of the actual hand-written combat report may be displayed.
In quite a few of those examples you linked the targeted airplanes are indeed maneuvering.
Follow up question, that might have some insight how much footage was captured on these "gun cameras" IE just a few seconds after trigger pulls?
Additionally would the nature of wartime propaganda have influence on primarily showing some of the "sneak up kill" clips that seem to be the OP's focus?
Thanks everybody here.