Скачать или смотреть The Day Rules Broke: Ray Holmes, a Do-17, and the Birth of RAF Aerial Ramming

Ray Holmes’s split-second decision on September 15, 1940—Battle of Britain Day—turns a depleted Hawker Hurricane into a last-resort weapon against a Dornier Do 17 heading for central London. This episode traces the geometry, physics, and brutal arithmetic behind deliberate ramming: why ammunition ran dry, how bomber tail structures failed, and why propeller strikes could be survivable. Through squadron diaries, command-room politics, and field engineering notes, we follow how one “impossible” act spread informally across RAF units—sometimes saving dockyards and warships, sometimes costing pilots their lives—before improved radar control, fire discipline, and the Luftwaffe’s shift to night raids made ramming obsolete. It’s a story of will, risk, and the uncomfortable truths behind Britain’s narrow escape.




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