The Corkscrew maneuver was studied by the bomber command (BC)after extensive search for an evasive move against fighters closing in 6;
The idea was to let the enemy fighter hanging sufficiently in the bomber 6 the time the tail gunner with his powerful gun turret (4x0.303 as standardized on BC bombers) shot him down without sustaining heavy returning fire.
It consisted simply of the combinaison of a tail slide plus alternative push over and pull up.
The idea of the slide was to complicated the firing solution for the enemy fighter. The slight dive was to accelerate faster than what the light enemy airplane cld do giving enough time for the gunner (decreasing the speed dif = building time).
As bombers were to keep heading and alt for respectively navigation and deconflicting flight path purpose, it was recommended to alternate the slide on one side and then on the other and the push over was to be immediatly followed by a slight pull up. Hence the bomber could fight an opponent and stay on heading and flight plan;
View from behind the bomber trajectory would describe a spiral around its velocity vector hence the name corkscrew.
It seems simple but it worked and I can tell you that it still does work in a simulator. I hve practiced it for years with relative success.
It works fairly well when two manned bomber flying side by side start to corkscrew in opposite direction : the leader slide above and the wingman dive and slide on the opposite wing of his leader; And so on;
I recommend it if you fly a pair of Stuka with that single machine gun needing more time to score some damage.
You might even remember hving a hard time with Tom and me doing so in IL2 against you in your spit
I know that you might hve a hard time believing it but this maneuver was enough to put some heavy plane out of their flying envelope. For example on twin rudder bomber if the rudder was over dimensionned regarding the fixed vertical surface, the pertubed airflow in the slide (washout with an oblique angle from the main plane axis) was strong enough to prevent the rudder to hve sufficient force to push the plane back on its velocity vector. It was said that quite a lot of bombers were lost that way (maybe hundreds but not thousands). if you add the fairly low number of flying hours from new pilots in the op type you understand that the corkscrew could prove hard to handle for young pilots as for young fighters pilots fighting to keep their target steady behind their visor.
~S