BBC News article claiming a 13 year olds intricate calculations persuaded them to fit 8 browning guns rather than the four planned. Obviously chances are improved of bringing down an enemy aircraft, the more guns are being fired, but what is the intricate calculation needed to prove that?
It seems the guns were aimed to coincide at a range of 250 yards. 250 yards seems awfully distant to me, what they show of the films of the time, it seems much less than 250 yards, maybe as little as 50 yards, unless the used telephoto lens?
I rather wondered the same. And FMI what's the difference between a Browning machine gun and a cannon, that some Spitfires were apparently equipped with? Better for bringing down German bombers, the chap said, which were more heavily armored than their fighters. Do cannons fire heavier bullets, or have higher muzzle velocities, or what?
I rather wondered the same. And FMI what's the difference between a Browning machine gun and a cannon, that some Spitfires were apparently equipped with? Better for bringing down German bombers, the chap said, which were more heavily armored than their fighters. Do cannons fire heavier bullets, or have higher muzzle velocities, or what?
Well, often the carrying of weapons impacts on weight and drag and that impacts on endurance or in the air time. As for convergence, often they did not bother about that from what I was told, since the basic need was to disable the craft they were firing at and as long as all the bullets went in somewhere you get a lot more chance of hitting something vital. I believe Hurricanes had a better range than Spitfires, but spitfires were faster and more agile. Brian
My understanding is that although the Spitfire is what people first think about for UK WW2 fighter aircraft, in fact the Hurricane was responsible for more 'kills'.
In theory Hurricanes targeted bombers while Spitfires targeted the accompanying fighters. The 60% kill figure for Hurricanes probably reflects the number of bombers brought down, as against the number of fighters brought down. Five minutes googling would possibly settle this either way.
The convergence 'point' was actually a 12' x 8'rectangle, known as the Dowding spread, as he believed it gave even a mediocre pilot a fair chance of hitting the enemy. With Spitfire guns so widely spaced on the wings, there was also quite a wide area of less concentrated fire both before and after the convergence point. Aces would normally have the guns set to their own personal preferences, while some Spitfire squadrons set different convergence distances for each wing, to give a greater depth of concentrated fire.
The Browning machine guns fitted to early Spitfires fired .303 rifle rounds. The cannon fired 20mm (3/4") explosive rounds.
When the Germans started fitting armour to their bombers, the machine guns proved to be inadequate and cannon were tried as an answer. However, the early cannon were prone to jam, so, for a while the standard fit became two cannon and four machine guns.
The later 'universal' or 'c' wing Spitfire could be fitted with either eight machine guns, two cannon and four machine guns or four cannon, as well as being able to carry 2 x 250lb bombs. The 'e' wing Spitfire had a development of the 'c' wing and could carry either four cannon or two
First, there were more Hurricanes than Spitfires; 33 Squadrons as against 18.
Second, turnaround time, the time taken to re-arm and re-fuel, for a Spitfire was 26 minutes as compared to nine minutes for a Hurricane, so they spent less time on the ground.
Third, as mentioned in that article, the simpler design of the Hurricane made it easy to repair at the airfield, while the Spitfire often had to be sent away for specialist repairs. As a result, on average 2 out of every three Hurricanes on strength were available for action at any one time, as compared to one in three Spitfires.
Fourth, it was policy to deploy Hurricanes against the bomber formations, while the Spitfires took on the more difficult escort fighters.
I remember reading something once where it was said that squadrons with better kill rates adjusted their guns closer. As it wasn't official policy the recommendations to do so were not "officially" passed on.
From post war accounts I've seen the Germans had much better armament and could do a lot more damage to an aircraft but were hampered during the Battle of Britain from doing so by the amount of fuel they had to stay in the combat zone.
Arguments have raged, but in general the German pilots were better and the ME109 had a cannon. BIG help. BUT UK had radar and home turf. ME109 faster in a dive and had fuel injection so didn't cut under negative G. Spitty could turn tighter. ME109 a bitch on the ground. Spitty not great. Hurricane tough and forgiving and very stable gun wise with a thicker stiffer wing and much easier to repair. And we had lots
But the spitty had the development potential - we had to wait for the Hawker Tempest/Mustang really for a better day fighter than a spitfire And that (Tempest) was a bastard engine - the Napier Sabre - and so much CO on the cockpit they ran on oxygen all flight
The Tempest was flawed, but it really had what you needed in late war years. Speed, firepower, tough, able to fight at altitude. The late model spitfires no longer had Merlins and were almost new aircraft
The Merc engined Messerschmidts also had fuel injection which made them orientation-independent. Merlin engines could stall in certain movements until an ingenious scientist added, basically, a washer to the fuel supply: Tilly Shilling's orifice.
Fascinating! I spent many years teaching aerobatics and always assumed that engine run-down when inverted behind a non-injected engine was due to a weak cut, but from this
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it looks like the problem Miss Shilling solved was a rich cut - am I misunderstanding the diagram?
ISTR Douglas Bader having his convergence close in. He claimed it was the only way to shoot down the target. He was opposed to cannon for the same reason, believing it encouraged pilots to fire from too far away.
I read this was overcome in the variants used in the mustang by a pressurised carburettor. the better machining tolerances on the packard built engines also contributed to better longevity and faster assembly.
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