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Old March 8th 04, 07:58 PM
Kevin Brooks
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"steve gallacci" wrote in message
...


zxcv wrote:

It seems to me that the Germans and Japanese had a lot more cannon in

their
planes than the Americans who seemed to rely almost totally on .50

machine
guns.

Why was that? What was the rate of fire or the 20mm cannons and what

type
of projectiles did they fire?


The US .50 BMG was a pretty good gun, reasonable rate of fire, hard
hitting round, and good velocity/range. The German 13mm gun was rather
weak by comparison and 20mm (and later, 30mm and larger) explosive or
incendiary shells were considered good bomber killers, though had
somewhat poorer velocity/range. For most applications, .50 fire was more
than adequate for most combat, especially as you could put more guns and
ammo in the plane compared to 20mm. It wasn't until things like the
toughness of MiG15s in the Korean War and the need for good bomber
killer rounds for US fighters that the limits of the .50 became more of
an issue.
On the other hand, the Brits (and the US Navy?) used 20mm during the war.


The USN started to switch to the 20mm during the latter part of the war, but
it also produced .50 cal armed aircraft through the end of the war, too. If
the original poster will do a search using google news, he will find that
this topic has repeatedly been beat to death in this NG, and likely find
some items of interest to him.

Brooks