WWII 20mm cannon in planes

"zxcv"

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?

I think it is pretty simple. They needed to shoot down bombers. We needed to
kill fighters. Eight Brownings with a nice synchonization gave a good spread
out to 300 yards or so. The folks with the cannons could fire from further away
at bigger targets and try to keep out of the massive MG fire of the bomber
formations.

I have some pictures of P47's with 20mm battle damage -- most hit from the
rear.

-- Charlie Springer

"zxcv" wrote in message ...

What about planes with multiple fixed guns that had different amounts of
ammunition/fire time -- did the pilot have a selector to determine which
guns would fire or did everything fire when the trigger was pulled and some
guns would run out first?

Generally speaking, where the planes were equipped with homogenous
armament (e.g. eight .303s or six .50s) they all fired together,
without the option. Where a plane had mixed armament (e.g. cannon and
MGs) it was possible to fire them separately or together.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Military gun and ammunition discussion forum:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/

In article , zxcv
writes
"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
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"pendell" wrote in message
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SNIP of Emmanuel's usual good stuff


What about planes with multiple fixed guns that had different amounts of
ammunition/fire time -- did the pilot have a selector to determine which
guns would fire or did everything fire when the trigger was pulled and some
guns would run out first?


In RAF aircraft, nearly all fighters had either two gun buttons (e.g.
Mosquito FB for its 4 Brownings and 4 20mm cannon) or, (as in the case
of the Spit MkV - 4 Brownings and 2 20mm cannon) a button that 'rocked'
- one set of guns when the top was pressed, another set of guns when the
bottom was pressed, and all guns when the middle was pressed. To my
knowledge, only the Beaufighter MkI fired a mixture of guns with just
one button.

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

What about planes with multiple fixed guns that had different amounts of
ammunition/fire time -- did the pilot have a selector to determine which
guns would fire or did everything fire when the trigger was pulled and some
guns would run out first?

Yes, certainly. You had selector switches.

Because of their limited number of cannon rounds, Japanese Zero pilots
used their rifle-caliber mgs as sighting weapons.

all the best -- Dan Ford
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