WWII 20mm cannon in planes

Subject: WWII 20mm cannon in planes
From: (Tony Williams)
Date: 3/8/04 9:52 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

"zxcv" wrote in message
...
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?

See: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm for full details
of WW2 fighter guns and ammunition, and a comparison of their
effectiveness.

As other responders have said, the .50 was a good gun which met USAAF
needs (although the USN would have preferred to make more use of the
20mm). Other nations preferred to use cannon as they were more
destructive, even when (like the USSR) they had a good HMG available.

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



Seems lik there was a lot of indecision about our use of canons, When we were
told that our Marauders were being replaced by Invaders they also announced
that the Invaders would come with a 75mm cannon mounted in the nose. We got
the Invaders OK but nary a cannon in sight, We didn't have much to complain
about since it had 14 50's firing forward. But I alway s looked forward to
using that 75mm cannon and was sorry when they didn't arrive, I think one
reason was it had to be hand fed by a guy in the right seat which would have
given it a very slow rate of fire.When we flew warhead A-26's I was the guy in
the right seat. I only flew in the nose on Norden equipped models.II sure
would have loved to have had the 75mm cannon to play with. (sigh)


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer