Where is the 20mm F6F version?

[Ice]

Well, I'm just so excited about these other sims coming out that I can hardly contain myself...I mean think about it....they will be an absolute utopia where all is well and folks just post of warm fuzzy things...not like this jungle of unjust and inaccurate flight models and ridiculous loadouts.

Ya know....I'm beginning to feel better already...Ram and Fishu and others will be filled with peace and the satisfaction that they were right all along, and I'll be flying in a sim without them....perhaps there is hope after all?

Ice

[gatt]

Oh well, so we will have also the DB603 engined G.55 "Centauro". More than 700Km/h at 23K with 2x12,7mm and 3x20mm  

[Nath-BDP]

Pyro has already stated earlier in some thread that they will only do an F6F with 20mm as a nightfighter.

[-lazs-]

ram... Like I said, if the factory made it an optional loadout then go ahead and allow it.  Pick whatever armement the factory put on those wussy 190's.... No matter what they did to em... There was allways a Corsair that was better.   Allways a corsair that was faster, better armed, turned better, had a lot more range, accelerated, rolled  and climbed as well and.... Could take off from carriers.   And... was tougher.   When you add the fact that Corsairs are blue and handsome..... Ya gotta pretty much ignore a bunch of butt ugly, trucks with wings, 190's.  couldn't be worse if they were made in spain.
lazs

[tom666]

Hmmmm lazs
I wonder what kinda pictures You got in yer bathroom.....

[Hooligan]

Actually RAM:

350 lbs is about 4% of the loaded weight of an A5, so it is going to change the climb rate by about 4% or 150 to 200 feet per minute, not the 500 feet that you think.

Hooligan

[hblair]

Why is it so many of you guys get hooked into threads like this? Gotta prove that my plane had waaaay more firepower than yours! Yes! Mine was good! Yours was bad!

Thats the most tired load of BS on the boards. Everybody arguing that their plane was better than the other guys plane.

Think about it. If you all get your wish and you get all your cannon, uber this or that, are you not the biggest dweeb around for flying it?

I flew the hellcat last night and had 2 or 3 7+ kill sorties in it. (of course, all those kamikaze TBM rides buggered my score  ) I have .12 gunnery in the F6F. If you can't kick bellybutton with these 50's, then it's time to see the optometrist.  

[tom666]

BTW

I read a book long time ago by a polish pilot,who ended up in England,and fought in the RAF against germany.
I remember him saying,when the spit II came out,some of them were fitted with cannons,instead of the 8x303.
The pilots that got assigned on thoes planes,
hated it,and wished they could get their machineguns back.
In fact the 6 .50 cal guns had a bigger punch,due to it`s fireing rate,more bullets in the air at the same time.It was lot easier to hit targets with,and ammo lasted lot longer too.
So all You whiners,get a life ,and not trying to make up for that small noodle with the big guns in AH.

[Westy]

 Oleg's sim is going to be nothing like AW, WB's or AH. It's small fry when dealing with the online numbers. I'll believe the 32/64 multiplayer capacity promise when I see it. Still it wouldn't be enough folks for my likes.

 -Westy

[GRUNHERZ]

Hi

Plus the hispanos jammed like hell, tho i dont think gun jamming shud be modeled in AH, hoever we must have barrel wear and damage to stop the wild shooting we have with some MGs and cannon in here.

thanks GRUNHERZ

[Voss]

Well, since everyone is going on and on about things they would like to see (and not JUST on the F6F)...

Why not model something that would be a TRUE first on online simming? This option would be fair to BOTH the dark side and American aircraft (not sure about Brit). I KNOW that the P51-D/K had the venerable (though not totally trustworthy) AN/APS-13 tail warning radar. I am sure it would be generally useless, but it MIGHT wake a few keyboard mongers up!

As to the details of the system...

German aircraft would have a slight advantage (I don't think any 109's ever saw this addition, but I know the 190's did) as their radar systems were more technologically advanced.

I believe the German systems detected aircraft as far as 10,000 m., and the American systems were about 85% of that.

Neither system was particularly dependable. Neither system worked well in the vertical (of course).
Neither system saw much repair in the field.

Okay, that's my contribution for the day.

Voss 13th T.A.S.

[lazs]

grun.. all i ever read about hispanos jamming was in the very first models and/or at alts over 20K from "freezing".   These problems were all solved so far as i know and later hispanos were considered very reliable.   Do you have other information?
lazs

[GRUNHERZ]

thats what i was reffering to the case when they mounted them in early spits, i think some brits had them for a day or so then immediately changed back to 303s

[Karnak]

Here you go lazs,

 

Originally posted by Nashwan in a different thread:
The British had a lot of early problems with unreliable firing with the Hispano, and solved them by shortening the chamber (by 2mm) to make sure that the firing pin would strike the primer with sufficient force, and urged the USA to do the same (the British wanted complete standardisation between both countries' production). The Americans, after testing the guns in April 1942, decided not to bother.
However, concern was expressed by US ammo manufacturers that the misfires which kept occurring were the gun's fault, not theirs, so further US tests were held between June 1942 and January 1943. The results of the tests
were...a recommendation to shorten the chamber! (but not as short as in the British guns). Various other detailed changes were made, following which some guns were sent over to the UK for testing in July and August 1943 and
showed themselves to be as good as British production. Only at this point were US guns accepted by the British as "acceptable for service use".

The problem was that the USA had already made 56,410 guns (no less). These guns effectively had to be remanufactured to the new standard. In February 1944 all AN-M2 production stopped. At that time there were still 35,955 long-chamber guns in store, classified as "unserviceable". Most were later converted to M3s.

Chinn goes on to give details of the operational performance of the AN-M2. The USN mounted some 90% of these guns, the USAAF making very little use of them. Incidentally, the M1 version was for engine mounting and not used in service, although several hundred were made (also incidentally, for some reason US production of the 60-round drum feed carried on into 1944 and nearly 30,000 were made).

First use by the USN was in the SB-2C when a test batch was sent out in 1943 and evaluated in combat, the first action being in March 1944. Factory representatives accompanied the cannon to the front. To quote Chinn; "These expert technicians sent back voluminous reports that explained the
malfunctions that did occur were due to one of three things; failure of the feeder, bad ammunition and improper maintenance. Their zeal in clearing the gun itself in every instance casts doubt upon the validity of the reports."

Some 5,800 USN planes were fitted with 11,600 guns. The SB-2C and SB-W aircraft were the principal planes carrying this weapon into combat, along with a very limited number of F4U-1Cs. It was therefore hardly ever used by fighters and shot down very few aircraft.

Chinn says; "With the mounting of the 20mm cannon in Navy planes a series of malfunctions began that could not be properly corrected at the time as manufacture was at the peak of production...the most serious problem was the
oversize chamber. There still remained considerable variance in dimensions between the chambers of the British and US cannon...". A curious explanation for the poor standards of manufacture which plagued the AN-M2 was that, being over .60" (15mm) calibre, it was considered to be an
artillery weapon rather than a small arm. It was therefore built to artillery manufacturing tolerances, which were not tight enough for this weapon. As a "quick fix", the USN liberally coated the ammunition with a heavy lubricant (which the British specifically banned from their Hispanos).
Some 32,000 M3s had also been delivered by the end of the war and these suffered the same problems as the AN-M2.

After the end of the war, all of the problems were analysed and a development programme was put in hand to correct them, work being successfully carried out over the next few years. In conclusion, Chinn says; "Nothing was basically wrong with the weapon. Its wartime performance, good or bad, was the result of having being bought in desperation, put into mass production without first having been adequately proved, and then modified regularly to meet a future commitment before the previous model had been made to function reliably."

Unfortunately Chinn, a USMC officer, did not comment on the gun in USAF service. It would be interesting to know how it fared in the P-38.

On a personal note, I am well aware that when the firing pin strike is only just good enough to fire the primer, such minor details as the characteristics of the metal forming the primer cap can be very significant. The fact that the guns performed well in the UK could have been simply due to a softer or thinner primer cap material, or even that the primer protruded slightly more, in the ammunition used in the tests. Alternatively, as
its problems partly resulted from excessive manufacturing tolerances, it would have been possible to produce satisfactory guns by carefully selecting and matching components. However I'm sure that the Americans would never
consider doing something so devious and underhand to their old ally, perish the thought

The other point concerns the need to oil the cartridges. This was never entirely dispensed with as even the Mk 16, in USN service in the 1980s as a deck gun, had a built-in cartridge oiler. Yet the British decided they didn't like this and, according to Wallace, changed the cartridge to avoid the need to oil it (this is supported by the official manual, which specifically bans oiling). The problem is, I have never been able to find out what changes were made,
and it begs all sorts of questions about the interchangeability of British v. other nations' ammunition etc.

The postwar USAF one would have been the M24, which was converted to electrical ignition. I don't have any information about problems with that.

Tony Williams
 http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~autogun/  

Military gun and ammunition website

To sum it up:

US Hispano cannon were significantly less reliable than UK Hispano cannon.

------------------
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

Sisu
-Karnak

[Hooligan]

Karnak wrote:

 

US Hispano cannon were significantly less reliable than UK Hispano cannon.

I don't believe this is an accurate statement.

Quotes from Pages 588-589 in "The Machinegun", Vol 1, by Chinn.

 

There existed two distinct schools of thought on the reliability of the gun.  One was that the 20mm Hispano-Suiza automatic cannon could not be considered satisfactory as an aircraft weapon as long as it was necessary for the ordnanceman to coat the cartridge case with a heavy lubricant or wax.  The other was that this was unimportant as long as it bettered the performance of the gun.
.....
An unfortunate discovery was that chamber errors in the gun could be corrected for the moment by covering the ammunition case with a heavy lubricant.  If the chamber was oversize, it served as a fluid fit to make up the deficiency and, if unsafe head space existed that would result in case rupture if ammunition was fired dry, then the lubricant allowed the cartridge to take up the slack between the breech lock and the breech lock key.  Had this method of "quick fix" not been possible, the Navy would have long ago recognized the seriousness of the situation.  In fact, this inexcusable method of correction was in use so long that it was becoming accepted as a satisfactory solution of a necessary nuisance.

From what I've read, early Hispano's had reliability problems (as early production model weapons tend to).  The British fixed this by altering the design of the gun.  The US fixed this by lubricating the ammunition.  The US fix was a terrible kludge but it was a kludge that worked.

Hooligan