MK108 damage photos, please ?

[Wilbus]

Since you claimed the He219 had nose cannons, as well as saying the Ta152A was a high altitude fighter, one has to wunder about anything you state.

Well, I agreed on the HE219, had to look it up and I said you were right about it.

The Ta152 A was a high altitude version of the 190, not as specific as the H though. Why you ask? Just look at the engine, Jumo 213 were designed for high altitude bombers, it had it's best settings at 5000 meters and above, the Ta152 A reaching its best speed at 7000 meters using the 213 A and a celing of over 11 000 meters, that's a high altitude fighter. You may not realisize it, you may not want to or you're just too ignorant, but that's the thruth.

Like I said before, was wrong about the HE219 armament, had to look it up and I admit my misstake about it.

Have I said anything about Ta 152 H production numbers? Uhmmm, no.

[Batz]

Wilbuz,

I remember reading a report of the RAF test of the 3cm round. I read it on one of the forums (I cant remember which). Basically it included the images above. These images were all pasted onto a white background and each image was captioned.

Below the image was as explanation in "article" fashion.

It went into details about the test and it stated thats 3cm shells were suspended from string so that they would be centered in the fuselage. The rounds were then detonated remotely (I forget if the article detailed how the round was detonated).

Several aircraft were tested.

These rounds were typical 3cm Minengeschoß rounds and were not tampered with to improve blast effect.

IIRC I believe Nashwan is right is they were post war tests.

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by Wilbus
Well, I agreed on the HE219, had to look it up and I said you were right about it.

Any nOOb knows that the He219 did not have any nose cannons.

The Ta152 A was a high altitude version of the 190, not as specific as the H though. Why you ask? Just look at the engine, Jumo 213 were designed for high altitude bombers, it had it's best settings at 5000 meters and above, the Ta152 A reaching its best speed at 7000 meters using the 213 A and a ceiling of over 11 000 meters, that's a high altitude fighter. You may not realisize it, you may not want to or you're just too ignorant, but that's the thruth.

21,300ft is not a high altitude. Maybe by German standards it was but not Allied. The Spitfire LF IX (note the LF designation) had its max speed at 21,000ft, with a ceiling of ~43,000ft(13,100m). Using your numbers this would make the Spitfire LF IX a high altitude fighter as well. Having a better higher altitude performance over the Fw190As does not mean it was a high altitude a/c. The high altitude fighter was to be the Ta153. The Jumo 213E was the high altitude version not the Jumo213A. Even the Ta152C with the DB engine had better altitude performance than the proposed, Jumo powered, Ta152As.

Like I said before, was wrong about the HE219 armament, had to look it up and I admit my misstake about it.

So, why don't you admit you were wrong about the high altitude Ta152A?

Have I said anything about Ta 152 H production numbers? Uhmmm, no.

 

Nope, but if you can't see any corralation with the numbers of prototypes and the the suitablility for production, to bad. Anyways the V19, 20 and 21 did not have any guns fitted. Ready for production? sure.




Thanks Batz. Maybe this non-believer will get off my back now.

Nashwan another question would be is why was there was no other areas of the a/c tested?

[HoHun]

Hi Nashwan,

>I assume the tests were designed for maximum effect because the shells exploded at the most advatageous spot possible, in the thinnest part of the fuselage just in front of the tail.

Actually, that's just the spot where the shell blows up into the largest empty volume in an aircraft, minimizing the blast effect. If the rounds were additionally centered in the fuselage cross section as stated earlier, this also means that the blast pressure at the shock wave front was evenly distributed all around, while an off-centre detontation would have meant that the closer side of the fuselage would have been hit by a more destructive high pressure blast.

The most advantageous spot to hit with a mine shell in fact is the wing because the confined volumes are much smaller there so it's very easy to destroy the load-bearing skin.

A hit in the empty fuselage and a detonation in the centre of the cross section ballistically is the least advantageous case.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Wilbus]

You still don't seem to understand what I mean with high-altitude fighter do you? Is it because you're really as stupid as you seam or just don't want to read? High altitude fighter as I mean it now is not an extreeme high altitude version (10,000 meters and above), it's 7000-10000 meters, that's a medium/high altitude fighter, engines best performance to counter the 20-25k flying bombers. It was to do what the 190 D9 later did, replace the Fw 190 A from 20k and up. Sorry if you don't understand that.

[Nashwan]

I assume the tests were designed for maximum effect because the shells exploded at the most advatageous spot possible, in the thinnest part of the fuselage just in front of the tail.

Actually, that's just the spot where the shell blows up into the largest empty volume in an aircraft, minimizing the blast effect. If the rounds were additionally centered in the fuselage cross section as stated earlier, this also means that the blast pressure at the shock wave front was evenly distributed all around, while an off-centre detontation would have meant that the closer side of the fuselage would have been hit by a more destructive high pressure blast.

I think centralising the blast, in that area in front of the tail, provided the most damage.

If the blast had been off centre, it's possible damage could have been more localised to one side,  rather than destroying the whole section. It probably wouldn't have made a difference on the Spit, but I think the Blenheim might have survived an off centre blast.

The same is true of choosing an empty section of fuselage.

More substantial items in the fuselage might have deflected the blast.

Basically the blast wave in these tests hit all areas equally, causing all to fail at once. Off centre, or with major items of equipment in the way, the blast would have hit the fuelage skin in one place first, causing a rupture, and reducing the pressure and damage elsewhere.

The most advantageous spot to hit with a mine shell in fact is the wing because the confined volumes are much smaller there so it's very easy to destroy the load-bearing skin.

Wing hits can be extremely damaging, but I have seen pictures of aircraft that made it back to base with huge holes blown in the wing. I've never seen one that made it back minus the entire tail section.

[HoHun]

Hi Nashwan,

>I think centralising the blast, in that area in front of the tail, provided the most damage.

It didn't.

>If the blast had been off centre, it's possible damage could have been more localised to one side,  rather than destroying the whole section. It probably wouldn't have made a difference on the Spit, but I think the Blenheim might have survived an off centre blast.

The damage from an off-centre blast would have been asymmetrical.

But that would just have meant that one side of the Blenheim's fuselage would have been completely removed, and the other side not. It might perhaps have held together jacked-up on the ground, but in the air it would have folded up due to the aerodynamic loads that the missing structure couldn't transfer.

>The same is true of choosing an empty section of fuselage.

That's wrong. With a partially filled fuselage, the blast would have from in a smaller volume, causing the pressure to rise even higher.

>More substantial items in the fuselage might have deflected the blast.

That might have protected the skin behind the hard components. However, hard components reduce the internal volume and the blast becomes more destructive in a confined space, so it would have acted with increased force against the non-protected areas around the hard components.

>Wing hits can be extremely damaging, but I have seen pictures of aircraft that made it back to base with huge holes blown in the wing. I've never seen one that made it back minus the entire tail section.

The point is that the fuselage hit is the worst case. The third picture in this photo sequence is the fuselage of a heavy bomber, which has several big holes that wouldn't have lead to structural failure even in the air. The effect of the mine shells was small due to the large empty volume.

Wing hits would have been much more destructive, reinforcing the observation that the fuselage hit is the worst case for a mine shell.

(Of course, randomly shooting at an airframe makes the effect a statistical process.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by Wilbus
You still don't seem to understand what I mean with high-altitude fighter do you? Is it because you're really as stupid as you seam or just don't want to read? High altitude fighter as I mean it now is not an extreeme high altitude version (10,000 meters and above), it's 7000-10000 meters, that's a medium/high altitude fighter, engines best performance to counter the 20-25k flying bombers. It was to do what the 190 D9 later did, replace the Fw 190 A from 20k and up. Sorry if you don't understand that.

Well if you had used the correct words, then no one would misunderstand you. The only stupidity that I can see is therefore by you.

The classification of the fighter, low, medium or high, was determined by the rated altitude of the engine. The use of the correct words, in the first place, would stop you from having that knot in your knickers, up your bung hole. Don't get upset with other people because of your lack of ability to express yourself correctly because the cobwebs are thick.

Oh, and the Dora was classified as a medium altitude fighter. Use of the correct words goes a long way in helping other people know what you are trying to say, for they are not mind readers.

To aid you in your education here is an interesting Junker engine web site. http://www.geocities.com/hjunkers/

Especially interesting are the production numbers for the 213.


Obw, a seam is the line where two pieces of fabric are joined. The correct word is seem.

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by Wilbus
AFAIK the Mk103 was never installed in a 109, maybe in underwing gondolas but definatly nothing else.

The MK 103 could not fit in the nose of the 109. A modified version, the MK 103M was produced in order to fit, and this would have been fitted to some late K models, but the only definite statement I have seen concerning its use is that it was tried, apparently unsuccessfully, in a K-10. All described and illustrated in 'Flying Guns: World War 2'

The Mk103 was used more as anti tank weapons (experimental 190 gondolas) and in some ground attack planes such as the Me410. There was also a Mk101 with a fairly high velocity used for anti tank purpose in the He129 and maybe a few others. [/B]

Correct; the MK 101 actually used almost the same ammunition (it was percussion rather than electric primed, so not interchangeable). In fighters, as well as some versions of the Ta 152, the MK 103 was also scheduled for use in the Do 335.

At close ranges I'd chose ROF over velocity any day, can just compare the 30mm Mk108 in AH with a 37mm on the Yak 9T, which one is easiest to kill with? [/B]

The Luftwaffe generally preferred the MK 108 because it not only fired 50% faster, it only weighed half as much, so for the same armament weight you got three times the rate of fire. This improved the hit probability enough to compensate for the extra velocity of the MK 103.

However, if you can only mount one gun (e.g. in an engine mounting) then the MK 108 loses the weight advantage because you can't mount two there; which is why the Luftwaffe was interested in using the MK 103 in engine mountings in fighters.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[Wilbus]

Good info Tony thanks

[VO101_Isegrim]

I don`t get this much debate about the details of these tests. Whenever these pictures of broken tails by that single Minengeschoss are shown, allied fans come up quickly and post novels about the details, that it was in the mid-fusalge etc., implying that it`s only a test, bears no resamblance to real life, the MK 108 isn`t that tough etc.

The whole arguing is pointless; the LW did it`s own research work, and decided that 5 hits from it will bring down a heavy bomber, and mention that in some cases even less would be sufficient; 1 will kill a fighter. There`s nothing to argue about. The 3cm was a deadly caliber, and I haven`t seen any picture of a fighter that survived a 3cm M-Geschoss. Pilot`s who used them described the effect the enemy they hit had simply disappeared, vaporized into nothing. Not to mention that at 10 rounds/sec, one had to be lucky to be hit only once.

So there`s really nothing to argue about. The presence of the MK 108 on a plane simply means that it makes no sense to even compare the sheer firepower. No realistic combination of .30, .50 or 20mm battery could produce the same concentrated damage effects. Overall effectiveness, effiency of course is another question, but these debates about the sheer destructive power make no sense to me. The 3cm Minengeschoss was simply an huge overkill vs. WW2 combat aircraft.

[Hooligan]

From:

"The Development of German Aircraft Armament to 1945", USAF Historical Studies #193, Oberst Ing
Page 32

(Luftwaffe) Tests had disclosed that it was not the grenade splinters but the blow-back effect of the thin-walled mine projectiles which brought about large-scale damage combined with incendiary effect in the aircraft hit.  The effectiveness of 20mm, as compared with 30mm mines, was approximately 1:4, and in 1944 four or five hits by 30mm projectiles, concentrated in a relatively small area, were necessary to bring down a four-engine bomber.
…..
The initial experiments revealed that 420g-450g of explosives were needed in order to bring about the desired total damage to the fuselage or wings of a large bomber.”

This 420g-450g explosive content requirement led to the development of the German 55mm aircraft cannon.  For reference, a mk 108 30mm round contains 72g of explosive/incendiary mixture

The "four or five hits by 30mm projectiles" required to reliably bring down a bomber had to be "concentrated in a relatively small area".  5 randomly placed hits would apparently not have been sufficient.

Hooligan

[GScholz]

1/2 second burst.

[Batz]

Does anyone have the total numbe rof 109s equppied with the MK 108?

109G-6 (& AS)
109G-14
109G-10

[Tony Williams]

Re: the MK 108's effectiveness - this is a quote from 'Flying Guns: WW2'. The information was supplied to me by an American serviceman who personally witnessed the test:

"It was not only the blast which inflicted damage; after the war, the Americans test-fired an MK 108 HEI shell into the tail of a B-24 at a typical angle, characteristic of a tail interception by an Me 262. The "spray" pattern of very high velocity, very small fragments cut most if not all of the control cables and many of the longerons. It was assessed that the tail would have separated if the plane had been in flight; a performance which made a great impression on the observers."

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum