Author Topic: 38 armament bins (Read 413 times)

Delirium · « **on:** November 09, 2005, 06:45:57 AM »

While the P38 is the topic of the week...

The P38 used metal bins to store the ammunition within the nose of the plane, they had nice handles to be able to manipulate the bins into place or remove them for re-arming. It looks to me as tho the design was incredibly efficent, and here is my question.

How efficient was the design? What was the turn-over time to re-fuel and re-arm a P38? Was this design used in any other aircraft? Was the P38 the first to use such a design? Were there any drawbacks to this type of design?

Delirium · « **Reply #1 on:** November 09, 2005, 11:55:21 PM »

Anyone?

Pooface · « **Reply #2 on:** November 10, 2005, 11:44:18 AM »

well idont quite understand what you mean by 'bins'. if you mean like a normal bucket type bin, i wonder whether or not there would be problems pulling inverted maneuvers, especially if you were rolling back and forth a lot. i imagine the ammo belts must have got tied up, or bent several times in a pilots career. and reload time i wouldn't expect to be much faster than normal, i dont know. you'd have to get guppy to help you out

Delirium · « **Reply #3 on:** November 10, 2005, 12:45:27 PM »

I'd post pics (now that I finally have a scanner) but Picture Hanger is still down...

Treize69 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 10, 2005, 01:30:38 PM »

I'm looking, I have pics of what hes talking about somewhere. I'll post as soon as I can find them and get them uploaded.

Treize69 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 10, 2005, 01:40:44 PM »

The silver-looking boxes in this shot of Glacier Girl were the ammo bins. Unlike most WWII fighters which had ammo belts laid out in the wings or coiled up in drums, the 38s had removable bins for the ammo- the crews took them out, loaded the ammo belts into them, reinserted them into the nose and then fed the belt into the gun. Or at least thats how understand it to work, I've been wrong before.

Karnak · « **Reply #6 on:** November 10, 2005, 01:43:28 PM »

I'll lok at my stuff when I get home, but I am pretty sure the .303s on fighter Mossies were in bins like that. I'm not sure about the cannon ammo on it though.