Author Topic: Nice site and pics about WW2 ammo (Read 3974 times)

gatt · « **on:** November 05, 2001, 07:03:00 AM »

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/1852/Cutaways.html

Interesting cutaways of the 12,7mm (81SR) BREDA-Safat cartridge (pretty rare to find, AFAIK), togheter with other 7mm, 13mm and bigger german ammos.

What AH and WB lack is, IMHO, a proper lethality for the 12,7mm HE shell that Japanese and Italians used (there are many confirmed reports of medium and even heavy bombers shot down by C.202s).

I understand this is probably due to the whole lethality model of the game. In other words, if a real 4x12,7mm armed fighter was able to shoot down a B-29, what 4x20mm armed fighters will do in the AH arena?

Seeker · « **Reply #1 on:** November 05, 2001, 07:49:00 AM »

What makes you say that, Gatt?
I fly the 205 quite a bit, and find it's weapons much more leathal than the Dstang (my other main ride), at least until the cannons run out.

Are you sure you're not confusing lethality with accuracy? I mean I get many more hits in the Stang, and at longer ranges, but then I *need* many more hits in the stang, if you see what I mean.

gatt · « **Reply #2 on:** November 05, 2001, 08:02:00 AM »

Heya Seeker,
I'm talking about the 2x12,7mm in the C.205 (and C.202) nose. The 2x20mm firing outside the propeller arc actually work *very* well

(the difference in lethality with the D9 or the 2x20mm armed A5-A8-F8 is big, IMHO).

Seeker · « **Reply #3 on:** November 05, 2001, 08:05:00 AM »

Ah, gotcha.

I need to read more thoroughly

funkedup · « **Reply #4 on:** November 05, 2001, 05:07:00 PM »

Gatt, talk to Dinger about this. He did his tests a long time ago, but it seems the Breda 12.7 was getting some incredible HE boost.

brady · « **Reply #5 on:** November 05, 2001, 06:33:00 PM »

I did a post a while ago on the Bereda SAFAT, I will look it up I was going to a post on it this weakend, I have some cutaway drawings I got from a local Military Museum archive. I suspect bellybutton well that the 12.7mm SAFAT mg is not hiting as hard as it should, and am going to look into it, the big "?" I have is how they loaded their ammo belts, I know the Japanese used almost all HEI rounds in all their aircraft gun's, the tracer round was the AP round in the chain and loaded like every 5th, I also know the Japanese based their HEI round's on the Italian design, but I do not know if they loaded their belts as the Japanese did.

Seeker · « **Reply #6 on:** November 05, 2001, 08:55:00 PM »

Could some one clarify something for me?

If I understand this correctly, the 12.7 mm machine gun on the Macci's fires an explosive shell, right? So why is it called a machine gun and not a cannon?

What's the dividing line? I was under the impression that if it fires a solid bullet, then broadly speaking it's an MG, and if it fires a shell then it's a cannon.

Could someone give the correct definitions?

brady · « **Reply #7 on:** November 05, 2001, 09:32:00 PM »

Not to hurt your head further m8t, but The Japanese used HEI rounds in their rifle calber MG's in their aircraft, 7.7mm explosive bullet

I think the italians did to, not shure on thier 7.7mm HEI ammo though.

Tony whear forth art though.......

jpeg · « **Reply #8 on:** November 05, 2001, 11:03:00 PM »

Awesome site!

Thanks for the link, def. addition to my bookmarks

gatt · « **Reply #9 on:** November 06, 2001, 01:06:00 AM »

Seeker,
I think that anything above 15mm (included) was considered cannon. Dunno about the 7,7mm but the 12,7mm with SIT ammo (Scoppianti-Incendiarie-Traccianti, i.e. HE-Incendiary/AP-Tracers) were able to bring down fighters and light-medium bombers. CR-32, CR-42, C.200, G.50, C.202 and the first Series of C.205 were all MG armed.
Anyway, I really cannot imagine how to give the right lethality power to 12,7mm and 13mm without giving 20mm an enormous one.

Another nice pic (70K): BREDA-Safat (you have to d/l it). Take a look at the difference between the german 13mm and the italian 12,7mm. You can imagine also why the Browning is so powerful. Courtesy of Tony Williams. Thank Tony, your book is very good

[ 11-06-2001: Message edited by: gatt ]

Tony Williams · « **Reply #10 on:** November 06, 2001, 01:35:00 AM »

A few comments.

As far as I can determine, the 12.7mm Breda HEI always came with a tracer, which restricted its HE capacity to less than 1 gram; this compares with c. 11g for a 20mm Hispano HEI or 20g for an M-Geschoss (or 25g for an MX-Geschoss). As Brady said, the Japanese did indeed copy the Italian projectiles; I am currently checking whether they also designed their own variations.

There is no hard and fast rule about the difference between a cannon and a machine gun; there have been different definitions used in different countries at different times (and sometimes by different services in the same country at the same time!). Nowadays it is generally accepted that cannon begin at 20mm calibre.

It is usually the case that cannon shells are hollow steel projectiles filled with explosive and/or incendiary compounds (if they're not AP shot) with separate driving bands to take the rifling, whereas bullets have a soft, all-enclosing metal jacket and usually a solid core. However, there were plenty of bullets with hollow cores (incendiary and HE) and some even had cannon-type shells.

Tony Williams
Author: "Rapid Fire: The development of automatic cannon, heavy machine guns and their ammunition for armies, navies and air forces"
Details on my military gun and ammunition website: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~autogun/index.htm

brady · « **Reply #11 on:** November 06, 2001, 06:09:00 PM »

Tony, TY for sheding some light on this issue