40mm Ho-301 cannon

[brady]

 I have seen some posts or replies to posts stating that planes equipped with these cannons should be perked, I think not,their performance is well...appalling.

quote from Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War,by Rene J Francillon:

p.529 "this weapon was unusual in as much as it's ammunition did not use catrages. Instead, the propelling charge was contained in a cavity in the rear of the projectile."

ROF 450rpm,MV 760ft. per sec.,effective range 490ft!

quote from SHOKI by Richard M Bueshel:

p.42
"Muzzle velocity of 40mm cannon was so low the ranges required to effectively fire were virtually suicidal. So they were removed."

The bellow scans are from TM-1985-5:

   

   

Brady

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[This message has been edited by brady (edited 01-21-2001).]

[funked]

Yep, a nearly worthless weapon in real life.  In AH, with bombers armed as they are... a completely worthless weapon.

[Tony Williams]

All true - but if a plane carrying Ho-301s could get close enough to a bomber, the effect could be devastating because of the combination of large calibre and high rate of fire (just compare the 450 rpm with a typical 37mm cannon at 120-170 rpm).

Definitely only one for the suicide jockeys, though.

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/  

[Vermillion]

Which 40mm cannon did the Hurricane use, and how good was it?

I still think the Soviets had the best large caliber aircraft cannons of the war, with the NS-37 and NS-45. Both VERY effective cannons.

Just curious.

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

[brady]

 Vermillion,a while ago i put up a post on the bellow topic relative to Russian aircraft weapons would u care to  comment?
 http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum9/HTML/001134.html


Brady

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[This message has been edited by brady (edited 01-22-2001).]

[Vermillion]

Well, Tony could probably adress that alot better than I could, but everything I have seen indicates that the ShVak and B-20 cannons (which are balistically identical and use the same ammunition) are fairly similar in capabilities to the German MG151/20, which I tend to see in Aces High.

Here is another good source of information on Russian Ammunition and Guns.
 http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/1852/index.html  

The reason I feel that the Russians made the best large caliber aircraft guns becomes fairly obvious once you look at the performance of both their NS-37 37mm cannon and their NS-45 45mm cannon (the NS-45 is basically a bored out NS-37).

Both guns are physically fairly light, allowing their use in aircraft without hurting performance to a great degree, and they also perform well. They have a high rate of fire (for big guns), a very high velocity, and large and potent ammunition.

Simply put, the Soviet guns dwarf the Germans, Americans, and Japanese guns in capability.

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

[Tony Williams]

 

Originally posted by Vermillion:
Which 40mm cannon did the Hurricane use, and how good was it?

I still think the Soviets had the best large caliber aircraft cannons of the war, with the NS-37 and NS-45. Both VERY effective cannons.

Just curious.

The Hurricane IID used the Vickers Class S gun.  It was good against Panzer III and IV, not against Tigers.  The story of this gun (and an interesting squeeze-bore variant) is summarised on my website, with ballistic and AP data etc.

Agree with you about Russian guns.  They took the science of gun design much further than anyone else and have consistently produced the best aircraft weapons in their class since the 1930s (still true today).

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/

[Tony Williams]

 

Originally posted by Vermillion:
Well, Tony could probably adress that alot better than I could, but everything I have seen indicates that the ShVak and B-20 cannons (which are balistically identical and use the same ammunition) are fairly similar in capabilities to the German MG151/20, which I tend to see in Aces High.

Here is another good source of information on Russian Ammunition and Guns.
 http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/1852/index.html  

The reason I feel that the Russians made the best large caliber aircraft guns becomes fairly obvious once you look at the performance of both their NS-37 37mm cannon and their NS-45 45mm cannon (the NS-45 is basically a bored out NS-37).

Both guns are physically fairly light, allowing their use in aircraft without hurting performance to a great degree, and they also perform well. They have a high rate of fire (for big guns), a very high velocity, and large and potent ammunition.

Simply put, the Soviet guns dwarf the Germans, Americans, and Japanese guns in capability.

A couple of comments:  

I would rate the ShVAK as being a bit better than the MG 151/20.  It was more powerful, and had a higher rate of fire.

The problem with the NS-37 was its heavy recoil, which pushed the plane off aim, so it could only fire about three shots at a time before lining up again.  The NS-45 was even worse in this respect, and it was decided not to put the Yak-9K which carried it into production (only about 50 test planes were made).

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/

[AKDejaVu]

Seems the trick with this cannon would be to fire it straight down for any kind of effectiveness.  One caution may be to never fire it straight up.

AKDejaVu