The RAF Museum's Mosquito FB.VI's ammo load information

[Karnak]

Due to the incosistancies in my books I sent an e-mail request to the RAF Museum in an attempt to get the actual ammo load of the Mosquito FB.VI.  In my e-mail I listed out each of the numbers I had found:

1) 300 rounds for each of the 4 Hispano 20mm cannon for a total of 1,200 rounds and 2,000 rounds for each of the 4 .303 machine guns for a total of 8,000 rounds. From one of my books.

2) 250 rounds for each of the 4 Hispano 20mm cannon for a total of 1,000 rounds and 1,000 rounds for each of the 4 .303 machine guns for a total of 4,000 rounds. From another one of my books.

3) 150 rounds for each of the 4 Hispano 20mm cannon for a total of 600 rounds and 750 rounds for each of the 4 .303 machine guns for a total of 3,000 rounds. From WarBirds 2.77.

4) 150 rounds for each of the 4 Hispano 20mm cannon for a total of 600 rounds and 500 rounds for each of the 4 .303 machine guns for a total of 2,000 rounds. From Hammer Head's book on the Australian version of the Mosquito FB.VI.


Here is the text of the reply I received from Peter Elliott, Senior Keeper, Department of Research & Information Services, Royal Air Force Museum:

 

Dear Mr Ahola,

Thank you for your enquiry. The RAF manual for the Mosquito VI includes a
table for weight and loading. This quotes 2000 rounds of 0.303 ammunition
for the Brownings and 600 20mm rounds for the Hispanos - i.e. 500 rounds per
Browning and 150 per Hispano.

However, there are also two lines:
"Total Overload Browning Ammunition, 3120 rounds" and
"Total Overload Hispano Gun Ammunition, 700 rounds"
which suggests to me that in certain circumstances the aircraft could carry
780 rounds per Browning and 175 rounds per Hispano. I have no information on
how often these loads - or other variations - were carried, but you might
like to contact:

Mosquito Aircrew Association
Mr T Wilson (Membership Secretary)
21 Kingwell Road
Hadley Wood
Barnet
Herts
EN4 0HZ

Yours sincerely,

Peter Elliott
Senior Keeper
Department of Research & Information Services
Royal Air Force Museum
Hendon
London
NW9 5LL
Direct line: 020-8358-4850
Switchboard: 020-8205-2266
Direct Fax: 020-8358-4991 (Office hours only)
Fax (24 hours) 020-8200-1751

The numbers are not what I was hoping, but it is always better to have the truth than to be misinformed.

I think the mistake that the books claiming 300 rounds for each 20mm cannon made was to see the ammo box as feeding one gun, when, looking at the diagrams, it seems that the box may have had 300 rounds with two guns being fed out of it.

Comments?

[funkedup]

Nice

[Toad]

No comment other than it's nice to see someone working so hard to get the best possible data.

So many times we see the unsupported campaigns for this or that.

>

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Karnak:
I think the mistake that the books claiming 300 rounds for each 20mm cannon made was to see the ammo box as feeding one gun, when, looking at the diagrams, it seems that the box may have had 300 rounds with two guns being fed out of it.

Comments?

Nice data Karnak..... however there was no box in the AC...ammo was all belted.

Tilt

[Vermillion]

Nice info Karnak, thanks for sharing  

Its nice to see someone put out that extra effort to find good data.

[Karnak]

Tilt,

I was refering to the box in which the belt is stored.  In the cutaway details of the Mosquito it looks like there are only two such storage boxes.  This leads me to think that there were two separate belts being fed out of one box, perhaps partitioned.

I know that the Mosquito did not use ammo drums like the Spitfire MkIB and Whirlwind MkI.

Thanks for the compliments guys.