20 mm in action

[smoe]

I've seen gun camera views of 109/190's having half there wing blown off. I've always wondered if this was due to a secondary explosion like 20mm rounds or fuel tanks exploding inside the wing after taking hits from 50cal's.

[Pongo]

There is no fuel in the wings of either plane. So its ammo, or as some have attested on these pages in the past, the airstream forcing through a single 50 cal hole causes the wing to explode like a balloon.

The hispano mk5 weighs 42 to the 50s 29 pounds. An evolved design to be sure, but nothing exotic, it is just made to not last as long.
US manufacture of the Hispano in WW2 was arround 135000 units. Most never used.

[Krusty]

one really good reason not to arm the USAAF fighters with cannons is the likelihood of FF caused by trying to kill an attacker ...

That's a retarded comment

[Widewing]

The skin, especially the upper wing skin is major structure. You won't see many fighter-sized planes survive more than two or three cannon hits to the upper wing, especially near the root, and especially if he's trying to maneuver to fight or survive. Those are the guys who don't make it home to have their picture taken.

Robert Johnson's P-47C absorbed twenty one 20mm hits and over two hundred 7.92mm MG rounds. He flew it 200 miles back to Manston. Hits in the wings, fuselage, tail and engine. It boiled down to luck, and one very strong aircraft.


My regards,

Widewing

[thorsim]

yea ok ...

That's a retarded comment

not only did they not need shoot down big 4 engine heavily armored bombers,
they didn't want them to shoot them down ...

[BnZs]

Anyway you look at it, a given number of Hispano rounds is going to weigh more and take up more volume than the same number of .50 cal rounds. You'll get more firing *time* or a denser "pattern" for the same weight of ammo, which is an acceptable advantage if your weapon is deemed lethal *enough*. Kind of like the difference 5.56 and 7.62mm...some argue for the heavier punch of the latter, some argue that 5.56 has "enough" punch and you can carry more ammo.

And when it comes to engaging fighters, we have different priorities. In AHII, we are dogfighting, taking snapshots at all sorts of bizarre angles. In the war, most kills involved pulling in behind and hosing the opposition down liberally at close range and little deflection. Further, our mission requirements are different. Say you're escorting bombers...you pull in behind an intercepting 109 and hose it down. Smoke and glycol pour from the plane, it dives for the clouds and disappears. Even if you only get to claim a "probable", mission accomplished, that 109 is no longer threatening the buffs. In AHII however, you want to actually knock the darn wing off or the like, so that you get a kill immediately and your bandit does not land, ditch, or get shot and the system awards the kill to someone else.

[Pongo]

Lets seem some shots of what that jug looked like with 20 20mm rounds in it.
I have read and heard the story too, I would like to see shots equivilent to the p36 ones.

Its really really easy. The hispano is 3 times better then the 50 cal at shooting down aircraft, but only weighs twice as much. With a simular rate of fire and balistics, a given small number of hits will much more likely destroy the aircraft that you are shooting at. The game reflects the difference very well.
If there was a pony in AH with 4 hispanos and the one with 6 50s, How many sortis would the 50 cal one get?
There are logistical considerations, the 50 costs less, the 50 is easier to work on, etc.
But for all the reasons you put an automatic weapon on a fighter, the hispano is far more effective.
Unless you are comparing the US hispanos. Then if you factor in the jams over a thousand missions. The number of stoppages will make the 50 cal more effective. Probably way way more effective. So that is what they went with.

And the hispanos sat in ware houses.

And there were more then enough 50 armed planes shooting at vulnerable and smaller planes with good enough marksmanship to win the war quite effectively.
Until the kamakazis, then they wanted 20mm. How many men died to the kamakazis, How many would have died if all the hellcats had 4 effective 20mm instead of 6 50s?
How much quicker would the LW been attrited? Even a month is lives. Thousands of them.

So its not nothing. And they could clearly see in that P36 what the situation was. They tried to adopt one of the best 20mm in the world, and they failed. For absolutely no good reason.
Its stunning that they failed, just like the torpedo, and the medium tank. Although the torpedo gets the gold ring for biggest tragedy. The sherman really was a great tank in 1941-42. And the 50 worked great for what it was. And still does. But its no Hispano.

[Charge]

Alleged 20mm damage pictures:

http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.com/raf1943/buck.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Shvak_bf109.jpg

20 or 30mm, who knows...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kIWY2DV0KnE/SIPq0VClCgI/AAAAAAAAA4I/-9MekvU5Vxs/s1600-h/Sperry+Retractable+Ball+Turret+showing+direct+hit+by+cannon+fire.jpg
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/07/weekend-wings-25-air-gunners.html

Also could be 20 or 30mm:
http://b24.net/crashsites/42-95025%20damage%2015Jun44.jpg

-C+

[Demetrious]

And the hispanos sat in ware houses.

This is blatant BS. I demand at least a few references.

They tried to adopt one of the best 20mm in the world, and they failed. For absolutely no good reason.

This is also blatant BS. The Hispano cannon, for it's entire service life, was always a royal pain in the ass. Even the Russians commented on how much of a pain in the bellybutton it was compared to their own 20mm cannons- they pulled the Hispanos out of their lend-lease Hurricanes and stuck their own weapons in. In fact, their own 12.7mm machine gun was lighter then the .50 browning and had a greater rate of fire, too. The intense difficulties presented by manufacturing the Hispano is what kept the US from deploying them operationally, and why the C Hog armament was discontinued.

Its stunning that they failed, just like the torpedo, and the medium tank.

If the king of the battlefield was the Germans and their DAS UBERTANKEN, then why did they field so many Panzer IVs? Which- just like the Sherman- received periodic upgrades throughout the war. The Panzer IV was the German's principal tank for most of the war, and the Sherman was more then a match for it. As far as heavy/assault tanks go, we had the Jumbo Sherman, and we could also count on British Cromwell's to fill that role in joint operations. The inferiority of the Sherman is, and always has been, an overblown myth.

The sherman really was a great tank in 1941-42. And the 50 worked great for what it was. And still does. But its no Hispano.

For fighter vs. fighter combat, I'd take a six .50 cal battery any day. Why? Because the Germans- nor the Japanese- had a fighter that could stand up to six, or even four .50 cals. There is ammunition capacity to consider- 20mm shells were larger volume-wise, you could only carry so many. Consider the cannon ammo capacities of most of the cannon-armed fighters of the war. And since it only takes a few rounds in the engine- or one in the pilot- to destroy an enemy aircraft, the cannons are frankly overkill. I'd rather have greater fire duration. The freedom to hose around .50 cal is highly useful when you're fighting against enemies that only take a few rounds in vital spots to down- and given the way wing-mounted guns tended to spray rounds around, the chances of a few .50s striking a vital area were excellent.

Cannon armaments were important for air forces engaging heavy bombers, but since the US wasn't, they didn't need them. They had the Brownings, and with their excellent ballistics, they proved effective and powerful weapons. People only complain about them in AH because it's possible to take a Warhawk up against something like a P-47 or a Hog, which can soak amazing amounts of damage.

[63tb]

This is from Tony William's site regarding the US attempts to produce the Hispano 20mm -


http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/US404.htm



63tb

[Demetrious]

This is from Tony William's site regarding the US attempts to produce the Hispano 20mm -


http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/US404.htm



63tb

Tony Williams is a regular over at ww2aircraft.net and his forum contributions are always informative.

[Pongo]

References to what?
How many Hispanos were made in the US during the war. Flying Guns says 135000. To how many you need to use to put 4 in each P61, 2 each on the Helldiver, 4 each on a few pony derivatives, 1 each on the P400 and the P38? Of americas hundred thousand, how many Hispanos would you say were used? Where do you think they went?

I said the Hispano was one of the best cannons in the world because it was. That the soviets had a better one doesn't not make the Hispano one of the best.  The soviets had a better HMG as well, that doesn't stop the 50 from being one of the best either.You can rest assured, the americans didn't have a better one available and it worked fine in its British derivative. That you think the hispano was discontinued is interesting. It was the primary armament on all of the last generation of navy prop fighters(bearcat, corsair, tigercat, skyraider). It was the primary weapon on the first generation of navy jet fighters.
Only the end of ww2 design jet planes like the F84 and F86, designed arround a 50 cal, kept it, and they regretted it. They struggled to replace the 50 in an airframe that was not designed to take such a long weapon.In the end the Hispano was tremendously effective in US service. Why do you think that is?

The germans were not happy with the Panzer IV either, They were not happy with its armour lay out, its mechanical components, they were not happy with the size of the road wheels. The Germans had battle field and economic constraints that precluded them totally replacing it. They wanted to cut bait with it in 1942... But they were very very happy to have their "uber tanks" as you call them. Those "uber tanks" are in size and capability very similar to the tanks the US and Britian started makeing when the guys who watched their units whiped out by tigers and panthers got some say in what the tanks that they were issued should be. Instead of interwar calvary guys deciding. The US in fact designed and fielded tanks that make your Uber tigers look small. Why did they do that?

It is understandable that pilots in the field, having had good success with the 50 cal would say it was enough. Had they flow the same plane with well implemented hipspanos they would have had the same opinion on them that people in AH do. That the first pilots(experienced 50 cal pilots) that shot down planes with the C Hog had, And the first typhoon pilots had when they unleashed that battery.

 But the reason that probably 90% of 1945 US fighters didn't have hispanos, is that the people in charge of converting them for US production totally failed to do so effectively. Had they, you would have some interesting insults for people who maintained that the 50 would have been sufficient.

The people in AH have the same opinion of the 50 and hispano that ww2 people had. They could get the job done with 50s. The examples I gave of the impact of kamakazi attacks is just historical fact. Everything I have said of the intent and desire to produce the hispano and adopt it for wide spread US use is just simple fact.

All you are left with is a statement of about the equivalent of "real men don't need cannons"

[Pongo]

Tony Williams is a regular over at ww2aircraft.net and his forum contributions are always informative.

I have his Flying guns ww2 book and his firepower book. I have read the book he quotes written by the guy who adapted the french 20mm for the RAF. I had exchanges with him about that very book just recently.(I note he has added new purple quotes from that very book to that page.hmmm)

Do you read anything in that excellent post that discounts what I say about a failure to adapt the effective british hispano to US use in a timely manner. Do you find anything in that post or his books to support your apparent contention that the development of the US hispano in time for ww2 was not a failure, it was just something that wasn't wanted?

The conversion of the Hispano, from an engine mounted magazine fed specialty cannon to a wing mounted, belt fed cannon was not trivial, But most everything had been done by the Brits after they failed to get it working effectively in time for the Battle of Britian even though they started in 38?

[Pongo]

"I'd rather have greater fire duration. The freedom to hose around .50 cal is highly useful when you're fighting against enemies that only take a few rounds in vital spots to down- and given the way wing-mounted guns tended to spray rounds around, the chances of a few .50s striking a vital area were excellent. "
this is just incorrect. I could and did lead to many claims that were not kills. Especially against german planes. That AH allows you do to do this is a game weakness. The guns would overheat and loose accuracy if treated this way. This is a major advantage in real life of the hispano over the 50 and the 50 in turn over the 30.  Being able to kill with way shorter bursts, because shorter bursts are far less likely to adversely effect the guns.

[Karnak]

One thing that struck me, reading the article about the P-36s at Pearl Harbor, was how many of the claimed kills of Japanese and American fighters were false.  I am not really familiar with the P-36's durability, but I know the A6M2 was not protected at all and yet only one A6M and one P-36 seemed to actually be valid kills, even though the .50 cal armed P-36s succeeded in hitting quite a few A6M2s.