"I don't remember the 108 ever being used with barrel extensions for their own sake, and these definitely don't match normal 108 barrels."
Not a longer barrel because that would mean also changes to gun to withstand greater pressures which is impossible for such a light weight gun -so they could be merely blast tubes. One reason to use them would be to extract the gun blast from bomb bay. If the blast tube comes with a some standard length if would be possible that they did not shorten it at all but kept it in full length to have the muzzle blast as far away from fuselage as possible. I seriously doubt that you can fire such weapon in a closed space like 410's bomb bay without some kind of blast extraction. The 410C sketch just does not have them drawn to make a clear distinction that those guns are MK108s.
-C+
Yes of course. I've just never seen such extensions for the 108. Do you have any examples? Text or pictures. In particular I'm curious what the design looks like, that accomodates the issue mentioned in the wikipedia article, "disadvantages" section.
The 410C sketch isn't the only one with 108s. You've got pretty clear communication sketches for the 4x108 bomb-bay package where you can see they are staggered, and that means barrel extensions. It's in the May 15th 1944 page I posted further above.
Oh, and the guns looked funny because they had a thick base, went down to a normal barrel width, then grew slightly thicker again (muzzle brake, or just gas dispersion vents maybe?). Doesn't resemble the straight-barrel Mg151/20 at all.
I don't see it. They look like normal 20s with some shadows on the barrels.
I'm not pessimistic, it's a clear trend. You've got negligible typos (e.g. labeling a muzzle-braked MK103 "MK 108" on a diagram), and you've got meaningful errors like the MK108 "R2" thing that gets repeated and quickly taken for granted. And since these "R2" books don't give their bibliography for that specific piece of info (eg annotated like a wikipedia article) but only general bibliography at the back of the book, there's no choice but to take everything they say with a grain of salt.
The "not devoting much time/thought" bit was for you saying that the 8x or 6x or 4x 20mm configs weren't given much attention. They were because that aspect was what had the most potential for returns, to make the 410 worthwhile in their POV.
On the 108, I don't know why they didn't use it. I don't know either what the figures are - ie I don't have evidence either way that it was as available as you say it ought to have been. In Feb 44 MK108 production is 1500, with 1750 expected in March. I don't know how that sizes up with usage for all other MK108 platforms.
By early June they're saying that BK5 won't be required at previously expected rates, that 15/mo will be enough. That's down from Galland's demand for 150 per month in mid/late Nov 43. In July 44, right around the time that the 410 is starting to be ignored and then canned within 2mo's time, the consensus is that all weapons are only stopgaps to the MK103. All of ZG26 and 76 are to convert to MK103. Bohlan says he's convinced the quad 20mm will make it to production in time. Nowhere in this desperate search for a solution is the 108 mentioned.
Around the same time, or a little earlier, another general consensus is that the 110 should be dedicated to night fighter duty while the 410 carries daytime duties. It could just be one more stupid nazi brass blunder. Like I said the 108 came up at least a year earlier and if the meeting notes are anything to go by, the request was ignored.
Why no mk108? It's easy enough to load them up.
Why weren't any MK 108 field mods made? If it's so easy and it wasn't done, then maybe the field didn't have access to them. This'd be consistent with a top level directive excluding Me 410 crews from the MK 108 pool.
While I generally agree with this pessimistic notion (I'm a bit of one myself), I think that wholesale discounting of all of them does nothing to help the situation.
Krusty please stop the uplifting bulltoejam. The only wholesale discounting is pointing out that books that're supposed to be precise
references but don't fact-check themselves and are full of typos, aren't credible. There's no connotations to this plain statement, it's only stating the plain facts: they are not reliable for these details. When you've got someone who can't even tell the difference between an MK 108 and an MK 103 despite the freakin muzzle brake sticking out as plain as a boner in spandex, I think you need help writing such a book as one
focused on the Me 410 and Me 410 details.
Have you personally gone through German archives and pulled up first hand the documents in original penned letters, to translate? No. We rely on the books to do that for us.
Have you bought and scanned the books I have? No. So you rely on the people that do it for you and call it out when they're right or wrong. Like on the bomb bay doors or on the MG 151/20 barrels that aren't quite clearly MG 151/20s. These guys are supposed to have been researching this plane for tens of years and still they make bonehead mistakes like these. While even someone "normal" like me would know better and make it clear in the book, that this or that thing is "not clearly "this or that" to the author".
Some are more thorough than others, but they don't just wake up and decide "today I'm going to fabricate loadouts for a plane from WW2"
What's the difference?? The result is the same. It doesn't matter what the inside of a black box is, only what it consistently outputs. Green and anyone who based their work on Green will consistently say that the 410B had 603G's. Ludwoch and whoever wrote the Squadron Signal book consistently say that there was such a thing as MK 108s and that it was called "/R2". Stocker himself ends the book with a few diagrams and where you've got a WB151A with the funny german "A" square shaped, he labels it "WB151R". WTF is that? All of a sudden there's this thing called WB151R? How does it not occur to you after going thru 100s of docs where it's called "A", that this final doc is no different except the "A" was shaped funny?
... I think the root was some form or chart or report or something that existed. You cannot discount all forms and charts and diagrams. You may refute them, though.
Or you do both when the source of those diagrams have a track record for getting it wrong. And you certainly don't go to HTC and tell em you want an Me 410 that's loaded with MK 108s because some modern day diagram has em. Or an Ar 234 with tail guns because "so many" books rendered them that way.
Another freakin endless discussion because someone needs to be walked thru things A thru Z. I quit.
