Hi Gripen,
>AFAIK Galland keeped his Bf 109E long time because he rated it's armament better and he also got a special Bf 109F with wing cannons.
I've not read anything about Galland retaining a Me 109E. His special Me 109F variants included the Me 109F-2/U with the cowl machine guns upgraded to 13 mm calibre, though it would have been considerably easier to mount them in the wings (like the MG FF/M of his Me 109F-6/U). The F-6/U as the wing cannon aircraft you're referring to did not replace the engine cannon, but merely augmented it with more cannon that had to be mounted in the wings as they were unsuitable for synchronization (and wouldn't have fit into the cowling anyway).
Galland's quest for firepower included the addition of wing guns, but all his aircraft kept the accurate centreline guns. He certainly was aware of their advantages.
>But the comparison was between the Spitfire vs Bf 109F (or G) or the Bf 109E vs Bf 109F. And I believe that in the both cases an average pilot could get more hits with a plane with wing armament because most bullets miss anyway and therefore combination with better firepower is better.
You're talking about a quantitative difference, but in fact there was a qualitative difference between centreline armament and wing guns: While the former's cone of fire coincided with the sight line at any range, the latters' did so only at convergence range. This is the problem Major Riemensnider mentioned - wing guns don't just give you more firepower, but they introduce a new aiming problem.
If you look at the harmonization procedures, it becomes clear that the goal was, even with wing guns, was to keep the resulting pattern as small as possible. The desired result was dense fire, not a "shotgun effect". A "shotgun effect" could, after all, have been produced by suitable mis-alignment of a centreline weapons set, too - but instead, the weapons were set to fire parallel or to converge at very long range.
In short, the "shotgun" comparison is misleading. Galland's exmple of the "shotgun" (20 mm MG FF/M) may have illustrated his line of thinking when he compared it with a hunting rifle of greater accuracy, but smaller calibre (15 mm MG 151). However, he was advocating higher firepower, not simply a large and poorly centered pattern as you'd get from wing guns.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
