Originally posted by Tony Williams
I regard Green as a rather dangerous source when it comes to armament, because he put in a lot of convincing detail, some of which was wrong. For example, in at least one book he stated as a fact that later models of the Bf 109 could be fitted with an MK 103 engine gun, MK 103s in underwing pods and 15mm MG 151 on the cowling, thereby scoring 0/3.
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
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Ok tony I have some information for you which you might find interesting.After reading this can see the mk103 in any unmodified form would not be suitable for this proposed set up but I think i may have found something which would easily cause an error such as william green 'may' have made.
The Luftwaffe Fighter Force:A view from the cockpit' by Adolf Galland et al, Edited by David Isby ISBN 1-85367-327-7
on page 183 about Luftwaffe armaments:
'26.Weapons which are used with photo-electric cell firing.In the FW190 three MK103 rocket tubes with a single shot each pointing upward at 70-80 degrees were fired by photo-electric cell when flying under the bomber formation.'as you can see this weapon if used on the late 109s could easily be assumed to be the typically mounted weapons when in fact they are a very different weapon.could this be the reason william green made the assumption the MK103 was used on the 109-K?
also i wasnt sure if you was of the opinion the MK103 wasnt used in Gondala form because of the weight of the weapon but it seems they were used on the FW190s at least (hs-129 was another)
Page 184
'4.FW190. 2xMK 103 under wing armaments with about 40 rounds each, in addition to 2xMK 151 and 2xMG17. Tested in a few models.
Advantages:High speed muzzle velocity, great range, and good fire effect.
Disadvantages:Speed loss of 60 km/h, aircraft not stable while firing,lowering of ceiling and reduction in manouverability.The aircraft was over-loaded with this armament.'like i said i wasnt sure whether you meant that they(MK103s) were never tried as gondalas or that they were just unsuitablefor the 109 in particular(?) .As you can see they obviously tried some "way out" loadouts and im inclined to believe they would have at least tried some of these weapons(MK103#'s) on the later 109s,be they the gondalas, the engine mounted MK103m or the 3 single shot MK103s, although i'd suspect they were rejected much like this FW190 idea, I think its very narrow sighted to disregard possible testing that may have been done because one author (Manfried Griehl's) fails to mention it.I realise hes a good author but all historians are faced with the same problem, they very rarely get to see every document ever written during the war on a particular aircraft, often their scope is so big they make quite a few mistakes, like Green has it seems.With this in mind I'm not ready to agree with you fully that these loadouts were never tried or ever used.I do agree from what you have said it would seem a very unlikely combination and more a danger to the pilot of the poor 109 than any targeted bomber!
but you just cant use 'common sense' with the LW to decide if you beleive in a particularly strange sounding loadout, I mean these are the guys who put 75mm PAK guns in aircraft and used crazy ideas like 10kg bombs slung on 300 foot cables and even Detonating cords on parachutes and even liquid and powdered materials to cloud windscreens and clog engines!
These boys were real loons!
just one last quote from the same book:
page 186
'19.Me410. 2xMK103 and 2xMG151 built into the fuselage.Produced as the factory built armament of some Me410s.Not used in the defence of the reich because by the time it was ready, the Me410 had to be withdrawn from operations'these are just some of the 35 odd loadouts in this list.They are taken from Interrogations of Generalleutnant Galland, Oberleutnant Bar,Oberstleutnant Dahl and Oberst Peterson at Kaufbeuren Germany 12-14 September 1945.
Erprobungskommando 25, set up for the purpose of testing proposals of armements and loadouts would seem to be the place to investigate these claims of possible loadouts. I wonder if there are any records left about this group?. If I lived in Germany I think Id try to go find some info about them. Im tempted often to take a trip to the British public records office in Kent and i hope to go there one day soon, I wonder if theres anyone in Germany who has access to a similar source of records and could go look for information on WW2 armement?
for now I would agree, the 109K-6 was
unlikely to have been fitted with 3 MK103 in the configeration William Green describes, However, there is the Engine mounted MK 103m which would explain the quote about difficulty the ground crews had with the barrel and theres a fair chance at some point the LW tried the 3xMK103 single shot 70-80 degree firing version on a 109 and its obvious they had MK103 gondalas and had tried them on almost any aircraft they felt could carry them. Do you suppose they never tried them on their most powerfull 109 to date? Judging by the many crazy configurations they did try, I feel its highly probable they indeed did try some of the more unreasonable sounding setups, even possibly the 109K-8 with MK103m engine mounted 30mm and 2 underwing MK103 gondalas. Maybe after the first flight they dismissed it outright? who knows? I just dont agree with the dismissal of the idea that they might have tried it, not unless theres firm evidence the armament simply couldnt 'fit'. I wouldnt agree to seeing these loadouts in AH of course, Im still of the opinion if it wasnt in use in combat , on a fairly regular basis it shouldnt be put in a simulator of WW2.
After seeing the MK103M or Mot comments and others from hohun concerning the 109K-8 (proposed production fighter) and considering in order to propose a model there were usually tests of some kind performed in order to see if the proposal is a worthy one I have decided to rescore poor old William Green,
he scores one and a half out of 3
.One for the fact there were indeed MK103 underwing gomdalas available and half a point for claiming a 109 had a MK103 cannon when in fact it seems more likely it was the MK103M.The MG151/15's are obviously wrong if it can be proved those guns couldnt fit in the cowl of a 109K and so scores zero
.
Better than 0/3 eh?
