Cannons

[FLOOB]

Because the browning .50 already existed, there was ample supply. The support and supply chain was already in place. But really the reason serious effort in the US wasn't put into cannon armament at the time was because, most importantly, the browning .50 was good enough. If it really wasn't good enough the americans would've made cannons work and put them in their planes. Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

[Karnak]

Because the browning .50 already existed, there was ample supply. The support and supply chain was already in place. But really the reason serious effort in the US wasn't put into cannon armament at the time was because, most importantly, the browning .50 was good enough. If it really wasn't good enough the americans would've made cannons work and put them in their planes. Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

Well, we did build something like a million 20mm cannons that, due to our insistence on not taking the British advice, had a very high jamming rate.  We even made something like 700,000 rounds of ammo for the MG151/20 when we considered putting it into production to use as our 20mm cannon.  The US Navy wanted cannons from the start, but due to the jamming rate had to use the BMG instead.

[Saxman]

Well, we did build something like a million 20mm cannons that, due to our insistence on not taking the British advice, had a very high jamming rate.  We even made something like 700,000 rounds of ammo for the MG151/20 when we considered putting it into production to use as our 20mm cannon.  The US Navy wanted cannons from the start, but due to the jamming rate had to use the BMG instead.

IIRC, the Navy also had issues with the cannon icing up, as well. The first F4U-1Cs had a major problem with this until the heaters were fixed.