P-51D-30 mustang armament: Is it the M2 or M3?

[HypeZephyr]

Sorry! This is my first time posting in these forums and I hope this is the proper place to post this question. I have an inquiry regarding the P-51D block 30's WW2 armament. I've heard of a few claims that the block 30 mustang were equipped with M3 browning, but never specified if they used them in WW2. Another interesting claim I've heard about is that Block 30s serving in the Korean War did not have 75" boost but had M3s as their armament while Block 30s serving in WW2 had 75" boost but only used the M2.

Did the D-30 use exclusively M3s during their initial production run in 1945 on the Pacific front? ..or did they use M2s originally, but swapped to M3s for the Korean War? Is the claim that Korean War mustangs ran on lower boost units than their WW2 equivalents true?

-Thanks in advance.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Welcome aboard, you've come to the right place to get answers to those questions, there are some bona fide experts here that I'm sure will be around soon to give you the low down on that.

Sadly, I am not one of those experts, but welcome!

 

[SaparotRob]

Welcome, HZ. What Peter Gunn said.

 

[cvairwerks]

The M3 didn't start production until sometime in 1945 and only 2400 were produced at that time. The IPC doesn't show the M3 ever installed, or as an alternate item for the M2.

 

[HypeZephyr]

Thank you everyone so much for the responses! It's interesting to hear that the M3 wasn't installed or used by aircraft over the M2. Is this only true for 1945? Does this mean that WW2 era Block 30 Mustangs used M2s as opposed to their Korean War versions?