Mitsubishi Ki-51 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaLindberg shot down one Japanese aircraft. When you read a account of the action, it was no great tactical feat. It was a Ki-51 Sonia, a army ground attack aircraft.
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Mitsubishi Ki-51 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaLindberg shot down one Japanese aircraft. When you read a account of the action, it was no great tactical feat. It was a Ki-51 Sonia, a army ground attack aircraft.
He was also an extremely good marksmen from childhood having to hunt for his food.
Wikipedia also stated he taught the Marine pilots how to takeoff with a greater load.May, '44- Charles Lindbergh starts flying missions in the Corsair with USMC pilots at Green Island and Emirau in the Pacific. His last missions with an F4U-(sic) in the area will be to Rabaul on the ninth of June".
I understand what you are saying but kinetic energy is also part of the energy equation and cannot be dismissed lightly.
I said this poorly "replace the 50 in the Navy, whose tech staff did prefer it and did update after the war". I meant to say that the tech staff preferred upgrading the 50 to 20 mm and did update after the war.
Oct. '44, some of the most vicious and deadly fighting using these "left over aircraft" was yet ahead for the allied forces in the Pacific, and the Navy was about to field the most powerful fighter it would field in the war, the F4U-4, with 50s.
With the F4U-4C it tried out the American gun, I think, and it was a failure. The Post war F4U-5 also came with 20mm, but I don't know which one.
I was not complaining about the jamming sensitivity of the 20s. I was comparing six 50s to two 20s. With one gun jam, the six 50s only lose a sixth of its fire power, the 20s, however, lose half.
I agree and I must admit that I lack any knowledge of impact of explosive shells.
Maybe at BuAer, but I have not read anything about desire at ops, even at the Fighter Conference. Of course the Navy was fighting Japanese aircraft that were notoriously vulnerable to 50 cal fire.
I fully understand the Navy was moving toward the 20mm. However, to be picky, the FH-1 Phantom initial production contract was placed on 7 March, 1945, with four (!) 50 cals.
I have never stated that the Navy did no plan to go to the 20mm, only that there was no urgency to do so because the weapons they had were effective. It is intuitively obvious that both the Navy and the AAF were interested in more firepower, aren't they always, but both apparently felt disrupting the prosecution of the war to upgrade their armament was counter productive. The Navy chose the 20 mm to upgrade firepower, the AAF the M3 50 cal. for their fighters. Both were effective through the Korean War. The post Korean War upgrades in rate of fire of the 20s made the next upgrade a mute point.
I believe that the F8F was originally designed and produced with four 50s.
Since the effect of the exploding shells IS a large part of their advantage disregarding it seems to be stacking things to favor the kinetic energy based .50 cal round.
Basing your future needs on what your enemy has fielded in the past is not good planning. If the Japanese had been able to shift production to more Franks, Tony's Georges, and Jacks and fewer Oscars and Zekes in the last 2 years of the of the war the opinion of the .50 might have changed a bit. Granted they are not bullet proof but planning on your opponent NOT to fit armor or better self-sealing tanks one-two years in the future?
True, you got me.
But considering that the McDonnell F2H Banshee Mock-up was completed within a month of the " FH-1 Phantom initial production contract" (and only production contract of 100 planes) one has to wonder just serious the Navy was about the FH-1 Phantom whose design dates back almost two years. Initial design work for the Banshee had to be going on for a number months before the contract for the FH-1 Phantom was placed. Phantom may have been intended for what it turned out to be, a way to give both McDonnell and the Navy experience with jet aircraft (and McDonnell experience in producing aircraft, this being their first production plane) much like the Army P-43 contracts or P-59 contracts.
Claiming the M3 50 cal was effective in Korea is dubious. Yes it shot Migs so it wasn't totally ineffective but it
finally got through to the Air Force that something better was needed. The Air Force was already using 20mm cannon on Bomber interceptors when weight allowed ( early F-94s being a little weight limited).
I was not disregarding explosive shell energy. I just have no way to judge the impact. The only hint I have is from the book which states the 20 mm is equal to three 50s, but the kinetic energy at 500 yards is equal to two and a half 50s. The difference must be the explosive effects. I used for three to one for comparison.
I was not disregarding explosive shell energy. I just have no way to judge the impact. The only hint I have is from the book which states the 20 mm is equal to three 50s, but the kinetic energy at 500 yards is equal to two and a half 50s. The difference must be the explosive effects. I used for three to one for comparison.
The statement here was that, for the most part, the Navy was fighting against softer Japanese aircraft that were more susceptible to 50cal fire than were their German counterparts and thus, at the ops level, saw less of a need for the 20s, therefore not much of a push to implement them.
I think this is a stretch. In April '45, the F2H was three and half years away from ops and depended on an engine that was not even developed, and, in this time period of many failed engine designs, would have been high risk.
Inclusion of the four 50s on the production FH indicates a couple of things. One, the Navy felt that the centerline mounted four 50s were equivalent to six wing mounted guns and, second, the 50s were acceptable as armament for a fighter, maybe marginally so, but undeniably acceptable. Weight may have been an issue but the Navy knew two 20s would offer better firepower. Maybe reliability was an issue.
Claiming the F-86 was marginally effective due to its armament seem dubious to me. I assume you have loads of comparison data comparing F-86 engagements against the Mig-15 vs. aircraft with 20mm showing that the efficiency of the 20s is so much better.
The P-51 was prodigious killer of aircraft in WWII including a few Me-262s when they could catch them. I doubt that very few would say the 50cals in the P-51 were only marginally effective.
To say that he F-86 against aircraft no more tough than the German fighters, with effectively twice, since the guns were centerline, the firepower of the P-51, is marginal seems illogical.
Nothing succeeds like success and to argue something else is more efficient without one-to-one comparison of performance in the same environment is an empty argument, otherwise there are too many variables.
The AF realized the 50 were so marginal they immediately installed them in the highly upgraded, and delayed, F-86F, no, wait, it had 50s. Surely it would have delivered the post war "fighter-bomber" version, the F-86H with 20s, well, no, they delivered the first group with 50s. Not until the much superior M-39 come along did they upgrade the "H" to 20s. No "marginal" desperation shown here.
Those bombers were slow non-maneuvering targets, and night bombers were difficult to target (low probability of hit per projectile?) and, yes, tougher.
You are right for the M2 but not the M3 on Sabre. Your quote isWhile six .50s are lighter than four 20mm guns by the time large amounts of .50 cal ammo are added the .50 cal battery winds up weighing more and offering less.
Firing time was a bit better for the Panther but could be alleviated some by the weight difference.weight of guns and ammo of the F-86 is 353kg. Weight of the Panthers guns and ammo is 363 kg. F-86 wins this one by under 3%.
I think in this instance, the push for 20s came from above, not from complaints of poor firepower from ops.At ops level you are rarely going to be able to replace the guns in existing aircraft, you can only request that the upcoming planes be fitted with better armament.
The FH-1 was slow in development, probably due to the sucking of air out of defense funds after the war. However, had the war continued into '46, as it could have done easily if there was no A-bomb, and the Japanese had fielded rockets/jets such as the Ohka,Kikka, and others, I am sure the Navy would have expedited operations of the FH-1. The F2H would be much slower as it was awaiting the development of the engine.This also a bit of a stretch, true the F2H was 3 1/2 years away from ops but what with the end of the war and the wind down the FH-1 was almost 2 1/2 years away from ops. This means the 20mm armed F2H was only about a year (or less) behind the .50cal armed FH-1 in timing.
Did I say they were happy? They were undoubtedly acceptable or they would not have put them on at all.It also does nothing to show that the Navy was happy with the .50 cal armament since they were examining mockups of aircraft with 20mm cannon in the winter/spring of 1944/45.
I believe the FH-1 had M2 machine guns. Again, the F2H depended on the development of a new jet engine, certainly a risk, and probably not as able to be accelerated.Since design work on the FH-1 dates from 1943/44 it may indicate the Navy didn't want to delay the introduction and run up the costs of what they knew was an interim aircraft. With the war winding down the order was cut from 100 to 30 and then bumped back up to 60. Navy may have decided that four M3 .50cal guns equaled the fire power of 6 M2 .50cal guns and so could accept the four .50 armament (with it's lighter weight) for specialized aircraft like the FH-1 the Ryan Fireball and the first F8Fs.
Work on the F2H had started before the first FH-1 Prototype ever flew.
Missing Migs testifies to effectivity.No I don't but then I doubt you have loads of comparison data comparing F-86 engagements against the Mig-15 vs. aircraft with 20mm showing that the efficiency of the .50 is so close as to make little difference.
Of course, it takes more hits to down a Mig. It has also has more chances of hits. In the same situation, the slower firing 20s may not have hit at all.We have accounts of Pilots getting Mig-s in their sights several times and getting hits each time (same aircraft) before the Mig goes down.
You know that without the data on Migs that did not make it back with only few 50 cal hits makes this type of data statistically useless.We have accounts of Migs returning home with 40-50 .50 cal hits. they may have been flying junk but they made it.
Your reference does say the M2 was not very efficient compared to the cannon butHere we go with the "if it worked it must be good" argument. we are also into the variables. Different rates of fire, different ammunition, and a few anecdotes.
. If it was effective, how could double the firepower be marginal?performance of the .50 Browning: as has already been stated in this study, "the preferred US armament fit [of six or eight .50 HMGs] was effective for its purpose
How do you know the Migs were no more tough than the German fighters? you do have structural analysis of the fighters showing strength of the various aircraft?
I will admit I don't have that information, but the Mig 15 weighed about 460lbs less than a Me 262 did empty, it had a slightly smaller wing and it's single engine weighed about 240lbs less than ONE of the engines on the Me 262. Without engines the Mig 15 is about 1500lbs heavier than a 262 and is a bit smaller. Germany plane "MUST" be just a sturdy due to "German engineering" right?
The fact that the Mig could fly over 140mph faster has nothing to do with why it might have to be built just a bit stronger.
The bit about the center line guns needs a bit of thinking too, Center line guns may have a higher hit probability, they don't do a thing for the effectiveness of the hits that are obtained.
Germans are the ones that figured that centerline guns were worth twice what wing mount guns were but then the Germans were usually mounting a mish-mash of guns with different trajectories and times of flight. A lot of the early German wing mount guns had additional problems.
You are partially correct in that progress and technology must advance, however, as I have said before, there is a saying in engineering that "better is the enemy of good enough". The general philosophy for the US in fighting the war was to build "good enough" weapons en masse and provide the Brits, Canadians, Aussie, Kiwis, Reds, Brazilians, South Africans, etc, etc, etc, and, the American military with hordes of 50 cal aircraft, Sherman tanks, Liberty ships, and so forth and just overcome the enemy with Quantity. It worked fine. The Germans didn't seem to understand that and wasted limited resources on a variety of weapons, many of which only diverted resource from those that were effective.you are right, nothing "succeeds like success" and thinking like that kept the smooth bore musket and cannon in use for decades ( if was good enough for Wellington at Waterloo.......) and was the rallying cry for every Colonel Blimp in many armies/countries for 150 years (or longer). It kept the bolt action repeating rifle in use in most countries during WW II (if was good enough in WW I........) by the most armies realized they needed to change it was too late.
While battlefield input is good it has too many variables to give a really accurate picture of weapons performance ( was that tank at 30 degrees or 40 degrees when the projectile hit? 800 yds or 900yds? measured not guessed). It can confirm or contradict range testing but trying to get reproducible results is a bit a difficult.
It is also usually just a bit late for weapons development too. Most aircraft guns took 4-6 years for "new guns" (some longer) to go from drawings to service weapons. Waiting until your current weapon/s aren't working (succeeding) to tool-up, manufacture, issue and combat test new weapons (even if already designed and range tested) can leave you behind the curve.
You are correct, no desperation shown there. Stupidity yes. Or is it the "Nothing succeeds like success" syndrome and believing their own kill/loss ratio claims at the time? Or admitting the Navy was right?
Lets follow the logic here, 20mm guns are better for "difficult to target (low probability of hit per projectile?)" that were fleeting in nature, try and get a second firing pass on the same target with a night fighter, and tougher targets yet the 20mm guns were not good for daylight targets that were easier to target and while quicker in motion could usually be followed better both before and after the firing period. And the fighter targets required fewer hits to down.
You are right for the M2 but not the M3 on Sabre. Your quote is
Firing time was a bit better for the Panther but could be alleviated some by the weight difference.
Missing Migs testifies to effectivity.
You know that without the data on Migs that did not make it back with only few 50 cal hits makes this type of data statistically useless.
Actually, you have a bit of an argument here in that the one Mig engine reduced the critical area of hit, and the big centrifugal compressor is probably more rugged. Otherwise, I suspect ruggedness between the Me and Mig is not much different.
I don't even know where you came up with this idea. The reason the Mig was 140 mph faster is due to swept wings and 25% more power due to a Nene clone.
This itself seems to be a mish-mash. Okay, let's go ahead and do a little thinking. Wing guns must be focused. They can be focused at one range, which means outside that range, bullet strikes lose significant probably. They can be focused in pairs, but then only two guns are in range, and again, other guns lose significant probability. Guns mounted on the centerline are always focused and range is no factor, only ballistics and when ballistics are proper, full impact of the guns are available and probability of each bullet hitting is the same, a big improvement.
You are partially correct in that progress and technology must advance, however, as I have said before, there is a saying in engineering that "better is the enemy of good enough". The general philosophy for the US in fighting the war was to build "good enough" weapons en masse and provide the Brits, Canadians, Aussie, Kiwis, Reds, Brazilians, South Africans, etc, etc, etc, and, the American military with hordes of 50 cal aircraft, Sherman tanks, Liberty ships, and so forth and just overcome the enemy with Quantity. It worked fine. The Germans didn't seem to understand that and wasted limited resources on a variety of weapons, many of which only diverted resource from those that were effective.
I got lost in the logic. Remember, higher probability of hits favors the faster firing gun. I think the probability of hits per projectile is lower for night fighting, which favors the slower, more powerful weapon.
Gee, I keep getting told how important the longer firing time of the .50 cal is yet the Sabre has a firing time of 13.4 seconds. to equal the firing time of the Panther you need another 216 round of .50 cal ammo or over 60lbs (27kg) which is well in excess of the 10kg weight difference.
Good point. Of course you are willing to verify that the source of the numbers of 50 cal hits are indeed reliable and not the type to try to overestimate in order to emphasis the strength of the Mig, right?Lets flip it around then, a Panther fires 48-50 rounds a second, the F-86 fires 120. Given similar firing solutions/conditions they should make the same percentage of hits. DO you think a Mig could make it back with 15-18 20mm hits?
I "came up" with this "idea" because the aerodynamic loads on an aircraft go up with the square of the speed. The forces that try to tear off the wings and other parts. A plane that flies at 640mph has 40% stronger forces acting on it than one at 540mph. If you keep the same safety margin in construction the 640-680mph plane should be built sturdier than a 540mph airplane. I am not saying it needs to be 40% heavier but something in the structure has to be heavier. It has nothing to do with the engine power or aerodynamics that allow it to reach those speeds, it has a lot to do with surviving those speeds.
The wing gun thing also depends on the target. Against a small single engine target it is quite possible that the wing guns have markedly lower hit probability.
Over coming the enemy with quantity is fine, as long as you are one of the generals, not so good if you are an enlisted man.
What is wanted is a happy medium. There was no great technological risk to using the the 20mm Hispano, just swallow their pride, admit they were wrong and shorten the chamber 1/16 of an inch and tighten up some of the tolerances. Instead they spent lord knows how much money on the .60 caliber projects and other high velocity projects which went nowhere. Fortunately the US had the resources to allow a few projects to go down the rat hole without screwing everything up. The US had it's share of projects that never should have had metal cut. The US M6 heavy needed a serious rethink while still on paper as did the T95 tank destroyer. This doesn't mean that the M4 should have been produced as long as it was with the original gun.
Think about it. For night fighting they used slower firing, lower probability of hit weapons in a situation were firing time (time available to do damage) was limited. Why is this more favorable to the slower, more powerful weapon but using the same weapon in daylight with more firing time (time to do damage) is less limited is NOT supposed to be favorable to the slow firing gun?
However, for a probability of hits 10% or greater, and a burst time of 2-3 second, which is probably typical, the sabre is going to land almost four or more rounds per 20 mm round of the Panther. This is objective analysis. The effectiveness of the 50 cal verses the 20 mm is debatable, but at least according to the Navy, in these circumstances, the Sabre is dealing out more firepower than the Panther, at 500 yds. But, of course, this is marginal, so, what does that make the Panther?
Did you read posting 81 or 109? i.e. that the difference is anything but marginal even at the 10% hit probability.
This might be of interest
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/mode...ectiveness.htm
Note
gun power of F86 552
gun power of Panther 1000 almost double