Allied Fighter vs Fighter: Is it really necessary ???

Glider, the 50 BMG weighed 70 pounds and then you have the mounting system which I dont't know what that weighs. I did not say that the redesign saved around 500 pounds, those are direct quotes from Lundstrom and once again, with respect to you, I never said that the extra guns were wholly the problem. I said they were part of the problem.

From what I have read about pre war training of the RAF, I get the impression that they were taught to mainly make low deflection runs from astern, open fire at relatively long ranges and shower the target with a lot of rounds. That philosophy may have been because they were stuck, at that time, with the Browning 303 MG and they knew it took a lot of hits to bring down a bomber. There may have also been time or budget constraints on the amount of gunnery training they received. That was not the philosophy of the USN and we have had this discussion before so I will only mention their strong interest in making high deflection runs with fire opening at 1000 feet and continuing as the range closed.

Going back to the weight and four or six guns, I am surprised that around 500 pounds could be saved by the new four gun configuration along with a few other minor changes. The F4F4 with six guns had two guns inside the wing fold and one outside. Maybe that had something to do with the weight gain that I don't understand.

renrich said:

From what I have read about pre war training of the RAF, I get the impression that they were taught to mainly make low deflection runs from astern, open fire at relatively long ranges and shower the target with a lot of rounds.

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I would be interested to know what pre war (prior to sept 1939) training in the USA consisited of and in which aircraft this training was conducted. Pre war, everything was based on theory much of which turned out to be false. It didnt take the RAF or LW long to discover you must get in close and then develop a deflection gunsight. I dont understand why 4 MGs was perfect on a Wildcat but every other front line fighter in the US inventory Mustang Thunderbolt Hellcat and Corsair had eventually 6MGs.

It was remerked by one pilot that those with high rank are rarely seen at high altitude

The .50cal MG produces a lot of recoil and vibration. You cannot just stick it inside an aluminum aircraft wing. There would need to be considerable bracing around the gun mount.

renrich said:

From what I have read about pre war training of the RAF, I get the impression that they were taught to mainly make low deflection runs from astern, open fire at relatively long ranges and shower the target with a lot of rounds. That philosophy may have been because they were stuck, at that time, with the Browning 303 MG and they knew it took a lot of hits to bring down a bomber. There may have also been time or budget constraints on the amount of gunnery training they received. That was not the philosophy of the USN and we have had this discussion before so I will only mention their strong interest in making high deflection runs with fire opening at 1000 feet and continuing as the range closed.

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This all depends on what pre-war period you are talking about. Prior to 1938, the RAF held extensive and competitive air-to-air gunnery shoots, including an annual competition to determine the fighter squadron with the best gunnery skills. These competitions used coloured wax bullets against drogue targets towed behind another aircraft. Under these conditions low-deflection, tail-on attacks were an absolute no-no. From 1938 onwards, rearmament took priority and there was an undoubted reduction in overall force effectiveness as the RAF rapidly expanded and training hours were cut.

The imposition of the Fighting Area Tactics must also be factored into the equation. Much of 1930s doctrine was centred on accetance of Douhet's theory that the bomber would always break through, and hence there was no need for escorting fighters (nor air-to-air tactics to counter a fighter threat). This maxim seemed pretty accurate throughout 1939 but was thoroughly debunked in 1940. Unfortunately, it took time for tactics to evolve. It was the Fighting Area Tactics which were more prescriptive about stern attacks, although this was primarily done to increase the number of hits on the target. One could reasonably argue that the USN (and FAA for that matter) didn't really need to consider massed bomber attacks, at least not on the scale encountered during the Allied retreat through France and the Battle of Britain. As to gun harmonisation, that was a matter for the pilots and the "spray everywhere" approach was soon seen to be ineffective.

Finally, despite all the accepted benefits of the 50 cal it still took more time to get it operationally effective (indeed, it was well into 1942 before all the bugs were wrung out of the ammunition feeds etc). With hindsight, we may consider the RAF to have made a wrong choice in sticking with the .303 but at the time it was entirely the correct decision.

buffnut453 said:

This all depends on what pre-war period you are talking about. Prior to 1938, the RAF held extensive and competitive air-to-air gunnery shoots, including an annual competition to determine the fighter squadron with the best gunnery skills. These competitions used coloured wax bullets against drogue targets towed behind another aircraft. Under these conditions low-deflection, tail-on attacks were an absolute no-no. From 1938 onwards, rearmament took priority and there was an undoubted reduction in overall force effectiveness as the RAF rapidly expanded and training hours were cut.

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All theories about fighter tactics before 1939/40 excluded radar guidance because even if people knew about it they didnt know how well or badly it would actually work the chain home system was still being worked on in 1939.

BTW the P40 had 6 MGs and that was in service before the Wildcat

tail end charlie said:

BTW the P40 had 6 MGs and that was in service before the Wildcat

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Yes, and it too had problems with ammunition feed and stoppages. Also, as late as July 1941 the RAF was still struggling to obtain enough 50 cals for its US-provisioned fighters, hence efforts to adapt the Buffalo for .303s well before the Japanese invasion.

I think we all agree that if you hit an aircraft with a single 20mm and a single .50 BMG the 20mm is going to do more damage. I think that all of us should also agree that the Germans and Japanese both had cannon because thay HAD to have cannon to shoot down US heavy bombers. But, my argument is that using a 20 mm on a Zero or even an Me109 or FW190 was overkill. I just don't think it was really needed. Even the German twins like the Me110 weren't that difficult to destroy. We've all seen gun camera footage of what 6 .50's will do to a German or Japanese airplane. Not only will it easily destroy engines, kill pilots and start fires but it will also remove wings and cause other catastrophic failures. Using 4 20mm against an aircraft like a Zero or Me109 to me would be like using buckshot to shoot a dove. Will buckshot kill a dove? Of course it will if you can hit him, but it isnt required, and it is a lot more efficient to use smaller shot such as 7.5, 8 or 9. If you trying to kill a deer, buckshot works great. Again, you can kill a deer with birdshot, but it takes ALOT of it and you had better be REALLY close. But if I were in WW2 flying against single engine fighters, 6 50's with 300 to 400 rounds each would trump 4 20's with 60 to 90 rounds each for me. If I was flying against 4 engined American heavy bombers then cannon would be the only way to go.

my humble opinion is that the rifle calibre weapons fitted to British fighters at the beginning of the war were the best solution available, given the limitations of the pilots and the relative vulnerability of the target aircraft. With 7.7mm mgs, each gun had a lot of ammunition, meaning that a relatively inexperienced shot could hammer away for longer until he hit his target. And because the targets were generally un-armoured, or lightly armoured rifle calibre weapons were adequate (but not oustanding) in theior ability to bring down an enemy

In essence, I am saying the rifle calibre wepons of the RAF sacrificed firepower for firing duration, and that thgis was the right choice given the pilot proficiency at the time.

The problem as i see it is that rifled weapons rapidly approached obsolescence as aircraft rapidly improved their levels of protection. I dont think this had been adequately anticipated in the pre-war planning

Hello pinsog
when cannon were belt-fed they usually had at least 120 rounds. And Soviet thought that against Fw 190 20mm was a better option than 12,7mm. And 110 was clearly more lightly built than twin engined bombers. Of course one could shot down a Ju 88 with 4 or 6 .5s but with 4 20mm one could do that faster if all other things were equal.

And when 109 got its 20mm cannon it wasn't because of US heavy bombers and I really doubt that US heavy bombers had any significant impact on the decision on Zero's armament.

renrich said:

Glider, the 50 BMG weighed 70 pounds and then you have the mounting system which I dont't know what that weighs. I did not say that the redesign saved around 500 pounds, those are direct quotes from Lundstrom and once again, with respect to you, I never said that the extra guns were wholly the problem. I said they were part of the problem.

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Your right I shold have read the posting again, apologies

From what I have read about pre war training of the RAF, I get the impression that they were taught to mainly make low deflection runs from astern, open fire at relatively long ranges and shower the target with a lot of rounds. That philosophy may have been because they were stuck, at that time, with the Browning 303 MG and they knew it took a lot of hits to bring down a bomber. There may have also been time or budget constraints on the amount of gunnery training they received. That was not the philosophy of the USN and we have had this discussion before so I will only mention their strong interest in making high deflection runs with fire opening at 1000 feet and continuing as the range closed.

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This whole topic of gunnery training I find interesting but there is next to nothing about it in any book that I have seen. There is no doubt that the RAF pre war put a lot of effort into gunnery as outlined in the other posts and that for obvious reasons shooting at towed targets has to be a deflection shot. The question that no one can know the answer to is how the pressure of war impacted this training.

If I can digress a moment. The gunnery practice of shooting at towed targets with dyed ammunition to work out the score carried on into the early 70's. The highest score for quite a time was held by a lightning pilot who had a runaway with his Aden's. He decided that the safest thing to do was to keep his aircraft pointing at the target for as long as possible. Unfortunately it didn't count as a record as they were limited to the number of rounds they could use in a burst.

Re: RAF FCMGs, gotta agree with Parsifal on that one completely. It was fine solution pre-war, just become obsolate overnight. In the hindsight, if we want to criticize the decision given that armoring of aircraft (the Soviets did for their fighters first IIRC with the I-16 already in the Spanish Civil War) could be expected, and perhaps the decision lacked foresight somewhat.

There can be no doubt that the LMG in the ETO was obsolete by the BOB, in fact I have just read of a Hurricane that made it back to base with 97 hits ( I am assuming that they were LMGs).

The problem wan't the choice of 8 x LMG for the RAF, most airforces used them and eight of them was considerably more than other nations airforces at the time. The problem was the delay in getting the 20mm to work.

Some thoughts/notes on the .50 cal thing.

1. Be careful WHICH .50 cal you are comparing. In the 1930s and into the year 1940 the .50 cycled at 600rpm in a free firing installation (non-sychronized). At some point in 1940 the gun was modified to do from 750-850rpm. How fast were the older guns replaced/modified? At the end of the war (April 1945?) the AN-M# version was type classified which could achieve 1150-1250 rpm. So those four .50 cal guns in the Bearcat had a rate of fire of eight pre-1940 .50 cal guns. If the first Bearcats didn't have the faster firing guns it cold be argued that they were on the way.

2. Consider the available ammunition. before 1943 there was ball, AP and tracer. From 1943 on there was the API M8 round which combined armor piercing with a small incendiary charge. This latter round would be much more effective against fuel tanks/systems.

3. At some point in the 30s the power of the basic loading of the .50 cal was increased. Several hundred FPS were added to the velocity.

4. Consider some of the pilots. Thach had been a Naval aviator since 1929. a bit different level of experience than pilots newly recruited after the war started.

5. Consider some of the problems related to deflection shooting and rates of fire.
IF an enemy plane flies across the front of the firing plane at 90 degrees while doing 300mph (440fps) a 1200rpm gun will place a bullet every 22 feet down the length of the plane. Obviously even twelve 1200rpm guns are going to have a hard time infecting any real damage. Just as obviously a 600rpm gun is going to have it's bullets spaced out 44ft apart.
This means that the shooting aircraft is going to have to turn to keep the crossing target in the impact area of the guns for at least a short period of time. It takes a very skilled (or lucky) pilot to keep the target perfectly centered in the impact zone for several seconds. What happened much more often was that the impact zone shifted for and aft in relation to the target during a couple of second burst. Some times the impact zone was missing ahead, much more often it was missing astern and some times the center of the zone was traveling the length of the fuselage. All in just tenths of second.
Training can increase the duration of time on target. Higher rates of fire (total rate of fire of the airplane) can increase the hit rate for for a given time on target. Lesser angles of interception do make things much easier but in real life the pilots had the problem of trying to shoot where the target was GOING TO BE rather than just putting out a stream of bullets and letting the target fly through the stream.

As far as the Wildcat goes. If the British were truly the instigators of the 6 gun armament they sure didn't get what they wanted. Of the just under 1100 Wildcats delivered to the British only around 370 had six guns. If the British did want SIX guns, when did they make the decision and based of of what?
They had tested the American .50 cal Browning during the 30s but that would have been the low rate of fire gun without incendiary ammo.

as far as the uselessness of rifle caliber machine guns goes, the Germans and the Japanese seemed to do a fair amount of work with them in the early part of the war. Not only were they the standard defensive armament but after the the wing mounted cannon with their 55-60 round drums had run dry (in about 8 seconds ) the 109 and Zero were down a pair of such machineguns for the rest of the fight.

tail end charlie said:

I would be interested to know what pre war (prior to sept 1939) training in the USA consisited of and in which aircraft this training was conducted. Pre war, everything was based on theory much of which turned out to be false. It didnt take the RAF or LW long to discover you must get in close and then develop a deflection gunsight. I dont understand why 4 MGs was perfect on a Wildcat but every other front line fighter in the US inventory Mustang Thunderbolt Hellcat and Corsair had eventually 6MGs.

It was remerked by one pilot that those with high rank are rarely seen at high altitude

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USN standard training was not all that much different from other services. What improved their gunnery (including deflection shooting) was operational training once posted to the VF squadrons. That's where Thach and his disciples first came into the picture. For example, when CV Hornet deployed for the battle of Midway, commentary revolving around the status of their training was not viewed favorably by veterans. (Lundstrom)

Later in the war, Thach was able to get his methods officially incorporated into the standard USN training program. Shores' Tunisia book contains commentary from some RAF personell who considered US pilot training better than their own on the basis of their being trained more thoroughly over time before being shipped overseas for combat ops. This was in marked contrast to the RAF experience at times. Necessity sometimes requires less than optimal deployments.

Nikademus said:

USN standard training was not all that much different from other services. What improved their gunnery (including deflection shooting) was operational training once posted to the VF squadrons. That's where Thach and his disciples first came into the picture. For example, when CV Hornet deployed for the battle of Midway, commentary revolving around the status of their training was not viewed favorably by veterans. (Lundstrom)

Later in the war, Thach was able to get his methods officially incorporated into the standard USN training program. Shores' Tunisia book contains commentary from some RAF personell who considered US pilot training better than their own on the basis of their being trained more thoroughly over time before being shipped overseas for combat ops. This was in marked contrast to the RAF experience at times. Necessity sometimes requires less than optimal deployments.

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I am trying to get a picture as to RAF training including gunnery training to add to the thread about RAF Pilot Hours/training during the BOB. I don't have a full (or even half full) picture yet but it looks as if RAF training was at a low during 1941/2 when standards slipped following the introduction of the revision 4 training scheme. Training from OTU to the squadrons was significantly changed and improved as a result of this to such an extent that the RAF started to have a surplus of pilots from mid 1943 onwards as losses were considerably less than planned.

Changes included the following steps:-
1) Pilots trained overseas e.g. Canada and South Africa were posted to conversion squadrons which normally were equipped with Hurricanes. This was because they would have used Hurricanes when trained and enabled them to get used to British Weather and operating environments in an aircraft they were familiar with. They would then be posted to OTU which operated the aircraft they would be using in action. This also helps explain why the RAF had hurricane squadrons in the UK late into 1944
2) The OTU's specialised in one type of aircraft Typhoon, Tempest, Spitfire, Mosquito, light bombers, PR pilots whatever. These OTU's were quite large. 57 OTU had 77 Spitfires, 20 Masters, 6 Martinets, 2 Magisters, 1 Dominie and an Oxford. It's worth noting that the Martinet was a specialised aircraft for target towing.
3) Fighter Leader schools were opened for training of leaders from the front line squadrons but were also known as OTU but the students were obviously from front line units and taught them the latest tactics.
4) Low Attack Schools provided additional training for Typhoon pilots on top of the OTU.
5) Tactical Exercise Units were formed but to be honest I have yet to quite understand their role. The information I have is confused. One of them 3 TEU specialised in converting experienced pilots to Typhoons and Mustangs. Others seem to be involved in co-ordination different types of unit to work together before going into action, but as I said I am not certain about this.
6) The Syllabus was continually updated to cover the latest weapons and equipment. Gyro gun sight training, RP and dive-bombing.
7) OTU Training time was increased for day units to 12 weeks and the Night fighter and Night Intruder OTU to 16 weeks.

To sum up. I would certainly understand that some RAF Pilots in particular those trained in 1942 would consider US training to be better than they received, but significant changes were made and I would hope that the alterations made up the difference.

When I have a more complete picture I will update the pilot hours thread but don't hold your breath, it will take some time. Also this is a work in progress statement, so please don't take the above as gospel, but it should be a fair indication

Nikademus said:

USN standard training was not all that much different from other services. What improved their gunnery (including deflection shooting) was operational training once posted to the VF squadrons. That's where Thach and his disciples first came into the picture. For example, when CV Hornet deployed for the battle of Midway, commentary revolving around the status of their training was not viewed favorably by veterans. (Lundstrom)

Later in the war, Thach was able to get his methods officially incorporated into the standard USN training program. Shores' Tunisia book contains commentary from some RAF personell who considered US pilot training better than their own on the basis of their being trained more thoroughly over time before being shipped overseas for combat ops. This was in marked contrast to the RAF experience at times. Necessity sometimes requires less than optimal deployments.

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The training any military organisation gives depends on military necessity. At various times all European airforces have used pilots with minimal training. It may be the case that British pilots were sent into combat with less training than may have been needed but everyone was aware how much training and experience were vital, when you are faced with invasion you have no choice. However the fact that the British developed a gyro gunsight later used by the USA into the jet age shows that the British realised the importance of gunnery. In fact the gyro gunsight may have been a way to improve gunnery without the hours/costs involved in gunnery training schools, I am sure others know better than me on that score

Glider said:

There can be no doubt that the LMG in the ETO was obsolete by the BOB, in fact I have just read of a Hurricane that made it back to base with 97 hits ( I am assuming that they were LMGs).

The problem wan't the choice of 8 x LMG for the RAF, most airforces used them and eight of them was considerably more than other nations airforces at the time. The problem was the delay in getting the 20mm to work.

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I disagree.

The .303 was by no means obsolete,

The Basket said:

I disagree.

The .303 was by no means obsolete

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You couldn't expand on that a bit, could you?