Battle of Britain

[drgondog]

You were right about the cannon armed Spits, I was just agreeing with you, I found it last night in one of my books.
My original question was about 6, but if you feel they would have been to heavy(I don't think they would, especially for the Hurricane) what about 4 and a larger supply of ammo per gun. If they were having to get to point blank range to hit them anyway, I doubt that 4 50's with a decent ammo supply would have been any harder to hit with. One Spitfire pilot with 20mm said one of his 20's jammed throwing the aircraft sideways and he had to get so close to an Me110 to hit it that he nearly cut the tail off with his prop. If your gonna be that close I think even 4 50's would have been devistating. With a bigger supply of ammo and only 4 50's, they might have been able to down more than 1 target per aircraft.

The P-51B/C with only four .50s had many, many examples of 2-3 awards per sortie. The first example of shooting down more than 4 Me 109s in one mission and more than 4, for the 8th AF were also P-51B's. In one mission over Munich in which only two Fighter groups were present to defend the bombers, there were 5 P-51B pilots that shot down 3 or more (one had 4 plus another shared) - all with 4 gun .50 batteries.

The weight differential of 8x .303 vs 4x .50 is trivial in comparision to the effective capability between the two batteries..True, climb would be reduced by the approximate % differential of weight and straight ahead speed might be reduced by a couple of percent at worst.

 

[Kurfürst]

Yes also on 14 June 1944 fifteen Lightnings of 49 FS from 14th FG claimed 13 Me 109 destroyed in combat against the ca. 50 Me 109 and FW 190 attacking, further 1 probable and 5 Me 109s damaged, for the loss of five of their own P38s.

Lt Lenox and Shortt (sp) got 3-3 each, 1st LT Purdy got one.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Pinsog,

>What would have happened in the BoB if all British aircraft had been armed with 6 Browning 50's instead of 8 Browning 303's?

Here is a battery comparison:

8x Browning ,303 - 333 rpg, 17 s duration - 160 kg - 0,7 MW firepower
6x ,50 Browning M2 - 93 rpg, 7 s duration - 250 kg - 1,7 MW firepower
4x ,50 Browning M2 - 140 rpg, 11 s duration - 192 kg - 1,1 MW firepower
2x Hispano II - 60 rpg, 6 s duration - 130 kg - 2,1 MW firepower

As you can see, going to six 12.7 mm machine guns would have resulted in a firepower increase by more than a factor of two - at the price of weight going up by about 90 kg (ammunition and belting included).

If you'd use only four 12.7 mm machine guns instead, firepower would still be up by 50% at a weight increase of just 32 kg.

(Total energy of the ammunition supply for the 12.7 mm machine guns is about the same as for the 7.7 mm guns. Duration of fire of course is shorter with higher firepower.)

For comparison, I have also included the Hispano II cannon, but the weight is for belted ammunition and not for drums because I have no data on the weight of the latter. The cannon battery is three times as effective as the 7.7 mm battery while being 30 kg lighter despite carrying slightly more total energy in its ammunition supply.

You can also see that it surpasses the 6x 12.7 mm battery in firepower despite being only about half the weight, and it's still lighter than the 4x 12.7 mm battery.

Accordingly, the RAF had reasons to skip the 12.7 mm machine gun though admittedly in the Battle of Britain, it would have have been superior to the 7.7 mm armament they historically used.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[pinsog]

Great example drgondog. I personally believe this small tactical change could have had a much larger strategic impact by increasing German losses and lowering British losses. (British losses would be reduced both by good pilots shooting down bombers outside the effective range of the bombers defensive guns and by shooting down Me109's that would have survived similar damage from 303's and live to fight another day.)

Hohun, I must disagree with your comparison between 303, 50 and 20mm as far as comparing each bullet by weight alone. Just because a single 50 bullet outweighs a 303 bullet by a factor of say 4, doesn't mean 4 303 bullets will do the same amount of damage. For instance, the backseat armor on a 109 should stop any number of 303 bullets, whereas a single 50 should penetrate the seat, the pilot, the instrument panel and probably lodge somewhere in the back of the engine. So, saying X number of 303's are equal to X number of 50's wouldn't hold true. Same could be said for replacing a 20mm with a 50, except the main difference between those wouldn't be penetration but the ability of the 20mm to carry a substantial explosive shell.

 

[claidemore]

I have to take exception to the notion posted in this thread that the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain lacked gunnery skills and were primarily a bunch of noobs spraying .303 ammo all over the sky. For those who subscribe to this fallacy, try this site:
Allied aces of the Battle of Britain

 

[pinsog]

I didn't actually think that myself, but early in the discussion it was said that is why they needed 8 303's because many of them were so untrained they couldn't hit anything unless they had a big spread. Personally I would say after a couple of missions you either have learned or you got shot down.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Pinsog,

>Hohun, I must disagree with your comparison between 303, 50 and 20mm as far as comparing each bullet by weight alone. Just because a single 50 bullet outweighs a 303 bullet by a factor of say 4, doesn't mean 4 303 bullets will do the same amount of damage.

You are quite right that different calibres have different destructive capabilities, and if you look closely, you'll find that fact considered in the numbers I have you.

kW is a power, not a weight - my analysis is based on the total muzzle power of the rounds, based on the kinetic energy of the projectile plus the chemical energy (if any) of the contained explosives (or incendiary).

The big difference in total energy available for each projectile is the real reason larger calibres are better suited for air combat - not only does it make a single barrel more effective because it can launch more energy at the enemy, it also reduces the weight of the rounds themselves that have to be carried for the same destructive effect.

Here is a comparison of the three ammunition types in question:

Hispano II (20x110): 432 kJ/kg belted cartridge
,50 Browning M2 (12,7x99): 161 kJ/kg belted cartridge
Browning ,303 (7,7x56R): 145 kJ/kg belted cartridge

(You'd get a similar ranking from comparing energy per projectile weight.)

So your point about "equal weight" not necessarily meaning equal effectiveness is entirely correct, but that is something my figures already take account of.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi Pinsog,

>I didn't actually think that myself, but early in the discussion it was said that is why they needed 8 303's because many of them were so untrained they couldn't hit anything unless they had a big spread.

The Luftwaffe's gunnery instruction manual "Die Schießfibel" is quite clear on that: "Don't rely on weapon dispersion - it won't help you if your aim is wrong! You can see here clearly [2 sighting examples] how *accurately* you have to know and hold the lead if you don't want to score a complete miss. But if you think all you have to do is to adjust your machine guns to increase the pattern so that you're able to hit more reliably, this unfortunately is a mistake. You will end up like the wild huntsman in the picture on the right." [Cartoon, captioned: "What good are all the blunderbusses if every one of them just misses?")

This post has the illustration with the sighting examples:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/best-armed-fighter-15964-8.html#post435903

(Post #285 in that thread, in case it doesn't show up right at the first try.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Colin1]

I have to take exception to the notion posted in this thread that the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain lacked gunnery skills and were primarily a bunch of noobs spraying .303 ammo all over the sky. For those who subscribe to this fallacy, try this site:
Allied aces of the Battle of Britain

Well
more on this later

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567824/Battle-of-Britain-pilots-'could-not-shoot-straight'.html

right now I have to get to work

 

[merlin]

Other the other hand the RAF may have solved the problem with the jamming Hispanos, if the Treasury had funded all the prototypes for the canon armed fighter specification. As is was they just funded the Whirlwind, if the two single-engined Boulton-Paul fighters were tested - Vulture Hercules, and one ordered - there would be more time available to solve the jamming problem. An then the RAF would have an effective canon armed aircraft available for the BoB, though how many Squadrons could be equiped is debatable.

 

[Colin1]

I have to take exception to the notion posted in this thread that the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain lacked gunnery skills and were primarily a bunch of noobs spraying .303 ammo all over the sky. For those who subscribe to this fallacy...

OK
an impressive list of pilots who made ace status during the battle.

I count 234 (give or take) of whom 173 were British (again, give or take - I may have miscounted). So of the 3,000-odd pilots who flew at least one sortie during the battle (80% of whom were British), 7.2% of them weren't 'spraying .303 ammo all over the sky'.

In fairness, your list does not include pilots who did shoot down aircraft whilst not enough to make ace status but for all the aircraft either list shot down, how many did they miss?

Out of interest, what do you think is being implied here because I'm not sure I understand your line, that the defending pilots were somehow ineffectual or even cowardly?

The truth is that British pilots were being thrown into the battle barely able to fly their aircraft, let alone get the best out of it in a fight; to intercept a formation of German aircraft defended by experienced, predatory German fighters knowing this must have taken extreme courage.

British pilots were generally poorly trained, not poorly motivated or driven and I think recorded history corroborates this.

 

[Glider]

I have a book in the loft and its a series of stories about RAF pilots and groundcrew during the BOB. In it there is a short chapter on each person and the one that is without doubt the most moving is about a pilot.

Most of the pilots are people you will have heard of but this one is a Flt Sgnt, one of those who was thrown into battle without an acceptable level of training. The chapter is a reprint of his diary and there is no denying that he knew his chances of living were close to zero. He talks about the day to day things of joining a new unit and the efforts that everyone one was going to to help him, from the ground crew who made sure that he knew every switch and button questioning him on emergency procedures, to the other pilots who took him off shore and made him shoot at their shadows on the sea as practice.
On one of his first missions he claimed to have scared a 109. He saw it coming out of the corner of his eye, fired the guns without aiming and the 109 went through some of the tracer, but kept on going. In the diary he commented that the 109 pilot was probably as new as he was to make such a mistake.
I think it was five days after his first mission he went missing. The whole tone of the diary makes it clear that he knew that he had no chance but there wasn't one complaint, one moan, just a recognition that he was bloody unlucky not to have been called up a month earlier or later and the RAF had no choice but to throw him into the line.

It was good to see that a book on the BOB gave him as much space as any of the aces or leaders. Also it was sobering as being a diary it gave meaning that an ordinary writer couldn't have expressed.

As we know towards the end of the war German and Japanese pilots were put in the same position and almost certainly had the same feelings.

That my friends is true courage.

 

[renrich]

Let us ignore the assertion that the British "skipped" the 50 BMG. The 50 BMG was used along with the 20 mm in the Spitfire E wing used in the Mark IX. In the books I have read about the BOB, the shortage of pilots, not aircraft was the primary concern of the RAF. There are many examples cited of pilots going into action with only a few total hours of experience in the fighter they flew. Additionally, the new pilots almost always wound up using the poorest performing machines in the organisation, poorly rigged with the least well tuned engines. How well trained in gunnery could they be if they only had perhaps less than twenty hours in a fighter?

 

[merlin]

Let us ignore the assertion that the British "skipped" the 50 BMG. The 50 BMG was used along with the 20 mm in the Spitfire E wing used in the Mark IX.

What relevance has the E wing fitted in 1944 the Spitfire IX, to the Battle of Britain?

Capt Sorley (I think it was) in his research in the early thirties that the present armament of 4 x 0.303" machine guns were not enough at higher speeds (less shooting time) to shoot down an enemy aircraft. His conclusion was to go for 8 x 0.303" machine guns, hence the Spitfire and Hurricane were so equiped. Maybe, 4 x 0.50" would have been an alternative - whether the US mg or the Vickers 0.50". But the RAF were expecting to jump up in calibres to the 20mm canon.

 

[pinsog]

HoHun
I misunderstood your comparison. I misread Kw for Kg. My mistake. I'm from US so I normally read that in ft/lbs. Where are you from? I'm sorry I don't recognize your flag.
Your energy figures are a much better representation of the effect of each weapon, although it wouldn't take into account the effect of explosive 20mm or the better incindiary affect of a 20mm or a 50 over a 303, but nonetheless I still missed your point completely and I see it now.
If you wanted to "meet in the middle", what about 4 50's on the Spit and 6 on the Hurricane?

 

[HoHun]

Hi Pinsog,

>I misread Kw for Kg. My mistake. I'm from US so I normally read that in ft/lbs.

Not a problem, I suspected something like that - I sometimes get confused by funny US units, too

>Where are you from? I'm sorry I don't recognize your flag.

The flag is Vanuatu's (it will probably tell you that if you put the mouse cursor on it and wait for a second), but I'm from Germany. My idea is that Vanuatuans get less spam-mail than Germans ... but I don't have a control group so my experiment is not valid

>Your energy figures are a much better representation of the effect of each weapon, although it wouldn't take into account the effect of explosive 20mm or the better incindiary affect of a 20mm or a 50 over a 303

Hm, actually my figures are not just for kinetic energy, but they also include chemical energy. On that basis, the greater destructiveness of 20 mm rounds shows up quite well

>If you wanted to "meet in the middle", what about 4 50's on the Spit and 6 on the Hurricane?

Anything would have been better than the eight Brownings they had! I'd rather give six 12.7 mm machine guns to the Spitfire and four to the Hurricane because the Hurricane with its obsolescent steel-tube frame construction was too heavy already, but of course I see your point - the wing of the Spitfire would have difficulties accepting more than four 12.7 mm guns while the thick wing of the Hurricane could probably have been adapted to them just fine.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[renrich]

Check #23 on this thread where it was stated "the British had reason to skip the 12.7 MG....." though admittedly a bit of a hangover from another thread.

 

[claidemore]

OK
an impressive list of pilots who made ace status during the battle.

I count 234 (give or take) of whom 173 were British (again, give or take - I may have miscounted). So of the 3,000-odd pilots who flew at least one sortie during the battle (80% of whom were British), 7.2% of them weren't 'spraying .303 ammo all over the sky'.
They all flew under the banner of the RAF during the BoB, whether from a Commonwealth nation or not, only one non RAF squadron, No 1 Canadian flew during the later stages of the battle. Every pilot there received RAF training, even the Poles and Czechs. The actual count is 2353 pilots who flew at least one mission. Chuck Yeager stated that 11% of the (highly trained) US pilots scored 90% of the kills. 234 out of 2353 RAF pilots during BoB getting ace status lines up with that figure nearly exactly..

Out of interest, what do you think is being implied here because I'm not sure I understand your line, that the defending pilots were somehow ineffectual or even cowardly? I think some people have taken the 'dramatic' stories that were an exception, as a 'rule'. They have not researched enough to get a proper grasp of the actual situation.

The truth is that British pilots were being thrown into the battle barely able to fly their aircraft, let alone get the best out of it in a fight; to intercept a formation of German aircraft defended by experienced, predatory German fighters knowing this must have taken extreme courage.
The truth is that a small percentage of pilots with very low times on Spits/Hurris were 'thrown' into the battle. The stories about pilots who had 10 hours on Spits are overemphasised and blown out of proportion. The stories of well trained pilots who were flying in squadrons that were held in reserve and never got into the fight, are ignored or forgotten.
British pilots were generally poorly trained, not poorly motivated or driven and I think recorded history corroborates this.

'Generally poorly trained'? RAF was one of the best trained airforces in the world in 1940. They had a comprehensive manual and system of attack (Fighting Area Tactics) and trained continually in it's application. It would be more accurate to say that their tactics were poor, (though not completely ineffective, they did manage to shoot down about 2000 aircraft).

 

[Marcel]

'Generally poorly trained'? RAF was one of the best trained airforces in the world in 1940.

I think they mean as the battle dragged on and more casualties were suffered amongst those first-hour pilots, replacements tend to be rushed in. Maybe these had not enough training?

 

[Colin1]

'Generally poorly trained'? RAF was one of the best trained airforces in the world in 1940. They had a comprehensive manual and system of attack (Fighting Area Tactics) and trained continually in it's application. It would be more accurate to say that their tactics were poor, (though not completely ineffective, they did manage to shoot down about 2000 aircraft).

Now you're confusing me...
The Air Ministry chose the wrong weapon up front, (the .303) and employed antiquated tactics that were more at home in an air pageant (the vic). It's more accurate to say that the late 30s RAF had alot of money thrown at it but it was as true then as it is now - just throwing money at something...

Peacetime allowed time for the thorough training of pilots but with the onset of war pilots were often sent into combat with 10 hours of solo flight and having never fired their guns. This was an inevitable consequence of cutting the course from one year (peacetime) down to one month leading up to the outbreak of war and then cut again to two weeks right after hostilities began in earnest.
So that's every pilot who joined the battle after hostilities began, receiving two weeks training. Fighter Command lost approx 500 pilots during the battle, all of whom had to be replaced - by pilots with two weeks training and no hands-on gunnery experience? Sorry, but I don't consider that to be a 'small percentage'.

I don't know - maybe that's where I got these weird ideas about below-par gunnery skills...

There is too much debate focused on the inability of the system to provide enough replacements to fill the gaps without asking why Fighter Command sent up such poorly trained men, only to be shot down.
And leading on from that point, 'flying under one banner' is convenient dialog but it's interesting to note that the two highest-scoring pilots of the battle (Frantisek and Urbanowicz) were trained in foreign air forces. Given RAF training? Yeah, like they needed it.

Personally, I'd say about 3,080 airmen were involved although I suppose that depends on where you're getting your data.

As a footnote, I'd say this was an excellent debate with some informed dialogue on all sides, might I suggest you're taking things a little too personally?