Bf 109 K-4 Kills? Anything Exceptional?

Roger that.

They really needed a compromise between the Mk 108 and Mk 103. (as discussed above)




On a different note:
HoHun,

According to Tony William's article, introducing electrical priming on the Hispano would have allowed synchronization.

The problems with MK108 were numerous stoppages, especially when fired under g loads, which was specially annoying during fighter vs fighter combat and the low mv. IIRC all later commonly used 20mm and 30mm aircraft cannon had 50-100% higher mv (in range of 740-1030m/s) than MK108.

Juha

Hi Juha,

>IMHO our difference is in essence that we weight differently which is more important higher probability to achieve at least so damaging hits that they forced enemy to disengage vs lower probability to achieve hits but hits would be with high probability destructive.

According to a report reproduced in Luftfahrt International, the Luftwaffe answered that question very early in WW2 based on their combat experience.

Damaged aircraft returning to enemy territory with their pilots/crews aboard did not impair the enemy's capacity to wage an airwar in any meaningful way. This experience paved the way for the introduction of mine shells (though they had probably been developed earlier) in time for the Battle of Britain. The rationale behind them was to destroy an enemy aircraft immediately instead of merely damaging it, and even the 20 mm mine shell increased the chances for this markedly.

Not to forget that the immediate tactical situation is improved much more by an enemy aircraft that goes down in flames than by an enemy aircraft that disengages at high speed - the latter is still a thread as its intention might just as well be to gain some altitude to re-enter the fight with an advantage.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hi Koolkitty,

>The differences in ballistics of the Mk 103 and the MG 151/20 are about as big as those of the MG 151/20 and MK 108.

Out to 400 m, you can safely forget about trajectory differences.

>And the increased weight of the MK 103 would adversely impact performance.

I still is far lighter in relation to the firepower it offers than the Hispano V, for example.

1x MK 108 - 87 rpg - 111 kg - 221% firepower
1x MK 103 - 75 rpg - 210 kg - 180% firepower
2x MG 151/20 (MX) - 187 rpg - 164 kg - 124% firepower
2x Hispano V - 212 rpg - 188 kg - 109% firepower
8x ,50 Browning M2 - 250 rpg - 452 kg - 100% firepower

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hi Koolkitty,

>They really needed a compromise between the Mk 108 and Mk 103. (as discussed above)

Above I basically said that it would have been nice to have. I don't think they actually needed it more urgently than the RAF or USAAF needed new guns (though especially for the 12.7 mm Browning, there was a lot of room for improvement.)

>According to Tony William's article, introducing electrical priming on the Hispano would have allowed synchronization.

I'm not aware that it was ever done, though. If introducing electrical priming would have meant a one-year delay for the ideal armament, the armament would not have been all that ideal as something inferior would have to be used during the delay. Technically possible does not always mean tactically available.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hi Juha,

>The problems with MK108 were numerous stoppages

Do you have any actual figures?

There sure were a lot of stoppages with the US 12.7 mm machine gun as well, Roger Freeman even describing an instance when five out of the six guns on a P-51 jammed, but the weapon still has a reputation for great reliability.

It's difficult to make reliable conclusions from isolated occurrences if data on the big picture is lacking ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hello HoHun
Quote:" Not to forget that the immediate tactical situation is improved much more by an enemy aircraft that goes down in flames than by an enemy aircraft that disengages at high speed - the latter is still a thread as its intention might just as well be to gain some altitude to re-enter the fight with an advantage."

Now IMHO a fighter pilot who saw his 20mm fire hitting (flashes) enemy fighter and pieces flying after which enemy dives away probably thought "Ah, a kill."

And as I wrote earlier no nation followed the MK108 idea after WWII. I forgot the MiG 15 and 17 armament, IIRC their 23mm and 37mm had mv appr. 690m/s but their armament were optimised for B-29 busting, 30mm NR-30s in MiG-19 and early MiG-21s had again higher mv, 790m/s. GSh-23 had lower and GSh 301 higher mv than NR-30 but between 740-860m/s range. I don't remember the mv of GSh-23L. So even Russians, who tended to have lower mv than Western Nations after WWII didn't go anywhere near MK 108's low mv. I'm pretty sure that major powers had put much thought on optimal aircraft armament after WWII and Germans also went to high mv with their BK 27. So IMHO MK108 was too extreme solution.

Quote: "Do you have any actual figures?"

No, only from pilots memories and maybe there was some talk on that in meetings on LW production matters chaired by Milch, but I am not sure of the latter.

Juha

Almost forgot
HoHun, Hispano Mk 7 and 9 had electrically primed ammo.

Juha

Hi Juha,

>Now IMHO a fighter pilot who saw his 20mm fire hitting (flashes) enemy fighter and pieces flying after which enemy dives away probably thought "Ah, a kill."

30 mm shells actually killing an aircraft will be much more clearly seen than 20 mm ammunition merely striking it somewhere

>And as I wrote earlier no nation followed the MK108 idea after WWII.

Naturally, the weapons get heavier when the fighters get heavier, and the MiG-15 and F-86 generation of jets had about twice the take-off weight of the Me 109. Additionally, combat speeds increased considerably due to the introduction of jets, shifting the optimum point in the muzzle-velocity vs. firepower trade-off. Frederick Blesse of "No Guts, No Glory" fame still maintained that it was necessesary to close to the same short distances as in WW2 to achieve kills ...

And while the USAF was not satisfied with their high-velocity, low-firepower machine guns, the Soviet Union was quite happy about the performance of their low-velocity, high-firepower cannon, so in a different context, the same concept proved successful again, even if the absolute muzzle velocity might have been increased to match the higher target speeds.

That technology progressed after WW2 doesn't mean that the MK 108 wasn't a excellent weapon during WW2. The real reason it was not copied after the war was that in the shape of the MK 213/30, an all-round superior new 30 mm cannon had been developed, which set the standards for the post-war guns of this calibre.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

quick question....I read somewhere that hartmann specialised in very long range gunnery. It is said (dont know if its true) that he could spot and bring down a Russian SE plane at more than 1/2 mile. Thats somewhere between 800 and 1000 metres. if this is true, how could he do that, if the 109 armament was primaraily a short range weapon????

Hi Parsifal,

>quick question....I read somewhere that hartmann specialised in very long range gunnery.

Hm, Hartmann supposedly said "Get so close that the target fills your windscreen". I think Toliver and Constable mention one instant where he sucessfully took a very long-range shot, but that was to clear the tail of his wingman so he really didn't have much choice regarding range.

>if this is true, how could he do that, if the 109 armament was primaraily a short range weapon????

For much of the service life of the Me 109G, it was equipped with a medium-velocity 20 mm cannon. It was the MK 108 which was more of a short-range cannon.

However, the impact of muzzle velocity again depends on the tactical circumstances. Against a non-manoeuvering target in a rear aspect, even if it was just fighter-sized, the low-velocity MK 108 would hit accurately out to 600 m if you simply put the pipper on the target without accounting for gravity drop. The trajectory was curved, but the sightline was slightly depressed so that the centre of the crosshairs was always close to the trajectory. Beyond 600 m, the trajectory curved so steeply that it would be very difficult to try and compensate for the drop manually, though the late-war computing gunsight reportedly could do that accurately. (The 20 mm cannon had a flatter trajectory, accordingly its "point blank range" was longer than that of the 30 mm MK 108.)

Obviously, it was only possible to successfully hit a fighter at such a long range if its pilot was unaware of the attack and flew along steadily, as any kind of manoeuver would fly the aircraft out of the striking zone of the bullets while they were still underway. However, if the target was unaware of the attack, it made sense to close to a shorter range where the chances of bringing it down with the first burst were greater, too. This is the kind of situation where the veterans would press on to ensure a kill, and the inexperienced pilots would underestimate the range, overestimate their chances of hitting, and fire too early to hit reliably. I can well imagine that the fear of the enemy detecting the surprise attack and turning to fight back puts enough pressure on an inexperienced pilot to completely mess up his abilities to calculate range and lead ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hello HoHun
Quote:" >Now IMHO a fighter pilot who saw his 20mm fire hitting (flashes) enemy fighter and pieces flying after which enemy dives away probably thought "Ah, a kill."

30 mm shells actually killing an aircraft will be much more clearly seen than 20 mm ammunition merely striking it somewhere "

Yes, but question was was the fighter hit by 20mm cannon armed fighter considered still a threat or not and IMHO it was out of that dogfight. Having seen guncamera films showing He 111s and Bf 110s taking hits from Hispano I don't think that a Bf 109 taking hits and going downstairs were considered risk anymore.

Quote:" And while the USAF was not satisfied with their high-velocity, low-firepower machine guns, the Soviet Union was quite happy about the performance of their low-velocity, high-firepower cannon, so in a different context, the same concept proved successful again, even if the absolute muzzle velocity might have been increased to match the higher target speeds."

Now we are talking on MK 108 vs Hispano Mk V so USAF satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their .5 HMGs is IMHO irrelevant. IIRC FAA and RAAF were fairly satisfied with Hispano during Korean War and Soviets went to uniformly higher velocity armament in their MiG 19 and early MiG 21s so I'm not sure how satisfied SU was with the armament of MiG-15. Surely it was effective against B-29s but at least USAF seemed to have thought that Soviet armament wasn't very effective in fighter vs fighter combat. Of course they also noticed that .5 was clearly lacking punch but they opted high velocity 20mm not low velocity 30mm cannon.

That MK 108 was effective anti-bomber and anti-Il-2 weapon is probably a fact that we both agree.

Juha

Hi Juha,

>Yes, but question was was the fighter hit by 20mm cannon armed fighter considered still a threat or not and IMHO it was out of that dogfight.

That the perception of the firer was rather unreliable can be seen clearly by considering the number of "damaged" claims that did not match the actual combat results.

Besides, I don't believe that every 20 mm hit will cause enough damage to make a pilot break off combat. It's not even possible to break off combat at will anyway - you need a tactical opportunity, and you need to consider the effect on your formation, too. No good to run away as a precautionary measure if that leaves your wing leader stranded, even if you could.

Not to mention that air combat is a battle of attrition in which you have to shoot down the enemy to win - making him run home instead will, in the end, lose the battle.

>Now we are talking on MK 108 vs Hispano Mk V so USAF satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their .5 HMGs is IMHO irrelevant.

Soviet satisfation with their low-velocity guns is significant. The ineffective USAF armament certainly made a lot of damaged MiGs run home, and the USAF certainly were very unhappy about that. Apparently, they didn't subscribe to the "force them out of the dogfight" theory.

>Soviets went to uniformly higher velocity armament in their MiG 19 and early MiG 21s

That's just technical progress for you. Really no sense in arguing with armament of supersonic jet fighter to make a point about a WW2 propeller fighter.

>That MK 108 was effective anti-bomber and anti-Il-2 weapon is probably a fact that we both agree.

The point is that it was not developed as an anti-bomber or anti-Il-2 weapon, but as a universal air-to-air weapon, and that it had excellent qualities as a dogfighting weapon in the air combat environment of WW2, in which vast majority of the kills were achieved at ranges of less than 350 m, and most of the kills even at less than 200 m.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Juha said:

Now we are talking on MK 108 vs Hispano Mk V so USAF satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their .5 HMGs is IMHO irrelevant. IIRC FAA and RAAF were fairly satisfied with Hispano during Korean War

Click to expand...

Don't forget about the USN and USMC with their M3 cannon.
(which the USAF should have adopted as well, at least until the M39 became available)

HoHun said:

The point is that it was not developed as an anti-bomber or anti-Il-2 weapon, but as a universal air-to-air weapon, and that it had excellent qualities as a dogfighting weapon in the air combat environment of WW2, in which vast majority of the kills were achieved at ranges of less than 350 m, and most of the kills even at less than 200 m.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Click to expand...

The MK 108 would probably be more difficult to use for deflection shooting due to the lower velocity.

Also the Soviet 23 mm cannon still had a much higher velocity than the MK 108.

Hi Koolkitty,

>The MK 108 would probably be more difficult to use for deflection shooting due to the lower velocity.

Deflection shooting is not an end by itself, it's a means to an end - shooting down aircraft. You really have to look at all factors in combination to assess a weapon.

>Also the Soviet 23 mm cannon still had a much higher velocity than the MK 108.

Well, the F-86 was a lot faster than the P-51, too. And the difference in manoeuvering speeds is even greater than that in top speeds - propeller aircraft turn best at the stall limit, while jet fighters turn (and climb) quickest at high speed. And with combat in Korea moving to high altitudes, the true airspeeds in a fight (which determine the amount of lead) were up, too.

To rate weapons as "low" or "high" velocity, it doesn't suffice to look at the absolute muzzle velocity alone, but the target speed has to be considered, too. For example, one could compare the ratio of muzzle velocity to the corner speed of the intended target.

Certainly the MK 108 was a bit on the low side with regard to its muzzle velocity, but as jet fighters' speeds and fighter guns' muzzle velocities increased in parallel, I don't think there really was a dramatic move away from low-velocity guns. On the contrary, measured by the parameter I suggested, I'd even guess that the performance of the projectiles fell back behind the performance of the fighters.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hello HoHun
Quote:" That the perception of the firer was rather unreliable can be seen clearly by considering the number of "damaged" claims that did not match the actual combat results.."

In fact irrelevant, we are talking if a shooter who had seen that his 20mm fire hit the enemy fighter and the target diving away still considered the target a threat, IMHO not. He might have followed it to make the kill sure but that depended on overall situation.

Quote:" Besides, I don't believe that every 20 mm hit will cause enough damage to make a pilot break off combat."

As I wrote I'm speaking on 2-3 20mm hits.

Quote:" Soviet satisfation with their low-velocity guns is significant. The ineffective USAF armament certainly made a lot of damaged MiGs run home, and the USAF certainly were very unhappy about that. Apparently, they didn't subscribe to the "force them out of the dogfight" theory."

Have you source on that Soviet satisfaction. And anyway, according to JoeB those according to you flimsy armed F-86s shoot down appr 9 times more those properly armed MiG-15s than they lost to MiG-15s. So after all the armament of F-86 wasn't altogether hopeless even if many other things have effect on kill ratio .

"Really no sense in arguing with armament of supersonic jet fighter to make a point about a WW2 propeller fighter."

Now the cannon in supersonic fighter was/is for subsonic combat. And as I wrote there is not much relevance in your .5 M2/M3 HMG vs Soviet N-37 and NR-23 argument in Hispano Mk V vs MK 108 conversation or much relevance either if I claimed that because JAAF was much more satisfied with Ho-103 than with Ho-301(the extreme low velocity HE gun) low velocity gun with effective HE shell was a failure.

Quote:" that it had excellent qualities as a dogfighting weapon in the air combat environment of WW2"

I simply disagree and if we cannot bring new facts in this conversation it's better agree that we disagree in this subject.

Juha

The armament is always the point that is critizised the most about the F-86 though. Kill ratios are always distorted and even if you take the 9 to 1 as fact that number is the result of way too many variables to draw conclusions about one single variable (armament) on. Bf 109 F-2s were also successful against virtually every enemy they encountered in the east, that doesn't mean their armament wasn't lacking.

And the Ho-301 is much more extreme than the MK 108 with less than half the muzzle velocity and a considerably slower rate of fire. They are not very similar.

That said, iirc the MK 108 was the Rheinmetall-Borsig answer to a RLM specification for a heavy aircraft gun that could bring down bombers with the lowest expenditure of ammunition possible. So it was kind of an anti-bomber gun.

It was still useful against fighters as evidenced by Me 262 kills on all kinds of single engined fighters. In case of the Me 109 K-4s I think it was simply seen the easiest way to increase firepower without having to redesign larger parts of the aerodynamics (e.g. by adding wing cannons) and it was probably also more economical. I have never seen any actual reports on how it performed in the anti-fighter role apart from assumptions made in various books or websites. That'd be interesting to see.

Hello KrazyKraut
Quote:"Kill ratios are always distorted and even if you take the 9 to 1 as fact that number is the result of way too many variables to draw conclusions about one single variable (armament) on."

JoeB had carefully study the real kill ratio, it isn't just USAF claim. And as I wrote, armament was just one of many variables which had /has effect on kill ratio.

Quote:"And the Ho-301 is much more extreme than the MK 108 with less than half the muzzle velocity and a considerably slower rate of fire. They are not very similar."

As I wrote the Ho-301 argument doesn't have much relevance on Hispano Mk V vs MK 108 argument but .5 M2/M3 vs Soviet N-37 and NR-23 had neither. After all .5 bullet weighted only 1/3 of the weight of Hispano shell.

Quote:"It was still useful against fighters as evidenced by Me 262 kills on all kinds of single engined fighters"

And how many Me 262 kills there are against single engined fighters? At least 8th FC didn't lost many P-51s to Me 262s according to Drgondog. And anyway the main MK 108 problem seems to be tendency to jam if fired under G-loads much different to 1. So in theory they should work better in Me 262, which anyway had 4 of them, than in Bf 109.The latter was probably more often in situation where it's pilot fired under G. Of course when it worked and when its shell hit it was devastating.

Juha

Why would the MK 108 work better in the Me 262? There would be less turning (if the pilot flew to the the plane's advantages) but any maneuvering at high speeds would result in significant G loading; while there shouldn't be any sustained turn-fighting, they'd still be pulling some short, but hard, maneuvers for getting a deflection shot etc.

However it really depends on the nature of the MK 108's jamming problems: if they're caused by the ammunition feed arrangement (which would be dependant on the aircraft), or a part of the gun's mechanism itsself and weather the jam occured durring high-G maneuvers, or only when firing the weapon in such mconditions.

For example the P-51A/B/C and A-36 had problems with jams of thir wing mounted .50 Brownings, generally very relaiable, under G-loads due to the amunition feed and the postion the guns were mounted. (this was rectified with the P-51D's armament arrangement)