Bombers defensive armament: a misconceived idea?

[cheddar cheese]

Nope I was talking about the USAAF.

If you take out the tail gunner, you have less fire to deal with. Then you dont have to worry about being shot down yourself so much while you take out the engines.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but they weren't the german tactics..........

 

[cheddar cheese]

But they could have been

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but they weren't...................

 

[cheddar cheese]

Perhaps they should have been...

 

[remoraptor]

I'm just wondering why the RAF stuck to their .303s when they could have acquired the .50 heavy machine-guns much earlier from the Americans. Any of you guys know of a reason for this?

 

[Lightning Guy]

There weren't that many .50s to spare since virtually EVERY American aircraft was using them and America was producing a whole LOT of aircraft. Also, Bomber Command wasn't especially concerned with shooting down German fighters as much as they were driving them off. The .303s put out a lot of ammo and few fighters were going to press an attack while they were taking hits. The reduced visibility at night meant that the short range wasn't that much of a problem. The .50 would have been better, but for the situation the .303 wasn't bad at all.

 

[Anonymous]

There weren't that many .50s to spare since virtually EVERY American aircraft was using them and America was producing a whole LOT of aircraft. Also, Bomber Command wasn't especially concerned with shooting down German fighters as much as they were driving them off. The .303s put out a lot of ammo and few fighters were going to press an attack while they were taking hits. The reduced visibility at night meant that the short range wasn't that much of a problem. The .50 would have been better, but for the situation the .303 wasn't bad at all.

I disagree. .50's were quite abundant. If the RAF had really wanted them they'd have gotten them, availability was not really the problem.

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Lunatic

 

[lesofprimus]

I think its more about the fact the the Brits had a CRAPLOAD of .303 ammunition on thier hands and that the sensible choice was to use a weapon that ammo was abundant for, rather than having to buy or manufacture it...

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

as has been mentioned, .303s did the job well, a Browning .303 can throw out 1,150rpm, compared to the 750/850rpm of the browning .50. This meant that in a four second burst, the 4x.303 could throw out 306 shells in a 4 second burst compared to just 113 from the .50, the total of 2,500rpg in the tail turret of the lanc gave 130 seconds of firing time (over two minutes!!!!!) compared to the 24 seconds offered by the 335rpg of the .50. Two other major advantages of the 4 gun turret was that it allowed for blockages, one gun fails, t'other 3 keep going, that happens in with the .50cals whick often did with the .50 (Harry Nunn, the rear gunner on "Oor Willie" an aircraft of 101Sqn, was one of the first in the RAF to convert to the twin .50cals, told his leader where stick his new .50cals after they jammed after the oil used to stop them freezing, well, froze ) 1x.50 would do nothing, finally the .303 was almost 3 times as light as the .50, the .303 weighing 22lbs, the .50 weighing 64lbs.

 

[lesofprimus]

But the fact that the .50 cal round was more destructive has to take in a certain amount of measure when comparing the 2 rounds...

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

yes there are also many arguments for the .50 cal, primarily its' range and the fact that shell for shell it had about 50% more destructive power................

 

[cheddar cheese]

And because its more destructive, in theory you shouldnt need to fire as many shells, meaning the ammo difference doesnt matter so much...

 

[lesofprimus]

My point exactly.... If the Brits had used the .50 cal in place of the .303, many German planes that landed back at base with holes in their planes woulda crashed into the countryside instead......

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but in all honesty an attacking night fighter would have to get to within 400m of a bomber before making an attack, bringing it well in range of the .303s, once you're in range you suddenly see the .303 at its' best, that's allot of tracer coming at you, and the rate of fire eeasily makes the .303 the better choise over the .50cal...............

 

[lesofprimus]

HMMMM... From a short distance any calibre of bullet would cause some damage.... But i do agree with u that its rate of fire was nice... Not too sure about making it a better 'Choice" tho...

 

[cheddar cheese]

The German night fighters could attack from 1000 yards away, the Gunner had to wait until they were within 400 yards before he could get some effective shots in...in this case the think the .50cal was better...

 

[Anonymous]

yes there are also many arguments for the .50 cal, primarily its' range and the fact that shell for shell it had about 50% more destructive power................

50%? Ummm... lets look at the math....

Browning .303 = 11.3 grams @ 745 m/s
Browning .50 = 48.5 grams @ 870 m/s

Momentum comparison:

11.3 x 745 = ~8,419
48.5 x 870 = ~42,195

Kenetic Energy comparison:

11.3 x 745 x 745 = ~6,272,000
48.5 x 870 x 870 = ~36,709,000

So by momentum the .50 is about 5 times more powerful than the .303, by KE it is 6 times more powerful. Your figures are off by more than ten fold m8!

When it comes to chemical payloads, the story is even more in favor of the .50, which can hold a temendous amount more incendiary material than the .303 DeWilde (spelling?) round.

And likewise, the ballistics of the .50 are much much flatter than those of the .303, it easily had at least double the effective range, maybe triple. The approximate Sectional Density figures are: (the forumula for the area of a circle is radius squared x Pie, the SD is the mass divided by the frontal area)

11.3g / (0.5 x 7.7mm)^2 x 3.14 = 11.3g/~46.6 sq. mm = .242 g/sq. mm
48.5g / (0.5 x 12.7mm)^2 x 3.14 = 48.5g/~126.7 sq. mm = 0.383 g/sq. mm

As you can see the .50 has more than 50% more sectional density than the .303, it is going to hold its velocity much much better. I've never worked the ballistics of the .303, but it looks a lot like those of the MG131 13mm (SD = 0.250, muzzel velocity = 750 m/s). The MG131 goes sub-sonic (sea level) at about 300 meters, where the .50 BMG goes sub-sonic at 900 meters.

As for the abundance of .303 ammo, well, I'm not sure of that. For fighters the DeWilde incendiary ammo was used almost exclusively after they got production ramped up for it. I assume this would also be true of the Bomber guns, but perhaps not. One thing is certain, the hitting power and ballistics of the .50 are so much better than those of the .303 that the aprox. 50% better RoF didn't even come close to balancing the two weapons. The .50 BMG was far far superior.

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Lunatic

 

[lesofprimus]

Ive done the math before, as well as seen LG post the same velocity measurements......

The .50 was a much more destructive and all-around better calibre....

 

[Anonymous]

Ive done the math before, as well as seen LG post the same velocity measurements......

The .50 was a much more destructive and all-around better calibre....

I just wanted to make clear to Lancaster and others just how much difference there really was. I hope I've succeeded.

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Lunatic