F6F and P-47 armament question (1 Viewer)

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Jerry W. Loper

Airman 1st Class
121
0
Oct 2, 2007
Did the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt have any gun armament apart from six .50-caliber guns (F6F) or eight .50-caliber guns (P-47)?
 
This F6F-3 was tested with 2-20mm cannon and 4-.5 machine guns, used on many F6F-5N night fighters...

f6.JPG


Geo
 
It's a reflection of what they were shooting at.

The USN itself estimated that a 20mm cannon (Hispano) was three times as effective as a .50 calibre M2 machine gun. The only saving grace was that US aircraft were big enough and powerful enough to mount 6 or 8 HMGs. Still the four 20mm cannon carried by a typical late war RAF fighter had twice the destructive power of six .50 calibre machine guns carried by a USAAF P-51 for example.

There were well documented reliability problems with the US produced Hispano cannon. The M2 heavy machine gun on the other hand was made in vast quantities and was reliable and adequate for the job it had to do. It didn't stop the US moving quickly to cannon armament post war.

Cheers

Steve
 
US Navy moved a lot quicker than the US Army after the war even with much faster firing .50 cal guns coming in at the end of the war.

The P-47 only carried .50 cal guns and while there are many references to weights and loadings with 6 guns instead of 8 to lighten the plane up I don't know how common that was in the field.
 
There may have been more, but I've only ever seen evidence of one P-47 Group of the 9th AF, removing some guns (from memory, I think two per side), and also removing the blast tubes from the remaining weapons, leaving the barrels exposed.
 
There may have been more, but I've only ever seen evidence of one P-47 Group of the 9th AF, removing some guns (from memory, I think two per side), and also removing the blast tubes from the remaining weapons, leaving the barrels exposed.


What about the F6F Terry?
 
Is that the photo, dated May 1944 from a "publicity function" showing them fitted to a 358thFG aircraft? The M10 tubes were at least being experimented with in the ETO by this time (pre-D Day) but evidence for their operational use is hard to come by. There's another photo I know of showing 'Mickey' (350th FG I think) equipped with the tubes and bombs.

The 9th AF wasn't keen on rockets of any type, preferring bombs, napalm and its machine guns.

Cheers

Steve
 
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I know, I know...I'm still looking. The rocket tubes where in the wing leading edge. I hope I'm not thinking of the A-1 Skyraider.
 
US Navy moved a lot quicker than the US Army after the war even with much faster firing .50 cal guns coming in at the end of the war.

The P-47 only carried .50 cal guns and while there are many references to weights and loadings with 6 guns instead of 8 to lighten the plane up I don't know how common that was in the field.

The Navy switched right away to the 20mm cannon after the war. The AF did not switch to 20mm cannon until a more rapid fire cannon, the M39, became available around 1952.
 
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