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Do you or anyone else here know of the specific modifications made to accommodate the wing cannon?The XF6F-4 was a prototype that had the cannon mod.
An F6F-3 tested one 20mm and two .50 cal MGs but wasn't used. It was used on many F6F-5N night fighters. I thought I saw a photo of an F6F-5 with 20mm but maybe the caption was wrong
Here is the standard wing for F6F3 with three MGs and the same area of the wing of the F6F4 with cannons. The difference is the accessing panel behind the main gun bay. F4 had that modified. But the cannons are located at the same places the MGs were. According to these drawings the F4 had reinforced the leading edge of the wing at the areas where cannon barrels protruded.
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Here is the standard wing for F6F3 with three MGs and the same area of the wing of the F6F4 with cannons. The difference is the accessing panel behind the main gun bay. F4 had that modified. But the cannons are located at the same places the MGs were. According to these drawings the F4 had reinforced the leading edge of the wing at the areas where cannon barrels protruded.
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View attachment 490132
What did those modified access panels have to do with the cannon?Here is the standard wing for F6F3 with three MGs and the same area of the wing of the F6F4 with cannons. The difference is the accessing panel behind the main gun bay. F4 had that modified. But the cannons are located at the same places the MGs were. According to these drawings the F4 had reinforced the leading edge of the wing at the areas where cannon barrels protruded.
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View attachment 490132
Can you post some more of those drawings? (Not counting those two that you already posted on this thread.)IMHO , not too much had to be done to accomodate these cannons. Generally, the F-5 got the new wing reinforced structure. Judging by many drawings I would say these changes included the skin panels and a couple of stringers/formers there what resulted in new panel layout. The gun bays seem to stay with the same layout. However the changings there could have included the way the cannons were attached and the cannon feeding system..
Wurger,
After looking at the above drawings, I imagine the F6F-5 series used the cannon-related wing modifications illustrated in those drawings, is that correct?
Can you post some more of those drawings? (Not counting those two that you already posted on this thread.)
What do you mean by, "less panels what reinforced the wing"?Nope. The F5 got a wing of reinforced structure. While the F4 had the same that was used for F3. The difference is the way of the wing covering. The wing of the F5 got ( according to diagrams ) less panels what reinforced the wing. But the base was still the same for F3/F4 and F5. Two main stringers and one additional. The same was with the gun bays. Just the bays were a kind of universal and didn't need to be reinforced or modified. So the modifications you are looking for , were for the wing rather than for the gun bays.