Shortround6
Major General
It also used a lighter shell than the Hispano at a lower velocity. It might have needed a bit more effort or machining time to make too.
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Thank you. That's the data we need.In 1942 and 1943, the average reliability was about 1 stoppage per 160-180 rounds
If it is possible to increase the rpg to the four .50s by ditching the cannon that would be my choice of armament with U.S. weapons. With the concentration of fire at all ranges, the relative ease for a few hits to down most axis aircraft, and a target rich environment, four .50 ought to be more than sufficient.
Why bother? The .50s for the P-38 had 500 rpg. At 750-850 rounds per minute, that's 35-40 seconds of firing time. That's 18-20 2 second bursts, more than enough for the BRIEF dogfights of the period.
I don't know that US statistics, but British experience was that Spitfire Mk IX pilots rarely used more than 110 of the 120 cannon rounds available to them (about 10 seconds firing time). Pilots will always want more, just on the oft chance there is another target, but the reality was that only a few pilots were good enough to get more than a few firing solutions in a combat situation.
The problem is not the length of firing time, but the capacity of the gun itself to fire sustained bursts. There are WW2 recommendations to pilots on the relation between the length of the burst and how long they should wait until firing the next burst.
Otherwise, you get nasty things happening, like rounds cooking off in the chamber as the gun heats up massively and sympathetic detonations of the rest of the rounds in the ammo box. I've got a first hand account somewhere of a P-47 pilot who had been on a ground strafing mission who though he was running into flak after rounds in his .50s started cooking off an putting holes in his wings.
Its not a video game, where you can just hose away until all ammunition is expended.
to modify the "Thach quote" ----"if you can't hit them in 30 seconds you aren't going to hit them in 40 seconds."
Every ONE second of firing time for four .50 cal guns weighs about 17 lbs. Granted you are ditching the 20mm but that constituted over 40% of your striking power for as long as the ammo lasted or the gun kept working.
How long are you going to be flying around at what power settings in order to fire off more than 35 seconds worth of ammo? A P-38L burns just over 5.5 gals a minute at Military power and 6 gallons a minute at WER.
Davebender,
Pick a year. Doesn't matter. Obviously if you were intercepting a "German B17", if they had ever built one, you would arm it differently than if you were killing Zero's. I'm looking at the historical aircraft it actually battled, and I think if I were a pilot of the time I would ditch the cannon and add another couple hundred rounds per gun for the 4 Brownings. It would give you a VERY long firing time. Zero's, 109's and 190's just weren't that tough and I think those 4 Browning packed in the nose would have been devastating to any of those 3 single engine fighters.
Jabberwocky, Shortround6
Seriously? Too much ammo? Isn't that like a fighter thats too fast? Too manueverable? A woman thats too hot?
What about strafing? How many stories have you read where they beat up the target until they ran out of ammo? I would like to hear of anyone who ever heard a fighter pilot say "I sure wish my guns didn't shoot so long before they quit".
David McCampbell shot down 9 Japanese divebombers on one mission and ran out of ammo. Hellcats carried 400 rounds per gun, I believe, how many more could he have gotten if he had another 200 or 300 rounds?(and full fuel tanks, he took off with his tanks half full and ran out when he landed on the carrier)
You've got me confused. Are we talking about the original 1937 design for the P-38? Or are we talking about the the P-38L which entered service during June 1944?
The P-38L is 7 years newer then the original specifications. Rather like comparing an Me-109F4 to the original Me-109 prototype powered by a RR Kestrel engine.
I've never heard of mounting fuel tanks in the engine cowl. So I don't think this trade off would be possible on the Me-109.Would the Germans have been better served to trade 1000 rounds of 7.9 ammo (leaving 500 per gun) for another 30-35 liters of fuel?