Japanese Zero vs Spitfire vs FW 190
- Thread starter Chiron
- Start date
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buffnut453
Captain
I don't know how many times this has to be repeated...IT DEPENDS ON THE TIMEFRAME. The 50cal was useless as a weapon in 1940 because it simply wasn't reliable enough and the rate of fire was so poor. At the time of the Battle of Britain, the 303 was the right choice for the RAF. By the time the US entered the war, the 50cal was a more viable weapon but it still took almost 9 months to get it working reliably in wing installations. By that time, cannon armament was looking like a more efficient option for the RAF.
I'm also puzzled by the continued reference to smaller ammo capacity for the cannons. The whole purpose of the 4x303 machine guns was to aid sighting so that the pilot only opened fire with the cannon when he was (relatively) certain of a hit. That's a different technique from having 4 or 6 50cals where the objective is simply filling the air with flying lead. Not saying one technique is better or worse than another...they're just different, so let's not try to equate them.
That was how it worked in theory, but not always in reality. A pilot in WW2 didn't always have the time to line up a shot with the .30 cal weapons before shooting just a couple of rounds of cannon. Even if he did, it's still a very limited number of cannon shots (trigger pulls) with a 60 round drum.
The specific context of this comparison of ammunition capacity was in reference to the fact that A6M pilots found they often had ran out of (cannon) ammunition and either had to land on the carrier to re-arm (as at Midway) or were stuck hundreds of miles from base with only LMGs which were considered only marginally effective especially against well protected bombers. This was a factor in several Pacific battles. It also sometimes seemed to be a problem for the RAF for example over Malta during some of the convoy fights.
The specific context of this comparison of ammunition capacity was in reference to the fact that A6M pilots found they often had ran out of (cannon) ammunition and either had to land on the carrier to re-arm (as at Midway) or were stuck hundreds of miles from base with only LMGs which were considered only marginally effective especially against well protected bombers. This was a factor in several Pacific battles. It also sometimes seemed to be a problem for the RAF for example over Malta during some of the convoy fights.
If people can't follow the conversation don't bother replying, like you said, this has been discussed numerous times.
The idea of using 30's to get sighted on a target and then expecting your 20mm to hit him has been discussed and been proven incorrect. By the time you see your 30's start hitting, make the decision to squeeze the cannon trigger, then actually squeeze the trigger, the guns fire and the cannon rounds get there, both aircraft have probably moved 1,500 feet and the angle, range and everything else has changed.
Shortround6
Major General
The quality is a good point but the characteristics of the guns also play into it. The Russian aircraft guns (aside from the 7.62mm ShKAS) being of rather low quality compared to western guns (short gun life) however the russians had traded long gun life for light weight and high rate of fire. The russian 12.7mm machine gun was slightly more powerful than the M2 Browning, fired faster (up to 30% faster depending on source) and weighed a significant amount less. Assuming the plane lasted long enough the Russians junked the whole gun while the Americans might be replacing an extractor and spring (barrels are consumables). But remember, durability is different than reliability.
The German MG 131 was a very successful gun for the role it was designed for. Which was to replace the MG 15 and MG 17 on a pretty much one for one basis. It fired a much heavier bullet at close to the same rate of fire. the fixed MG 17 fired at 1200rpm without synchronization and the MG 131 fired at 900rpm. the smaller gun weighed 12.6 kg and the larger one 17 kg compared to the Browning M2 29 kg.
However other nations were improving their armament too and they often were not replacing one gun with a bit larger one. The much put upon Blenheim in it's "turret" went from a single drum feed Lewis gun to the drum feed Vickers K gun ( 600 rpm to 1000rpm) and then to twin Vickers K guns and then to twin belt feed Brownings (1200rpm each) . The turret was actually good for around 180 degrees of traverse. Unfortunately for the Germans in comparisons since bombers often did not fight bombers, by the time they were sticking one or two .MG 131s into a bomber the British were sticking in those Boulton - Paul power turrets with four .303 guns with a combined rate of fire of 4800rpm or 80 rounds a second. Each round may have been a bit on the weak side but that was a lot of bullets.
The Italian Breda wasn't too bad except it was heavy. The Italians had been using since at least the mid 30s and it was pretty much a Browning clone. trouble is the Italians didn't lighten it up to match the small cartridge they used (ballistic twin to the British .5in Vickers) and never seemed to get the rate of fire up to the newer guns.
The British .5in Vickers, the Italian 12.7mm and the Japanese 12.7mm were all pretty much ballistic triplets. They also were just enough more powerful than the German 13mm to win a bar bet but the practical difference in power was near zero. The British did not use exploding bullets the other two nations did. The Japanese also managed to cut about 6kg from their Browning Clone that the Italians did not and also seem to have achieved a higher rate of fire.
This is part of the British "love affair" with the .303. A British .5in AP round has about 3.25 times the energy of a British ,303 round but the . 303 gun weighs about 1/2 as much and fires almost twice as fast. Compared to the US Browning as tested in the 30s (and they did adopt the small Browning) the M1 loading had 15,000 joules of energy compared to the .303s 3280 joules. The later M2 load had 17400 joules.
The love affair ended a lot earlier. The British were build a factory to manufacture HS 404 cannon in Britain in 1938. Part of the love affair can be explained by the shear size of the Hispano cannon and by the fact that it needs to be supported a good distance out the barrel.
Note mounting bracket on the left hand gun. This forward support is difficult to arrange in a aircraft gun turret. It was eventually done. but not until about the end of the war. It was a lot easier to shove a pairof American .50 cal Brownings in a Boulton Paul turret in place of 4 .303. British were toying with the idea od a turret mounting four Hispanos on a twin engine super Defiant but that idea went away quickly.
The British were working on more ammo capacity for the Hispano in the summer of 1940. a variety of feeds/ magazines and belts were being tried.
However not all .50 cal US planes carried anywhere near 450 rounds, in fact many never came near that amount and others were often flown (or at least performance tested) with much smaller amounts. The first P-40Ns being the most famous, four guns with 201 rounds per gun. of about 15-16 seconds of firing time. The P-40Ls were about 235rpg for four guns.
Some of the weight charts for the F4F show only 200rpg but I have no idea if any were flown in combat that way. Likewise the initial weight chart for the F4U lists only 200rpg with the higher capacity being labeled overload. P-47s with underwing loads dropped to around 267 rpg.
The early P-51s carried 200rpg for the fuselage mounted guns and 250rpg for the wing mounted .50 cal guns. If they carried 6 guns total the outboard guns could have 350 rounds.
The Wildcat was an outlier with 430rpg and paid for it with poor performance. .50 cal ammo for the Browning is about 30lbs per hundred.
buffnut453
Captain
Like all discussions of this sort, it all depends on the engagement scenario. If the target is non-manoeuvering (and, frankly, most fell into that category) then the tactic is entirely valid. It's not appropriate for a snap shot take during high g manoeuvres.
Shortround6
Major General
this use the rifle caliber guns to range and sight for the 20mm cannon certainly has been discussed a lot and just on this page in this thread we have the technique being discussed to cover both the 600m/s Japanese type 99-I 20mm cannon and the 860m/s Hispano ammunition. Both countries using 7.7mm ammo of about 760m/s. Maybe It's me but something certainly seems off.
At close range (say under 300yds) it might actually work but then so would learning to shoot and just pulling the trigger. at the range gets longer the technique gets increasing faulty unless you have ex math professors as pilots.
At close range (say under 300yds) it might actually work but then so would learning to shoot and just pulling the trigger. at the range gets longer the technique gets increasing faulty unless you have ex math professors as pilots.
Shortround6
Major General
While this is true the Germans seldom get take to task for the variety of trajectories and times of flight of some of their armament set ups. If their pilots got in close this could be ignored, but at longer ranges things could get a bit weird. The 20mm MG 151 fired the same projectiles as the MG.FFM cannon but fired them about 100-125m/s faster (about 14-15%) and the German 20mm ammo used different projectiles, the infamous mine shell left the muzzle about 90-115m/s faster than the 117gram HEI and AP rounds (and they were the ones that had the tracers) but they slowed down much quicker so even ammo from the same gun isn't hitting at the same place at the same time. Now at 300 meters at sea level this might not be a big problem as most of the German ammo is within about 1/10 a second of each other and a 300mph plane is covering about 440-450fps. or 44-45ft in that 10th of a second but at 600 meters the difference in times of flight has gone to about 3/10ths a even getting the different shells on bomber might be a problem.
Actually I believe RAF Buffalo's and some P 40 Tomahawks and the P 36 Mohawks had their armament modified to 6 x .303s.
I did a quick check on the results from "Operation Pedestal" . The 32 Sea Hurricanes accounted for between 16 to 18 kills, including 8 or 9 tough well protected JU 88s. The 10 Martlet II s, armed with 6x .50 scored 2 to 4 kills. The Sea Hurricane had a performance advantage as well but seemed to do just fine with the 8 x .303s. There was one Sea Hurricane 1C armed with 4 x 20 mm that got some kills.
michael rauls
Tech Sergeant
- 1,679
- Jul 15, 2016
Agree on the Spitfire. For missions where having a long range was not nescesary it was for most of the war the best piston engined fighter in existence.........Imho of course.
Just a wee update to this, and not really a correction, but the Bf 109F was responsible for the high numbers of RAF flighters being shot down throughout most of 1941 and into early 1942, the Fw 190 was certainly responsible for adding to the high losses, but it was the Messerschmitt, not the Fw that scored most of the kills. There is a thread on this forum that contains official Fighter Command loss figures that attest to this and the majority of FC Spitfires were lost before the Fw 190 made an appearance - I think it was Steve (Stona) who provided the hard info. After the Fw appeared, the losses FC suffered actually drop off a little, but still remained high. In the first half of 1942 after the introduction of the Fw 190, FC losses decreased over the previous six months of the Bf 109F in charge. The '190 takes the credit, but the Messer did the most of the work (I wish I could find the thread and figures...)
Part of the thing with the Fw is that it displayed demonstrably superior performance to the Spit V from the outset and the British didn't really place too much speculation on the Friedrich, believing that the Spit V was its superior, but evaluation proved that the Friedrich could outperform the Spit V in almost every respect except turn radius. When told this, this led one Spitfire pilot to exclaim in frustration that, "turning doesn't win battles!"
Part of the problem was FC's strategy for pushing into France. There was high losses for little measurable return.
I'm familiar with that argument, but I don't buy it. To me that is kind of like pointing out that Hurricanes shot down more Luftwaffe planes than Spitfires so therefore they were more important in the Battle of Britain.
The Spitfire was the most important fighter in the BoB (in my opinion) because it was good enough compared to the best German fighter (at the time Bf 109E) that the British pilots themselves felt that they had the better bird. You can debate they point -I think they were right- but there is enough overlap to argue it one way or the other. The key thing was that the Spitfire was in the same league as the 109, and maybe better. Most Spitfire pilots thought it was better, and that made a real difference in terms of morale and planning. If you needed to smash a big LW raid coming in, you know if you could get enough Spifires there to give you that extra edge you could break it up. Maybe Hurricanes could pull it off too but they were at a slight disadvantage and everyone knew it. You need that edge to win battles.
The FW 190 similarly outclassed the Spit V. The high combat speed, the big panoply of guns, the roll rate and the armor, put the FW in another league. That had a devastating morale effect on RAF pilots. The Bf 109F may have shot down more Spitfires (or it may not have) but that was probably more circumstantial - the Spits coming across the channel to attack integrated air defenses. The 109F may have had marginally better (speed and climb) performance than a Spit V (depending on the precise configuration of the latter, boost settings etc.) but the Spitfire pilots knew they had their own advantages and could beat a 109F. The Spit V was basically it's equal. The FW could interdict over England and they couldn't catch it, they knew if they tangled with a unit of 190s they were at a serious disadvantage.
The Spitfire was the most important fighter in the BoB (in my opinion) because it was good enough compared to the best German fighter (at the time Bf 109E) that the British pilots themselves felt that they had the better bird. You can debate they point -I think they were right- but there is enough overlap to argue it one way or the other. The key thing was that the Spitfire was in the same league as the 109, and maybe better. Most Spitfire pilots thought it was better, and that made a real difference in terms of morale and planning. If you needed to smash a big LW raid coming in, you know if you could get enough Spifires there to give you that extra edge you could break it up. Maybe Hurricanes could pull it off too but they were at a slight disadvantage and everyone knew it. You need that edge to win battles.
The FW 190 similarly outclassed the Spit V. The high combat speed, the big panoply of guns, the roll rate and the armor, put the FW in another league. That had a devastating morale effect on RAF pilots. The Bf 109F may have shot down more Spitfires (or it may not have) but that was probably more circumstantial - the Spits coming across the channel to attack integrated air defenses. The 109F may have had marginally better (speed and climb) performance than a Spit V (depending on the precise configuration of the latter, boost settings etc.) but the Spitfire pilots knew they had their own advantages and could beat a 109F. The Spit V was basically it's equal. The FW could interdict over England and they couldn't catch it, they knew if they tangled with a unit of 190s they were at a serious disadvantage.
Glider
Captain
Spit Vb had 60rd drums but the Vc which entered service in Oct 1941 had the 120rd magazine
You certainly could be right but I had 800 rpm for the 0.5 M2.
I wasn't aware of major problems with the 20mm in the desert. They did have major problems with the reliability of the Spit V 20mm in Malta, but it was traced down to ammunition made in the USA. Despite all the shortages, they destroyed all US produced ammunition and the problem went away. As for Darwin, I don't pretend to know the reason
II/ Jg26 became operational with Fw 190's during the fall of 1941, I. and II. gruppe converted about the end of the year, by which time the fighting had petered out due to winter. Jg 2 converted to Fw 190's during the spring of '42.
There is no doubt that it was 109's that caused FC the most grievance 'leaning in to France' during the summer and fall '41, though there were also still a good many Spitfire Mk. II equipping FC squadrons in this period.
The major difference is one of perspective, imo; the FC pilots in '41 were claiming more German fighters shot down than they were losing, though it wasn't the case. However, in '42 when the Fw 190 was the main German fighter FC pilots were claiming less German fighters than were losing. It may in some way have been convenient to blame the Fw 190 for FC woes.
There is no doubt that it was 109's that caused FC the most grievance 'leaning in to France' during the summer and fall '41, though there were also still a good many Spitfire Mk. II equipping FC squadrons in this period.
The major difference is one of perspective, imo; the FC pilots in '41 were claiming more German fighters shot down than they were losing, though it wasn't the case. However, in '42 when the Fw 190 was the main German fighter FC pilots were claiming less German fighters than were losing. It may in some way have been convenient to blame the Fw 190 for FC woes.
The 20mm ammunition supplied to 1 wing was made in a new factory at St Mary's west of Sydney and was out of spec, the cannons also didn't have heaters, combined this caused the stoppages.
The Spit V was optimized to fight over 20,000ft, the FW190 under, the standard Spit V was outclassed by the 190 but Supermarine cut the wings down and RR developed the Merlin 50 engine and the MkV LF, Low Flight was born.
Yes but there were still plenty of Vb around in 1942
