KI-43 ?

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Thumpalumpacus said:
Right, and when your RoF is 300-400 rpm on your 20mm (vs 600 - 800 for MGs), you'll be sending more rounds downrange with an MG in the brief window you have before the Oscar starts with that pirouetting crap. Dive, shoot, GTFOOD.
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Like having 12 7,7mm guns
 
VA5124 said:
I dont know how much did a mk2 trop weigh
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Aerial M2s weighed 61 lbs apiece, so four would weigh about 245 lbs. Browning's .303 appears to have weighed 31 lbs, so twelve on a plane would be ~365 lbs compared to the 4x.50s being 245.

I don't know the weights of ammo, but with a higher cyclic rate you're going to need more ammo per gun for the same shooting time in a .303 vs the M2's slower rate of fire. I think the .303s in the 12-gun fighters probably carried less ammo per gun, giving a higher rate of sprinkling while reducing trigger time.

My point is that when you put weight outboard onto a wing, you will necessarily slow down roll rate, which is not a good thing against a fighter as nimble as the Oscar. Twelve .303s will surely chew a Ki-43to Hell and gone, but you'll have to get them into position to do that. Saving 100 lbs in gun-weight will help when they're wing-mounted.
 
When being attacked by the tiger, you don't have to be the fastest. Just not the slowest.

So if I am designing a fighter in 1938, I am looking at the Polikarpov 1-15 and I-16. As long as the fighter is better than these 2 then job done.

I am not designing a jet fighter but something superior to whatever the enemy have.

The Soviets are the main enemy so let's build something to match them.

The Navy main enemy was America and it's aircraft so it's comparing peaches and concrete.
 
The weight of 61lbs for the M2 is a bit optimistic.
I know that what it says in the manual but something (or somethings) seem/s to get left off. The installed weight always seems to be a bit higher. Cocking mechanism, different firing mechanism (external to the gun itself, as in electric solenoid or cable or????)

Ammo is about 30lbs per hundred rounds of .50 cal and about 6.6lbs per hundred for the .303.
This is the killer for some .50 cal installations.

P-40D & E manual says 256lbs for the four .50 cal guns and 300lbs for 1000 rounds of .50 cal ammo.
 
Shortround6 said:
... something (or somethings) seem/s to get left off. The installed weight always seems to be a bit higher ...

P-40D & E manual says 256lbs for the four .50 cal guns and 300lbs for 1000 rounds of .50 cal ammo.
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British figures have:

0.5 guns, blast tubes and adaptors (4): 309 lb
Ammunition boxes and chutes: 84 lb
2460 rounds 0.5 ammunition: 738 lb

0.5 guns, blast tubes and adaptors (6): 463 lb
Ammunition boxes and chutes: 54 lb
1686 rounds 0.5 ammunition: 505 lb
 
Small calibre machine guns were perfectly acceptable weapons by mid 1930s standards.

Aircraft are lightly built, unarmored, no self sealing tanks and open cockpit so the pilot can take one to the head for extra bonus points.

And your not shooting basic ball ammo but AP or incendiary and so on which adds a little flavour.

I get the feeling with the Ki-43 that it is a glorified WW1 fighter and modern concepts have not been taken into account.

The manufacturer has made what the army wanted. Problem if you make a very light weight small fighter, it's ability to upgunned or up engined is limited but that's a problem for future Nakajima.
 

Thanks for the elucidation and further info. I didn't realize the difference in ammo weight was that drastic.
 
Thank you.

The ammo works out to 30lb per hundred in the first case and 29.95lbs per hundred in the 2nd case, close enough

You are very correct, the weight of the installed guns was much higher than the naked guns.
US and British practice (or even US Army and US Navy practice) may have been different when counting the weight of the "gun" vs the weight of gun as installed in the aircraft like the blast tubes and adapters (mounts). I don't know if the weight of "gun" was counted as the weight of the "gun" in regards to empty weight vs empty equipped weight. In which case the blast tubes, adapters/mounts, gun heating systems, charging/re-cocking system and firing system (what connects the button on the stick to the gun in the wing) are charged off to the airframe weight and not the armament weight.

The ammunition boxes and chutes are almost always counted as airframe weight even though the guns are useless without them

I believe the weight of the .303 Browning was much lower that 31lbs for the bare gun.

In the case of the P-40D, I rather doubt anybody loaded over 600 rounds of ammo per gun into the wings, we know the ammo boxes would hold it but the chances the pilot would actually be able to fire that load off in combat were pretty slim.
 
VA5124 said:
Why no cannon though ? i dont understand that part the zero had them
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It is noteworthy that the IJAF of 1941 thought that their latest fighter should have the same twin .303 armament of a Sopwith Camel. The last RAF fighter introduced with twin .303 guns was the Gloster Gauntlet biplane, first flown in 1933.
 
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