Spitfire Armaments

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So, as a stop gap measure Spitfires would have to be armed with Browning M2 0.50" HMGs?

But how many - 2, 4? Can they fit 6 in the universal wing?

If they use 4 x 0.50" HMGs, would they keep the 4 x 0.303"s as well?
 
As to the number of 0.5 in a Spitfire I would expect 4 would be expected for the early Mk I and II and 6 in the universal wing. As to the 0.3.3 my guess would be no. The RAF recognised that 4 x 0.5 was at least as good as 8 x 303 and that extra would be added weight with little gain. When you get to the E wing then 6 x 0.5 shouldn't be a problem.
 
I can see where 4 x 0.50" HMGs would go in the E-wing - that is, in the cannon bays (of which there were 4) - but where do you put the extra 2? The 0.303" bays in the E-wing were, from my understanding, blanked off. Perhaps on the fuselage and synchronised?
 
Sort of depends on exactly when the 20mm Hispano drops in the crapper as the "C" wing was a little late in coming. The "B" wing was limited to three gun bays and was fitted to some MK IIs and some MK Vs still had A wings and some had B wings.
I am not sure if you could stick a .50 in the outer machine gun bay. The next inboard bay seems to have the length and height may be able to be taken care of with a blister if needed.

Trying for six .50s gets you into the American problem. The .50 was not only a heavy gun, it's ammo was heavy. The 1400 rounds of .303 ammo for the four outboard .303s weigh as much as 300 rounds of .50 cal ammo.

To be more accurate the weight of the guns and ammo in Spitfire with 2 20mm and 120 rounds of cannon ammo per gun was 649.5lbs. 205.5lbs for the .303s and 444lbs for the cannon. A P-40E with six .50s had a 470-480lb gun installation and another 423lbs worth of ammo and that allowed 235 rounds per gun from a total of around 900lbs, ammo boxes, gun heaters, etc not included for either. Please note that a six .50 battery with 235 rpg weighs very close to a four 20mm Hispano battery and would ahve a simialr effect (except perhaps barrel drag) on performance and handling.
 
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As you have mentioned several times in other threads the .50 Browning pre 1940 isnt the same as a post 1940 Browning so the 1940 4 x .50s isnt quite what the Mustang carried in 43 as far as weight of fire and reliability.
 
There were of course unforeseen problems fitting the .50 calibre machine gun next to the cannon.




There are also problems which can be anticipated. Time and again I see people glibly banging on about adding this, that or the other armament or even 'redesigning the Spitfire wing' without the vaguest concept of just what that might entail.

Cheers

Steve
 

The E winq contained 2 x 20mm and 2 x 0.5, so working on the basis that you can fit 2 x 0.5 into the space occupied by one 20mm, that leaves you 6 x 0.5
 
Here is the E wing layout:



Note that the ammunition for the .50 cal was inboard, meaning that it had to be guided under the Hispano

 

I take it that is a trials aircraft?

Did it adamage the barrel of the 20mm or only the shroud?
 
wuzak said:
The next question is, can 6 x 0.50" (0r 8!) be fitted to the universal wing, using the 0.303" bays for 0.50"s?
Click to expand...

You can probably fit 4 into the cannon bays and 2 more into the inner machine gun bays, fitting into the outer machine gun bays may be possible, difficulty may be depth rather than length or width and yes you could probably uses bulges for height.

Now the question is why (especially eight guns)? as shown in previous post 6 .50s with 235 rpg weigh about as much as 4 20mm with 120rpg and there is some question about the performance penalty of the early 4 cannon Spitfires.

Trying for 8 guns gives you 573lbs worth of guns alone and 125rpg (about 10 seconds worth) adds another 300lbs for 873lbs or over 220lbs more than the "normal" C wing armament.
 
Why 6 or 8? I guess the question is are 4 x 0.50" HMGs sufficient? I suppose going into 1941 the opposition for day bombers in the UK will be mainly fighter-bomber types, rather than bombers with heavier armour.

Also, they are replacing their cannons with 2nd or 3rd best choice. There have been many debates on this site as to the comparison between the destructive power of the 20mm Hispano vs the 0.50" Browning. Some suggest that the Hispano was 3 times as effective as the 0.50", so replacing the two 20mm would require 6 0.50"s for equivalent effectiveness.

Remembering that the first few Kittyhawk Is had 4 x 0.50", but later ones had 6 x 0.50". And the P-51 went from 4 in the -B to 6 in the -D.
 
Only the US stuck with machine guns, and then not for long, though too long. In Korea the F-86 still had machine guns against the Mig-15's cannon (one of which was a 37mm). Good job the US pilots , for a variety of reasons, went through John Boyd's famous OODA (observation, orientation, decision, action) a lot quicker
Cheers
Steve
 


The USN found the 20mm Hispano to be roughly 3 times as effective as the 0.5 in Browning. The problem the US had with the Hispano was in actually building it in quantity.
 
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