Your armament?

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I've never heard anything but praise for the P-38 armament of 4 .50s and a 20mm in the nose.

If I was straffing troop positions the converging fire of 8 M2s and lots of ammo, like the P-47 would be tough to beat, even with 6 20mms.

wmaxt
 
The US Navy did tests and calculated that a 20mm Hispano II was equal to 3 HMG's. The USAF did similar tests and thought that it equalled 2.5 HMG's.
use your own choice the argument works with both.
An RAF fighter with 4 x 20 is thus equal to 10 or 12 0.5 M2 HMG's.
The MB3 with 6 x 20 would equal 15 or 18 HMG's which is scary.
The Tempest with the Hispano V which was a considerable improvement on the Mk II must have been equal to 12-15 0.5 M2 HMG
All three of these are a massive increase on any US single engined fighter.

As for the P38 its firepower is equal to 6.5 or 7 HMG's plus the additional benefit of being in the nose which is significant. However if you double the effect its still roughly equal to the Tempest.
Compare it to the firepower of any RAF twin engined fighter with 4 x 20 and its outclassed. The Whirlwind is the closest in that its the only dogfighting twin engined fighter we had in the war and your looking at 6.5 - 7 MG equivalent to 10-12 in the Whirlwind.

If it was a case of only straffing troops then I would be tempted with the Hurricane IIB with 12 LMG and to hell with penetration.
 
My armement? hmmm, 2 nosed MG42 ( WP Ammo if ever made for that gun) the nose guns would be my weapon of choice for taking out fighters,

and 4 winged 20mm cannons(placed close to my right and left side of my cockpit) and at least 4 Rockets to take bombers down.
 
hmmmmmmm actually 1 R4M could take out a B-17. the problem was no guidance system. Still quite effective and chaotic. the bomber boyz have very emotional feelings to this day when they speak of 262's sitting out of range, setting up these attacks and then letting the arsenal go and then the fast follow-up with 3cm's
 
Yea, I know what ur talking about erich, and I took it into consideration, but the number of rockets launched for the results didnt really quantify the loss in performance, or the time spent setting up such an attack... The account at Schweinfurt and those exploding B-17's is EXTREMELY harrowing however...
 
there were tests with wire guided air to air rockets but they failed and at least 1/2 dozen ground to air rockets that were tested but were also not suitable. As to the R4M it was not built in sufficient numbers but the killing the little weapon could do was terrible. As the jets only used the thing 18 March 45 for the first mission it was not up to par even by wars end, but the Luftwaffe threw them into action with high hopes
 
Enzian, Rheintochter R-I (and R-III), Hs-297 Schmetterling, C-2W Wasserfall (at least 12 subtypes W-1 - W12) and Feuerlilie (F-25 and F-55) to name the most important SAM projects. The X-4 anti bomber guided AA wasn´t a good solution at all. The R4M is quite more interesting, it could be used against ground forces as well.

The MB-3 with six 20 mm mounted in mid wing position are definetly too much for such a light airframe. I expect that the recoilforces would harm the wing badly, not to speak of directional stability while firing.

Hadn´t the VVS a 23 mm gun? what are the performances for it?
 
lesofprimus said:
Rockets were just about worthless against bomber streams, as demonstrated by the Luftwaffe...
Click to expand...

While I agree with Erichs post about the R4M, I am in more agreement with you on this. They were not guided and against a single bomber would have been worthless. I believe the only time they would have been very effective is firing them into the whole Bomber formation and then you got a pretty chance of hitting something.
 
Umm,
that is correct for the Werfer Gr. 21 rockets mounted under the wings but not so for the R4M.
It is completely correct that the R4M is unguided but unlike the W-Gr21 it has a comperatively flat flightpath. Normal firing solution was to use the Revi-16 B/D or EZ 42 for aiming, just like the guns. On demonstration runs it was possible to set all 24 R4M into the fuselage of a SM79 parked on the ground. Against single flying targets you would have the same chance ot hit a target with R4M or MK 108. I don´t know if it was possible to release single shots, as far as I know you could only fire the half or the full salvo of 12 or 24 R4M.
That´s effective as long as the target is not maneuvering.
 
If you could only fire off the half or the full, then yes that would probably be effective however to me that sounds like a lot of overkill. I would rather fire off 1 rocket at a time, then you have 12 or 24 rockets to kill that many targets with.
 
It indeed is a hell of an overkill. But very suited to deal with bombers. Not very economic at all but suited for high speed engagements. The R4M would make a good solution for the Me-163, too. Replace the MK108 with SG-115 and some 24 R4M under the wings would be a very efficient armement against heavy bombers.
 
It would. Interesting that they tested both, the SG 115 and the R4M on Me-163 B (SG 115) and A (R4M). They never came to the idea to replace the MK 108, wich indeed was a barely suited weapon for this plane, and combine R4M with SG 115. This could safe some 130-160 Kg!
 
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