The Ugly Truth: Cannons better than .50cal?
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- čas přidán 2. 05. 2024
- Surely it is impossible that both types of weapons were equally effective given their contextual use within World War 2! That's not possible, is it?! Go away with your nuance and context, this is the internet and we don't deal with your types.
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AFATL-TR-84-03 Historical Development Summary of Automatic Cannon Caliber Ammunition.: 20-30 Millimeter
Antony G. Williams Dr. Emmanuel Gustin, Flying Guns World War II, Crowood Press: 2003
www.amazon.com/Flying-Guns-Wo...
Website: users.telenet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/
AP15651, Pilot Notes Spitfire
B.R. 932, Handbook on Ammunition
D. (Luft) T.2109 F-1 bis F-4, T7, Heft 1
D.(Luft) T 6108, MK 108, Oktober 1943,
Dr Carlo Kopp, Early fighter cannon armament
Exploding Fuel Tanks - Saga of Technology That Changed the Course of the Pacific Air War,
www.amazon.com/Exploding-Fuel...
Fighting in the Air - The Official Combat Technique Instructions for British Fighter Pilots 1916-1945, RAF Museum Series Volume 7: 1978
George M. Chinn, The Machine Gun: 1951
G.F.Wallace, The Guns of the Royal Air Force 1939-1945: 1972
Handbuch der Flugzeugbordwaffenmunition, 1936-1945
Robert S. Johnson, Thunderbolt!
www.amazon.com/Thunderbolt-Ro...
Labbett & Mead TAG Series, Series 2 Pamphlet 6, S2 P11, S3 P5
L.Dv. 4000/10, Munitionsvorschriften für Fliegerbordwaffen Teil 10 - Handbuch der Munition für Fliegerschußwaffen
War Metallurgy Division, Metallurgical Examination of Armor Plate from Japanese Aircraft ‘Frank’, May 1945
- Timecodes -
00:00 - Intro
00:24 - .50cal as a aerial weapon
01:30 - German cannon/MG armament
02:32 - Of Apples and Oranges
03:40 - Introduction of some sources
04:32 - US aircraft weapons
06:32 - Weapon, aircraft and protection development
16:10 - Protection on/ of Bombers
21:09 - Conclusions on Pre-WW2 period
21:30 - Answering a Question with a Question
22:50 - .303s during Battle of Britain
28:47 - Never give a German a cannon
34:24 - Survivorship bias
36:00 - German & RAF thinking
39:04 - US .50cal + MK 108: A mortar pretending to be a cannon
42:44 - Gun stats comparison
44:31 - Thoughts about .50cal
46:55 - CONTEXT
52:00 - Conclusions
With a "late war" exception, a surviving pilot could get another plane faster than training a new pilot. Armor protects pilots, NOT airplanes.
Mostly.
@@BillFromTheHill100 And then there's the US spitting out thousands of pilots, each with several hundred hours of training.
@@jamesharding3459 Because they weren't in a defensive position with reduced production capabilities and manpower.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Well, yes, but the US/UK training systems were far and away the best in the world. Even when they were just gearing up they were producing more, and better (on average) pilots than Germany or Japan.
@@jamesharding3459 You’re wrong on the Japanese pilots. Japan had one of the best training programs in the world. The pilots they produced were highly skilled. They were also highly experienced with years of combat experience.
What they were bad at was replacing lost pilots. By 1943 the pilots they were producing were of poor quality for multiple reasons as well as the vast majority of the veterans were now dead.
Whatever the answer is, you don’t want to be hit by a concentrated burst of either...unless you’re in a TU-2 with Gaijin’s 2014 damage model. Still salty
Oh, memories
Germany used their flagpanzers with the 20 mm gun and think it was called a whirlwind against infantry. My dad saw a soldier take a hit directly in the chest from a 20 mm Cannon. Dad targeted the whirlwind for the 75 mm Cannon. Dad said it was horrific what the 20 mm explosive rounded to the soldier. You could always tell when something really bothered my dad when he would tell you the story because he would make a face of disgust or horror.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer so yeah anyways back to gaijins damage models....
@@howiethehowitzer7398 P-47 eating tank rounds one moment then dying from an MG17 the next
@@0Ploxx don’t even get me started on the arado
The US intended to switch to a 20mm standard battery for *all* fighters, back in the late 1930s, and started desperately looking for an "off the shelf" 20mm cannon they could adopt. The .50 was retained as a stop-gap, but the *plan* was to cut in 20mm armament as soon as possible. Even into the very end of the war.
However, the US had *major* problems with reliability in US produced Hispano-Suiza 20mm cannon. The reason was primarily that the US ordnance types *insisted* stubbornly that the chamber dimensions the original designers provided were too shallow. Even when the British (who provided the specs) and US ammunition manufacturers said, "Hey, you cut the chambers 1/16th of an inch - 2mm - too deep!"
Note that the British produced guns worked fine with both US and British made ammunition, as did other Hispano-Suiza guns built elsewhere. The US produced guns with the proper chambers produced for Britain to Britian's demand that they use the chamber dimensions the British provided, worked. But US guns, built to the US altered chamber dimensions, had reliability issues with *everybody's* ammo. But US Ordnance types *never* admitted that they had created the problem they claimed was an inherent design fault.
Great info, thanks
The U.S. Navy Ordinance Bureau never wanted to admit to the faults in the Mk. 14 torpedo, either.
Can you give a reference?
_ thank goodness Allies won, then ?!?
@@victordecastro7221 Eh, not like aircraft armament was a war winning issue, in either direction. Sort of like, the US *entered* the war with the best service rifle, and Germany *ended* the war with the best rifle (not universally, but still reasonably widely fielded) and MMG, but those decisions didn't have a material impact on war's outcome.
Not to say that quality of ordnance and the soundness of your armaments plan aren't important, but there are damned few places in military history where you can say, " *This one ordnance decision* won/lost the war!" But in WWII, *strategic logistics* , not individual armament choices, played an immense role in the Allied victory.
"The Germans didn't have a lot of guns on their planes"
FW190: Am I a joke to you?
Apparently so!
An above average number of guns sure, but then you see things like the p-38 with gun pods and realize what a lot of guns really means.
@@judahboyd2107 Or a B-25 with 16 times .50 cals, in the nose, plus bombs and rockets, and twin .50s in the waist, tail and turret! Then you've almost got enough guns!
@@judahboyd2107 Not really, the Fw-190 could use gun pods also.
@@judahboyd2107 or an f82 with gun pods
It's almost like you're saying each air force chose the weapon that suited their actual operational needs and requirements... who knew such a thing could happen.
Right!
Your saying that all three of the powers that be actually did something right 😮
Yes, it's absolute blasphemy to think that.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory
Wonders will never cease
If only people could realise this when comparing battleships
Imagine asking Bismarck what he wants for dinner and he goes into a 1hr rant about how tacos are different from burgers just to tell you he isn't hungry
Sounds like my gf, tbh.
@Chan Kideoke I'll take the girlfriend
Bismarck would want a Bismarck Brötchen
Answer the question in 5 minutes ppls
@@j.f.fisher5318 Sorry about that. But it comes with being blessed with estrogen as far as I can tell.
One Japanese ace on TakeLeon's channel says he would have much preferred 6 American .50 cals over the Japanese 20mm cannons (he was flying with a late-war Shiden Kai), mainly due to their slow muzzle velocity, massive bullet drop and low rate of fire. You had to get really close with them for any effective fire, which could be pretty much suicidal against a fomation of B-29s.
Edit: Just double-checked, it was Minoru Honda. That interview is definitely worth a watch, as are the ones with Saburo Sakai, Tomokazu Kasai and others.
Yes and you could carry a shit ton more ammo on the plane compared to 20mm
@@runtoth3abyss Nah 20mm HE just makes a couple hits to tear airplanes in half.
I thought that Saburo Sakai was shot by six 30-06 M1919 GPMG. The rounds blew out his left eyeball and shredded his arm causing massive blood loss.
His plane was shot to hell and leaked fluids. Yet, he managed to fly hundreds of miles and land on native land. He was captured by Allied forces, recovered, and later worked for the US CIA.
@@1dirkmanchest The incident occured when his squadron went attacking some wildcats that turned out to be SBDs. Seeing as they (the SBDs) wielded two nose-mounted .50 cals and a twin .30 cal in the gunner's seat, either case is possible, although I imagine the .30 cal is more likely
@@Maple_Cadian The trouble is scoring those hits. While the German MG 151, combined with the Mienengeschoss ammo, was an excellent weapon even at mid and long ranges, and many aces, including Marseille and Hartmann, preferred to use just a single 151 in their 109s, the Japanese 20mm cannons, inlcuding the late-war Ho-5, were probably the worst of all the warring parties, even the Soviet Shvaks did a better job imo. While early in the war it was easy for the Japanese Zero pilots to sit 60-100m behind their opponents and shoot them down with one or two short bursts (the early Zero cannons had only 60 shells per gun, lets not forget), later in the war this became problematic against high-powered US fighters using boom and zoom tactics (Marianas Turkey Shoot rings the bell? Heck, even when the Americans employed the famous Thach's weave at Midway the Japs didnt know how to counter it and were losing planes in head-on attacks against on paper inferior but much sturdier Wildcats.), or against massive formations of heavy bombers. Not to mention the steep quality drop in pilot replacements as the losses mounted, the same problem Germany faced, they never rotated their pilots. The Shiden-Kai pilots from the elite 343rd squadron, for example, developed some incredibly risky and very taxing tactics against the B-29s, using steep inverted head-on diving attacks, then regularly pulling 5, 6 negative Gs, naturally a pilot could endure just a few of those. With the US .50 cals you could spray and pray a little more generously, score a couple of hits with incendiary AP and most early Japanese planes would burst into flames.
This is an excellent example of how to tell history - by explaining conditions and influences. This helped you arrive and a good answer to the controversy: it depends. I also liked your "Ugly Truths" title. This could be a whole category of episodes dealing with controversies in military aviation history. BTW, another thing I like about your channel are your applications to war games. The games are great tools for illustrating your points - in this case, how they do not mimic the real world sometimes. Thank you for another great episode.
His premise kind of falls apart. The U.S. put 6 .50s on F-80s, F-86s and F-84s. A-1 Skyraiders had 4 20 mm. And no gun on early F-4 Phantoms.
@@timtruman1731 not too sure on what you mean, but didnt f4s not get cannons due to the more prominent use of missiles?
@@timtruman1731 What is your point?
@@damine2264 also because the Air Force didn’t think they needed it due to said missile system.
@@timtruman1731 elaborate…
I support the use of Jeremy Clarksons as a unit of power.
James May as a unit of "presentation appeal"
Richard Hammond as a unit of "Crashes"
I completely agree
Lol
Or "Sliphantom" as a unit for not uploading regularly.
The biggest unit of power........IN THE WOOOOOORLD 😂
I was in hospital with a USMC Corsair driver for a week. He had the -1C with 4 20mm canon. I asked him if they worked well. He said he only ever saw one Japanese aircraft, he was returning from patrol and it was going the other way at low level, so he let it pass then rolled over and pulled a half loop behind it. He got it lined up and opened fire and the Betty just disintegrated in a ball of flame. He said he didn't even fire ten rounds per gun. He went on to be a physics professor at several top schools, retiring from Stanford. When I met him he was 82 and was in for knee replacement surgery. The next day they wheeled him off and he came back a couple of hours later with a line of staples right down the front of his knee. A few hours later they came back with a Zimmer frame. He objected and they came back with crutches. He stood up and took one step. He looked thoughtful for a moment then handed them one of the crutches. "OK, let's go." And he walked round the whole floor. Maybe a 100 yard walk within four hours of knee replacement. He went home a few days later and I asked the teaching nurse if that was unusual, she said the aim was to get him standing on the first day, and able to walk to the wheelchair before they released him. Now that was a man and a Marine.
But Japanese aircraft were NOT armored. It was like shooting a kite out of the sky.
With that accuracy he must have studies ballistics in school. Fascinating subject. Things go up. Things go down.
@@drcornelius8275 You ever heard of the Zero? That thing ruled the skies for the first half of the war in the Pacific. Just because their planes didn't have armor doesn't mean anything, your just trading durability for maneuverability.
@@drcornelius8275 Same could be said for the Americans lol
@@builder396 Ha, I got that
I agree with the overall premise that cannons were better for armored slow bombers, and 50's for small light fast fighters. However, I also thought you'd touch on the respective gun platforms themselves. The design philosophy behind the BF-109 was to keep the weight in the fuselage and the wings light and thin. Once you've made that choice, a single cannon, firing through the prop hub makes a lot more sense. (I realized they ultimately put a pair in the wings as well but this was a later adaptation.)
Also, I'll note that the 2 US planes with fuselage mounted guns, the P-39 and P-38 both also incorporated auto cannons.
Yes, in hindsight now, studying WW2 air combat, either the heavy
.50 MG or 20mm cannon out of the nose cone spinner was the best arsenal in the fighter plane.
The Me109 and Yak apparently had the best armament of the War, with the weapon unencumbered poking out of the cone spinner
(no synchronized mechanism to prevent shells striking the screw; resulting in less aircraft weight, more projectiles exiting the tube without impediment, and more shells carried, while also not requiring deflection or convergence).
It was like the shells were "coming out of the pilot's nose" .
Interesting that the U.S. Airacobra had this weapon design with a 20mm cannon in the P400 variant early in the war.
@@chriscunningham68453rd😅 rd😊
@@SunnyIlhawerede3r😊😊4😊r😊😊 47:01
Good 😀
One advantage to consider of the .50 cals is that because they were often the only primary armament, aiming with tracers was relatively easy compared to mixing smaller MGs and heavier caliber cannons.
Yep, the Royal Navy and specifically Admiral Jacky Fisher realized that same thing, and instead of having various diameter guns made all the major guns the same size. Look at the last pre-dreadnought battleship (Lord Nelson) with 4 12" guns and 6 9.2" guns. Vs the Dreadnought with 10 12" guns.
Funnily enough kills went up if tracers werent used.
@@dwwolf4636 ..true enough. Experienced pilots knew to get in close and riddle their opponent rather than giving themselves away with tracer rounds that missed.
Bismark: I’m told it’s difficult to fly without the tail, but that might just be a rumor.
Horten brothers: It’s fine.
Someone got it \o/
I still can’t believe the germans made an aircraft after a dr seuss story
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Lateral Stability is just American Propaganda
Difficult, not impossible. Dunne did it before the Hortens were still playing with paper darts.
It is also not fun to become a tail Gunner especially when they can just left you behind
*50 cal exist*
US: I think we're gonna use this for everything.
The gun should be on the $50 bill.
@@scratchy996 Well they couldn't really put a foreign gun on it.
@@scratchy996 actually it should be John Moses Browning, with a M2 50 cal in his hands on the $50 note!
This is so true
Just like f35? For everything means - mediocre for everything.
I was always fascinated by the fact that they figured out a way to fire bullets through a prop without harming prop I wonder how many props was destroyed before they got it right
Count the ex-pilot's graves.
Seriously, the gun was ALLOWED to fire when the gearing gave permission.
57 props were destroyed before they got it right.
I have run across many similar examples where I wonder who was the first pilot to encounter the problem and what they must have thought. One recent problem I came across was, when they fired the guns on a jet fighter, it extinguished the engines! The solution they came up with was to fire a gun on one side at a time so both engines did not go out at the same time?! How would you like to be the guy who first discovered that problem?
The firing mechanism is disabled when the propeller is in the way with synchronization gears
Before they invented that pilots used to shoot their own propellers (wooden at that time) or they’ll put metal plates to deflect the bullets (which didn’t really help much)
@@ZaHandle interesting cause as a kid I always wondered if the guns were mounted slightly above the tip of the propeller or it was some crazy movie magic i didn’t understand
I read that a Japanese aviator said that his Shiden-Kai fighter was a battle worthy replacement of the Zero. He said that he wished it had six heavy machine guns instead of four slow firing canons that lacked range and was like lobing softballs: you couldn't hit anything unless you were within a hundred yards.
53:38 "The US way of thinking of using more guns."
Yes, you have understood the US perfectly.
don't forget: Firing larger, heavier bullets at higher velocity.
it can't just be a lot of them, they have to be louder :P
muricans confirmed for orks
@@ForelliBoy Need more Dakka.
*laughs in F-82 with gunpod*
American ideology during WW2:
Any deficiencies can be compensated with more guns and more bullets.
Meanwhile in Britain: “I sell .30 cal and .30 cal accessories.”
.303*
Meanwhile in Britain they started using 20mm hispano on fighters in 1940, by 1941 20mm were almost standard.
Most fighters carried 4 x 20mm Hispanics, spitfire had various weapons by at least 2 x 20mm hispanos.
It is known that 4 x 20mm hispano had twice the firepower of 6 x .50
@@NoNameAtAll2 .303 is 30 cal. Everything from .303 to .308 is a 30 cal.
Edit: folks should learn the dif between bore diameter and groove diameter.
@@annewillis6100 Hispanos although they were arguably the best 20mls of the time were prone to jamming they were were much better but less reliable
@@annewillis6100 While certainly true in the context of WW2 as a whole, this is a bit disingenuous when you consider that one of the pivotal parts of WW2 occurred before the Royal Air Force had any widespread move towards the use of 20mm Hispano cannons.
The .30-caliber weapons were definitely observed to be inadequate, but because of logistical reasons and probably the wing design of the Hurricane and the Spitfire, it was not feasible to switch to .50-caliber machine guns. So it seems to me that the British had no choice but to use the .30-cal machine guns - and the only way to make them effective was to have a lot of them, as many as 12 in the case of Hurricane Mk.IIb.
The use of .30-caliber machine guns in large numbers was a relic of interwar period fighter doctrine, and the British did not have the advantage of experience that the Germans gained in Spain - experience which told them that their 7.92mm MG17 machine guns were inadequate, which is why they started putting 20mm MG FF cannons on their Bf 109 fighters.
As a result, the move towards 20mm Hispano cannons as the primary armament of RAF fighters happened after Battle of Britain. While it is technically true that in 1940 they did start to use the 20mm cannon (with the Westland Whirlwind and the Spitfire Mk.IIb), it was not initially very successful due to jamming issues and limited ammo capacity. It wasn't really until the Hispano Mk.II with belt-fed ammo that the RAF started more widespread use of these weapons. So it would be accurate to say that during Battle of Britain, the 20mm Hispano cannon did not yet have very significant impact.
You do have a point, however, that the British moved to bigger, more effective weapons as soon as it was possible for them to do so.
Hi, it's very detailed research. Thank you!
For some time I was looking for an aswer to the question why US didn't use more Oerlikons on planes. There was some versions of P-51 and F4 (Corsair) but rather limited. However they use hell lots of them on every free space on their ships.
Logistic reason is briliant - almost all planes using the same weaponry... wow, one projectile for all. A dream of quartermasters! Looking a bit forward, second reason is extrem conservatism of higher ranks... we've got superuniversal weapon, wr do not want any new gun! So they flown to Korea with F-86 armed with obsolete gun...
So what did we learn? The P-47 Thunderbolt was tough as nails and the answer is like cowbell. I need more guns.
Pilots loved how survivable the aircraft was, WWII Vets talked about the Jug losing multiple cylinders and still making it home.
@@petis1976 I just love how its nicknamed the Jug
@@seamusmustapha8378 Short for juggernaut
@@Bryan_Kay Nope
@@Bryan_Kay it's literally just shaped like a jug
Cannons or .50 cal?
P-38: I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
B-25H - more please...
A-26 Invader... enough said
Beuaghfigther: Silence noobs.
The answer is yes, of course.
Spitfire XIVe: Me neither....
Every time I hear about "survivor-ship bias" I think of the French leading the way with helmets in WWI. As soon as they were introduced there was an increase in head injuries! The French almost stopped using helmets until someone pointed out that the men with these injuries would have been killed if they weren't wearing helmets!
Indeed. The only reason there were less reported head injuries prior to helmet introduction was because men with head injuries weren't surviving to report their injures.
Excellent video! Accurate, thorough, and concise analysis of this topic. Note a single hit from a 30mm Mk108 round was tested by the British and found to be 100% lethal to a Spitfire/Hurricane. This is significant and speaks volumes of the differing jobs these weapons were tasked with doing especially when involving taking down bombers. Very well analyzed and presented - Bravo!
47:35 "They were certainly not able to do so in combat". Finnish pilots were able to compare US .50 cals and German 20 mms in combat. They were one of the few exceptions. They preferred the 20 mm cannon, considering it a major upgrade from the .50 cals, particularly against tougher targets like the IL-2, against which 4 x .50 cals struggled.
One thing that can be of note here is ammunition per gun. For the US Navy pilots in the pacific this was something they talked about. I believe in one of the USS Enterprise’s after action reports during the Guadalcanal campaign it notes that the fighter pilots were asking for 4 gun variants of the F4F over the 6 gun variants due to them running out of ammo so quickly in dogfights and interceptions. Just something to note as additional information.
The 2 additional guns on the F4F-4 were outboard of the wing fold. Their additional distance from the plane's centerline made the outboards slightly less accurate at longer ranges and the additional weight that far out negatively affected roll rate. It's worth noting that the later FM-1/FM-2 went back to 4 guns.
@@ObsydianShade Never heard of that mod. Recently finished George Loving, Woodbine Red Leader. He flew a P-51B/C (razorback) out of Italy. The B/C model mounted only 4 guns. In '44, the squadron CO offered him a D model with 6 guns. He turned it down. Said he was too close to completing his tour to switch mounts.
Saw a documentary on O'Hare. The documentary reported that the Wildcat carried more rounds for the inboard guns than the outboard guns and that O'Hare made his last kill that fateful day with just his two inboard guns. Is that true about the inboard and outboard loads on the Wildcat?
@@hlynnkeith9334 I read that somewhere too.
COmmon complaint / observation everywhere - in the heat of the fight being frugal with supply limited to at most 10-12s of continous firing was very difficult for even experienced pilots in some situations and borderline impossible for majority of novice ones. Same was written by Polish / British pilots in Great Britain.
@@piotrd.4850 A story from the Great War. (You can read it in Frederick Libby, Horses Don't Fly.)
In 1916, the Brits were still fumbling pilot and gunner training. The FE2b had just arrived and the Brits were short of gunners. So they issued an audition call. Volunteer for flying duty and we'll give you a chance and if you fail . . . well, it's back to the trenches for you.
Libby went to the audition. Everyone got ground instruction in the operation of the Lewis gun (47 round magazine). Instructor taught the wannabees to fire in short bursts, like they do today.
Next day, Libby went up with the squadron OC, Stephen Price. (Americans say CO, but the Brits say OC.) The audition was to hit a target on the ground as the plane flew over it. As Libby and Price closed on the target, Libby pressed the trigger to fire AND HELD IT PRESSED UNTIL THE GUN WENT 'CLICK'! He walked the bursts of bullets in the dirt into the target! Price seconded Libby to 11 Squadron immediately. Libby's 'Open 'er up and let's see what she can do' tactic worked. He scored a kill during his first flight over the lines.
So, yeah, that 'Fire in short bursts to conserve your ammunition' advice never impressed the boys in the cockpit much. Many times I have seen gun camera footage of pilots walking their tracers to and through the EA.
41:40 Yes, I always thought that the main reason the Luftwaffe needed canons on their fighters was because they had to intercept and take down Allied bombers which where easy to shoot at (that is, less misses) but took too many light machine gun rounds to shoot down while long-range Allied escort fighters needed the guns with the most ammo to take down German fighters in dog fights that could last several minutes.
That's right, and machine guns in american fighters were installed outside the propeller disc, which made two advantages:
1. No need to synchronize machine guns with propeller RPM
2. Better rate of fire, and better effectiveness in shooting to fast and maneuvring targets.
The rate of fire is also important today, that's the reason why modern fighters have multi-barreled cannons like M-61A1 Vulcan,
@@jakubdabrowski3846 and the GAU 8
@mandellorian Well, that's your opinion, I will stay with mine. Americans have the best combat equipment and combat experience, I believe they know what they do. Russians tested multi-barreled cannons on MiG-27 but gave up this idea since the recoil and vibrations caused damage in aircraft's fuselage.
@@jakubdabrowski3846
In fact multi barrel M-61 Vulcan has a lower rate of fire then Mauser MK 27.
@@jakubdabrowski3846 The Luftwaffe had electrical primers developed to replace percussion primers for the MG151 and MG131. This made synchronization relatively simple compared to mechanical and hydraulic gear. It even worked with the 30mm Mk 103 which however could could not fit into the wing roots of any fighter until the Ta 152C (on which it was tested).
Very detailed and inclusive presentation. That's why my favorite WWII fighter plane was the Lockheed P-38 lightning. This iconic fighter used a mixture of 4 .50 cal Brownings and a single cannon of 20mm or even 37mm in some variants. Since these guns were mounted in the nose of the nacelle and didn't have to fire through a propeller, they produced a deadly cone of fire that was devastating to whatever the target was....
Excellant presentation, with good analysis. Lots of detail, and technical info. For us ballistic nerds and history followers.
Really great vid.
America is like the Engineer: "I solve problems. How do I do that? Use a gun. And if that don't work? Use more gun."
While you just use a buttplug.😀
@@lestergreen1190 uh what?
AC-130 and A-10 sez hello
That is russia comrade
We do this Texas style
"It's an apples and oranges problem"
"Cherry picking"
Which one of those fruits is it?
Banana
Du vergleichst Äpfel mit Birnen.
The 30 mm would be the Cherry the apples and oranges would be the 50 caliber and the 20 mm. Let me know if you need any other answers! 😜😆🤣
@@MilitaryAviationHistory that would be the Oldsmobile 37 mm cannon with the horse collar magazine.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Bananas are only good for measuring length, not comparing things to one another.
very good presentation balancing history, technical facts with context thrown in. much better than i expected after reading the description under the title.
Cannons or machine guns?
Focke-Wulf: Yes.
Context is such an underrated criteria when people attempt to compare two systems. People are always asking the what and the how, but never the who, where, or why. I'm thankful to historians like you, Chieftain, Drachinifel, Forgotten Weapons, Military History Visualized, and C&Rsenal for always doing your level best to establish why things were designed as they were for where they were.
At 19:10 there is mention that the Spitfire and Hurricanes were outliers with eight 303 machine guns, that was the result of of Hazel Hill a13yr old who helped her father work out that number would be needed to reliably bring down enemy aircraft in a 2 second burst.
I completely disagree. What serious history book or video doesn’t discuss who and where. In fact that’s the focus of childhood history (“Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.”). “Why?” is not rare in my experience. Our host overuses the word “context” in my view. He is thorough to be sure, but listen again and ask yourself: Why was 30 caliber so inadequate and 50 caliber was so useful? I don’t think he really answered it. He said that the “30 cal” was unreliable and the “50 cal” was reliable. Why? If you can make a reliable 50 caliber gun, why couldn’t 30 caliber be made just as reliable?
My criticism of our host (minor to be sure, but annoying) is that he frequently says, “obviously” and “of course” about things that to an expert such as himself are perhaps obvious but to the uniformed are not at all obvious. I wish he would drop these filler words.
@@emmgeevideo Ik you said your complaints were minor but your oblivious to how long this video would be if questions like, "Why? If you can... as reliable." He would have to go in depth about design of the weapons and how they work. Maybe you're interested in that, but myself and many others didn't come to this video to learn the difference in the mechanism of a 30 and 50cal. Perhaps you mean how was it less reliable in which case I would agree. Also totally agree with filler words, one of my pet peeves. You misread the original comment he's talking about everyday people, not historians.
@@emmgeevideo Yes, you see all the 'likes'? No, no you don't.
@@conmcgrath7502 I stand by my comments. Chris is an outstanding historian. I subscribe to his channel, watch most of his pieces, and like everyone I watch. That doesn’t mean he’s perfect. Offering polite and logical critiques should be encouraged. Saying that you don’t agree with this or that and pointing out shortcomings is not the same as pressing thumbs down. And just because a piece gets a lot of “likes” is not a refutation of my points. Nor does your silly implication of your comment.
37:23
"Even 300 aces don't win a war as the Luftwaffe will tell you"
This sentence made me laugh so much.
It's easy to have so many Aces, when your career path was "Fly until you die". B17 Pilots thought 25 to 35 missions was a lot, LOL.
@@jager6863 "Easy to have"?
You think its an easy job to fly until the last breath?
Its the hardest thing what you can ask from a soldier/human.
@@jager6863 😅 😂Oh :)
And thank you!
God Bless You! :)
German aces didn’t mean all that much since most of their kills were against massively inferior aircraft.
@@aaronhumphrey3514 AHm another laic comment...
yak-9 was fast as a 109 and almsot clibmed as a 109, and turnd better than a 109.
La 5 was faster than a 109 under 4000.
So?
Thank you, so much. Your series has intelligent and researched analysis; this has answered many of the questions I have thought about regarding the different weaponry and why one was favoured over the other. It was interesting to see how evolving armoured protection led to the steadily increasing firepower.
I read about a remark said by Goering during his post war debrief he said he wished that his air force got the license to build the Browning.50 cal before starting the war
Nice breakdown!
I was doing some research on the air war in Korea a while back. It's interesting to see how the advent of high-speed jet fighter combat made the pendulum start to swing away from .50s and towards 20mm in the minds of USAF pilots (the Navy had of course made the switchover by then).
Many American pilots were bitterly disappointed in the stopping power of their .50s against the MiG-15. Unbeknownst to them, the MiG-15 had a bulletproof windshield, a 20mm armor plate behind the cockpit, and self-sealing fuel tanks. At long ranges and high deflection angles, API bullets were usually deflected or stopped outright. Georgy Lobov, a Soviet pilot who fought from early 1951 to late 1952, recalled that "American .50 caliber machine guns acted on our bullets like peas...it was routine for our aircraft to return home with 40 or 50 bullet holes." Lobov even claimed one MiG was hit 120 times and still made it back to base!
One American report from Korea in December 1950 noted that “the consensus is that fire power of the F-86 is not sufficiently destructive, and should be modified with a caliber heavy enough to insure (sic) structural damage with a minimum number of hits." In early 1951, pilots in the 4th Wing had declared their M3 .50s to be "unsatisfactory."
It's worth nothing that pilots who complained didn't want a high-caliber or mixed-caliber arrangement like the one on the MiG-15. Basically every pilot who wanted an alternative wanted four 20mm cannons instead. The griping 4th Wing pilots wanted them, as did one pilot interviewed by Newsweek in 1951, who wrote: "What's wrong with our firepower? Personally I'd trade the six .50-caliber machine guns of the F-86 for four 20 millimeter cannon. I can do more damage with one or two hits with cannon shells than I can with fifteen hits with .50-caliber bullets. Since a jet is so hard to hit and so hard to hit often, we need cannon to make every shot hurt as badly as possible."
The Air Force did experiment with cannon-armed Sabres in Korea. In January 1953, eight F-86Fs armed with four Ford 20mm cannons (100 rounds per gun, 6 seconds of firing time) arrived in Korea as part of Project Gunval. Over a 16-week combat trial consisting of 282 missions, they shot at 41 MiGs, claimed 6 destroyed, 3 probables, and 13 damaged. However, two of the Gunval jets shot themselves down when gas from the cannons flamed out their engines. The Air Force concluded that the setup "[did] not provide a desired degree of improvement over the M-3," although it kept looking into the idea of cannon armament.
Of course, many fighter pilots in Korea thought the six .50 fit was entirely up to the job. Gabby Gabreski, admittedly a very experienced pilot and quite a good shot, thought the F-86's armament was "adequate for fighter operations." Fellow ace Harrison Thyng agreed, saying "if you are within range [(2,000 feet or less)] and in position, the 50 caliber machine gun is more than adequate."
And even the 4th Wing pilots who wanted 20mm cannons expressed appreciation for the M3's high rate of fire and reliability. If they couldn't get cannons, they said, the M3 .50 could still get the job done as long as the Sabre got one other upgrade: a more powerful engine that could get them closer (within the ideal 1,000 feet or so firing range) to the speedier MiGs.
An excellent addendum! Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
and in the meantime the british opted for 4 x 30mm aden on the basis that a single hit would ruin most fighters days and with the same RoF and similar velocity to the 20mm they had pretty good odds.
That is interesting about the Russian pilots returning with bullet holes. I've watched a lot of Korean War jet v. jet gun camera footage, and I assumed the MIGs were fragile and vulnerable to 50 cal. After reading your comment, I am forming the new opinion that many of the MIG "kills" claimed by US jet fighter pilots were barely damaged.
@@widehotep9257 Again everything depends on the right fitting between guns and ammo. During the BoB the RAF used a mixture of AP, ball and incendiary rounds in their .303 cals. Today AM rifles usually are of a caliber around .50 cal.
thank you for this comment
My wife: “why’s it called a furry cow?”
Me: “fifty cal, not furry cow!!”
Love it, wife needs a high five for such a good nickname
It's a cow farm THERE'S GONNA BE COWS OUTSIDE
Props to your wife for caring enough to ask.
How about the "Turdy Cow"
*Group of Highland Cattle moshing on distance*
Great video on a serious question, well done and very informative . You allways present your research in a highly confident manner, well researched and allow the viewer to come to their own conclusion. Thank You!
Armour also gives the pilot confidence to press home an attack for a couple more seconds.
Well, when you’re flying for several hours over enemy territory, it makes sense that you would want a lot of ammo.
Barely to mention: It WORKS WELL (enough), and you can CHEAPLY make MILLIONS of them in a short amount of TIME...USA: "Leave your Johnson measuring contest in the locker room; We have enemy to destroy..."
@@brentfarvors192 Which only works when you have the industrial capacity of a virtual continent, and aren't being bombed--the States won by attrition.
@@johncharleson8733 to be fair. Its actually more economically sound to make quite alot of smaller caliber weapons. It takes less material and due to the square cube law, weighs less aswell. Thats partially the reason Germany lost. Too many resources in too few weapons.
@@casematecardinal You are forgetting machining time/cutting tool wear.
Anyhow, I agree that Germany should have produced more weapons of somewhat lessor quality.
@@johncharleson8733 yeah. They probably still would have lost but maybe they wouldn't have been decimated like they were.
Regardless of what camp you fall into or are fond of, John Browning’s genius is obvious.
Yes one of the most important firearms designer of all time no doubt. But germans had most likely a somewhat more important impact on modern military small arms design in WW2 than the US and probably from WW2 onward too (even though the AR-15 is absolutely groundbreaking in its design just not to the extent "muricans" really wanna believe).
@@Heretic123456 Every essential component of the AR-15 was patented prior to WW1 other than the plastic stock.
@@Heretic123456 It's better to remove AR-15 and replace it with Eugene Stoner to make that comparison with Browning more conceptual. Eugene Stoner's AR-15 ergonomics and the operating system of the AR-18 are the basis for nearly every military small arm not named AKM made today - including the Germans. His genius is greatly understated. I agree with the pre/post WW2 influence. Europe was largely isolated in their small arm design; but there were several American WW1 designs adopted by European forces such as the Lewis gun, Hotchkiss, and Madsen. The US's small arms influence began in the 1860's with the Civil war, which was the only real significant war to take place in that time period. It served as a great curiosity to the European powers. But I would agree, the forced interaction with US weapon systems and function in WW2 had it's impact.
@C.J. "Europe was largly isolated in their small arms design" is like saying "Fog is the Channel the Continent cut off"! Particularly between 1860 and 1939 when European empires (British, Russian, and French being the large ones) probably covered half the world. "The [American] Civil war, which was the only significant war to take place in that time period". If you are in the middle of a battlefield then that war probably seems significant. However just to mention a few others: The Crimean War (1853-1856), the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Not to mention most of the Great War (1914-1917) before the Americans turned up.
@@firstlast7052 forgot the spanish American war were the Mauser and Kraig Jorgensen faced off. The results of that war was the u.s adopting the Springfield 1903 which resulted in a copy right lawsuit from Germany.
So basically:
50 cal was better at hitting fighters and getting metal into the stomachs of the pilots of those fighters.
20mm was better at downing bombers and getting metal into the stomachs of the pilots of those bombers.
No, 20mm was better for everything, as the last dumb holdout, the USAF found out in Korea and finally dropped the thing.
@@trauko1388 not only USAF, USN changed most of its fifties to cannons. Facts
@@trauko1388 people always sleeping on the 2nd largest air force in the world at the time
@@trauko1388 so USAF and USN are dumb?
@@ramal5708 The USAAF? Yes it was.
The USN? No, they wanted 20mm, but the industry failed to produce a reliable gun, so they were stuck with the M2.
I think Chuck Yeager mentioned something about 50 cals making more sense to engage fighters
Presumably a "Jeremy Clarkson" is half a horsepower.
The rear half, of course.
Or a rather plump hee haw!
@@roberthardy3090 In retrospect, I wish I had said "quarter of a horsepower - the hindquarter", but there you go. 8-)
So, a horse's ass power?
Brilliant answer. Short and to the point. We all award you extra points for the quality of your answer.
I thought he meant a petrol-head
Noooooo, you’re not allowed to give a reasonable, balanced take based on reality. You have to say one is better in every way
Bismark: haha, historical context and facts go brrrrrr
"You have to say one is better in every way"
Especially when it basically is.
@@bakters bruh
@@bakters look everyone we found one of them
@@neth7826 Of course canons aren't simply better as an anti-aircraft weapon, and that's why ground forces preferred massed batteries of ma deuces for air defense.
Wait... That's not what happened.
Despite "paying" much less for extra weight and "paying" more logistical cost of supplying another ammo type. Infantry actually shoots their guns, so it's not trivial.
If a battery of six infantry weapons, which ma deuce actually is, was just as good as oerlicons, that's what they would use.
Soviets developed much better emgees, specialized for aircraft use, namely shkas and berezin in 7.62 and 14mm respectively. They still transitioned to cannons as soon as they had them.
But it's so complex, man! What is better, a couple of AA auto-canons or 6-8 infantry emgees? Who knows? Bla, bla.
There he goes again. Bismarck is breaking the rules of Internet in general and YT in particular, by using fact, logics and reason. Where's the hyperbole? Where's the exaggeregations? Where's the hints that anyone who doesn't agree with him has a dubious sexual identity?/J
As the old saying goes: The job tells you, you don't tell the job.
This was incredibly insightful. I always wondered about cannon vs. MG and this is easily the most comprehensive evaluation of the topic I've seen. 👍
I think that the pilot with the armoured screen is Wing Commander Stanford Tuck, who advocated for 20mm cannons instead of the eight .303 machine guns. His reasoning was that only a few 20mm cannon shells would destroy a fighter whereas the machine guns usually needed many hits.
He was a fruit cake.
RST was an outstanding pilot, leader, and one hell of a deflection shooter.
He farmed mushrooms post War. Adolf Galland used to drop by for tea &
a chinwag.
He wrote an excellent book called 'Fly for your life'
Of course there was a big difference between the destructive capacity of the .50 caliber machine gun versus the smaller rifle-caliber .303.
@@galoon Well, yes and no. It gets a bit complicated. It seems obvious that a 50 cal would be more destructive than a .303 but testing showed that what happens when a bullet hits an aircraft is not easy to predict. When the RAF tested 0.303 AP rounds (on paper the .303 AP penetrates armour about as well as a .50 ball) against the fuselage of a redundant Blenheim bomber, less than 25% to 30% of the rounds fired even made it to the 4mm thick armour plate protecting the rear of the Blenheim's fuselage the rest either lodging in the structure or being deflected. Of those that made it to the plate "very few" (unquantified, alas, in my source) penetrated. The problem with MG bullets, even big ones, is that they have to hit something vital - fuel, engine or crew - and as the war progressed, these vital components are protected. Bullets, even big ones, tend to be deflected by structural members and they tumble when they penetrate the thin aluminium skin of an aircraft. A tumbling bullet loses a lot of penetration. The RAF did look at the .50 but their testing showed that, although it was more effective than the ,303 browning, it wasn't three times more effective while it weighed almost three times as much.
I would say the US choice of .50cal m2 was about the balance between doing some damage and hit probability. Analogy: shooting skeet with a shotgun. If you use skeet loads you will have shot that has enough mass to reach and break the skeet, but if you use a slug you will break the bell out of the skeet but you have to hit it first and probability of that is very very low.
One thing is true though. The Germans were usually trying to hit a much larger slower target, bombers.
cHOICE? lol!!!!
IT WAS THE ONLY THING THEY HAD AVAILABLE!!! XD
@@trauko1388 they had 20mm Cannon available . They even had 37mm that was used in some aircraft versions that were specifically built for ground attack
@@CONCEPTUALMAN Nope, they FAILED at copying the Hispano and producing a reliable gun, and they had a pretty useless low speed 37mm.
All they had left that worked was a ridiculously heavy MG, so they HAD to use that.
@@trauko1388 I guess all those Oerlikons the US cranked out and strapped onto naval vessels by the thousands just didn't exist, eh? The German MG FF was nothing more than an Oerlikon 20mm.
The 20mm in the nose of all those P-38s must not have existed, either. Nor the 20mm in the nose of all the P-400s destined for UK service.
The US was perfectly capable of license production. Or, in the case of the Merlin engine, of vastly improving the original design, making it far simpler and faster to produce (literally cutting hundreds of hours of production time off each engine, AND improving reliability)
The US had production lines that created ACTUAL interchangeable parts. Visitors from Rolls Royce were surprised when they visited US factories, because there were no bench vises at the production stations. Why is this significant? Because it meant that the US factory produced consistent parts that did not need to be modified. The UK factories produced parts that had to be put into a bench vise and hand-filed to get them to fit.
The Hispano problems had as much to do with the blueprints provided to the factory, as anything else. To say that the US was just too incompetent to figure out how to make it work is disingenuous in the extreme.
A more accurate statement would be that "it would take more effort to get it to work than it was worth".
Which is also true of the multiple Sherman tank replacements that were developed during the war: yes, they existed... but to stop the factories to re-tool them to produce the new tank that was only a marginal improvement, would hurt the war effort far more than the slight improvement of the design would help the war effort.
one thing about machineguns is that yu can have mountains of ammo for them, plus it wasn't as big or heavy as canons. In Europe, they weren't the best but in the Pacific, the 6/8 50. cals worked just well, since most japanese aircraft weren't armoured
René Fonck really was the pioneer with canon kills, his Spad XII required loading after every shot but 37mm were really nasty against the planes of the time. It never became popular since you basically need an ace to hit anything with 1 shot and reloading was a pain.
Rene' Fonck was a superlative marksman, & could pull off aerial shots that most others could not. Georges Guynemer had a SPAD XII like Fonck's for a bit, & got two kills or so with it, but he went back to using twin Vickers guns. I recall reading that a major drawback was the huge volume of powder fumes the cannon produced. It was blown into the pilot's face by the prop blast, more blew into the cockpit through the breech when it was opened, & breathing that garbage gave pilots severe nausea & headaches. A single-shot gun that gives you the heaves is something I think I'd pass on too.
@@grantmo821 Yeah, particularly since the opponents wasn't exactly armed (with a few rare ground attack planes in 1918 as exceptions) so it was overkill in power,
Fonck was a bit of a weirdo (and a total jerk) but he was certainly talented.
But "cockpit" is using the term very generously since it wasn't exactly roomy, more like in a motorcycle then a modern plane.
Yeah, mounting a canon on a Spad was a stupid idea but it was also a pioneer project that would pay out in the future.
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME VID. It is amazing how u broke down how and why each country used and chose the different armament,that was better for them. I LOVE military history and I have never seen any one brake it down like this. I have seen documentaries from the military channel,History channel,PBS, and the BBC. I have never seen a brake down like this before. I look at everything differently now concerning air combat during World War II. Your videos are so informative and educational,I thank u for that,it is greatly appreciated. This is why I subscribed and DIG YOUR CHANNEL BRO. OHHH when u mentioned about 50 caliber bouncing of the ground and hitting Tiger tanks from the bottom and destroying then,I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WAS BULLSHIT. The Tiger was a horrible and AMAZING AMAZING TANK. AGAIN I DIG YOUR CHANNEL BRO
My understanding is that the .50 Cal started becoming perceived as inadequate during the Korean War, as combat speeds started becoming much higher and jet aircraft became more sturdily constructed to handle this, which accelerated their transition. But whatever perceived inadequacies the .50 cal had in Korea, US pilot training and experience more than made up for it there. Although interestingly the US Navy seems to have begun the transition to cannon armament much earlier than the Air Force.
I heared somewhere that the MiG-15s weren't able to get set on fire at high alittude due to a lack of oxygen, making 50 cals even less suited so jet combat.
The US was looking to get 20mm cannon on their aircraft throughout the war, but they had issues getting the Hispano-Suiza in service and had issues manufacturing the ammunition. They did supply 20mm ammo to the UK who had enormous problems with the US production. Even after the war the US had endless problems with their single barreled revolver cannons (as used on the F-5 and F-8). They had more success with rotary cannons.
Probably the best armament for the F-86 (and the best variant overall) was the Australian produced F-86 that had 2 x 30mm ADEN cannons and the Avon engine.
From my long years of being a military history geek is that 50cal would fck over a jet as well as 20mm the problem isn't the weapon your shooting at its where you hit that matters there were reports of migs surviving getting hit by 50's while there were also reports of sabre's surviving getting hit with cannons.
As long as you hit the important bits(Control mechanism and surface's,engine,cockpit, fuel or the weapon system) whether its 50cal or 20mm there fck either way.
My great uncle flew the P38 and P51D over Europe from mid '44 til the end of the war. Most of his time flying the Lightning was spent strafing ground targets, and he felt the airplane was an excellent platform for that due to its cannon, stability, and great payload. By the time he transferred to Mustangs it was the era of open season, and they would break off from bomber escort duties to do more strafing. He got his only aerial kill on a lone Fw190, it never saw him coming. He flew right up behind it and after a burst from his .50s it crashed in a field. He had all his gun camera footage on vhs tapes, it was pretty amazing to watch.
My Dad was a tail gunner on a B-24 flying out of England. I remember him saying the Germans could sit out there outside the effective range of the 50 cal and take pot shots at them with their 20mm cannon.
Amazing excuses for poor gunnery. 20mm from mg 151 had more than two times less effective range than a .50 cal. In comparison, 20mm was slow and dropped down real fast.
@@shrekas2966 hey mr dont know what ur talking about the mg151 had more muzzle velocity than the m2 50cal mg. mg151 850-950ms vs the m2 was 840ms. so yes it feasible to long shot with a 20mm
@@crimsonfuckr5133 You don't know what i am talking about because you are just uneducated in this topic.
No, mg 151 does not have muzzle velocity of 850-950ms in its 20mm configuration. You are just confused because the 15mm version of mg 151 has that velocity. The original comment was about 20mm, not 15mm. Mg 151, which fires 20 mm shells has muzzle velocity of about 700-800 meters, thus the effective range is way lower than .50 cal.
@@shrekas2966Right. Gotta love seeing a guy be confidently wrong too
@@Miftahul_786 You mean me or someone else? I don't think i have stated anything wrong though. In fact, crimsonfuckr guy is the only one, who made a factual mistake. Just went nuts by stating that mg151/20 has a muzzle velocity of an mg151/15, a completelly different gun, which does not shoot 20 mm shells lol.
also something to note, Earlier post war jets like some F-80 varients and the F-84 and most F-86 varients used the M3 50cal, which is basically a faster firing version of the M2
War Thunder smooth brain detected
One additional point regarding the kill rate in sims. There are an unlimited number virtual lives for any given individual. Thus there are a greater number of experiance, and skilled pilots in the virtual AO than irl.
Great video.
immortality changes peoples behaviours in games.... quite a lot... unsuprisingly
So true Central...really enjoy your channel by the way...
@@Capt_OscarMike Thanks.
It helps to add a real-world cost, whether it be cash or push-ups.
Just as a side note: modern 20mm aircraft cannon like the M61 Vulcan have a *MUCH* higher muzzle velocity than WW-2 era 20mm aircraft cannon. Difference is Several Hundred FPS.
Also much higher fire rate. Just higher everything really. Even the angle that the gun is pointed. It’s higher
A few hundred is not a lot when your talking 3000, 6 to 8%, modern fire rate can be higher but often you have 6 barrels in one. I'd say 4 seperate barrels is much better but not in jets due to aerodynamic drag.
@@mr_derpo9729 In 1945 the USN started taking 20mm Oerlikons *OFF* ships because it wasn’t effective enough against kamikaze strikes. What the USN found off Okinawa was that setting a Japanese plane on fire wasn’t good enough - you needed to obliterate it immediately.
@@petersouthernboy6327 They were replacing 20mm long before that since newer torpedo and dive bombers dropped their payload before getting into effective range of the 20mm. It was the 40mm Bofors that was found inadequate at dealing with kamikaze attacks so they developed the rapid fire 76mm.
Who the h*ll uses FPS? For kids it means First-Person Shooter (games)
I've always wondered why the US Air Force continued for so long with the 50 cal Browning. They were still using the M3 in Korea. By that time the Navy was firmly committed to the 20mm cannon. The Soviets were using even heavier guns.
They fucked up their 20 mm cannon development. Thats the real reason
I recall reading that the Air Force did testing of 20mm cannons vs .50 cal MG's for the B-36 and they discovered at high altitude the .50 cal retained better ballistics and was the overall superior round. I believe those findings influenced the decision to put quad .50's in the B-52 tail turret.
@@852urkl I highly doubt that higher altitude would improve the ballistics of 50 cal tothe point that it would compensate for the shit terminal balistics. They didn't develop a 20 mm because they fucked it up pure and simple
@@donaldhysa4836the navy used 20mm though. They could've just used those if they really needed too.
You use what you have in numbers. Even if the quality isn't as good. War is a numbers game first. And since they messed up 20mm dev they didn't have the numbers. Abundant 50 cal is better than scarce 20mm.
I remember when I used to play IL2 Sturmovik the 50 cal's on the P51 were very weak compared to the cannon's on other aircraft. Especially when trying to shoot down bombers. I always wondered if this was realistic because planes are relatively fragile and .50 cal is no slouch after all.
Yeah I’ve noticed in videos that it seems underpowered. Like somewhere between a .30 cal and a .50 cal
IL2 realistic?...no
Especially because the .50 used on aircraft was the AN-M2 or M3 variant of the .50 browning. Essentially a .50 MG42 loaded out with AP and incendiary rounds
a .50 cal is an anti-material weapon. If it can blow holes in engine blocks and "light tanks", it sure as hell can blow away 99% of planes.
My god theres “thorough” and then theirs “this guy”!!! A+ with obscene amounts of extra credit!!!
Every American just grabbed their hearts when this notification popped up.
Not their guns?
@@MilitaryAviationHistory bold of you to assume we didn’t already have them grabbed before we grabbed our hearts.
I grabbed my Garand
I stay strapped with my musket
You assume we we set ours guns down. #staystrapped #orgetclapped
Wonderful, in-depth comparison. I love your contextual background. Subscribed.
Wonderful and informative video. Always wondered why the Brits used the little .303 MG and not the 50 BMG. This answered that and more. Well done. Can carry a lot of ammo for a 50 BMG, not too much for a 108.
"by looking at the Mk108"
Apparently an alternative armament for the 262 was planned to be dual nose-mounted Mk112s. That's a pair of 55mm cannons.
"The .50cal will not magically bounce off the ground and pen the bottom of a tiger tank."
unless you become the victim of one of those gaijin moments of crouse.
Dont even remind me of that bs bro......
I bounced a .50 cal round off the top of the tracks of an IS-2 and it went up, in, and blew up the hull ammo.
Gaijin universe has its own laws of physics.
Here we go again. I've seen that documentary and although the guy they interviewed was clearly mistaken about bouncing the rounds, it was still a very worthwhile exercise to fire at the engine deck of German panzers. Take a look at a .50cal round and then check out the wide open engine grates of a Tiger I, II, Panther/Jagdpanther series. A P47 firing at 100 rounds per second had a real opportunity to score a ricochet into the engine compartment. Only takes a single round to pop a hole in the radiators or fuel cell.
@@HorseshoecrabwarriorI thought there was suppose to be Russian bais protecting those tanks
Great video! I always thought about the what-if scenario of the RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires having 4 to 6 .50 cal brownings instead of the .303 brownings? I wonder if the BOB would have ended earlier with heavier Luftwaffe losses?
Unlikely any diff with 4 x 50 cal. The Brit 303s fired at over 1,000 rpm and put a lot of lead in the sky, and their testing was showing that, once a round had gone through the aluminium skin of an enemy aircraft, the round was tumbling or fragmented and it didn't matter as much as might be thought whether it was a 30 cal or 50 cal. That's why they went straight to 20mm, ending up with 4 x 20mm standard by wars end. Six 50 cal at 700-750 rpm would have been better than 8 x 30 cal at 1,000 rpm, but would have needed a severe redesign - the 50 cal is very heavy as is its ammo, and six of them would have had a negative effect on Hurricane/Spitfire performance.
The .50 guns had fast muzzle velocity and high penetrating power that would often penetrate the armor plates and kill the pilots where the .30 gun couldn't. Videos show that even strafing ships and locomotives could easily caused explosion. The P51 and P47 pilots even developed a tactic to destroy the German tanks by bank shooting the ground and hit the bottom of the tanks and caused explosion. (tanks had very thin armor plates on the bottom) I think the .50 gun was the best gun against WWII fighter planes. Most guns have 400 rounds per gun compared to 60-120 rounds in the 20mm. That is why after the dog fight, you still have ammos for ground attacks.
@@HumbleBearcat That's all? 60 bullets? 60-120. Why not a couple thousand?
I remember hearing a German pilot say that he preferred the 20mm over the 30mm in his bf109 because of the increased fire rate (increased fire rate = more bullets = greater hit probability on target) With this in mind, I think planes like the p47 had the right idea with 8 machine guns, as it would've had a higher probability of hitting its target with a single burst.
Mk108s had bad shell velocity. I think they actually fired faster than mg151/20's.
@@Bagheera2 they are a lot slower. Closer to 600rpm
The Mk103 supposedly managed 650RPM and the MG151/20 750ROM. So about 30% faster and with a better trajectory.
There was a Mk 103A variant mentioned in Wiki with a supposedly 850 RPM but I can find no reference to this.
The direction the Germans were heading in was the MG213 revolver barrel/breech canon which could shoot at 1000RPM and nearly 1000m/sec by virtue of the revolving breech.
Interestingly this gun could be synchronized with the prop. The Smith Creek triple volume book on the Fw 190 mention it was being trialed in Fw 190D.
The MK213 was the 30mm version also capable of in excess of 1000 RPM.
Warthunder has taught me that german cannons shoot pistol rounds russians shoot tank shells and the US doesnt even use guns on their planes only flamethrowers
And the Japanese run out of ammo hitting a russian fighter before they shoot it down.
Gaijin thinks the .50 is the same as a .22
Hahaha
Wut minengeschoss is overwhelmingly the best ammo type in war thunder air?!?
@@lernaeanhydra5766 is it really?
I love my mine shells!
But id say the 13.2HE bullet from sweden at over 1000rds a minute is better than a 151-20 with 750RPM...
However shot for shot, I agree that mineshells are about as good as it gets!
The 30mm Mineshells are incredibly powerful hut incredibly slow
Excellent - thanks for this! I modify and design strategic and operational wargames and computer games as a retirement hobby, and this sort of nitty-gritty explanation leading to insight into the wider effects and factors for the operational and strategic picture is gold dust!
Thanks Andy!
@@MilitaryAviationHistory During the early days of ww2, the British conducted a propagate leaflet campaign over German cities, yet there seem to have caused no alarm in the German leadership. What was the German leadership response to the leaflet campaign, and was it a missed sign for the need for improved bomber defenses.
From my understanding, the reason for the .50 cal over the 20mm for the US was reliability. The 20mm tended to jam when firing in a turn. The germans realized that on average it took more 20mm rounds than a BF109 carried to bring down a B17 in a traditional attack. So, they adopted the head on attack. They were also willing to give up the 20mm gun and the wing guns for more altitude by the end of the war. The P38 used the 20mm as did the Hellcat and Corsair in the pacific.
Wrong wrong wrong. The reason for the 50 cal is because US fucked up their 20 mm cannon development. Thats all there is to it
Going forward to Korea, the 50 cal on the sabre at times struggled to bring down mig15, but 20mm on USN Panthers were devastating against Mig’s. Just watched a vid gun camera footage from 6 day war, fighters went down with only a few hits admittedly 30 mm. Also gun camera of a ME262 being shot at by 50 cal, it flew without any issues for 20 seconds or so with little apparent damage!
I liked the photo of the pilot with the armored windscreen to illustrate why he still had a head.
My dad flew the P39 training in 1942. He said he flat spun one firing the cannon in a hard bank. Almost killed him. Went to a spit MkV-Mk IX in N Africa then the P51. Flew all three in 10 days during P51 transition. Golden age of prop fighters
God bless your father
@@danielhemple8649 The remarkable thing when flying british spitfires he never had his own plane. They would say take #15 today. Means he had to learn each new plane every flight. Made him a good pilot. Once he got his first P51 he got to name it REX and had his own ground crew. funny the MkV had a wooden dashboard because it was built before we leaned in to help. They saved metal that way.
I believe it: action/reaction. Hard bank scrubs a lot of airspeed, and can put handling on the razors edge. I'd say power up, but... sometimes there's just no options.
There is a story about the P39 that the Russians told the USA that they would stall and they didn't believe them until they Russians sent a pilot to show them. He spun it out like he told them it would and managed to bail or correct it I don't quite remember and they fixed it by moving the gun a little back so the center of gravity was different.
@@magnusasgeirsson7244 It was a mid engine fighter and that alone made it hard to escape a stall of any type. The way to do it is point it down hill. The russians liked it over other types because it still ran well with the low octane gas they had. They disliked the spitfire because it needed high octane gas to run well. Cant run high performance engines on shitty 75 octane aviation gas.
Nice work, Chris. I really appreciated the balance you successfully strove for.
The 37mm as used on the P-39 had an arc that was a problem. Pilots called it “throwing a grapefruit “.
There were 150 P-38s in the ROK in 1949-all had the 37mm cannon. If *those* babies had been available during the NK tank invasion in 6/25/50, the 37mms would have been terrific “Can openers,” firing down on the thinner armor on top of the T-34 tanks. (The Soviets used their Lend-Lease P-39s, with the same gun, against the Panzer 4s and those worked quite well!)
@@drcovell It was a 20mm Hispano Suiza gun. A 37mm was tried in a prototype YP-38 and the remarks was “it hardly ever worked “. The under wing rockets would have been better in an anti tank role
I like the importance of emphasizing the different targets for different combatants ......the US is not fighting heavy bombers...therefore cannons not required...Germany is facing 1000's of heavy bombers....can we add a cannon to the plane?
Exactly, the situation allowing during the Battle of Britain I imagine the RAF would of armed it's Hurricanes with 4x20mm (as they later did in the desert for ground attack) to take the German bombers apart and left the faster but lighter .303 armed Spitfires to deal with the escorts.
@@rob5944 spitfires are bigger than hurricanes and were the newer design and had more potential in 1939 for development than hurricanes. They were also around 60mph faster. Hence the reason that Hurricanes were tasked to slower bombers and Spits to the anti fighter role.
@@adamcarreras-neal4697 Yes, that's right.
Absolutely, I guess my point is that even if the Americans needed cannons they still wouldn't because they didn't have one (or at least couldn't make one work).
G/J: Can we add a bigger cannon to the plane?
G/J: Got anything bigger?
G/J: Got anything - go away American that's for shooting ships.
Great video. I really enjoyed this and found your casual-ish narration was the highlight. It was formal but had touches of a conversational style which I really liked.
Interesting fact : one of France's better fighter pilots used a 20mm cannon during WW1 quite effectively. A secret he guarded jealously.
It appears the 50 cal worked very well. This question did remind me of a comment from a work mate from back in 1976, who was in the Luftwaffe in WW2. He mentioned that they tried putting the 88 mm on one of their planes but did not work out.
I read that the result of that experiment was the test aircraft immediately disintegrating due to the recoil
They loved their 88’s so much. Devastating weapon when used against ground armor. Ironically not even what is was built for
This all well and good, but there are lots of other issues involved in a choice like this. These include logistical issues, manufacturing issues and political issues. In Washington, as Harry Truman found out when he started prosecuting war profiteers, many times the decision was based more money and bribes to politicians than on mere military thinking.
Add in corporate self interest. One of the best examples being GMs foisting the Fischer P75 Eagle off on the USAAF to avoid having to build engine nacelles for the B-29s. Plus sometimes the companies that were contracted to the project simply were not up to the task. Add in there was general waste on the part of the Government. A good example is the factory built in Indiana to build a certain model tank of which they produced around 30 examples tops.
@@mpetersen6 The theory that I heard was GM purposely made the P-75 as mediocre as possible. They wanted to build tanks and trucks not airplanes.
As a patron, I feel like I should identify that I am watching this video early. This should confuse sufficient numbers of the audience, but also it's a comment to drive engagement. The goal of this is so that the platform will show more people this video.
In regards to the video topic: excellent as always. Nuance is always the answer.
What an early comment. Perhaps it is from someone supporting on patron. Engagement.
Commenting for the algorithm?
in these times of so much troubles ,pandemics, crimewaves and hardship , poverty in certain country's. Its nice to switch off and listen to Chris's great data. Thanx buddy I enjoyed this topic, very informative ....
What a excellent comparasion of the first armor and weapons of that error. Each plane, in each situation, differant, with the analyase of each in their original and evolving mode
In addition to Jeremy Clarkson’s I also came up with:
Lemmy’s - for unit of volume
Horton’s - for unit of undetectability or stealthiness
Goerings - for unit of weight
I’ll let you know if I think of some more.
Georing is a lot of weight!
JDU -Jelly Donut Unit, unit of energy (donuts are tossed on a live BBQ).
Long time ago science show about systems in nature.
The Horten brothers knew nothing of stealth. That is a modern construct. Chris has already debunked it.
@@thethirdman225 Nonsense, Ho 229 was an engineering marvel! Ahead of it’s time for sure, decades ahead. And debunk is a non acceptable word. Proved or disproved is ok. Then give evidence. If I want to convince you of something, I don’t say I have to de-idiot you. It makes me look like I’m trying to win an argument with an insulting word because the data isn’t on my side. About the the Ho-229 - that plane came from the 30’s! Just look at the design - it really makes me wonder about those references to extra-terrestrial assistance whenever I see it. It’s no coincidence that the B-2 is almost identical in exterior appearance. It looks like a space ship, and it’s still one of the most, if not the most beautiful aircraft designs I’ve ever seen.
@@catsooey That doesn’t mean it was stealthy. The Horten brothers knew nothing about stealth and few others people do either. That’s a modern construct for a sensationalist “documentary” for the Hysterical Channel.
I never realized how asymmetrical the cockpit glass was on some of the Heinkel he-111 variants. This video at 16:50 really shows how lopsided it's front most glass was towards the starboard. Thank you for the follow on video of the Heinkel He 111 cockpit as it explained a lot on why the glass on some variant had to be made asymmetrical.
Min 7:23 - In the F2.b cockpit, note how the pilot had the oil temp, air speed, and tach repositioned so that when everything was OK in flight, all arrows would be pointing up. He removed complexity and simplified his cockpit management so he could more quickly scan his controls and spend as much time as he could focusing on the sky! There's a reason this a/c is in a museum and not rotting fertilizer in a French field!
Brilliance!
Excellent discussion! Best I've seen on the topic. Well done!
20mms seem to be the best bang per weight.
Against bombers, 30mm.
Against ground targets, lots of 50cals.
I agree that 20mm for versatility and 30mm against bombers.
I'd say however that .50s against fighters. They are relatively light and small and have figh RoF unlike cannons, but are powerful enough to make enemy disengage, unlike smaller .303s.
On the other hand against soft ground targets like trucks anything does the job, anything bigger and bombs/rockets were used anyways.
@@hdjdco5428 Light? I mean look at the ballistics first and foremost.
@@hdjdco5428 - Got to remember that the main US fighters mounted their 50cals in their wings. So convergence is going to effect accuracy.
It's why I personally think the P38 had a really good layout with everything mounted in the nose.
@@hdjdco5428 the M2 actually had a similar fire rate to the MG 151. however, they did have better ballistics, allowing for longer range shots or tighter shots in a turn.
The sweet spot for autocannons these days, following a lot of research, is 25-27mm. Hence the GAU-12 25mm and BK-27. Almost the same hitting power as 30mm, but faster velocity and flatter trajectory.
"..an aircraft operating on 200 clarcksons.." you got me!
Where is it
In talking about the FW-190, you mentioned that it only needed a few hits to knock down a bomber, or most fighters. But that is the rub! The lower the MV and blunter the projectile, the shorter "point Blank Range" and the harder it is to get hits! So, even with 275 rounds of 20 mm for each of the wing root guns the shells are not concentrated to maximize the rate of hits, the harder it is to get those hits!
Post war, the Brits used the 30 MM Mk-Z shell with 50 grams of very high-powered explosive, but after many failures to kill over three decades, they traded their ADEN guns for much smaller 27MM Mausers with much faster, more streamlined and pointed shells with less than half as much explosive. Why trade away HE, if it is so good? The answer is only hits count and the slower the MV and the lower the rate of fire the fewer the number of hits!
My father a Pacific war veteran of many island landings said he was in awe of the P38s with 4x50cal and a cannon grouped in the nose cone, 2 powerful engines, just shot the zero's to peices, it was spectacular as he remembers it.
Also to mention the P-38 did not need the guns have a convergence point so its range was better
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want to be hit by either.
We're talking aircraft here, not people. One punches small holes into the wings or fuselage. The other carries an explosive charge which blasts nasty tears in the body or wings.
@@paulallen8109 I still wouldn't want to be hit by either in an airplane as well
@@paulallen8109 To be fair, a few unlucky hit from .30 calibre machine gun bullets could do nasty things like sever radiator lines, damage engines, etc. However, the shooter would need to be quite lucky (and expend a lot of ammunition) to score such hits against the types of aircraft that were flying by the middle of WWII.
Gritimo is correct that one wouldn't want one's aircraft to be hit (or even shot at) by either .50 BMG or 20mm shells. If we are talking about people on foot, well, I wouldn't want to be shot at with anything that has a muzzle energy of above 79J... and that includes .25 ACP rounds.
I wouldn't want to get hit by a spitball
@@paulallen8109 Now imagine either one hitting the pilot inside the cockpits.
In the place of a pilot now you have a ferrari dyed cockpit.
very under rated channel. i just found yu and your quality is top tier. This could be a tv series keep up the good work
There is another undisclosed issue in mixing gun types. Muzzle velocity. In flight the trajectory of bullets from different gun types will vary significantly as range increases. Which makes hitting a target difficult. If you are using your machine guns to target an airplane and wait to hit it before opening fire with cannon. Then when you hit it with machine guns you open fire with cannon. They will miss most likely unless you are close behind and in straight and level flight. Because the cannon rounds will not have the same trajectory as the machine gun rounds. Which in fact at range means only one type of gun rounds can possibly hit your target. The other is going to miss 100% guarantee.
This is why many pilots liked the P38. as those are all the same type guns 50 cal and they do not suffer from convergence issues either.
So if you do hit the target at any range all guns are hitting that target. In convergence guns you have a best range in which to shoot.
At further ranges the convergence will cause some of the guns to miss.
In this respect using all the same type guns like 50 cal will give you the greatest effective concentration of fire with the greatest accuracy of all guns firing together.
Well presented and incredibly informative. Excellent job. Loved this!
"This will not fly... far"
Ok... who do I speak to about requisitioning a new keyboard and replacement cup of coffee
Oof
Fill out form 52K in triplegic and form A C 12 also in triplegic.
Seems like we have the basis for a class-action lawsuit here...!
Good analysis for the motivations between .50 cal MGs and 20 mm cannons. As a side note, all the WW II participants did eventually come around to see the efficacy of using 12.7 or 13 mm heavy machine guns to at least some extent (typically, but not always as replacements for 7.x mm light MGs in the cowling and sometimes wings), e.g starting with the Bf-109 G6, FW-190 A7, Later Yak variants, A6M5C, Spitfire IXe, most Italian fighters, etc.
Good point it's also important to point out that although the 30 cal rifle rounds used in light machine guns were obsolescent in aerial combat as far back as 1940 and completely obsolete by the last two years of the war, the heavy machine gun, and the 50 cal in particular in the case of the US, was still considered an effective, albeit arguably suboptimal, armament for the early gen 2 jet fighters like the f-86 in Korea.
@@jeffpostman9928 the Sabres had the M3s with much higher rate of fire
I remember an old show on the History channel . The German 30mm canon shell was of a thin walled design making more room for explosives.
Two advantages of machine-gunshot over cannons is you have more rounds to fire. Firing many bullets allows more tracer rounds and this helps accuracy since the pilot can see where his rounds are going. Having more rounds means you can start firing earlier and more.