Allsop, in 1942 the U.S. Navy did a study to compare the firepower of different guns. They came to the conclusion that three 50 caliber machine guns equals one 20mm cannon. Be careful with this...3 x 50 cal ROUNDS does not equal 1 x 20mm round. 3 x 50 cal GUNS equals 1 x 20mm cannon. The rounds per minute is the issue. Ultimately a single 20mm round is more powerful than a single 50 cal round.
no. 36mm is bigger than 20mm also usa guns are not 12mm, they're half inch, so three is an inch and a half or 1.5, which is smaller than 20 hey allsop's death image picture is here http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4387/mrhands8kd.jpg
Roland so I guess that 30 american half inch rounds would have the same firepower as a 15" inch gun? like on a battle ship? right.%) you could stand on the deck of a ship and sink the bismarck with your 30 .5 inch american rounds, lol.
Punch for the Fighter In 1934 when the race began to develop fighters, the usual armament was two slow-firing (about 750 rounds per minute)rifle-caliber machine guns. Obviously their weight of fire would be insufficient to knock down the sort of bombers to be expected at the end of the decade, and in each of the major nations work began on heavier armaments for fighters. By 1939 fighters were in service with three basic types of guns: the fast-firing rifle-caliber machine gun, the slower firing heavy machine gun, and the shell firing cannon. At the outbreak of the Second World War all operational fighter aircraft carried rifle-caliber machine guns as all or part of their armament: the American browning .300 inch (7.62 mm) or the similar licence-produced British .303 (7.7 mm), the french MAC 7.5-mm, the German Rheinmetall Borsig MG 17 of 7.9 mm, the Italian breda SAFAT of 7.7 mm, the Polish Wzor of 7.7 mm, the Japanese Type 89 of 7.7 mm and the Russian ShKAS of 7.62 mm. Of these the ShKAS (Shpitalny Komaritsky Aviatsionny Skorostrelnu ? fast-firing aircraft gun) was, as has been mentioned, the best all-rounder; it had a rate of fire of 1,800 rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of over 2,700 feet per second,all for a weight of 22 pounds. Prior to the war three nations had put into service fighters equipped with .5-inch (12.7mm) heavy machine guns; the U.S.A. with the .5 Browning, italy with the 12.7-mm Breda SAFAT and Russia with the 12.7-mm UBS. Of these the Russian weapon was again the best. The UBS (Universalny Berezina Skorostreny-Berezina universal fast-firing gun) had a rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of over 2,800 feet per second, for a weight of just over 47 pounds. Finally ther were the shell-firing cannon, of 20-mm caliber in each case(the arbitrary division between a machine gun and a cannon is that the latter has a caliber of 15mm or greater). At the beginning of the war thier were three types in service: the German Oerlikon, the French Hispano Suiza and the Russian ShVAK. Later the Oerlikon was manufactured under licence in Japan, and the Hispano was produced in Britain and , subsequently, in the U.S.A. With a weight of only 60 pounds the Oerlikon MG FF was the lightest of the cannon, while the 7.7-ounce round it fired was the heaviest of the three. On the other hand it?s rate of fire of only 350 rounds per minute and it?s low muzzle velocity of 1,950 feet per second meant that the german weapon had the lowest performance in these respects. The Hispano Suiza cannon of the early war period was the heaviest of the weapons at 109 pounds; it fired 4.4-ounce rounds at a rate of 700 per minute and a muzzle velocity of 2,820 feet per second, which meant that this weapon delivered a weight of fire about twice as great as that of the Oerlikon. The Russian ShVAK (Shpitalny Vladimirov Aviatsionnaya Krupno Kaliberaya ? large caliber aircraft gun) was different again, with a weight of 92 pounds and firing light 3.5-ounce rounds at a rate of 800 per minute with a muzzle velocity of 2,820 feet per second. The Oerlikon and the early Hispano Suiza cannon were fed from drum magazines with a capacity of only 60 rounds; the ShVAK was belt fed. During the first year of the war the trend was for aircraft to carry self-sealing tanks and armour protection for the crew positions, with the result that the effectiveness of fighters armed only with rifle-caliber machine guns was greatly reduced. The Royal Air Force had decided before the war that the Hispano Suiza was the best available cannon for use against armoured aircraft, as indeed it was. With it?s heavy projectile and very high muzzle velocity, the French cannon had a penetrative power about 50% greater than the ShVAK and double that of the Oerlikon. During the summer of 1940 there was a struggle to get the Hispano operational in the Spitfires and Hurricanes. But the Hispano had originally been designed for mounting along the top of the engine of the fighter, so that the latters weight could absorb the recoil forces; it did not take kindly to being pushed into less-rigid mountings out in the wings, which was the only place where there was room for it on the British single-engined fighters. The result was that the early career of the Hispano in the Royal Air Force was a sad tale of frequent stoppages and failures, as the cannon tried to shake apart itself and its feed system during firing. When in the spring of 1941 the problems of the Hispano were finally sorted out, the Royal Air Force possessed a very reliable and hard-hitting weapon which was to serve it well for the remainder of the war. In Germany the limitation of the Oerlikon were well appreciated before the war, but the wepaon had to serve until the more effective Mauser MG 151/20 was ready for service. The Mauser 20-mm cannon had a rate of fire of 750 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 2,500 feet per second. Like the Russian ShVAK it fired a 3.5-ounce shell, and it was broadly comparable in terms of weight and because it too used belt feeding. The Mauser weighed a bit less and fired a bit faster than the Hispano, but it?s penetrative ability was considerably less. Meanwhile, far away in the U.S.A., there had been a progressive up-gunning of the rather feebly armed fighters which had been in service in that country?s air force at the beginning of the war. The armament fitted to new fighters moved up through various combinations of .3 and .5-inch machine guns and 20-mm and even 37-mm cannon, until by the early part of 1942 it began to settle at four, six, and eight .5-inch Browning heavy machine guns. Although the .5-ince Browning lacked the penetrative power of the 20-mm cannon the U.S. Army Ordinace department believed, rightly as it turned out, that this weapon would be perfectly adequate against the enemy aircraft likely encountered during the second world war. The Germans never armoured their aircraft to withstand .5-inch rounds, and the Japanese certainly did not. But incase their hunce was wrong the Americans played it both ways and put the Hispano cannon into limited production; known as the M-2, the licence-built weapon fitted into a small proportion of their fighters. By the middle of the war all of the combatant nations had begun or completed the replacement of the rifle-caliber weapons in their fighters with cannon or heavy machine guns. The Japanese produced a near copy of the .5 Browning as the 12.7mm type 1 machine gun, the German Rheinmetall Borsig company produced the 13-mm MG 131 which fired a lighter round at a lower muzzle velocity then the Browning, though with a slightly higher rate of fire; the Russians gradually replaced the rifle-caliber ShKAS gun with the UBS; and the Royal Air Force belatedly replaced the .303-inch machine gun in its Spitfires with .5-inch brownings, when it was finally able to get hold of these precious weapons. Against fighters or medium bombers carrying normal amounts of armour the fire power of the .5 inch heavy machine gun was adequate and that of the 20-mm cannon was ample. The trouble was, as the Germans and the Japanese began to descover from the latter half of 1942, that these weapons simply weren't powerful enough against the tough american B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers. For example, the Focke-wulf Fw 190-A3 carried an armament of two Oerlikon Mg FF and two Mauser MG 151/20 20-mm cannon, and two rifle-caliber machine guns; during a three second burst these guns loosed off 130 rounds each of 20mm and 7.9 mm ammunition. On the average, twenty hits of 20mm were required to bring down one of the American heavy bombers (it must be stressed that this was the average figure; some bombers were shot down with less hits,some returned with more.) unless they scored a lucky hit on the pilot or some other vital part, the rifle-caliber weapons were of little value in such an engagement. During the analysis of air-to-air combat films, Luftwaffe armament experts found that the average fighter pilot was hitting a bomber with only about 2% of the aimed rounds that were fired. Thus, to obtain the twenty hits required to shoot down the heavy bomber, one thousand rounds of 20-mm ammunition had to be aimed at it; this represented 23 seconds? firing time for the fw 190A-3, an impossibly long time if the bomber was still in formation and the fighter pilot was on the receiving end of heavy defensive fire. It was found that the majority of the heavy bombers shot down by fighters fell either to the aces, who were beating the odds and getting far more than 2% of their rounds on the target, or else the bombers had first been damaged during previous fighter attacks or from flak and forced out of formation, and were then finished off in long firing passes pressed home to short range. Dr Samuel Johnson once assured us that when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind beautifully. By the Autumn of 1942 the Luftwaffe High Command knew that unless something was done soon they faced the prospect of having to meet large-scale daylight attacks on the German homeland, without adequately armed fighters. And the thought of that concentrated their minds beautiffuly. Fortunately for the Luftwaffe, at this time the Rheinmetall borsig company had 2 30-mm heavy cannon in an advanced state of development and one of these, the Mk 108 was chosen as the standard bomber-destroyer weapon. The Mk 108 had a high rate of fire of 660 rounds per minute, though its muzzle velocity was only 1,750 feet per second. Its 11-ounce incendiary or high explosive shell had an effect on aircraft structures which was truly devastating: against fighters or medium bombers a single hit was almost invariably sufficient to cause their destruction; against a four engined heavy bomber, three or four hits were usually enough. During 1943 the MK 108 went into action fitted the the messerscmitt Bf 109, which carried one, and the messerscmitt Bf 110 and the focke-wulf Fw 190 each of which carried two. When the Me262 jet fighter entered service in 1944 it carried the unprecedentedly heavy armament of four Mk108 guns; complete with the mountings and 360 rounds of ammunition, this battery weighed more then 1,100 pounds and could loose off a projectile weight of 96 pounds during a 3 second burst. This was far away the heaviest weight of fire possible for an operational gun-equipped fighter during the Second World War and when it struck home the effect on the victim was usually catastrophic. For all its destructive power, however, the Mk108 was not the complete answer to the Luftwaffe?s problem. It was a low velocity weapon; to cover 1,000 yards its shell took over two and a half seconds, and they dropped nearly 100 feet before they got there. Clearly this was no weapon for long-range firing against moving targets, and to use it the german pilots still had to press home their attacks to well inside the range of the bombers? defensive fire. In an attempt to knock the bombers out of formation at longer ranges, the Germans introduced a modified version of the 50-mm high velocity gun fitted to some of their tanks; with automatic loading and a new recoil system and barrel, this weapon became the BK 5 which was fitted into the Messerscmitt Me 410. The BK 5 fired shells weighing 3.5 pounds, large enough to knock down a heavy bomber with a single hit; leaving the muzzle with a velocity of 3,000 feet per second, they took just over a second to cover 1,000 yards and the gravity drop was only 24 feet. The rate of fire of only 45 rounds per minute(3 in 4 seconds) was inordinately slow, but it was felt that the weapons high velocity and destructive power would more then make up for this. The combination of the Me 410 and the BK 5 seemed to provide an ideal solution to the problem of stemming the American heavy bombers. But in war nothing stands still. By the time the new bomber destroyer was ready for action, in the spring of 1944, the American escort fighters were operating over Germany in such numbers that the slow deliberate attacks from behind the bomber formations were quite out of the question. To replace the Mk 108 as the standard German heavy cannon, the Mauser company came up with its tour de force, the magnificent MG 213. Intially produced with a caliber of 20mm, the MG 213 was later to have been built in a 30-mm version as well. The 7.4-ounce shell of the 20-mm were twice as heavy as the noraml projectile for this caliber, and the Mg 213 spewed them out at a muzzle velocity of3,300 feet per second and a rat of 1,200 per minute. The reason for this superb performance was that the weapon was fitted with a unique revolving chamber which served as both breech and part of the feed mechanism. Just to late to see action during the Second World War, the Mg 213 represented the zenith of aircraft gun design in 1945 and dominated it for more then a decade afterwards. After the war everybody copied its clever feed system which was used in the American M-39, the British Aden, the French DEFA and the Russian NR 30 cannons. In an effort to produce a really effective bomber-destroyer, the Japanese fitted 30-mm, 37-mm and even 40-mm cannon to their fighters. The 30-mm Ho 105 was an effective weapon with a muzzle velocity somewhat higher than that of the German MK 108, though its rate of fire was lower. The 37-mm Ho 23 was greatly inferior, with a rat of fire of only 120 rounds per minute. The 40-mm Ho 301 fired an unuasual type of round without a cartridge; the propellant was housed in a compartment at the rear of the projectile, and when it was fired the expanding gases impinged on the breechthrough hole cut in the rear of the round. This method had the advantage that there was no cartridge case to extract from the breech before the next round was rammed home; as a result the cannon had a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute, which was remarkably high for a weapon of this caliber. The great disadvantage was that the weapon had a muzzle velocity of only 760 feet per second, by far the lowest of any air-to-air gun used during the conflict, and because of this its effective range was limited to about 150 yards. During the war the Japanese heavy cannon saw only limited use, and they did not make any noticeable impression in combat before it ended. please excuse any mistakes, was up rather late when i typed it. Information was gathered from the book Fighter Combat. combat developement in World War Two By Alfred Price ISBN 0-85368-926-1
"This has led to the often-expressed view that the .50 inch M2 was the best all-round fighter gun of the war. After all, the USAAF and US Navy fighters unquestionably came to dominate the skies in which they fought. If there had been a better gun, America would have used it. However, the truth is not quite as simple as that. There are two issues here; how good was the .50 M2 compared with other HMGs, and how effective was it compared with cannon? The most obvious comparator was the Soviet UB, which fired ammunition of virtually identical power. The UB weighed 25 kg, compared with the M2's 29 kg, but the Soviet gun fired at 17.5 rps, compared with around 13 for the M2. In terms of power- to-weight ratio the Berezin was therefore clearly superior. The Browning fared better against most other HMGs, as they all fired less-powerful ammunition, so the M2 enjoyed advantages in range and penetration. However, it had a slightly lower rate of fire than the German and Japanese guns (both around 15 rps), and was also bigger and heavier. The most powerful of all of the HMGs was the 15 mm MG 151, but this was heavier and slower-firing than the M2. Overall, therefore, the .50 M2 was not the best of the HMGs but was about average, with reasonable performance for its weight." "On the average, twenty hits of 20mm were required to bring down one of the American heavy bombers (it must be stressed that this was the average figure; some bombers were shot down with less hits,some returned with more.) unless they scored a lucky hit on the pilot or some other vital part, the rifle-caliber weapons were of little value in such an engagement." "In May 1940 the Bf 109E-4 entered service with the modified MG-FFM gun, adapted to fire the new Minengeschoss (mine shell) ammunition which had very thin walls and a doubled capacity for high explosive (HE) and/or incendiary. As a bonus the shells were lighter, permitting a higher muzzle velocity. The theory was that solid bullets or AP cannon shells relied on hitting the relatively small vital areas to have an effect, whereas an HE shell could cause serious damage regardless of where it struck. There is no doubt that this theory was correct: the Spitfires and Hurricanes would have had far more effect on the Luftwaffe's bombers had they been armed with four MG-FFM cannon, which would have weighed little more than their battery of RC MGs." "The ShVAK had actually started life as a 12.7 mm gun. It weighed the same as the MG 151/20 and was slightly faster-firing, but the ammunition was less effective as the shells had only a small HE capacity. Towards the end of the war the Berezin was also altered to fire the same 20 mm ammunition as the ShVAK; at 25 kg the resulting B-20 was the lightest gun of this calibre to see service. The Soviet preference was to install all guns in the fuselage of their little fighters rather than in the wings, to concentrate firepower and make the aircraft more agile." If 20x20mm could shot down a heavy bomber, how many to shot down a single engine or a twin engine fighter? "Mk 108 was chosen as the standard bomber-destroyer weapon. The Mk 108 had a high rate of fire of 660 rounds per minute, though its muzzle velocity was only 1,750 feet per second. Its 11-ounce incendiary or high explosive shell had an effect on aircraft structures which was truly devastating: against fighters or medium bombers a single hit was almost invariably sufficient to cause their destruction; against a four engined heavy bomber, three or four hits were usually enough. "
"It is sometimes argued that a projectile with a high muzzle velocity and a good ballistic shape (which reduces the rate at which the initial velocity is lost) provides a longer effective range. To some extent this is true, but the greatest limitation on range in air fighting in the Second World War was the difficulty in shooting accurately. The problem of hitting a target moving in three dimensions from another also moving in three dimensions (and probably at a different speed and on a different heading) requires a complex calculation of range, heading and relative speed, while bearing in mind the flight time and trajectory of the projectiles. Today, such a problem can easily be solved by a ballistic computer linked to a radar or laser rangefinder, but at the time we are examining, the "radar" was the human eyeball and the "ballistic computer" the human brain. The range, heading and speed judgements made by the great majority of pilots were notoriously poor, even in training. And this was without considering the effects of air turbulence, G-forces when manoeuvring, and the stress of combat. These factors limited the effective shooting range to around 400 m against bombers (longer in a frontal attack) and against fighters more like 250 m. " This is for .50 / hispanos / 30mm sprayers: "It is also worth pointing out that most successful attacks in WW2 took place at fairly short ranges at which different projectile ballistics would not have had a major effect on destructiveness. During 1940 the RAF rapidly dropped the harmonisation distance for their fighter guns from 370 to 230m, and were annoyed that the narrow gun bays in the Spitfire's wing prevented them from harmonising the 20mm cannon down to their preferred distance of 180m (at which they did most ammunition effectiveness testing). Although successful attacks at longer ranges were possible, particularly against large, stable targets like heavy bombers (as the Luftwaffe discovered), it seems probable that the great majority of shoot-downs took place between 100 and 300m. This is often not appreciated by players of combat sims, who think that the ability to score routinely at ranges of 1,000m or more in their games reflects WW2 reality ? it doesn't!" extrated from WORLD WAR 2 FIGHTER ARMAMENT EFFECTIVENESS © Anthony G Williams & Emmanuel Gustin (with acknowledgements to Henning Ruch)
strafes quote "These factors limited the effective shooting range to around 400 m against bombers (longer in a frontal attack) and against fighters more like 250 m. " Pace out 400 or 250 meters, and put a plane at that distance. it would appear as D9 or 10 or farther. The distances in our beloved sim are not correct. D1 in the game is NOT 100 yards it is more like 20 yards. Think about it. have you been to an airshow? picture what is D1 in the game and stand whats YOU think is D1 from a plane on the ground at an airshow. 2 quote, "This is often not appreciated by players of combat sims, who think that the ability to score routinely at ranges of 1,000m or more in their games reflects WW2 reality ? it doesn't!" So true. D10 in our game is more like 100 yards. If D10 = 1,000 yards like many here think, that would be 10 American Football fields in a row. Now try to picture a spitfire or Bf109 at 10 Football fields away. Then yes I agree totally impossible to shoot at those distances. But at our FH arena and Ien's it is not even remotely close to actual yards maybe Feet. Qoute 3, "During 1940 the RAF rapidly dropped the harmonisation distance for their fighter guns from 370 to 230m, and were annoyed that the narrow gun bays in the Spitfire's wing prevented them from harmonising the 20mm cannon down to their preferred distance of 180m (at which they did most ammunition effectiveness testing). NOT for .50's 20mm's and 30mm's But rifle caliber meaning 303's and 7.62 mm. and Thank you for adding your sources in this clip of a 109 shooting a B-17, What distance do you think the German pilot is from the Fortress?? This should be interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIpdhi6Y7Lo
?In combat it is only natural to misjudge distances. Like your dead reckoning tells you, you are 100 meters away - where using good judgment or actual measurement would set the distance at 200 meters. You should not go by dead reckoning. This is why you got a Revi in front of your nose. The outer ring of your Revi is so designed as to indicate 1/10 of the target distance at all time. Easy. If you know about the size of your opponent - like the wingspan of a fighter being about 10 meters - and the wingspan fits just once into the outer ring, than you know you are 100 meters away. (since 10 meters (wingspan) is 1/10th of 100 meter). Would the same opponent fit twice into the ring, he is of course twice the distance away - i.e... 200 meters.? I took that from "Horrido ! - des Jägers Schiessfibel. D.(Luft) 5001 (1944) Check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc1E8ZE2eYM&mode=related&search= Pay attention where the target is inside the Revi circle. Due to Schiessfibel, it shall be at 150-250m. Just the deadly distance for shotting. Sorry I can?t agree with you. If D10 = 100yards, D1 should be 10yards. Please do a test. Set your convergence to 100yards. Shot and watch where bullets are going to cross. Now, repeat but this time change the convergence to 999, since that 1000 is not possible, watch again. Great difference not? If you are off line choose external view Alt+V and you realize the difference of convergence settings to 100yards to 999yards. Try now flying. Engage a target at indicated D10, shot and watch again where your bullets are going to. Now, repeat but this time change the convergence to D1. My gunsight shows targets like Schiessfibel describes Revi. At d1 the Spitfire wingspan just set at circle. It seems to me like 100yards not 10yards The camera is mounted in the wing, Bullets are firing from beside the image, who knows which zoom was it? There?s no reference to compare the distance. But check gun cameras where gunsight is showed. Comparing de wingspan inside the circle the correct distance can be estimated just explained at Schiessfibel. Gunsight?s circle from RAF at WWI was: 1/1 = 100yards (FW190 wingspan fit just the circle) 1/2 = 200yards (FW190 wingspan fit a half circle) 1/3 = 300yards 1/4 = 400yards 1/5 = 500yards 1/6 = 600yards?. Source: Central Gunnery School (diagram excerpted from Pilot Gunnery Instructors Course 1943)
Then this baby was introduced. 5th one down the list. The Ace maker Giro gun site. made ordinary pilots aces. but was a hinderance for those who could instinctively shoot deflection shots. in short the natural ace. http://www.spitfirespares.com/SpitfireSpares.com/Pages/gunsites.html The FIRST ever giro gun site fitted to Spitfires and other wartime Fighters. Called the Ace maker this sight worked out the deflection for the pilot. Put the X on the target at any angle and you hit the target. So named because of the rapid increase of Aces after introduction of this site. An Ace was defined as a pilot who have 5 or more kills. This is the Fighter version of the MKII with an original removal pad to protect the face from being smashed on the gunsight. I actually have four for sale on these pages. hey are however very rare and you will not find them for sale on any where else. lol roland think it was Raoul Lufbery
The deflection shots are explained for those trainning programs Jägers Schiessfibel and Central Gunnery School No doubt that MKII was a great improvement
With the mg FF/M the more efficient mine projectiles were used for the first time. One had so far manufactured shells in such a way that the explosive charge divided the projectile body into fragments and caused thus destruction in the goal. Upper engineer Ludwig of the company Rheinmetall Borsig tried to use mainly the muzzle blast effect developing with an explosion for the destruction and sketched a thin-walled projectile, in whose charge area the fivefold explosive quantity could be accommodated. Became with high-explosive shells in the parts of the trunk and the surfaces, which did not contain important parts, it causes only ineffective destruction by fragmentation effect the mine projectile resulted in also there so large destruction that the flight capability was strongly impaired or the crash was caused. With the development of this ammunition new problems were to be solved. The fuze attached in the ogive of shell had, although from light alloy, are still more easily manufactured, since the thin projectile wall bore only the acceleration of small masses. A solution was of the Rhine metals group of boron industrial unions in Soemmerda developed base fuze. For the 20mm-Minengranate the Bd.Z.1511, 1512 and 1513 were used. As explosive charge became usually the HTA-15-Mischung, which consisted of 45%trinitrotoluene, 40% Hexogen and 15% aluminum Pyroschliff, or the HA-41-Mischung (75% Hexogen, 20% Alummium Pyroschliff, 5% wax) uses. According to the regulation (Luft)5001 the mine shells were used in combination with fire shells and tank fire shells. The ammunition supply took place via stangenmagazine with 15 cartridges or over drums with 45, 60 or 100 cartridges. Not begun from the company the Ikaria/Velten since January 1941 developed belt supply, although the tests in the BF 109 E-7 and F-1 ran satisfyingly, there better weapons the mg FF increasingly replaced.
Some Charts. Dot lines mean indirect impact in a hard steel plate behind a 3mm thickness duraluminium plate in angle 20°, check drawning explaining it at charts.
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/P47Stuff.html http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/main.html So why did the Americans not make more use of cannon, specifically the 20 mm Hispano they already had in mass production? There were two main reasons. One was certainly that the M2 was adequate for its purpose. In Western Europe the main adversaries were fighters, which were much easier to damage and shoot down than bombers. In the Pacific Theatre the Japanese aircraft were initially poorly protected and easy to shoot down. Later Japanese aircraft were better protected, but again these were usually fighters. If the Americans had faced the need to stop raids by heavy, well-protected bombers, it is likely that the HMG's shortcomings would have been starkly revealed. There was another reason, however, which explains why the US Navy, despite rating the cannon very highly and facing the need to deal with attacking bombers and kamikazes, fitted it to few aircraft. That was serious production prob*lems with the American Hispano, which gave it a reputation for unreliability. Despite production running well into six figures, the American Hispano failed to achieve an acceptable reliability standard for the duration of the war. To return to the original question, were the Americans right to rely so heavily on the .50 M2 when all other combatant nations had a clear preference for cannon of at least 20 mm calibre? The answer has to be yes. It was adequate for its purpose, and was the only satisfactory aircraft gun in production in the USA. It was very reliable (except where the installations created problems), was made in huge quantities, and the simplification of supply by comparison with the diversity of weapons used by the Axis powers gave a major logistical advantage. However, the Americans could get away with using a weapon so deficient in destructive power not only because of the nature of their opposition, but also because the size and engine power of their fighters enabled them to carry a battery of at least six guns, thus making up in quantity what they lacked in destructive quality. The advantages of the 20 mm Hispano M2 were not entirely ignored. It was carried by Lockheed P-38s, together with four .50 Brownings. It was also installed in nightfighters, which needed maximum firepower to convert a short firing opportunity into a kill. Four were installed in Northrop's P-61 Black Widow, and two could be mounted in a Grumman F6F-5N. The cannon's extra firepower was also appreciated for ground strafing. After the war the US Navy quickly changed over to the 20 mm cannon in its improved, faster-firing and more reliable M3 form, but the USAF stayed with the .50 M3 until the fighting in Korea demonstrated once and for all that the HMG had had its day. From the mid-1950s the USAF at last replaced the old Browning with 20 mm cannon, initially the M39 revolver and then the M61 rotary - just as most of the rest of the world was moving up to 30 mm! So the answer is Yes the 20mm is better. But having 4 or 6 or 8 .50 cal M2's more then made up for it being less effective. Was like a constant shot gun blast of heavy lead with great penatrative power which defeated any armor the axis had. Plus the Allies had alot to waste and could spray a bit more. But comparing a single 20mm round against a single .50 caliber round. the 20mm wins.
".... So the answer is Yes the 20mm is better. ....." No, it is not, I completely disagree. Firstly one cannot really make a World War 2 single shot to single shot comparison of what gun is better. After all the measurements and statistics the simple fact remains that the Allied Air powers shot down more enemy aircraft with the .50cal machine guns that the Axis air powers 20mm guns. It is the total weapon system that must be factored-in. This not only means the gun itself but its ammo, the personell behind it from the people who designed and produced the products, delivered and trained the persons in its use, the aircraft and all the people behind that aircraft and in that aircraft, the gunsight, all the engineers, mechanics, logistics of supply, etc.... BTW: On the Korean Air War and F86 with 6 .50cal guns. One of the principal factors with that gun package was the special radar homing gunsight. Pointing and shooting was a lot easier that the WW2 systems. Also I think some of the B29 gun positions were radar guided as well. Maybe it was the tail gunners', can't recall... Personally as far as this game, I prefer the 20mm but if I should be a WW2 pilot as some of my family members were, I would have always chosen the .50cals..... and of the ones that would talk about it they all did too. In fact their only complaint was that they wish they had more of them.
