WW2 British .303 guns-just boring trivia.
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Funny. I've just been reading a book on DB and his dislike of cannons. When his squadron were re-equiped with Spits they all got the Mk Vb, with cannons. DB got a strop on so they gave him a Va - just machine guns. He had a few arguments with 'Crow' (Crowling-Milling) but it seems that his objection to cannons was one of the few times he was wrong.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Beags was right:
Just found the AP.
An Aden had a rate of fire of 1200-1600 rpm whereas the SUU was set at 4000 or 6000.
4xAden therefore were delivering between 4800 and 6400 rpm with each shell weighing in at 10 oz.
The weight of the 20 mm is clearly much less.
And the Hunter's 4 x 30mm Aden cannons put more bang into the target than the Phantom's much-vaunted 20mm Vulcan cannon fired for the same length of time!
An Aden had a rate of fire of 1200-1600 rpm whereas the SUU was set at 4000 or 6000.
4xAden therefore were delivering between 4800 and 6400 rpm with each shell weighing in at 10 oz.
The weight of the 20 mm is clearly much less.
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The whole nine yards...
I was told this referred to the B-17 waist gun, which had a 9-yard ammo belt. Normally the gunners would save 2 yards for the homeward journey, but if things looked bad they would ask the Captain' permission to fire "the whole nine yards"... Can anyone confirm, or produce a better story?
TP
I was told this referred to the B-17 waist gun, which had a 9-yard ammo belt. Normally the gunners would save 2 yards for the homeward journey, but if things looked bad they would ask the Captain' permission to fire "the whole nine yards"... Can anyone confirm, or produce a better story?
TP
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TyroPicard,
You never know, one of us might be right. Your story sounds at least as reasonable as mine, except I would have thought the Yanks might have been able to afford more than nine yards, especially with all that space available in the aircraft.
So, how many rounds in nine yards? I've no idea, and no intention of trying to find out. Anyway, if you knew that, and the rate of fire, you could work out how long the belt would last. I suspect not very long, and I have seen film of B-17 gunners ankle deep in empty cases. They obviously had a need to maintain fire for extended periods, not just ten seconds or so.
Also, how would the gunner know that there was only two yards of belt remaining?
However, I have been wrong once before.
Farmer.
You never know, one of us might be right. Your story sounds at least as reasonable as mine, except I would have thought the Yanks might have been able to afford more than nine yards, especially with all that space available in the aircraft.
So, how many rounds in nine yards? I've no idea, and no intention of trying to find out. Anyway, if you knew that, and the rate of fire, you could work out how long the belt would last. I suspect not very long, and I have seen film of B-17 gunners ankle deep in empty cases. They obviously had a need to maintain fire for extended periods, not just ten seconds or so.
Also, how would the gunner know that there was only two yards of belt remaining?
However, I have been wrong once before.
Farmer.
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On a slight Hijack. Has anyone seen the program on the recovery or the P-38 from under the ice. They mounted one of the canons onto a snowmobile, bore sighted it onto an empty oil drum and fired one shot .... it virtually blew the barrel in half!
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Interestinger and interestinger.
I still plump for the Spitfire angle. But both this and the B17 gunner option should be the easiest to disprove, at least. There are still many of those gallant chaps around. Some of you will know them - could you ask them, please? If the phrase was in common usage, it would surely feature in the odd battle report.
If none of the men directly involved can remember it, then I would think that would be proof enough that it has nothing to do with machinegun belts.
I still plump for the Spitfire angle. But both this and the B17 gunner option should be the easiest to disprove, at least. There are still many of those gallant chaps around. Some of you will know them - could you ask them, please? If the phrase was in common usage, it would surely feature in the odd battle report.
If none of the men directly involved can remember it, then I would think that would be proof enough that it has nothing to do with machinegun belts.
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'The Whole Nine Yards'
Centre to centre the disintegrating link for the .30-06 Browning measures about 12mm. This gun, re-chambered for .303 British was the M2 used in the Spitfire etc. The belt pitch may well have been slightly wider, to accommodate the rimmed cartridge, but not massively so. So at 300 rounds per gun, we have 3.6 meters / 11 Ft 9 3/4 in. Way short of the 9 Yards / 27 ft.
That tends to limit the discussion to turreted weapons with belt feeds, looking at the figures a thousand round belt of some other ammunition, slightly narrower would fit the numbers, and belt make up would have been done with bulk supplied rounds to a standard length. I always sort of assumed that the phrase was American, so I would have expected .30-06, can anyone do a check on .50, maybe a 500 round belt.
PA-28
Centre to centre the disintegrating link for the .30-06 Browning measures about 12mm. This gun, re-chambered for .303 British was the M2 used in the Spitfire etc. The belt pitch may well have been slightly wider, to accommodate the rimmed cartridge, but not massively so. So at 300 rounds per gun, we have 3.6 meters / 11 Ft 9 3/4 in. Way short of the 9 Yards / 27 ft.
That tends to limit the discussion to turreted weapons with belt feeds, looking at the figures a thousand round belt of some other ammunition, slightly narrower would fit the numbers, and belt make up would have been done with bulk supplied rounds to a standard length. I always sort of assumed that the phrase was American, so I would have expected .30-06, can anyone do a check on .50, maybe a 500 round belt.
PA-28
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Danza: the show I saw might have been another, or found the program partly over.
But I was fortunate enough to see the first flight of the P-38 (known to the Luftwaffe as the 'fork-tailed devil', 'Gabelschwanz Teufel'), nicknamed 'Glacier Girl' on tv, where a well-known pilot who races WW2 planes took it up for a short test flight. The thousands of hours spent in renovation alone are mind-boggling. The flight was in upstate New York, in front of a large crowd of fans.
To fly the ( twin-engine) Mosquito would be just as exciting.
But I was fortunate enough to see the first flight of the P-38 (known to the Luftwaffe as the 'fork-tailed devil', 'Gabelschwanz Teufel'), nicknamed 'Glacier Girl' on tv, where a well-known pilot who races WW2 planes took it up for a short test flight. The thousands of hours spent in renovation alone are mind-boggling. The flight was in upstate New York, in front of a large crowd of fans.
To fly the ( twin-engine) Mosquito would be just as exciting.
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Since a hot debate is going on on another forum which intersects with this .303 thread I thought I'd share this quote with you (the 'myself' mentioned is Anthony Williams, Co-author of 'flying guns' which I can highly recommend);
"On the contrary, rifle-calibre bullets were already proving themselves to be inadequate in dealing with the new, tougher structures required for the fast monoplanes - even without armour. The extract below, from 'Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45' by Emmanuel and myself, describes the results of British tests of .303 and 7.92mm armour-piercing ammunition on a Blenheim - scarcely the most strongly-built of aircraft:
"The test then changed to shooting at the rear of the long-suffering Bristol Blenheim at the same distance [200 yards], involving penetrating the rear fuselage before reaching the 4 mm armour plate protecting the rear gunner, which was angled at 60º to the line of fire. The results in this case were reversed; 33% of the .303" rounds reached the armour and 6% penetrated it. In contrast, only 23% of the 7.92 mm bullets reached the armour, and just 1% penetrated. The British speculated that the degree of stability of the bullets (determined by the bullet design and the gun's rifling) might have accounted for these differences."
Please note that only a third of the British AP bullets - and less than a quarter of the German ones - reached the armour at all; the rest were deflected or absorbed by the structure. That no doubt accounts for the German bombers which reached base despite being riddled with .303-shaped holes.
It's interesting just how much the penetration was reduced by passage through the light alloy of the Blenhiems fuselage. A move to the 20mm Hispano was definitely a Good Thing!
"On the contrary, rifle-calibre bullets were already proving themselves to be inadequate in dealing with the new, tougher structures required for the fast monoplanes - even without armour. The extract below, from 'Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45' by Emmanuel and myself, describes the results of British tests of .303 and 7.92mm armour-piercing ammunition on a Blenheim - scarcely the most strongly-built of aircraft:
"The test then changed to shooting at the rear of the long-suffering Bristol Blenheim at the same distance [200 yards], involving penetrating the rear fuselage before reaching the 4 mm armour plate protecting the rear gunner, which was angled at 60º to the line of fire. The results in this case were reversed; 33% of the .303" rounds reached the armour and 6% penetrated it. In contrast, only 23% of the 7.92 mm bullets reached the armour, and just 1% penetrated. The British speculated that the degree of stability of the bullets (determined by the bullet design and the gun's rifling) might have accounted for these differences."
Please note that only a third of the British AP bullets - and less than a quarter of the German ones - reached the armour at all; the rest were deflected or absorbed by the structure. That no doubt accounts for the German bombers which reached base despite being riddled with .303-shaped holes.
It's interesting just how much the penetration was reduced by passage through the light alloy of the Blenhiems fuselage. A move to the 20mm Hispano was definitely a Good Thing!
