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cannons vs 50 cal

I once raised this point with Roger Freeman (Airfields of the Eighth) at a discussion at Duxford. He pretty well shrugged his shoulders and said, the two air forces (RAF and USAAF) developed along different lines and both types had their own advantages. Pilot's histories show that the 20mm could be devastating, with, I think it was Stanford Tuck shooting down a Me109 with just 4 20mm rounds. However the .50 cal was equally devastating though took a few more rounds to achieve the same result.

The fact that very late mark Spitfires had both 20mm and .50cal guns together says a lot.

Personally I think the .50 cal gave pilots a greater advantage and needed lower aiming skills to shoot down opponents.
 
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Millsman said:
The fact that very late mark Spitfires had both 20mm and .50cal guns together says a lot.
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What it says is that the Spitfire's gun heating system only produced enough hot air to keep two of the Hispanos unfrozen at altitude: the Browning was less likely to freeze up.

Every other British fighter - Whirlwind, late-model Hurricane, Typhoon (apart from a few with 12x .303), Tempest, Firefly, Meteor - had 4x 20mm.

This should be of interest: https://www.quarryhs.co.uk/CannonMGs.htm
 
A useful article but it's more complex than that. The fact that an aircraft cannot carry a huge amount of 20mm rounds, the weight of bullets delivered and the complexity of the feed mechanisms. Aircraft like the P-47 carried a huge amount of firepower compared to a Spitfire, even with 2 or 4 20mm cannon. The .50 cal also didn't require the pilot to be a great marksman. Pilots who were pre war hunters and marksmen seemingly did well with the 20mm cannon, whilst the average pilot could still hit something with a machine gun, be it .303 or .50cal. Weight for weight I think the .50cal was more efficient than the 20mm.

The .50 cal armed US fighters were also IMHO much better for ground attack work. Perhaps only bettered by the Beaufighter which had 4 X 20mm and 6X.303 MGs. To watch what they did to German shipping is amazing. Add in their rockets and you'd put up the white flag the moment they arrived on target.

I think this is one of those questions that will never be fully answered and at the time all sides felt they did the right thing.
 
In relation to WWII one aspect not to be overlooked was the inability of the U.S. to manufacture a reliable 20mm cannon. I believe most of the U.S. manufactured 20mm cannons supplied to the U.K. in WWII were never unpacked. The U.S. wanted to use 20mm but in the absence of a reliable cannon were forced into using the .50. There were exceptions such as the P38 Lightning, but in this instance the cannons were mounted in the nose and in the event of a misfire the pilot could re-cock the weapon.

TimG
 
TimG said:
There were exceptions such as the P38 Lightning, but in this instance the cannons were mounted in the nose and in the event of a misfire the pilot could re-cock the weapon.

TimG
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I didn't know that. I've just checked some P38 Cockpit photos and there on the Port side are 4 cocking handles, no doubt connected by cables. Remarkably useful. Thanks for that information.
 
I talked to an old RNZAF pilot years ago, he had flown Mk.9 Spitfire in Europe and the F4U Corsair in the Pacific.
He preferred the Corsairs 6 x .50cals over the Spitfires 2 x 20mm. His reasoning was the higher rate of fire and general reliability of the .50cal Browning against the 20mm that had a reasonably common problem of jamming/freezing up and a lower rate of fire.
 
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