German 20mm Cannon Effects On US Bombers

[togor]

This guy is making a number of YouTube videos on US bombers, and they are quite interesting. Here is one on the German 20mm Autocannon.

[Major Tom]

Very interesting! I don't believe any of our fighter planes had 20mm cannons installed? Tho, 6 50s' did a number on the japs and germans planes!

[Art]

Very interesting! I don't believe any of our fighter planes had 20mm cannons installed? Tho, 6 50s' did a number on the japs and germans planes!

The P38 had 4 .50 Cal machine guns and one 20mm cannon. in the nose

The P39 had a 37 mm cannon in addition to its machine guns.

The .50 cal was effective against WWII fighters but against bombers, cannon were good to have. One or two cannon shells exploding on the flight deck of a bomber usually meant a destroyed aircraft.

Once jets replaced piston engine airplanes it was discovered that due to their fuel, which was basically kerosene, and the lack of oxygen at the altitudes jets operated at, machine guns wouldn't make an airplane you hit burn any more. From the 1960s cannons replaced machine guns on fighter aircraft.

[togor]

Edited: Art beat me to it with much of what is below.

IIRC the P-39 was built around a 37mm Autocannon that made it useful ground attack missions. The AAF never faced a force of heavy bombers, and it found the 50 BMG in quantity sufficient to bring down enemy fighters and medium bombers. Although the AAF was not altogether opposed to cannons, putting one in the nose of the P-38.

The problem with big bombers is that there's a lot of empty space in them, and it takes a lot of hits of MG fire to bring them down. So they went to exploding shells, hence cannon.

I thought the chart showing a low rate of loss to cannon > 20mm and larger ordnance was misleading. But as he points out, this is examination of surviving aircraft. I have understood from other sources that the Mk108 30mm cannon, though of slow velocity, was an effective bomber killer.

[barretcreek]

Interesting video, thank you. Cannon was application specific, whereas the .50 Browning has a wide range of uses. Doubt the cannon would as useful in ground combat vs the range of the .50.

[Art]

Interesting video, thank you. Cannon was application specific, whereas the .50 Browning has a wide range of uses. Doubt the cannon would as useful in ground combat vs the range of the .50.

Many a fighter fell to the 20mm cannon shells of German, Japanese, British and Russian fighters. Some German and most Russian 20 mm cannon had pretty darn high rates of fire, 800-900 rounds per minute. The big drawback was low ammo supply. An old boy could shoot himself dry in a hurry with cannons. A P38 carried 500 rounds for each of its "fifties" but only 150 for its cannon.

[dryheat]

Imagine the millions of rds of ammo that are laying all over Europe. Must be hard to do any metal detecting unless you collect bullets.

[Allen]

Imagine the millions of rds of ammo that are laying all over Europe. Must be hard to do any metal detecting unless you collect bullets.

The way things are going we'll be saying the same about NYC and Chicago soon.

[togor]

The way things are going we'll be saying the same about NYC and Chicago soon.

How about keeping this stuff in the political section. Too much to ask that it not be out where anyone can see it???

[tmark]

My dad knows what a 20 mm shell can do! One exploded in his B17s ball turret over Germany by a fw190 wounding him.