Which theater of War Would you choose for flying?

[the lancaster kicks ass]

8x.50cals were fine for ground attack as LG said, they could take out and soft top, and even tanks by shooting at the ground so the bullets would bounce off the ground and up into the bottom of a tank, but the tiffy also made good use of 4x20mm.....................

[plan_D]

That's thing 12.7mm at a high rate of fire had a good chance of destroying just about any German, Soviet or Allied tank. The only ones capable of withstanding the pounding would be the Big Cats.

[Lightning Guy]

And they wouldn't be able to stand up to 500lb bombs or 127mm rockets. Basically the P-47 was armed to take out whatever it might encounter on the battlefield.

[ev0]

ofcourse. It did very well with the 8*.50 but it would have been better with 20 mm's i think :I

[MP-Willow]

just replace the two inermost guns with 20mm cannon. The trick is the amount of shells to carry and that would be the problum. So LG -I would have to back of my cannon wish as I would need about 50 to 100rounds for good Air to Air and unless I have a high velosity cannon the rate of fire is slower, as I understand and well not good fore speedy fighters.

AS for bouncing rounds off the ground that is not that simple

[Lightning Guy]

Typically, the 20mm cannons being used by the Allies had a rate of fire of about 10 rounds per sec. That 50-100 rounds is thus good for 5 to 10 secs of fire. In comparision, the 425rpg that the P-47 was designed to take was equivalent to 34 secs of firing time.

[plan_D]

The bouncing rounds off the ground was mostly by luck. It wasn't a skill, you fire at the tank and some will hit the ground below and maybe ricochet off. Lucky deflection but it's your kill, if you're willing to go against a Panther firing a 12.7mm MG back up at you, you deserve the praise.

Especially in 1944 when they had the Wirbelwind that beautifully crafter Quad-20mm Mobile AA Gun.

[GermansRGeniuses]

But the Mg34 and Mg42's were 7.62... Did the Germans use any 12.7mm mg's? Or are you just wrong? (It's ok if you are) They did, however, have 15mm and 13mm mg's but these were for aircraft, and occasionally they were modded and placed on a turret for airfield defense. Who manned the guns? Hilterjugend! I've seen a pic with 4 (!) of these guns set up as AA.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

any chance you can post it??

[GermansRGeniuses]

No scanner...

[plan_D]

No tank was fitted with AA MGs above 7.62mm as standard. There were higher calibre of 12.7mm (Captured) and 13mm retrofitted later on in the war.
I shall find where it's mentioned, and maybe find a picture for you.



You wouldn't want to go up against a column of tanks with a few of these as support. Some later models were equipped with RADAR.

[Erich]

actually the turret moved to slowly and the unit with 1st W-SS in the Ardenne lost them all to ground forces. The best defence these put up was protection of the Panthers and Pz IV's of 1st SS against US ground forces where they could bring their 2cm fire to painful effect. Against Allied a/c they were sitting ducks....

E ~

[Erich]

the 4 mgs' ? would you mean the excellent piece 2cm Flakvierling ?

here is another piece of AA that the Allies were glad there were not too many of. Flak-zwilling in 3.7cm. used as a ground and air unit plus tower defence agasint low flying Allied strafers.

[Erich]

here is a pic of a Kriegsmarine version on one of the many ships and used for air defence. 2cm Flakvierling. although a navy version this frou barreled job was used extensively by the Luftwaffe Fla units.

[plan_D]

The 2cm Vierling Wirbelwind which equipped the Flugabwehrzug of the Panzer Divisions were only seen as poor COMPARED to the 3.7cm FlaK which provided quick effective fire on both Air and Ground targets. Strafing a tank column with these 2cm and 3.7cm Wirbelwinds covering it, was not a fun experience.