Luftwaffe Cannons and Machineguns topic.

[Graeme]

Sorry Charles, again not Luftwaffe, but interesting?

The Tupolev Tu-2Sh, designed for strafing ground troops. The holder of the record for the worlds largest number of guns mounted on an aircraft! Eighty-eight PPsh submachine guns, each with its own drum magazine, fixed to fire forwards and downwards.


The gun pallet lowered from the bomb-bay.

[Civettone]

I wonder why they developed both the SG 116 AND the SG 500 as they were similar systems. Seems a bit of a waste. Better to chose one to develop to make them operational sooner instead of dividing resources between the two.

In any case the R4M made them obsolete overnight.
Kris

[Micdrow]

Talk about a wall of lead, seems very unpractical though. Just the man power alone to rearm would take forever. Interesting none the less though. Thanks Graeme.

[genkideskan]

Dont forgett - the SG weapons are trials - several companys develope in different systems and calibers.
At last a caliber of 30mm was tested the rock bottom against bombers.
Finally the SG 500 and SG 116 where ordered to produce- the main problem was the ignition system - not the weapon - using more or less material available or from current production.
The accuracy of the R4M wasnt that good - so they try to produce a cheap accurat weapon .

[CharlesBronson]

Sorry Charles, again not Luftwaffe, but interesting?

The Tupolev Tu-2Sh, designed for strafing ground troops. The holder of the record for the worlds largest number of guns mounted on an aircraft! Eighty-eight PPsh submachine guns, each with its own drum magazine, fixed to fire forwards and downwards.

Definately the VV-S guns deserve a topic for it exclusively, If I have enough time I will give a try on that subject.

[CharlesBronson]

FW Tank Ta-152 B projected armament:

Squematics showing the heavy armament layout proposed for the high altitude fighter TA-152 ausf B.




5 x 20 mm Mausers plus one MK-103 and two MK-108 30 mm, posibility of two more cannons with field conversion, in some sources the wingroots guns are Mauser MG 213 but I am not sure if those revolver-guns could be synchronizated.

[CharlesBronson]

55 mm MK 112.

Rheinmetall Borsig design for a heavy fast firing cannon, it was more or less an up-scaled variant of the successful 30 mm MK 108. The requeriment of 1944 included the need of a cheap construction and not to used a lot of high grade steel, in this way contruction involved several parts of stamped and welded metal.



The calibre was 55 x 175 mm, rate of fire-300-350 rpm, the projectiles used were minengranate exclusively.

[CharlesBronson]

Rare modification in a ju-87D-3, note the side mounted MG 81J in the rear gunner emplacement, one in port and other starboard



The aircraft belongs to pilot Uffz. Wolfinger (right) and Lt. Neumüller Bordfunker

[Tony Williams]

Originally Posted by CharlesBronson

Rare modification in a ju-87D-3, note the side mounted MG 81J in the rear gunner emplacement, one in port and other starboard

Curious; there seem to be two sets of sights, both pointing to the rear, with no guns for them

[CharlesBronson]

One of the missing guns in below the left arm of the first guy at the right. The double sights were used to ease the "lead" of aiming in deflection shots. In order to fire at targets straght behind the Ju-87 , the gunner used mostly his tracers as aiming help.

[CharlesBronson]

Dusenkanone Duka 88.



Originally a Kriegsmarine projekt in 75mm the duka 88 was designed as a electric motor actuated, drum magazine type cannon.

The 88 mm tube was feed by a rotating 10 shot magazine, the electric motor rotate the drum 36 degrees after every shot presenting the fresh cartrigde in front the chamber , loading it and closing the breech. The heavy recoil was alleviated in part by means of two nozzles venting the gasses backwards, one in the top and other in lower fuselage.

Data: Caliber 88 mm, cadence 10 shot/min, mass ~1000 kg and length 4705 mm.

Muzzle velocity : 765 m/s.

Armor penetration: 90 mm at 1500 meters.

[CharlesBronson]

MG 15, 7.92mm flexible machinegun. Images of the Spanish Air Force handbook.

[SoD Stitch]

CB - Can you tell us anything about the Mauser MG 213? I understand it was a very advanced cannon, and just missed seeing service before the War ended.

[CharlesBronson]

Yes, I can.

Mauser MG 213, revolver gun.

In late november 1942 the german RLM ( Reichs air ministry) came out with a very surprising requeriment.
This was one for a 20 mm gun with a rate of fire of 1000 rpm, and with a muzzle speed no less than 1000 meters per second.

This was nearly a shock for the german designers, although there was guns capable to reach and surpass the 1000 rpm in its rate of fire that were small calibre machineguns. In the other way there was some cannon with the requested high muzzle velocity like the 2 cm Flak 30/38, but its mechanims was completely unable to reach the requested rate of fire.

This 1000 x1000 design gun was delivered to Krieghoff and Mauser. HASAG was in charge to develop the ammunition.
Krieghoff designed a experimental weapon using the gas operation, that was MG 301.

Mauser in the other hand understood that the standar gas or recoil systems were not useful in this very high rate of fire weapon, and they used the revolver gun instead.

The revolver gun was not actually a new idea, there was experiments with this type of mechanism since the XVIII century, however the Mauser technicians were the first to achieve a superb aircraft weapon.

How the revolving gun works ( extract from The machine Vol III, J.M Chinn and a cutaway view of the MG 213)

[CharlesBronson]

Fortunatelly for the allied air forces the Mauser MG 213 never achieved operational status, like many other german weapons came too late. However the technological breakthrough of the Mauser technicians was amazing. The DEFA-GIAT, ADEN and several US made aircraft cannon are the direct descendant of this german design.

3 more images,

a) 20 and 30 mm variants compared

b) General view of the 20mm variant

c) Blohm & Voss projekt of jet fighter with 6 x MG 213 30 mm