I had to laugh when you talked about American V8s losing a cylinder and some people not noticing. Back in the 1970s there were a lot of American servicemen stationed at Upper Heyford and Croughton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK. They brought over their big V8s and sold them locally when they were posted back to the States. In 1976 I bought a 1966 Pontiac Parisienne convertible and drove it around for a while. It was a fabulous car that turned a lot of heads. After I sold it, I was told it had been running on 7 cylinders for a long time....! Thanks for the video Greg, much appreciated as always.
I remember a coworker telling me stories of how him and his friends in the beginning of thier high school car driving time would disconnect one plug wire from their cars before going through the local parking lots because they thought people would be impressed that they had also done engine modification and had cam swaps 🤣 Apparently they and everyone else could distinctly tell that it was just a misfire, so after being made fun of they quickly became gear heads and poor high-school kid hot rod builders... But using actual upgraded cams, ignition, carburetors, polished intakes from junkyard engine swaps, running on all 8 cylinders! (Atleast until the engine finished wearing out it's bottom end, requiring a fresh junkyard replacement to put the aftermarket parts on 😆) He was born around 1948, so big in the hotrod scene from the 60s-the 70s until real life got in the way, so plenty of great "junk" to be bought at scrap value during his youth! 👍😉
weirdly for a comments thread I have owned a US car brought over to England ( bought in Oxford) and also have driven past the mentioned scrap yard .... small world sometimes !
@@SeanAnwaltindeed! We have patience, so we don't need a video on a fixed schedule with short intervals. Some even take our time to watch the video undisturbed.😊
My favorite history channel. This is the kind of nitty gritty military engineering I'm fascinated by. Are there any other similar channels someone can recommend?
The most impressive damage I ever say was during Vietnam on one of our Corsair 2's it came back with a rocket or cannon hole in the tail just slightly smaller than a basketball. What was far more impressive to me was the tree branch stuck in the fiberglass at the mouth to the air intake, how he made it back without fodding the engine is beyond me.
Reminds me of the stories from Goose Bay where the German Air Force trained low-level flying and would buzz elk fairly regularly, ding the radomes against the tree tops and sometimes even bring home some pinecones lodged between the intake and the fuselage side... Maybe it was all BS. I don't really know, I wasn't there.
Greg, your videos are not only great source of nerdy technical knowledge but also a real historiographic research. Such vast plethora of facts snatched from the jaws of time.
I absolutely love the fact that you have this obsession with data, and the ability and knowledge to interpret it for the rest of us. I'm one of the oddballs that enjoys this careful analysis of minutia. So thanks, Greg. Another great one.
@@46bovine As Jacob mentioned they have, but also weight. A 30 cal minigun is around half the weight of a GAU19. And 30 cal ammunition is way lighter at 6-ish pounds per hundred rounds compared to 24ish pounds per 100 .50 cal. The GAU19 is used mostly in light helicopters, probably because the weight is less of a concern and it is more potent than a 30 cal for defensive use.
There were also British tests post-war of the mk-108. Showed the thin-walled HE shells were devastating. The took photos, showing static Spitfire fuselage with tail blown off from one hit in rear fuselage, and wing demolished with one hit. I believe there is a piece of combat film footage purporting to show a B-17 losing its wing at the root following 4 rounds of 30mm from a Me-262's firing pass.
I’ve seen this video. What’s even More devastating is that when you consider that spitfire was stationary and not going 350+ knots. This happens it’s likely to have whole panels/ailerons/flaps just rip off from the air speed after it becomes flared.
Nice video. A note on the bullet weight: This was virtually identical for the MK 103 and MK 108. The mine shell weighed 330g for both. The propellant loading was very different.
Heard from a P-47 pilot 35 years ago that if you loose all oil if you immediately bring the power on the engine back to minimum power needed to stay aloft the engine could run for a long time without any oil.
The Hawker Typhoon at time 15:15 is XP-P R7620 of No. 174 squadron, hit by flak on 22nd February 1945. It was the oldest operating Typhoon at the time having entered service in January 1942. The crash landing was at Volkel, The Netherlands, a No. 274 squadron Hawker Tempest in in the background.
Despite all that gusseting and bolstering to make up for the initial designs' flaws, it still crumpled right up into a pilot-killing wad. Thank God for the lend-lease aircraft!
@@mikemulligan5731 The Typhoon may have had problems with the tail section but it could take quite a bit of battle damage and was at least equal in performance to the FW-190 at lower levels. The problems with crash landing were down to the big air intake. I'm not sure where lend-lease aircraft come into the RAF picture with respect to land-based fighter bombers and fighters in the ETO.
Greg, if the cylinder shot off was the "master" or number 1 cylinder of the row, the engine would seize immediately. Any of the other 8 cylinders could be shot away, and the crank could still turn. The master rod was connected to the crank pin. The other cylinder connecting rods were connected to the master rod.
I can believe a cylinder head being blown off, but I don't believe the stories of having a cylinder or cylinders shot away and still able to fly. No radial will run with any one cylinder missing. You've now got the remains of a piston on a rod that is flailing about beating the crankcase to bits. If there is evidence of any radial engine losing a complete cylinder barrel and making it back to base for a safe landing I'd like to see it.
The master rod and crank pin were massive because there were 6 or 8 other connecting rods tied to the big end. Also, the "slave" rod was smaller and rode on the master rod's outer surface. The piston and rod, or the severed rod would in fact reciprocate in the missing cylinder's location, depending on how much length was left (the longer the better) which would cause damage to the crankcase in the area of the missing cylinder but would not keep the crankshaft from turning. There have been some fools starting a radial engine only to hear a loud bang and a clatter, then finding a lower cylinder laying on the ground in a pool of oil because they didn't pull the prop through to clear the lower cylinders.
I'm glad to hear you say "MK103" etc, rather than thinking MK is short for "mark" (as on British things) - I've heard that other places, when in reality it's short for MaschinenKanone
great point i've heard a few guys say mark as well its not a fatal error but it is a lack of research into your topic right ? on the other hand i'm kinda touchy about any errors in presentation lol
The US casting industry went far in WW2. They even started casting 1919/1917 parts. There was a plan to cast a whole receiver but it didn't go anywhere. Most people call anything cast "cast iron" but there's really a whole world of cast steel people don't know about.
@@jackgee3200 Thank you for taking the time to post this concise and accurate response. Thanks to the evolution of the computer and other technologies and processes and techniques, design and manufacturing are light years beyond what was possible in the 1940s. And, thanks to those advances, far more can be produced, much faster and with far higher consistent quality while using much smaller work forces. Nothing stands still and no one who really understands how technical advances have improved the quality of life for millions of people all over the world really wants to roll the clock back to the standards of nearly a century ago.
The P-47 Thunderbolt Pilots Association rented a pair of P-47s and brought them to Santa Rosa back around 2000, California. A group of us helped get the veterans into and out of the planes and their stories were great. One of the guys that I knew flew in Italy and he had been hit by 20mm in the engine. He said that he lost 2 cylinder heads being blow off but the rest worked and flew back to base with no oil pressure for 30 minutes. He has a piece of his glass that was shattered
@@martinwright7367Yeah they could use a slower rate of fire single gun for testing which would make 20s burst equivalent of 1-2 second burst from plane like P47.
@@Fooney1 Amazing plane. I only really started learning about it watching Greg. It is almost unheard of in GB. Yet, everybody knows about the Mustang. I suppose it is like the Flying Fortress, which everybody knows, and the Liberator, which few do and even less like. I built models of the Mustang and the B-17. One fact I picked up is that the P-47 was simply much more expensive than the Mustang, which may have affected the issue. But, being so much bigger than the Mustang, it carried more ammo. This was a big issue during the Battle of Britain, as 12s of ammo was enough for maybe just 1, maybe 2 dog fights. With .303, they needed a lot to take out a bomber. I would like to see gReg do a vidoe on 303 vs .50 Cal.
It's amazing how much tests can be run with no budgetary constraints in order for a military to find out how to better kill an opponent. I'm not intending that in any negative way.
Interesting and - as usual - well done, Greg. From my Dad's combat report with VF-19 from the USS Lexington in the western Pacific in October, 1944, flying an F6F-5: "On 14 Oct. 44 while having a field day burning planes on loaded Taiyohara Field, Formosa, where revetments were jammed with as many as 10 planes, was hit by a 20 mm AA on the propeller hub causing the engine to lose oil pressure. Engine ran cool, if a little rough on 250 mile trip back with 10 lb.oil pressure. Two days previous [12 Oct., 1944] was hit by 3 40 mm AA while strafing at Pescadores and engine brought me home 200 miles with 15 lb. oil pressure." I have a photo showing the mangled prop hub from 14 Oct., 1944, as well as an oil-covered engine front. I also have photos of damage to the plane (including the engine) on 12 Oct., 1944. In that case, at least one hit to the lower port side of the engine took out a cylinder as well as part of the cowling, and another hit was near the wing root in the aft portion of the port wing, just aft of the cockpit, with structural members easily visible inside the wing center section beyond the bent and mangled sheet metal wing surface and oil from the engine hit(s) streaking the side of the fuselage. Somewhat to my surprise, the landing gear still functioned, and he landed aboard safely. The plane wss judged "unrepairable" and, after a brief scavenging for usable equipment, was pushed over the side into the Pacific.
It’s a real pity they made less than 200 Mustang lAs. A relatively early Mustang made for the British with 4 x 20mm cannnon. Some being transferred direct from the factory to the USAF when the war started. Hence the images of 1 or more in US colours in Italy. The original Mustang I & Apache came with one .5 in each wing, 2 synchro .5s in the chin & 2 x .3 (or .303) in each wing. So it’s a real pity the IA didn’t keep the 2 chin mounted .5 guns, as centreline guns are much more effectively aimed with simple sights too. Imagine if the Mustang originally came out with the Malcom Hood (rather than a copy of the BF109’s naff side lifting hood) with the 2 chin mounted centreline .5 Brownings & 4 x20mm cannon in the wings.
From a technical standpoint concerned with important details about how to make a great episode of a technically oriented channel, all is there. The subject is clear, not to be too redundant but the voice over is perfectly conversational, though still narration. I personally love the R-2800 having worked on them, as a mechanics helper I have to add, but paying attention to them. I looked at them an awful lot. These were powering the DC-6 used for freight. About every one of these 40 and more years old aircraft had their pressurization equipment pulled out. Typical flights would be up to 12 thousand feet AGL or MSL. I did get to fly a DC-6 in the air left seat for 2 hours. I also once flew a Tomahawk from Fort Lauderdale International to Pompano on single mags because I was stupid and had not turned the mag switch to both mags.
My father served in the 326th squadron, 92nd bomber group, in 1942. In their briefing room was a piece of a B-17 main spar that was severed by a single .50cal hit in a friendly fire incident. For air to air combat, particularly between fighters, I think The. 50 was probably the best choice for American planes for the extra round count if nothing else. If we were intercepting B-17s a cannon would have been better but the .50 would have been OK. I've often wondered what the score would have been like if the RAF had adopted a .50cal, even the weaker Vickers round, before the Battle of Britain. Figure six in the Hurricane and four in the Spitfire? Far fewer damaged German planes would have returned to base. Cheers!
Your channel is my favorite by a long shot. I'm always very excited and happy to pull up RUclips and finding I get to enjoy a new video of yours. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and creating this space on the internet.
I once had a Chevy Nova with the inline 6. There was an aftermarket air conditioner added, mounted on a bracket over the sixth spark plug. Took forever to get off when changing the spark plugs. When I did, I found the last spark plug was very dirty and old, and a different brand than the other 5, because no previous mechanic took the trouble to change the sixth plug. I wonder if that cylinder was even firing.
Hi Greg, thank you for providing the very best classic aviation content on the entire internet. A hemi-engine using a 2 spark plug ignition system will usually run a significantly lower total spark advance timing to achieve the proper flame front propagation speed within its combustion chamber than the same engine using a single spark plug ignition. Therefore, if it would be possible to increase the total ignition advance to the value it would have in an engine using a single spark plug system the power loss would be rather small. A practical example I´m familiar with is the old "air-head" BMW motorcycle boxers, they do gain some extra power with a good dual spark plug set-up compared to the standard single set-up, but it is not a huge amount, perhaps in the order of 5 % or so. However, in an engine with a very large bore, which is certainly the case in the R-2800 🙂, it would not be possible to advance the spark timing much at all when running on only one of the plugs, because the very long flame front propagation distance would provoke detonation if trying to use a high enough advance needed to make full ( or even close to full ) power. The conclusion is that in the practical case of most aero engines you are perfectly right. Also, I assume that the maximum spark advance you can set from the cockpit is probably limited to the maximum advance intended for the system while both magnetos are working properly? Very Best Regards / Jan.
Hi Jan, I haven't flown an R-2800. The Continental O-200 has about a 4 inch bore and drop of about 125-150rpm during the mag check. A four inch bore is pretty typical for an American V-8. Almost all the small blocks from Ford and Chevrolet are right around a four inch bore, and even some of the big blocks like the Chevrolet 396 are right there. Now could the O-200 make the same power with one plug but more advanced timing? Maybe, but I doubt it based on the fact that racers have gone through great lengths to add the second plug to Hemi head type engines on designs that originally had only a single plug. The difference here could be in what you and I think is "significant". To me a 5 percent gain is important, in motorsports that's absolutely huge. For a manufacturer, probably not, there are much easier ways to design in another five percent.
The angle used in the test is a big factor. Rounds per minute or rounds per second is very important in air combat , at the angle tested, if my understanding is correct would produce a closing rate of considerable speed. What a FUN test to participate in!
So I’ll be writing comments piecemeal as I watch this, but the “Ph” column is probably “Percent Hits”. Note how for each gun the number of hits and the Ph is the same: for the M2, 1 hit = 0.02 Ph, 2 hits is 0.03, 3 hits is 0.05, etc. Assuming this is meant to be percentages (i.e. .25 Ph = 25%), then we can work out the rounds fired and with the fire rate how long each burst was. For the M2, this works out to about 64 rounds fired, or a 5 second burst. I don’t know the rate of fire for the T39 or M97 offhand, but I’m calculating 21 rounds and ~15.8 rounds fired for these guns, suggesting the goal was a short burst. I imagine that for the sake of the tests they had short belts rather than trying to time each burst directly.
Love the notion of illustrating the report by using the simulator footage, even though it can be distracting to the point I have to frequently go back and re-listen. Great stuff, and thanks for doing this
Thanks, I had second thoughts about doing it that way. Not because I though of it being a distraction, but because I wasn't sure if it really fit in. However this report is so low quality and dry that I had to do something. Otherwise you would just be looking at text.
Machine guns operate in what is called a beaten zone. whatever the beaten zone of that era .50 cal M2 will be based on the rate of fire, ammo used and the mount. If we have an idea of what kind of mount and which M2 was used we can get an idea of the area likely to get all of those rounds. From there we can determine how many are likely to hit the area available of the planes engine housing. Update. According to FM 23-65 page 116 (6-3) "Thea beaten zone is an elliptical pattern formed by the cone of fire as it strikes the ground. The beaten zone is always about 2 meters in width. There is lots more in that manual and as I find more I'll add it here.
@@JO-ch3el The beaten zone is the known spread from a fixed position at a given range. it doesn't matter if its the ground or the plane, it's whatever is in the path of the bullet in that given spread.
@@Rubberweaseleh a beaten zone context is for suppressive fire for ground combat. I bet a pilot is not impressed with this "beaten zone" when he only has a few seconds window to fire.
@@hippoace The beaten zone is just math, it is where the bullets are going to end up at a given range without moving the machine gun. Nothing more or less. Seeing as they were shooting at these planes from the ground, it matters in terms of how many bullets are likely to be in the area that the engine occupies out of the number or rounds fired.
I have seen a video of a P-47 returning to base with an entire cylinder shot off. You could see the connecting rod bobbing up and down as it taxied back to park.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles It was a while ago, I think it was one of those RUclips videos that was made from some sort of "history channel" type video tapes.
Thanks for the great content Greg! Von Neumann and Morgenstern also made a contribution to this very topic. I think the conclusion was that the likelihood of hits outweighed the power of larger calibres.
I had access to a USAF report that also looked at the P-Sub H factor at the determined that MV, Muzzle Velocity and BC, Balistic Coefficient, had a relatively large effect of how easy it was to get hits and thus shoot down enemy aircraft. Not the Brits were not that lucky on a per engagement score when armed with the Hisso Mk-V in Korea, because the MV was only 840 M/S and the Blunt nosed shell lost velocity very rapidly. They, the USAF, concluded that the best shell was a new, much lighter 20 MM shell with 9-12 grams of PBX with a new, much more pointed M-50 shell! Because the new shell was so much lighter than the old 130 gram Hisso round it had a MV of 1,036M/S From a smaller shell, 102 MM long Vs 110 MM long for the Hisso. The new combo of 102 gram pointed shell at 1,036 M/S and fired at up to 7,100 Rounds per minute was a winner and became standard issue until the F-22. The F-22 by the way had a similar Vulcan Gun, but with longer BBLs and a new even lighter shell that only Massed 84 grams with a new very high energy propellent gave 1,525 M/S!
Thanks for putting this stuff up, really interesting and informative. Excuse me if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but I think the interpretation of the P(h) column of the chart shown at 5:38 may be probability of hit per rounds fired. For the .50cal it works out to about about 50-67 rounds. Allowing for two the decimal place rounding in P(h), it seems reasonable. For the 20mm it would be about 15-17 rounds. Looking at the weapons characteristics chart at 30:20, it seems that they were trying for some kind of equivalent weight of ammo carried or weight of fire, not equivalent firing time, as it works out to around 3 secs for a .50 cal M3 and 1.2 secs for a 20mm M3.
Hmm, maybe. I actually suggested it's a probability of a hit to that component, but stated it differently. For example, if the prop got hit 16 times and had a 25 percent chance of being hit, that would put the total rounds at 64, which is pretty close to the number you are getting. Of course the total hit is around 70 for the reasons I stated.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Thanks for being kind but I've got to quit eye balling this stuff. Using P(h) as P(h) = probability of hit based on hits/rounds fired doesn't work. The table shows a total of 74 hits for the .50cal and 32 for the 20mm. Using P(h) and number of hits to back out the number of rounds fired gives numbers less than 74 (60) and 32 (16), so just not possible. I do however have an even greater respect for the 20mm since the total P(h) is an amazing 202%, implying 20mm hits damage two components on average (it's "only" 120% for the .50cal, so four hits damage five components). Sorry, mislead by WWII USN where P(h) was used as the probability of hit for each (big gun) round fired. Please keep these coming, I can't imagine how much time you must put into them.
Thanks for Ur video & thanks for clearing up this claim of operational radial engines while having cylinders shot off. If a cylinder was shot off the engine dragging a damaged jack rod through the engine would result in immediate catastrophic failure of the engine.
The reason for the large oil tanks on a radial air-cooled engine was that the oil went from the tank to and through-out the engine, then into the cylinders and out the exhaust. I was told by an A-1 Skyraider (Spad) pilot (a Naval Aviator) that the range and time of flight was limited by the Spad’s oil capacity, not the amount of fuel it could carry for the 2,700 hp Wright R3350-26W Cyclone engine. So oil was carried for planned flight time and reserve fuel amount. But the ability in an emergency to keep going when a liquid cooled in -line would have stopped us a great asset. I apologize if I missed this in your presentation or the comments. Your videos are always anticipated and viewed to their fullest. I learn something every time.
Good video.. Re the Typhoon at 15:33, nice ;) (When I sat through a 30 minute video about ww2 gun stats and "whooped" at an RAF plane on it's arse (I did!) it says more about me than other things perhaps, but hey. ) Go Greg. :) )
You may have already known this, but the aircraft M2 had about double the rate of fire found in the ground based M2. I have seen rates quoted between 1000 and 1200 RPM, which may affect "time to kill" calculations
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobileshe AN/M2 does have a higher ROF than the modern M2HB, but I can’t find information on if the HB has the same ROF as the earlier ground guns. Wikipedia says AN/M2 had a variable firerate from 750-850 rpm, for whatever that is worth. I’m pretty certain your total RPM is with this number and not the much slower 500 rpm for the ground guns; great video Greg, thanks!
I think the RoF with the .50cal AN/M2 was 750 RPM and later around >850 RPM with the hotter M20 APIT and M23 Incendiary, due to higher chamber pressure.
I thank you for your pasion dedication & hard work in each every aspect of your videos, there are more a in depth documentary rather than any other thing. I love your Chanel & your content. Great ! & Thanks again!!!
Very interesting, I’m partial to the research done by Emmanuel Gustin way back when regarding the optimal fighter gun(20 mm at 850m/s) but you’re totally correct that it’s one thing to do severe damage with a hit and actually hitting an airplane that’s doing evasive maneuvers or just flying while the platform shooting is a vibrating wild hog. I enjoyed this video so have an Internet point on me🥇
Back in the late 70's, I was stationed at March AFB. We were just starting the museum there so we were out going to DM to get some. I did a trip to China lake NAS as a scouting mission for an F-89 they had there and it was in an area where they were testing aircraft survivability. They put aircraft into fixtures, shot at them or did explosives damage while blowing air over that aircraft or componant set. I can't fully remember but they used either a clipped wing KC-97 or B-50 as their wind machine.
Mr. Greg thanks for another great coverage, I've always found interesting when veterans would talk about the missions they have gone through from ww2 and onwards they were always mentioning the sheer effectiveness of 50 cal even later they've flown aircraft with more powerful cannons or sophisticated missile systems. Mr. Greg is there a way for viewers to participate in selecting the topics for videos?
Patreon members get to vote in polls for upcoming videos, so go pay Greg $1-5/month. Then learn to live with the disappointment of choosing the less popular video option.
Anthony Williams wrote some excellent articles on WW2 aircraft weapons. One of the reasons the US didn’t embrace the Hispano 20mm to a large degree, the gun that the RAF used to great success, was a manufacturing error that plagued US built Hispano cannons. The US built the Hispano with a bit too much clearance in the receiver. This resulted in a high frequency of misfires or jams. A plane with wing mounted guns, experiencing this malfunction, is in trouble (a jam in the nose mounted Hispano in the P-38 could be cleared by the pilot). Rather than fixing the tolerance error, the US coated the 20mm shells with wax to try and compensate for the clearance issues. Unfortunately this tended to introduce dirt and other contaminants which just exasperated the problem. However as the .50 cal machine guns were getting the job done (the U.S. mostly faced other fighters, or lightly protected bombers), the U.S. mostly stayed with the .50 throughout the war and into the post war period. Also a high rate of fire from multiple .50 cal guns, tends to reward “spray and pray” firing that pilots with minimal or median training/experience. With 6/8 guns, and firing a 5 second burst, a pilot with even mediocre skills has a good likelihood of hitting. It should be noted that the U.S. Navy saw the need for cannon much sooner than the USAAF/USAF. This need for a harder punch really becomes apparent in Korea, with the .50 cal F-86, dicing with the 23mm/37mm armed MiG-15. With the higher engagement speeds, getting only a few hits had to really count. In fact, late in the conflict, some USAF F-86s were modified to carry 4x20mm cannon, and higher kill results were seen.
Double problem for the US 20mm.... 1) Looser tolerances ( its a cannon not a rapidly reprocicating machine ....err whut ?). 2) In making the US manufacturing plans chamber length was increased by 1/16". This led to extraction problems exerbated by the afformentioned greased ammo. The Brits were consulted on his problem and as a result chamber length was decreased ....by only 1/32" ( Damn the Brits we're Americans we know Guns). The problems were thus never fully solved and this led the the US fetish for inflight re-cocking devices. ( making installations more weighty and space costly ). The Navy REALLY wanted a 4x20mm plane armament.
This is so interesting because a coworker of mine had their air conditioner compressor shot in Chicago by a 9mm and it effectively disabled their Malibu. Because aparently we need a critical cooling component (the water pump) to share the same belt as every single other non critical engine driven accessory these days. I guess gears are too expensive.
Of course, Greg is great. During WW2 US mathematicians did statistical analysis of various aspects air to air combat involving ballistics. Looks like Greg got his hands on one. Years ago my class used one such study. To go over the statistical analysis that was used.
🤔 This study seems to have made the Naval Aviation arm go cannon post war. While USAF fighters in Korea still had .50 Bmg. Navy Panther, Banshees, Fury, Etc. Choose the 20mm.....
Sort of, the F-84 and F-86 did have six 50 cals, but they were M3s with an even higher rate of fire than the typical WW2 50 cals. Then of course they went with 20mm shortly after with the subsequent planes like the F-100 and so on.
After over 30 year's of building and working on Harley engine's, which their basic cylinder construction is very similar to radial aircraft engine's, I've seen some things that if I hadn't seen them keep running with damage and other issues with my own eye's I'd never have believed it, cylinders broken off at the base, faulty machine work inside of engine's or wrong parts installed that led to top ends or flywheel (crankshaft) assemblies running oil starved with some of them running for surprisingly long periods of time, and wherein not an engine I once gave a 4 speed transmission back to a guy I rebuilt and told him he needed to add lube to it when he installed it, in his haste installing it the night before leaving on a road trip with his friend's he forgot to do it, that thing went all the way from southwestern Pa to northern Georgia before it burned up, when assembling one of the pre mid 79 4 speed Harley transmissions there's loose needle bearings that must be packed with grease to hold them in place to assemble one, knowing that I still wouldn't have believed one would go that far without lube in it before gears started locking up on shafts. I had an engine brought to me once that a guy had been having top end problems with for over 15 year's, he had that thing in shops from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, no less than 5 of them before I took a crack at and found the problem, it'd been built with 84 ci S&S stroker flywheels, even the shops that tore apart most of the bottom end looking for the problem failed to do the last step needed to locate it, split the engine cases and look inside. When you put stroker flywheels in any big twin from the 36 Knucklehead to the last of the Evo engine's made in 99 there's an area in the right side engine case that needs to be clearenced for the connecting rod pin nut on the right side of the flywheel assembly, the more stroke the further that nut is moved towards the rim of the flywheel, there's a step on the inside of the casting of the right side engine case that the nut will hit when stroker flywheels are used that must be clearemced, it's a pretty simple process that can easily be done with a rotary file and a special tool that has different holes in it for each stroke amount that you stick a scribe in the appropriate hole for whatever stroke your building (I always just clearance them for the biggest stroke possible anyways, it's not like it's really any more work) and swing it through the area to scribe the area needing clearenced, on this engine the guy who owned the shop that did the work in the 80's took it to a place that obviously put an end mill in a vertical milling machine and without using that marking took just hogged out the entire area cutting into an oil passage, on the outside of the right engine case there's a hole that passage leads to with a ⅛" NPT thread a fitting screws into that's the bottom fitting for the external oil line that goes to the rear cylinder rocker box of a 66 to 84 Shovelhead big twin, from the front of the rear rocker box there's a short crossover line that goes to the rear of the front rocker box, that's how oil circulates through everything in the top end, 😢by cutting into that passage inside the right case it essentially oil starved the entire top end of the motor, instead of oil going to the top end it was just pumping it into the bottom end of the engine which of course there was no way of knowing without the explatory surgery I did, neither myself or anyone else around when I found the problem including the owner who'd been riding for years and two other friends of mine who also owned shops could believe that thing ran as long as it did between the issues it'd been having over that 15 year period, you'd think it wouldn't be able to make it across town much less last several years between incidents. I've seen flywheel assemblies run for years after having the incorrect cam cover gasket put on cone motor Shovelhead engine's, 70 through mid 72 has an oil hole moved, by using the wrong gasket on either a 70 to mid 72 or mid 72 to 84 Shovelhead it'll oil starve the connecting rod roller bearings, without seeing it with my own eyes I'd never believe one could make it through several summers before the bearings went out. I've had several engine's brought to me with holes burned in pistons from large vacuum leaks causing an excessive lean condition, one actually pulled into my place running after it dropped a cylinder from over 5 miles away, I'll grant you he didn't set a land speed record getting there but it pulled in running after burning a hole in a piston of a 2 cylinder engine, amazing, and considering that the carb and intake are common for both cylinders it's really amazing that it was even running with as much as the power had to be down from one piston having a hole melted in it and the other cylinder running on an excessive lean condition, never would have believed that was possible. You're absolutely right about dual plugs, the 36 to 84 big twins and the 57 to 85 Sportster engine's are true hemi engine's, when we dual plug them ignition timing can't be run at the stock setting, usually a reduction of around 3 to 4 degrees is necessary to avoid knock and if you drop one side it'll lose power just like doing a mag check before take off. Just about when i think I've seen it all something else comes along that astounds me, I would not be one bit surprised if radial engine's continued running with a cylinder completely shot off, considering that the 20 and 30mm German shells were explosive I wouldn't doubt a hit straight to a cylinder could blow one off, and there'd be a good chance it'd snap the connecting rod off right at the big end, if that happened you wouldn't have a connecting rod and piston flopping around which from my experiences I can believe one would keep running, given the oil capacity and the fact that they're dry sump engine's I could see one making it back to a base, maybe not across the Channel but after D-Day they were operating from bases in France and Belgium that were sometimes less than 10 minutes to where they were conducting ground attack missions, after some of the things I've seen I can believe one could make a short flight like that back to a forward base, heck in the Pacific Corsair's were bombing targets so close to where they were taking off from they didn't even bother raising their landing gear, after some of the things I've seen I wouldn't discount the stories about them coming back with cylinders shot off, I certainly wouldn't bet against it, heck, Apollo 13 made it back after it blew up and it had to go all the way around the moon from halfway there to do it. If life's taught me anything it's that anything's possible with machines, the experiences I've conveyed here just scratch the surface of some amazing things I've seen machines survive, like I said just about every time I think I've seen it all something else comes along and surprises me.
@@mikehenthorn1778 Yep, Fayette County Pa right at the base of the mountains, and I spent 11 years living in Mantua Ohio, just moved back here in the summer of 2019. What part of Ohio are you from?
Any one that noes about high performance engine better no.... or i got some questions that well be needing an answer ....thats stuff and that you in the 3rd grade....more spark means more bang = more driving force in the downward stroke.... great video 👍👍👍
The story of an aircraft making it back with a cylinder or two missing is reiterated in Rudel's book "Stuka Pilot". Where he describes an FW 190 returning from a misson over the Russian Front with several cylinders absent, oil all over the front, but running. Seems it wasn't only the P+W that was "bulletproof " !
Hi Greg, love your work! I was looking back at some of my resources and a 2-3 second burst against an enemy fighter whose pilot was not asleep was a long burst. A five second burst was more typical against a non manoeuvring bomber target. Many people have seen that slow-mo footage of the FW-190 taking apart a B-17 and think that long bursts were normal but even in the Battle of Britain more experienced pilots told the rookies get in close let loose and get out! I cannot imagine a 20 second burst. Just sit and could how long that was. From what I have read 20 seconds would just about empty the magazines of a P-51D.
It's a question of getting enough rounds out there so you have good statistical data to work with. A two second burst just wouldn't do it for that purpose.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Albeit my knowledge of guns isn't anything that would qualify me as an expert by any means, there are a few factors that makes me inclined to believe that fixed number of bullets has merit. First of all, there is the issue of repeatability. Unless the various subtests per calibre were similar enough, the results would be of very little use. That suggests that the tests were not made in the air, but on the ground with both targets and machineguns in predetermined positions using the same orientation each time.. The firing position is bit uncertain, either using single guns in fixed positions (repeatability would suffer if the shooter had to walk the fire into the target) or installed in stationary aircraft to get a more realistic spread as the quality of the individual weapon matters less. Either way, there will no longer be any significant airflow to cool down the relatively thin barrels of aircraft guns (since they are expected to be kept in winds of 80-200 m/s it makes more sense to save weight as cooling is ensured, a point Forgotten Weapons brought up in several of the aircraft gun videos), and that would quickly result in overheating if long, sustained bursts would be used. A specific amount of ammunition (calculated on a certain time frame for each weapon?) could be spread into shorter bursts, preventing the accuracy loss an overheated barrel would bring. With the weapon fixed in place, the repeated bursts would have little to no effect on the overall result. Also, it is very hard to accurately repeat a time based length of burst at least 157 times in a row. lf the suggested methodology makes sense, perhaps that might shed some light on those numbers?
A 20 second burst does seem unlikely, but I could be wrong. Anyway, yes, a dry subject, but absolutely fascinating information generated by the report. This is why I'm subscribed: Dense technical data that has meaningful real world significance. Thanks for all your work, Greg!
**off topic The AN-225 appears to be in the early stages of either repair or chopping from a recent photo. Left wing is mostly chopped with scaffolding under it. Some nose too with another scaffold. What made me wonder which is b/c the floor is swept very clean in the hanger. Too clean I think just to be scrapping it out. Right wing was resting down on it's engines. Photo ended behind wings so can't say about tail. I haven't heard anything besides maybe repair with the sister plane that's lighter or cut it up. I know they have bigger fish to fry right now but something is goin on.
I'm curious what kind of ammo they used in the .50, was the standard mix of AP, inceniary, and tracer? I know this is new, but an All Purpose round wooud be interesting. Army snipers were taking out APCs in Irag with it. BTW, what ever became of the M3 .50 cal?
Dual sparkplugs are very beneficial in large displacement engines, where combustion chamber is quite big and single sparkplug does not provide even and fast combustion. In Engines like R-2800 or V-1650 or any similar engine of that time dual spark was essential for power output. Redundancy is done that way that both magnetos provide spark for every each cylinder so when one is out you still have spark on every cylinder.
Very interesting topic. One must not forget the importance of convergance. Many of the German WW2 planes, had their armament centered in or around the fuselage. This will make the plane more versatile range wise. In the topic of getting more rounds on target.
Everybody says that, but I'm not so sure it works out that way. The assumption seems to be that planes can't hit beyond their convergence point. That's not the case, the rounds are about the same distance apart at twice the convergence range as they are at point blank range. Thus with a 400 meter convergence, they are good out to at least 800 meters, farther than they could reliably aim anyway.
Considering that the vast majority of air to air kills in that era occurred within a range 300m or less, I doubt that the extra range was any use to any but the most extraordinarily skilled of fighter pilots.
@@Beowulf_DWmost aces hit within the 300 mtr range. Only a few were great at deflection shots. I opened fire when the whole windshield was black with the enemy . . . at minimum range . . . it doesn't matter what your angle is to him or whether you are in a turn or any other maneuver. Erich hartmann.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles so it could be based on a set of practical rules instead of capabilities. Rules like specified in the dicta boelcke or erich hartmann.
About the machinegun accuracy, at 500 yards you can expect at least half of your shots to hit if it is a fixed or mounted MG and the target is stationary or moving predictably.
Company in town(air north) used to run dc3/4s I used to laugh when they had oil delivered in 205l drums. Then they used a waste oil burner to hear the hangar
The optimum caliber program would also have to look at the increased weight of larger caliber rounds, both for the amount of ammunition the airplane could carry and also the rate of fire. As you said a high rate of fire improved the odds of actually hitting something.
Excellent video. One remark, the 30mm HE round used by the MK108 and MK103 might be the same, a 330 gram “Minengeschoss” drawn as a thin shell with a lot of explosive in it. The MK108 used this exclusively. There was a conventional HE round for the MK103 too, which was indeed heavier at 433 gram because more metal, less chemical load. There was also a 500 gram APHE. The MK103 loading of the belt for aircraft targets mixed the four, according to the 1944 official recommendation: one Sprenggranatpatrone (HE) one M-Geschosspatrone (high capacity HE) one Panzersprenggranatpatrone (APHE) one Panzerbrandsprenggranatpatrone (APHEI)
Great video. It's quite clear the canons were better overall, but the 50cals worked well enough for the US fighters in WWII. So it's understandable they prioritized fixing other problems with those planes. It wasn't like the situation with the RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes in 1940 that did need something a bit heavier than 30cals to bring down a bomber more quickly.
Hey Greg, I am a new subscriber, and I find your knowledge and insight amazing! Some day could you do a video about the series 5 Italian fighters? It is really hard to find good information about them, specially on the Reggiane.
I think I might have missed info regarding a combination of hits. For example, one 20mm round in the wing root is highly unlikely to cause a kill, but it would not be unreasonable to get two or three in the wing root and the wing falls off either immediately or when under high stress.
On the topic of rate of fire and total amount of fire, this is partly why the .60 Cal machine gun program was halted. They found that aircraft could carry far more .50 cal than .60 cal, and that the extra energy didn’t provide enough benefit to justify the drastically reduced capacity and increased weight.
Is there any documentation on any of the training plans (something akin to a syllabus) for pilots of any nation during WW2? I'd be curious what their training looked like, and the differences between nations. Would be fun to try and build a simulated career centered around it.
I have been looking for such a thing for years. I haven't found it. There is very little documentation on WW2 pilot training. Just a few manuals and what pilots themselves put in their memoirs.
I once heard a story/anecdote about a low flying P-47 being introduced to a brick chimney. The P-47 landed safely and ground crew had to remove the bricks from the cowling and a couple cylinders came detached from the crankcase.
I think the big miss here is not adopting the 13.2×99mm Hotchkiss as in the Mitrailleuse d'Avion Browning - F.N. Calibre 13,2 mm. Gives you a higher fire rate Browning that can fire HE.
When flying against the p-47 the most effective tool for the job is the mk108, at least in dcs or il2. Absolutely devastating, especially considering how much mg131 the jug can eat up. Thanks greg
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Regarding the MK108. When used in a Me262, going at full throttle, people always forget to add aircraft speed to the MV of the MK108. Feks, shooting at a B17 from 90 deg the MV of a 30mm Minengeshoss is app 750ms/2500fps. The trajectory and lead needed in this case are very different than the ballistics people see in tables shot from a static testbarrel.
Per the material by Michael Claringbould, even a P47 could be 'laid low' by Ki43 Oscar. When he did a breakdown on the loss ratio when it was only 'Oscar II' vs Thunderbolt, the ratio was pretty even. I don't know if the 'mark' of Oscar had two 7.7mm machineguns or if it had 2 13mm mgs or a combination of both.
@@nickmitsialisKi-43-Ic (mark 1c) already had dual jap 0.5cal...so Oscar lI should be using dual 50cal...but they use HEI rounds... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho-103_machine_gun
Germany used a .60 caliber gun in form of the 15mm MG 151. The US developed and tested a similar gun which like with the MG 151 was turned into a 20mm round. From what I remember from the document the .60 cal ammunition was pretty much as lethal as the 20mm ammunition. It has advantages in having higher velocity but I guess a 20mm is just more versatile for all types of targets.
I am 81, and thought I had a pretty good grasp of the guns used on U.S. planes in WW2. However, I never heard of a .60 caliber machine gun. I take it from your comment that .60 caliber is similar in size to 20mm(I don't know my metrics well enough to mentally compare the two sizes). Also, I never understood why the Brits stayed with the .30 caliber.
@@williamromine5715 .60 caliber is roughly equal to 15mm where as .50 caliber would be 12.7mm. I think the Brits stayed with the .303 because they built so many guns and ammunition and then simply used 20mm cannons as fighter armament.
@@williamromine5715 The Brits decided that 20mm was the future rather than a heavier MG in the 50 cal....basically they were using 20mm with the kinks ironed out by mid 41. They didn't stick with 30 cal at all, except in the Spitfire outer bays where they couldn't get another set of 20mm in.
I had a Mazda Miata, original 1990 model, at year 9, one cylinder went. it was barely operable, not 75%, but I was lucky to move at 20mph. Somewhere, there was a study for ship-based AA. The 20mm Oerlikon made the most kills, but the 40mm Bofors could make kills before the attacking plane reached weapons release point. At the end of WWII, the smallest gun that could take a VT was the 3in, too big for a single engine fighter. At some point it was possible for 40mm, but is still not an option for 30mm?
I had to laugh when you talked about American V8s losing a cylinder and some people not noticing. Back in the 1970s there were a lot of American servicemen stationed at Upper Heyford and Croughton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK. They brought over their big V8s and sold them locally when they were posted back to the States. In 1976 I bought a 1966 Pontiac Parisienne convertible and drove it around for a while. It was a fabulous car that turned a lot of heads. After I sold it, I was told it had been running on 7 cylinders for a long time....! Thanks for the video Greg, much appreciated as always.
If it was left hand drive, it was a Canada only car. If it was right hand drive, it was from Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa.
I remember a coworker telling me stories of how him and his friends in the beginning of thier high school car driving time would disconnect one plug wire from their cars before going through the local parking lots because they thought people would be impressed that they had also done engine modification and had cam swaps 🤣 Apparently they and everyone else could distinctly tell that it was just a misfire, so after being made fun of they quickly became gear heads and poor high-school kid hot rod builders... But using actual upgraded cams, ignition, carburetors, polished intakes from junkyard engine swaps, running on all 8 cylinders! (Atleast until the engine finished wearing out it's bottom end, requiring a fresh junkyard replacement to put the aftermarket parts on 😆) He was born around 1948, so big in the hotrod scene from the 60s-the 70s until real life got in the way, so plenty of great "junk" to be bought at scrap value during his youth! 👍😉
My jeep cj-5 with a 304 V-8 went months on seven cylinders before I noteced and fixed it
Reminds me of Prior's scrap yard in Yaxham Norfolk.
weirdly for a comments thread I have owned a US car brought over to England ( bought in Oxford) and also have driven past the mentioned scrap yard .... small world sometimes !
thanks for the work you put into the channel, your audience appreciates you sir
More than you know, Greg!
@@SeanAnwaltindeed! We have patience, so we don't need a video on a fixed schedule with short intervals.
Some even take our time to watch the video undisturbed.😊
@@daszieher That is true.
My favorite history channel. This is the kind of nitty gritty military engineering I'm fascinated by. Are there any other similar channels someone can recommend?
@@VikingTeddy Drachinifel might be naval channel you'd enjoy, history & engineering
The most impressive damage I ever say was during Vietnam on one of our Corsair 2's it came back with a rocket or cannon hole in the tail just slightly smaller than a basketball. What was far more impressive to me was the tree branch stuck in the fiberglass at the mouth to the air intake, how he made it back without fodding the engine is beyond me.
Reminds me of the stories from Goose Bay where the German Air Force trained low-level flying and would buzz elk fairly regularly, ding the radomes against the tree tops and sometimes even bring home some pinecones lodged between the intake and the fuselage side...
Maybe it was all BS. I don't really know, I wasn't there.
Greg, your videos are not only great source of nerdy technical knowledge but also a real historiographic research.
Such vast plethora of facts snatched from the jaws of time.
I absolutely love the fact that you have this obsession with data, and the ability and knowledge to interpret it for the rest of us. I'm one of the oddballs that enjoys this careful analysis of minutia. So thanks, Greg. Another great one.
Why have they developed 20mm and 7.62x51mm (30 cal.)Gatling type guns but no .50 cal?
@@46bovine, that would be the GAU-19 actually.
@@46bovine As Jacob mentioned they have, but also weight. A 30 cal minigun is around half the weight of a GAU19. And 30 cal ammunition is way lighter at 6-ish pounds per hundred rounds compared to 24ish pounds per 100 .50 cal.
The GAU19 is used mostly in light helicopters, probably because the weight is less of a concern and it is more potent than a 30 cal for defensive use.
There were also British tests post-war of the mk-108. Showed the thin-walled HE shells were devastating. The took photos, showing static Spitfire fuselage with tail blown off from one hit in rear fuselage, and wing demolished with one hit.
I believe there is a piece of combat film footage purporting to show a B-17 losing its wing at the root following 4 rounds of 30mm from a Me-262's firing pass.
I’ve seen this video. What’s even More devastating is that when you consider that spitfire was stationary and not going 350+ knots. This happens it’s likely to have whole panels/ailerons/flaps just rip off from the air speed after it becomes flared.
Nice video.
A note on the bullet weight: This was virtually identical for the MK 103 and MK 108. The mine shell weighed 330g for both. The propellant loading was very different.
Heard from a P-47 pilot 35 years ago that if you loose all oil if you immediately bring the power on the engine back to minimum power needed to stay aloft the engine could run for a long time without any oil.
I think I would choose the p47 if I could, for it's robustness
You could stay in the air long enough to get to the crash site.
The Hawker Typhoon at time 15:15 is XP-P R7620 of No. 174 squadron, hit by flak on 22nd February 1945. It was the oldest operating Typhoon at the time having entered service in January 1942. The crash landing was at Volkel, The Netherlands, a No. 274 squadron Hawker Tempest in in the background.
Despite all that gusseting and bolstering to make up for the initial designs' flaws, it still crumpled right up into a pilot-killing wad. Thank God for the lend-lease aircraft!
@@mikemulligan5731 The pilot posted the picture.
@@mikemulligan5731 The Typhoon may have had problems with the tail section but it could take quite a bit of battle damage and was at least equal in performance to the FW-190 at lower levels. The problems with crash landing were down to the big air intake. I'm not sure where lend-lease aircraft come into the RAF picture with respect to land-based fighter bombers and fighters in the ETO.
Greg, if the cylinder shot off was the "master" or number 1 cylinder of the row, the engine would seize immediately. Any of the other 8 cylinders could be shot away, and the crank could still turn. The master rod was connected to the crank pin. The other cylinder connecting rods were connected to the master rod.
I can believe a cylinder head being blown off, but I don't believe the stories of having a cylinder or cylinders shot away and still able to fly. No radial will run with any one cylinder missing. You've now got the remains of a piston on a rod that is flailing about beating the crankcase to bits.
If there is evidence of any radial engine losing a complete cylinder barrel and making it back to base for a safe landing I'd like to see it.
The master rod and crank pin were massive because there were 6 or 8 other connecting rods tied to the big end. Also, the "slave" rod was smaller and rode on the master rod's outer surface. The piston and rod, or the severed rod would in fact reciprocate in the missing cylinder's location, depending on how much length was left (the longer the better) which would cause damage to the crankcase in the area of the missing cylinder but would not keep the crankshaft from turning. There have been some fools starting a radial engine only to hear a loud bang and a clatter, then finding a lower cylinder laying on the ground in a pool of oil because they didn't pull the prop through to clear the lower cylinders.
I'm glad to hear you say "MK103" etc, rather than thinking MK is short for "mark" (as on British things) - I've heard that other places, when in reality it's short for MaschinenKanone
great point i've heard a few guys say mark as well its not a fatal error but it is a lack of research into your topic right ? on the other hand i'm kinda touchy about any errors in presentation lol
Well, I made that error once in an earlier video.
Thanks!
Thank you so much Dennis.
Fantastic job Greg! I really enjoy content showing the whys and hows about how things actually occur. I didn’t think any of this was dry.
It's a dry channel but it's all about facts. If you appreciate that, you don't get bored. ✌️
The quality of castings that could be achieved in the 1940's for those radial cylinder heads is pretty amazing.
The US casting industry went far in WW2. They even started casting 1919/1917 parts. There was a plan to cast a whole receiver but it didn't go anywhere.
Most people call anything cast "cast iron" but there's really a whole world of cast steel people don't know about.
@@edwardscott3262 Heads on a R2800 were made from aluminum. started as a 70lb billet with the finished head coming in about 25lbs.
I'm probably wrong, but I don't think we have the craftsmanship in today's world to produce those beautiful and complex radial engines.
@@jackgee3200 Thank you for taking the time to post this concise and accurate response. Thanks to the evolution of the computer and other technologies and processes and techniques, design and manufacturing are light years beyond what was possible in the 1940s. And, thanks to those advances, far more can be produced, much faster and with far higher consistent quality while using much smaller work forces. Nothing stands still and no one who really understands how technical advances have improved the quality of life for millions of people all over the world really wants to roll the clock back to the standards of nearly a century ago.
The P-47 Thunderbolt Pilots Association rented a pair of P-47s and brought them to Santa Rosa back around 2000, California. A group of us helped get the veterans into and out of the planes and their stories were great.
One of the guys that I knew flew in Italy and he had been hit by 20mm in the engine. He said that he lost 2 cylinder heads being blow off but the rest worked and flew back to base with no oil pressure for 30 minutes. He has a piece of his glass that was shattered
I marvel at the mechanics that managed to maintain these complex machines in crappy conditions, and the sheer numbers required in both theaters.
Cracking upload, telling me everything I have ever questioned about these flying tanks and their offensive abilities, thanks again 👍
a 20 second burst? they must've had huge ammo hoppers
That was probably all they had - Spitfires had 12s, I seem to recall from an earlier Gregivideo
Test environment, fire single gun for longer rather than battery of 4 or 6 from a real ww2 plane.
The p-47 had so much freaking ammo. At least 30 seconds with 8 guns.
@@martinwright7367Yeah they could use a slower rate of fire single gun for testing which would make 20s burst equivalent of 1-2 second burst from plane like P47.
@@Fooney1 Amazing plane. I only really started learning about it watching Greg. It is almost unheard of in GB. Yet, everybody knows about the Mustang. I suppose it is like the Flying Fortress, which everybody knows, and the Liberator, which few do and even less like. I built models of the Mustang and the B-17. One fact I picked up is that the P-47 was simply much more expensive than the Mustang, which may have affected the issue. But, being so much bigger than the Mustang, it carried more ammo. This was a big issue during the Battle of Britain, as 12s of ammo was enough for maybe just 1, maybe 2 dog fights. With .303, they needed a lot to take out a bomber. I would like to see gReg do a vidoe on 303 vs .50 Cal.
It's simply amazing the sheer amount of data that was gathered and collated during WW2...... just this little topic slice is incredibly interesting.
It's amazing how much tests can be run with no budgetary constraints in order for a military to find out how to better kill an opponent. I'm not intending that in any negative way.
Interesting and - as usual - well done, Greg.
From my Dad's combat report with VF-19 from the USS Lexington in the western Pacific in October, 1944, flying an F6F-5:
"On 14 Oct. 44 while having a field day burning planes on loaded Taiyohara Field, Formosa, where revetments were jammed with as many as 10 planes, was hit by a 20 mm AA on the propeller hub causing the engine to lose oil pressure. Engine ran cool, if a little rough on 250 mile trip back with 10 lb.oil pressure. Two days previous [12 Oct., 1944] was hit by 3 40 mm AA while strafing at Pescadores and engine brought me home 200 miles with 15 lb. oil pressure."
I have a photo showing the mangled prop hub from 14 Oct., 1944, as well as an oil-covered engine front. I also have photos of damage to the plane (including the engine) on 12 Oct., 1944. In that case, at least one hit to the lower port side of the engine took out a cylinder as well as part of the cowling, and another hit was near the wing root in the aft portion of the port wing, just aft of the cockpit, with structural members easily visible inside the wing center section beyond the bent and mangled sheet metal wing surface and oil from the engine hit(s) streaking the side of the fuselage. Somewhat to my surprise, the landing gear still functioned, and he landed aboard safely. The plane wss judged "unrepairable" and, after a brief scavenging for usable equipment, was pushed over the side into the Pacific.
Wow, thanks Ray.
It’s a real pity they made less than 200 Mustang lAs. A relatively early Mustang made for the British with 4 x 20mm cannnon. Some being transferred direct from the factory to the USAF when the war started. Hence the images of 1 or more in US colours in Italy. The original Mustang I & Apache came with one .5 in each wing, 2 synchro .5s in the chin & 2 x .3 (or .303) in each wing. So it’s a real pity the IA didn’t keep the 2 chin mounted .5 guns, as centreline guns are much more effectively aimed with simple sights too. Imagine if the Mustang originally came out with the Malcom Hood (rather than a copy of the BF109’s naff side lifting hood) with the 2 chin mounted centreline .5 Brownings & 4 x20mm cannon in the wings.
From a technical standpoint concerned with important details about how to make a great episode of a technically oriented channel, all is there. The subject is clear, not to be too redundant but the voice over is perfectly conversational, though still narration. I personally love the R-2800 having worked on them, as a mechanics helper I have to add, but paying attention to them. I looked at them an awful lot. These were powering the DC-6 used for freight. About every one of these 40 and more years old aircraft had their pressurization equipment pulled out. Typical flights would be up to 12 thousand feet AGL or MSL. I did get to fly a DC-6 in the air left seat for 2 hours. I also once flew a Tomahawk from Fort Lauderdale International to Pompano on single mags because I was stupid and had not turned the mag switch to both mags.
My father served in the 326th squadron, 92nd bomber group, in 1942. In their briefing room was a piece of a B-17 main spar that was severed by a single .50cal hit in a friendly fire incident. For air to air combat, particularly between fighters, I think The. 50 was probably the best choice for American planes for the extra round count if nothing else. If we were intercepting B-17s a cannon would have been better but the .50 would have been OK. I've often wondered what the score would have been like if the RAF had adopted a .50cal, even the weaker Vickers round, before the Battle of Britain. Figure six in the Hurricane and four in the Spitfire? Far fewer damaged German planes would have returned to base.
Cheers!
Greetings Greg! I see you too a beloved follower of our patron Dakka Lord of the Many Rounds.
Very interesting. Great attention to detail which beefs up the historical value. Thanks a lot, Colin UK.
Your channel is my favorite by a long shot. I'm always very excited and happy to pull up RUclips and finding I get to enjoy a new video of yours. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and creating this space on the internet.
I once had a Chevy Nova with the inline 6. There was an aftermarket air conditioner added, mounted on a bracket over the sixth spark plug. Took forever to get off when changing the spark plugs. When I did, I found the last spark plug was very dirty and old, and a different brand than the other 5, because no previous mechanic took the trouble to change the sixth plug. I wonder if that cylinder was even firing.
My point exactly.
Hi Greg, thank you for providing the very best classic aviation content on the entire internet.
A hemi-engine using a 2 spark plug ignition system will usually run a significantly lower total spark advance timing to achieve the proper flame front propagation speed within its combustion chamber than the same engine using a single spark plug ignition.
Therefore, if it would be possible to increase the total ignition advance to the value it would have in an engine using a single spark plug system the power loss would be rather small.
A practical example I´m familiar with is the old "air-head" BMW motorcycle boxers, they do gain some extra power with a good dual spark plug set-up compared to the standard single set-up, but it is not a huge amount, perhaps in the order of 5 % or so.
However, in an engine with a very large bore, which is certainly the case in the R-2800 🙂, it would not be possible to advance the spark timing much at all when running on only one of the plugs, because the very long flame front propagation distance would provoke detonation if trying to use a high enough advance needed to make full ( or even close to full ) power.
The conclusion is that in the practical case of most aero engines you are perfectly right. Also, I assume that the maximum spark advance you can set from the cockpit is probably limited to the maximum advance intended for the system while both magnetos are working properly?
Very Best Regards / Jan.
Hi Jan, I haven't flown an R-2800. The Continental O-200 has about a 4 inch bore and drop of about 125-150rpm during the mag check. A four inch bore is pretty typical for an American V-8. Almost all the small blocks from Ford and Chevrolet are right around a four inch bore, and even some of the big blocks like the Chevrolet 396 are right there. Now could the O-200 make the same power with one plug but more advanced timing? Maybe, but I doubt it based on the fact that racers have gone through great lengths to add the second plug to Hemi head type engines on designs that originally had only a single plug. The difference here could be in what you and I think is "significant". To me a 5 percent gain is important, in motorsports that's absolutely huge. For a manufacturer, probably not, there are much easier ways to design in another five percent.
The angle used in the test is a big factor. Rounds per minute or rounds per second is very important in air combat , at the angle tested, if my understanding is correct would produce a closing rate of considerable speed. What a FUN test to participate in!
So I’ll be writing comments piecemeal as I watch this, but the “Ph” column is probably “Percent Hits”. Note how for each gun the number of hits and the Ph is the same: for the M2, 1 hit = 0.02 Ph, 2 hits is 0.03, 3 hits is 0.05, etc.
Assuming this is meant to be percentages (i.e. .25 Ph = 25%), then we can work out the rounds fired and with the fire rate how long each burst was. For the M2, this works out to about 64 rounds fired, or a 5 second burst. I don’t know the rate of fire for the T39 or M97 offhand, but I’m calculating 21 rounds and ~15.8 rounds fired for these guns, suggesting the goal was a short burst. I imagine that for the sake of the tests they had short belts rather than trying to time each burst directly.
Otherwise I don’t have too much too add, this was an excellent analysis as always.
Lots of granular detail put into the testing of weapons and their effects. Very illuminating. Great work Greg.
love your work looking forward to the follow up video with the other engines and the damages
Love the notion of illustrating the report by using the simulator footage, even though it can be distracting to the point I have to frequently go back and re-listen. Great stuff, and thanks for doing this
Thanks, I had second thoughts about doing it that way. Not because I though of it being a distraction, but because I wasn't sure if it really fit in. However this report is so low quality and dry that I had to do something. Otherwise you would just be looking at text.
Machine guns operate in what is called a beaten zone. whatever the beaten zone of that era .50 cal M2 will be based on the rate of fire, ammo used and the mount. If we have an idea of what kind of mount and which M2 was used we can get an idea of the area likely to get all of those rounds. From there we can determine how many are likely to hit the area available of the planes engine housing.
Update. According to FM 23-65 page 116 (6-3) "Thea beaten zone is an elliptical pattern formed by the cone of fire as it strikes the ground. The beaten zone is always about 2 meters in width. There is lots more in that manual and as I find more I'll add it here.
A 240 on a tripod has a spread of 2 mils.
I think you misunderstood something. It's bullet spread thats relevant because no one cares where they hit the ground in this case.
@@JO-ch3el The beaten zone is the known spread from a fixed position at a given range. it doesn't matter if its the ground or the plane, it's whatever is in the path of the bullet in that given spread.
@@Rubberweaseleh a beaten zone context is for suppressive fire for ground combat. I bet a pilot is not impressed with this "beaten zone" when he only has a few seconds window to fire.
@@hippoace The beaten zone is just math, it is where the bullets are going to end up at a given range without moving the machine gun. Nothing more or less. Seeing as they were shooting at these planes from the ground, it matters in terms of how many bullets are likely to be in the area that the engine occupies out of the number or rounds fired.
Wow....great stuff. Love vids that go to period appropriate primary sources. Well done.
Concerning your opening question - The engine says "That tickles." As always, an enjoyable education. Thank you.
By far my favorite channel!!
I have seen a video of a P-47 returning to base with an entire cylinder shot off. You could see the connecting rod bobbing up and down as it taxied back to park.
I would like to see that.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles It was a while ago, I think it was one of those RUclips videos that was made from some sort of "history channel" type video tapes.
Thanks for the great content Greg! Von Neumann and Morgenstern also made a contribution to this very topic. I think the conclusion was that the likelihood of hits outweighed the power of larger calibres.
Outstanding analysis and commentary - as usual!
You put quite a lot of work into each video - thanks. This is agreat start at pealing the onion of a complex subject that so many over simplify.
Thorough and extremely informative as usual. Thanks Greg!
I had access to a USAF report that also looked at the P-Sub H factor at the determined that MV, Muzzle Velocity and BC, Balistic Coefficient, had a relatively large effect of how easy it was to get hits and thus shoot down enemy aircraft. Not the Brits were not that lucky on a per engagement score when armed with the Hisso Mk-V in Korea, because the MV was only 840 M/S and the Blunt nosed shell lost velocity very rapidly. They, the USAF, concluded that the best shell was a new, much lighter 20 MM shell with 9-12 grams of PBX with a new, much more pointed M-50 shell! Because the new shell was so much lighter than the old 130 gram Hisso round it had a MV of 1,036M/S From a smaller shell, 102 MM long Vs 110 MM long for the Hisso. The new combo of 102 gram pointed shell at 1,036 M/S and fired at up to 7,100 Rounds per minute was a winner and became standard issue until the F-22. The F-22 by the way had a similar Vulcan Gun, but with longer BBLs and a new even lighter shell that only Massed 84 grams with a new very high energy propellent gave 1,525 M/S!
Thanks for putting this stuff up, really interesting and informative.
Excuse me if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but I think the interpretation of the P(h) column of the chart shown at 5:38 may be probability of hit per rounds fired. For the .50cal it works out to about about 50-67 rounds. Allowing for two the decimal place rounding in P(h), it seems reasonable. For the 20mm it would be about 15-17 rounds. Looking at the weapons characteristics chart at 30:20, it seems that they were trying for some kind of equivalent weight of ammo carried or weight of fire, not equivalent firing time, as it works out to around 3 secs for a .50 cal M3 and 1.2 secs for a 20mm M3.
Hmm, maybe. I actually suggested it's a probability of a hit to that component, but stated it differently. For example, if the prop got hit 16 times and had a 25 percent chance of being hit, that would put the total rounds at 64, which is pretty close to the number you are getting. Of course the total hit is around 70 for the reasons I stated.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Thanks for being kind but I've got to quit eye balling this stuff. Using P(h) as P(h) = probability of hit based on hits/rounds fired doesn't work. The table shows a total of 74 hits for the .50cal and 32 for the 20mm. Using P(h) and number of hits to back out the number of rounds fired gives numbers less than 74 (60) and 32 (16), so just not possible. I do however have an even greater respect for the 20mm since the total P(h) is an amazing 202%, implying 20mm hits damage two components on average (it's "only" 120% for the .50cal, so four hits damage five components). Sorry, mislead by WWII USN where P(h) was used as the probability of hit for each (big gun) round fired.
Please keep these coming, I can't imagine how much time you must put into them.
I’m a new subscriber and love the data, graphics and videos you used!
Nice to hear from you again.
Thanks for Ur video & thanks for clearing up this claim of operational radial engines while having cylinders shot off. If a cylinder was shot off the engine dragging a damaged jack rod through the engine would result in immediate catastrophic failure of the engine.
The reason for the large oil tanks on a radial air-cooled engine was that the oil went from the tank to and through-out the engine, then into the cylinders and out the exhaust. I was told by an A-1 Skyraider (Spad) pilot (a Naval Aviator) that the range and time of flight was limited by the Spad’s oil capacity, not the amount of fuel it could carry for the 2,700 hp Wright R3350-26W Cyclone engine. So oil was carried for planned flight time and reserve fuel amount. But the ability in an emergency to keep going when a liquid cooled in -line would have stopped us a great asset.
I apologize if I missed this in your presentation or the comments.
Your videos are always anticipated and viewed to their fullest. I learn something every time.
That's true about the oil consumption, I talked about it quite a bit in another video. The clearances in those radials were huge.
Good video.. Re the Typhoon at 15:33, nice ;)
(When I sat through a 30 minute video about ww2 gun stats and "whooped" at an RAF plane on it's arse (I did!) it says more about me than other things perhaps, but hey. )
Go Greg. :) )
You may have already known this, but the aircraft M2 had about double the rate of fire found in the ground based M2. I have seen rates quoted between 1000 and 1200 RPM, which may affect "time to kill" calculations
The M3 certainly has a greater rate of fire, around 1200rpm, but it's really a post war gun, think F-86 Sabre.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles M3 sounds like a Mg42 firing
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Ah, I wasn't aware of the differing timeframe. Thanks for the correction!
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobileshe AN/M2 does have a higher ROF than the modern M2HB, but I can’t find information on if the HB has the same ROF as the earlier ground guns.
Wikipedia says AN/M2 had a variable firerate from 750-850 rpm, for whatever that is worth. I’m pretty certain your total RPM is with this number and not the much slower 500 rpm for the ground guns; great video Greg, thanks!
I think the RoF with the .50cal AN/M2 was 750 RPM and later around >850 RPM with the hotter M20 APIT and M23 Incendiary, due to higher chamber pressure.
I thank you for your pasion dedication & hard work in each every aspect of your videos, there are more a in depth documentary rather than any other thing. I love your Chanel & your content. Great ! & Thanks again!!!
Very interesting, I’m partial to the research done by Emmanuel Gustin way back when regarding the optimal fighter gun(20 mm at 850m/s) but you’re totally correct that it’s one thing to do severe damage with a hit and actually hitting an airplane that’s doing evasive maneuvers or just flying while the platform shooting is a vibrating wild hog.
I enjoyed this video so have an Internet point on me🥇
Really interesting stuff, I love how these old report can bring so much life to the subject by showing how things really worked.
Back in the late 70's, I was stationed at March AFB. We were just starting the museum there so we were out going to DM to get some. I did a trip to China lake NAS as a scouting mission for an F-89 they had there and it was in an area where they were testing aircraft survivability. They put aircraft into fixtures, shot at them or did explosives damage while blowing air over that aircraft or componant set. I can't fully remember but they used either a clipped wing KC-97 or B-50 as their wind machine.
Mr. Greg thanks for another great coverage, I've always found interesting when veterans would talk about the missions they have gone through from ww2 and onwards they were always mentioning the sheer effectiveness of 50 cal even later they've flown aircraft with more powerful cannons or sophisticated missile systems. Mr. Greg is there a way for viewers to participate in selecting the topics for videos?
Patreon members get to vote in polls for upcoming videos, so go pay Greg $1-5/month. Then learn to live with the disappointment of choosing the less popular video option.
I do have polls on Patreon to help select topics, that's where this one came from.
Anthony Williams wrote some excellent articles on WW2 aircraft weapons.
One of the reasons the US didn’t embrace the Hispano 20mm to a large degree, the gun that the RAF used to great success, was a manufacturing error that plagued US built Hispano cannons. The US built the Hispano with a bit too much clearance in the receiver. This resulted in a high frequency of misfires or jams. A plane with wing mounted guns, experiencing this malfunction, is in trouble (a jam in the nose mounted Hispano in the P-38 could be cleared by the pilot). Rather than fixing the tolerance error, the US coated the 20mm shells with wax to try and compensate for the clearance issues. Unfortunately this tended to introduce dirt and other contaminants which just exasperated the problem. However as the .50 cal machine guns were getting the job done (the U.S. mostly faced other fighters, or lightly protected bombers), the U.S. mostly stayed with the .50 throughout the war and into the post war period. Also a high rate of fire from multiple .50 cal guns, tends to reward “spray and pray” firing that pilots with minimal or median training/experience. With 6/8 guns, and firing a 5 second burst, a pilot with even mediocre skills has a good likelihood of hitting.
It should be noted that the U.S. Navy saw the need for cannon much sooner than the USAAF/USAF.
This need for a harder punch really becomes apparent in Korea, with the .50 cal F-86, dicing with the 23mm/37mm armed MiG-15. With the higher engagement speeds, getting only a few hits had to really count. In fact, late in the conflict, some USAF F-86s were modified to carry 4x20mm cannon, and higher kill results were seen.
spray and pray also known as accuracy by volume. we have a bullet with your name on it. we just have to find it.
Double problem for the US 20mm....
1) Looser tolerances ( its a cannon not a rapidly reprocicating machine ....err whut ?).
2) In making the US manufacturing plans chamber length was increased by 1/16". This led to extraction problems exerbated by the afformentioned greased ammo.
The Brits were consulted on his problem and as a result chamber length was decreased ....by only 1/32" ( Damn the Brits we're Americans we know Guns). The problems were thus never fully solved and this led the the US fetish for inflight re-cocking devices. ( making installations more weighty and space costly ).
The Navy REALLY wanted a 4x20mm plane armament.
Aah, perfect to listen to over dinner. Ty Greg for another entertaining video.
This is so interesting because a coworker of mine had their air conditioner compressor shot in Chicago by a 9mm and it effectively disabled their Malibu. Because aparently we need a critical cooling component (the water pump) to share the same belt as every single other non critical engine driven accessory these days. I guess gears are too expensive.
Very little armor on the Malibu these days. The old VW bugs are air cooled right? Maybe get one of those?
Good to hear your voice Gregg. Very good stuff
Of course, Greg is great. During WW2 US mathematicians did statistical analysis of various aspects air to air combat involving ballistics. Looks like Greg got his hands on one. Years ago my class used one such study. To go over the statistical analysis that was used.
23:52 Actually 2 hits to the oil tank, and 1 hit to the oil sump which was a B kill. This aligns with your explanation about oil level.
🤔 This study seems to have made the Naval Aviation arm go cannon post war. While USAF fighters in Korea still had .50 Bmg. Navy Panther, Banshees, Fury, Etc. Choose the 20mm.....
Sort of, the F-84 and F-86 did have six 50 cals, but they were M3s with an even higher rate of fire than the typical WW2 50 cals. Then of course they went with 20mm shortly after with the subsequent planes like the F-100 and so on.
After over 30 year's of building and working on Harley engine's, which their basic cylinder construction is very similar to radial aircraft engine's, I've seen some things that if I hadn't seen them keep running with damage and other issues with my own eye's I'd never have believed it, cylinders broken off at the base, faulty machine work inside of engine's or wrong parts installed that led to top ends or flywheel (crankshaft) assemblies running oil starved with some of them running for surprisingly long periods of time, and wherein not an engine I once gave a 4 speed transmission back to a guy I rebuilt and told him he needed to add lube to it when he installed it, in his haste installing it the night before leaving on a road trip with his friend's he forgot to do it, that thing went all the way from southwestern Pa to northern Georgia before it burned up, when assembling one of the pre mid 79 4 speed Harley transmissions there's loose needle bearings that must be packed with grease to hold them in place to assemble one, knowing that I still wouldn't have believed one would go that far without lube in it before gears started locking up on shafts.
I had an engine brought to me once that a guy had been having top end problems with for over 15 year's, he had that thing in shops from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, no less than 5 of them before I took a crack at and found the problem, it'd been built with 84 ci S&S stroker flywheels, even the shops that tore apart most of the bottom end looking for the problem failed to do the last step needed to locate it, split the engine cases and look inside.
When you put stroker flywheels in any big twin from the 36 Knucklehead to the last of the Evo engine's made in 99 there's an area in the right side engine case that needs to be clearenced for the connecting rod pin nut on the right side of the flywheel assembly, the more stroke the further that nut is moved towards the rim of the flywheel, there's a step on the inside of the casting of the right side engine case that the nut will hit when stroker flywheels are used that must be clearemced, it's a pretty simple process that can easily be done with a rotary file and a special tool that has different holes in it for each stroke amount that you stick a scribe in the appropriate hole for whatever stroke your building (I always just clearance them for the biggest stroke possible anyways, it's not like it's really any more work) and swing it through the area to scribe the area needing clearenced, on this engine the guy who owned the shop that did the work in the 80's took it to a place that obviously put an end mill in a vertical milling machine and without using that marking took just hogged out the entire area cutting into an oil passage, on the outside of the right engine case there's a hole that passage leads to with a ⅛" NPT thread a fitting screws into that's the bottom fitting for the external oil line that goes to the rear cylinder rocker box of a 66 to 84 Shovelhead big twin, from the front of the rear rocker box there's a short crossover line that goes to the rear of the front rocker box, that's how oil circulates through everything in the top end, 😢by cutting into that passage inside the right case it essentially oil starved the entire top end of the motor, instead of oil going to the top end it was just pumping it into the bottom end of the engine which of course there was no way of knowing without the explatory surgery I did, neither myself or anyone else around when I found the problem including the owner who'd been riding for years and two other friends of mine who also owned shops could believe that thing ran as long as it did between the issues it'd been having over that 15 year period, you'd think it wouldn't be able to make it across town much less last several years between incidents.
I've seen flywheel assemblies run for years after having the incorrect cam cover gasket put on cone motor Shovelhead engine's, 70 through mid 72 has an oil hole moved, by using the wrong gasket on either a 70 to mid 72 or mid 72 to 84 Shovelhead it'll oil starve the connecting rod roller bearings, without seeing it with my own eyes I'd never believe one could make it through several summers before the bearings went out.
I've had several engine's brought to me with holes burned in pistons from large vacuum leaks causing an excessive lean condition, one actually pulled into my place running after it dropped a cylinder from over 5 miles away, I'll grant you he didn't set a land speed record getting there but it pulled in running after burning a hole in a piston of a 2 cylinder engine, amazing, and considering that the carb and intake are common for both cylinders it's really amazing that it was even running with as much as the power had to be down from one piston having a hole melted in it and the other cylinder running on an excessive lean condition, never would have believed that was possible.
You're absolutely right about dual plugs, the 36 to 84 big twins and the 57 to 85 Sportster engine's are true hemi engine's, when we dual plug them ignition timing can't be run at the stock setting, usually a reduction of around 3 to 4 degrees is necessary to avoid knock and if you drop one side it'll lose power just like doing a mag check before take off.
Just about when i think I've seen it all something else comes along that astounds me, I would not be one bit surprised if radial engine's continued running with a cylinder completely shot off, considering that the 20 and 30mm German shells were explosive I wouldn't doubt a hit straight to a cylinder could blow one off, and there'd be a good chance it'd snap the connecting rod off right at the big end, if that happened you wouldn't have a connecting rod and piston flopping around which from my experiences I can believe one would keep running, given the oil capacity and the fact that they're dry sump engine's I could see one making it back to a base, maybe not across the Channel but after D-Day they were operating from bases in France and Belgium that were sometimes less than 10 minutes to where they were conducting ground attack missions, after some of the things I've seen I can believe one could make a short flight like that back to a forward base, heck in the Pacific Corsair's were bombing targets so close to where they were taking off from they didn't even bother raising their landing gear, after some of the things I've seen I wouldn't discount the stories about them coming back with cylinders shot off, I certainly wouldn't bet against it, heck, Apollo 13 made it back after it blew up and it had to go all the way around the moon from halfway there to do it.
If life's taught me anything it's that anything's possible with machines, the experiences I've conveyed here just scratch the surface of some amazing things I've seen machines survive, like I said just about every time I think I've seen it all something else comes along and surprises me.
love hearing about the bikes. it sounds like you are near western PA as i'm from eastern ohio we have ridden the same roads.
@@mikehenthorn1778
Yep, Fayette County Pa right at the base of the mountains, and I spent 11 years living in Mantua Ohio, just moved back here in the summer of 2019.
What part of Ohio are you from?
@@dukecraig2402 east liverpool. friends in greensburge so i get to visit still.
Duke, you could be right, I'm just saying I haven't seen evidence of this on a WW2 radial, and I have been looking.
Any one that noes about high performance engine better no.... or i got some questions that well be needing an answer ....thats stuff and that you in the 3rd grade....more spark means more bang = more driving force in the downward stroke.... great video 👍👍👍
Love your videos❤
Wonderful - really makes it clear why to M2 was used so much in US Aircraft.
Love the stuff you do...
Great stuff, Greg! Thanks again!
The story of an aircraft making it back with a cylinder or two missing is reiterated in Rudel's book "Stuka Pilot". Where he describes an FW 190 returning from a misson over the Russian Front with several cylinders absent, oil all over the front, but running. Seems it wasn't only the P+W that was "bulletproof " !
Charles Lamb author of _War in a Stringbag_ recounted a Fairey Swordfish shedding a couple of cylinders & still making it back to base.
"shedding". I would like to see the pictures.
Interesting. This whets my appetite for more. Thank you, Greg. :-)
Hi Greg, love your work! I was looking back at some of my resources and a 2-3 second burst against an enemy fighter whose pilot was not asleep was a long burst. A five second burst was more typical against a non manoeuvring bomber target. Many people have seen that slow-mo footage of the FW-190 taking apart a B-17 and think that long bursts were normal but even in the Battle of Britain more experienced pilots told the rookies get in close let loose and get out! I cannot imagine a 20 second burst. Just sit and could how long that was. From what I have read 20 seconds would just about empty the magazines of a P-51D.
It's a question of getting enough rounds out there so you have good statistical data to work with. A two second burst just wouldn't do it for that purpose.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Albeit my knowledge of guns isn't anything that would qualify me as an expert by any means, there are a few factors that makes me inclined to believe that fixed number of bullets has merit.
First of all, there is the issue of repeatability. Unless the various subtests per calibre were similar enough, the results would be of very little use.
That suggests that the tests were not made in the air, but on the ground with both targets and machineguns in predetermined positions using the same orientation each time..
The firing position is bit uncertain, either using single guns in fixed positions (repeatability would suffer if the shooter had to walk the fire into the target) or installed in stationary aircraft to get a more realistic spread as the quality of the individual weapon matters less. Either way, there will no longer be any significant airflow to cool down the relatively thin barrels of aircraft guns (since they are expected to be kept in winds of 80-200 m/s it makes more sense to save weight as cooling is ensured, a point Forgotten Weapons brought up in several of the aircraft gun videos), and that would quickly result in overheating if long, sustained bursts would be used.
A specific amount of ammunition (calculated on a certain time frame for each weapon?) could be spread into shorter bursts, preventing the accuracy loss an overheated barrel would bring. With the weapon fixed in place, the repeated bursts would have little to no effect on the overall result.
Also, it is very hard to accurately repeat a time based length of burst at least 157 times in a row.
lf the suggested methodology makes sense, perhaps that might shed some light on those numbers?
A 20 second burst does seem unlikely, but I could be wrong. Anyway, yes, a dry subject, but absolutely fascinating information generated by the report. This is why I'm subscribed: Dense technical data that has meaningful real world significance. Thanks for all your work, Greg!
**off topic
The AN-225 appears to be in the early stages of either repair or chopping from a recent photo. Left wing is mostly chopped with scaffolding under it. Some nose too with another scaffold.
What made me wonder which is b/c the floor is swept very clean in the hanger. Too clean I think just to be scrapping it out.
Right wing was resting down on it's engines. Photo ended behind wings so can't say about tail. I haven't heard anything besides maybe repair with the sister plane that's lighter or cut it up. I know they have bigger fish to fry right now but something is goin on.
I'm curious what kind of ammo they used in the .50, was the standard mix of AP, inceniary, and tracer? I know this is new, but an All Purpose round wooud be interesting. Army snipers were taking out APCs in Irag with it. BTW, what ever became of the M3 .50 cal?
Dual sparkplugs are very beneficial in large displacement engines, where combustion chamber is quite big and single sparkplug does not provide even and fast combustion. In Engines like R-2800 or V-1650 or any similar engine of that time dual spark was essential for power output. Redundancy is done that way that both magnetos provide spark for every each cylinder so when one is out you still have spark on every cylinder.
This is wonderful. Thank you.
Very interesting topic. One must not forget the importance of convergance. Many of the German WW2 planes, had their armament centered in or around the fuselage. This will make the plane more versatile range wise. In the topic of getting more rounds on target.
Everybody says that, but I'm not so sure it works out that way. The assumption seems to be that planes can't hit beyond their convergence point. That's not the case, the rounds are about the same distance apart at twice the convergence range as they are at point blank range. Thus with a 400 meter convergence, they are good out to at least 800 meters, farther than they could reliably aim anyway.
Considering that the vast majority of air to air kills in that era occurred within a range 300m or less, I doubt that the extra range was any use to any but the most extraordinarily skilled of fighter pilots.
@@Beowulf_DWmost aces hit within the 300 mtr range. Only a few were great at deflection shots.
I opened fire when the whole windshield was black with the enemy . . . at minimum range . . . it doesn't matter what your angle is to him or whether you are in a turn or any other maneuver. Erich hartmann.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles so it could be based on a set of practical rules instead of capabilities. Rules like specified in the dicta boelcke or erich hartmann.
@@Beowulf_DW that equally discounts the effect of central axis armaments, so not that relevant to this point.
About the machinegun accuracy, at 500 yards you can expect at least half of your shots to hit if it is a fixed or mounted MG and the target is stationary or moving predictably.
Excellent presentation.
Great video as always but we’re the cylinder jugs on the 2800 made of cast iron or aluminum?
Great video, Greg. (as always) Thanks. Postulating a 1 in 4 hit ratio for an automatic weapon is wow wow wow optimistic.
Company in town(air north) used to run dc3/4s I used to laugh when they had oil delivered in 205l drums. Then they used a waste oil burner to hear the hangar
The optimum caliber program would also have to look at the increased weight of larger caliber rounds, both for the amount of ammunition the airplane could carry and also the rate of fire. As you said a high rate of fire improved the odds of actually hitting something.
They certainly did, and it's a big part of the next episode.
Top notch, as usual
Excellent video. One remark, the 30mm HE round used by the MK108 and MK103 might be the same, a 330 gram “Minengeschoss” drawn as a thin shell with a lot of explosive in it. The MK108 used this exclusively. There was a conventional HE round for the MK103 too, which was indeed heavier at 433 gram because more metal, less chemical load. There was also a 500 gram APHE.
The MK103 loading of the belt for aircraft targets mixed the four, according to the 1944 official recommendation:
one Sprenggranatpatrone (HE)
one M-Geschosspatrone (high capacity HE)
one Panzersprenggranatpatrone (APHE)
one Panzerbrandsprenggranatpatrone (APHEI)
It's not the round, it's the force behind it, which is much greater in the MK103. I'll cover this in the next video.
Great video. It's quite clear the canons were better overall, but the 50cals worked well enough for the US fighters in WWII. So it's understandable they prioritized fixing other problems with those planes. It wasn't like the situation with the RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes in 1940 that did need something a bit heavier than 30cals to bring down a bomber more quickly.
Great work really good info
Hey Greg, I am a new subscriber, and I find your knowledge and insight amazing!
Some day could you do a video about the series 5 Italian fighters? It is really hard to find good information about them, specially on the Reggiane.
I think I might have missed info regarding a combination of hits. For example, one 20mm round in the wing root is highly unlikely to cause a kill, but it would not be unreasonable to get two or three in the wing root and the wing falls off either immediately or when under high stress.
On the topic of rate of fire and total amount of fire, this is partly why the .60 Cal machine gun program was halted. They found that aircraft could carry far more .50 cal than .60 cal, and that the extra energy didn’t provide enough benefit to justify the drastically reduced capacity and increased weight.
Gran vídeo!😊👍🏻
Is there any documentation on any of the training plans (something akin to a syllabus) for pilots of any nation during WW2? I'd be curious what their training looked like, and the differences between nations. Would be fun to try and build a simulated career centered around it.
I have been looking for such a thing for years. I haven't found it. There is very little documentation on WW2 pilot training. Just a few manuals and what pilots themselves put in their memoirs.
I once heard a story/anecdote about a low flying P-47 being introduced to a brick chimney. The P-47 landed safely and ground crew had to remove the bricks from the cowling and a couple cylinders came detached from the crankcase.
I have seen the pictures of that plane, or at least one that hit a chimney. "detached" is a nebulous word.
I think the big miss here is not adopting the 13.2×99mm Hotchkiss as in the Mitrailleuse d'Avion Browning - F.N. Calibre 13,2 mm. Gives you a higher fire rate Browning that can fire HE.
When flying against the p-47 the most effective tool for the job is the mk108, at least in dcs or il2. Absolutely devastating, especially considering how much mg131 the jug can eat up. Thanks greg
Yes, absolutely, even the Mk108 is devastating when it hits.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Regarding the MK108. When used in a Me262, going at full throttle, people always forget to add aircraft speed to the MV of the MK108. Feks, shooting at a B17 from 90 deg the MV of a 30mm Minengeshoss is app 750ms/2500fps. The trajectory and lead needed in this case are very different than the ballistics people see in tables shot from a static testbarrel.
Per the material by Michael Claringbould, even a P47 could be 'laid low' by Ki43 Oscar. When he did a breakdown on the loss ratio when it was only 'Oscar II' vs Thunderbolt, the ratio was pretty even. I don't know if the 'mark' of Oscar had two 7.7mm machineguns or if it had 2 13mm mgs or a combination of both.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles 'If' it hits. ++ bomber killing gun. against maneuvering fighters, first get your hit...
@@nickmitsialisKi-43-Ic (mark 1c) already had dual jap 0.5cal...so Oscar lI should be using dual 50cal...but they use HEI rounds...
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho-103_machine_gun
Unrelated, but I’d like to see an in depth look at the differences between the Chevy and ford small blocks. I think it would make for a video
Really? I would think there are plenty of videos about that.
Germany used a .60 caliber gun in form of the 15mm MG 151. The US developed and tested a similar gun which like with the MG 151 was turned into a 20mm round.
From what I remember from the document the .60 cal ammunition was pretty much as lethal as the 20mm ammunition.
It has advantages in having higher velocity but I guess a 20mm is just more versatile for all types of targets.
I am 81, and thought I had a pretty good grasp of the guns used on U.S. planes in WW2. However, I never heard of a .60 caliber machine gun. I take it from your comment that .60 caliber is similar in size to 20mm(I don't know my metrics well enough to mentally compare the two sizes). Also, I never understood why the Brits stayed with the .30 caliber.
@@williamromine5715 .60 caliber is roughly equal to 15mm where as .50 caliber would be 12.7mm.
I think the Brits stayed with the .303 because they built so many guns and ammunition and then simply used 20mm cannons as fighter armament.
@@Kuschel_K thanks for the info.
@@williamromine5715 The Brits decided that 20mm was the future rather than a heavier MG in the 50 cal....basically they were using 20mm with the kinks ironed out by mid 41. They didn't stick with 30 cal at all, except in the Spitfire outer bays where they couldn't get another set of 20mm in.
Excellent Topic I Like a Combination of Both 😀😮😊 Greg
I had a Mazda Miata, original 1990 model, at year 9, one cylinder went. it was barely operable, not 75%, but I was lucky to move at 20mph. Somewhere, there was a study for ship-based AA. The 20mm Oerlikon made the most kills, but the 40mm Bofors could make kills before the attacking plane reached weapons release point. At the end of WWII, the smallest gun that could take a VT was the 3in, too big for a single engine fighter. At some point it was possible for 40mm, but is still not an option for 30mm?