The mighty Google tells me that the Australian Spit mk. VIII owned by Colin Pay (ownership transferred to David Lowy in year 2000) seems to have 2*20mm cannons and 4* .303 machine guns installed on it http://www.aviationmuseum.com.au/aircraft/Spitfire.cfm Preeeetty pitures of it in Airliners.net http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.s ... entry=true
[quote="Simonr1978] I've no reason to doubt you but do you have a source for this? [/quote] No prob http://www.supermarine-spitfire.co.uk/marks.html http://www.plane-design.com/documentati ... Manual.pdf http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/we ... wings.html
It is an easy mistake to make though. The cannon stick out of the wing, while the machine guns are fully buried, with the gun ports normally being covered over with red patches.
Those are indeed very pretty pictures. Is that particular Spitfire painted in Royal New Zealand Air Force colors?
I recall the Russian P-39 Aces pulled out all the .50 cals and used the 37mm to great effect :bang: , one round, one kill on a Bf109. No source provided.. http://www.acepilots.com/planes/soviet_ ... cobra.html The 216th Fighter Division (later 9th Guards Fighter Division) flew Airacobras from August, 1942 to the end of the war in May, 1945 and counted 28 aces with at least 15 victories.
The majority of the 4,600 P-39s shipped to the Soviet Union were the highly developed Q-models. Many of these, at Soviet request, lacked the two wing-mounted .50-caliber machine gun pods. The P-39, with its nose armament alone, had devastating air-to-air firepower. A hit on a German bomber with a single 37mm round was frequently sufficient to disable or destroy it. http://www.acepilots.com/planes/p39_airacobra.html The 37 MM turned out to be a very superior weapon, eventually. http://www.chuckhawks.com/airacobra_iron_dog.htm
from the same article.... Also, the 37mm cannon was not an effective air-to-air weapon. Though it might only take one hit to bring down the fragile Zero, the slow rate of fire and drooping trajectory made that one hit improbable.
Yes, the second article talks about the Russians ease of hitting a bomber with it. Aerial warfare over the Eastern Front was particularly suited to the Airacobra. There was no long-range, high-level, strategic bombing, only tactical bombing at intermediate and low altitudes. On this battlefield the P-39 matched, and in some areas surpassed, early and mid-war Bf-109s. And it had no trouble dispatching Ju-87 Stukas or twin-engine bombers. Five out of the ten highest scoring Soviets aces logged the majority of their kills in P-39s. In fact, P-39 jockeys filled the number two, three, and four spots: Aleksandr Pokryshkin (59), Aleksandr Gulaev (57), and Grigoriy Rechkalov (56).
its ironic ,the brits wanted no part of the aircobra and usaac pilots posted to the sw pacific in cobra squadrens were i dire straights indeed ..a run in with a zero was virtually certain death and several were shot down while dogfighting with fixed gear , jap dive bombers which outmanouvered and flamed the hapless cobra pilots with their FRONT fireing machine guns .. the aac cobras guns ( which sadly , included the heavy wing guns ) would be truely devestating to any jap plane that would be so obligeing as to just hold still ,alas very few ijn pilots were so inclined ...
I have Combat Flight Sim 2 WW2 Pacific Theater, and when flying the P39, although it is hopeless against fighters it sure makes a mess out of any "Betty" medium bomber :bang: .
There was one USAAF ace in the P-39N. I'm building a Hasegawa 1/48 scale model of his aircraft. This is the first P-39 I've ever built... what a beautiful plane and a marvelous kit. "Thumbs-up!" Tim
You shoud try "Il-2 forgotten battles" and new game compatible with it "Pacific figters". Yep i does make a mess of He-111.
Lt. William F. Fiedler Jr. of the 347th Fighter Group-68-70th Fighter Squadron was the lone USAAF Airacobra ace. He flew a P-39N against the Japanese at Guadalcanal 1943. Tim
I have it. I also have both sims i mentioned and CFS II. Il-2 is much better. Il-2 Pacific fighters is also on the same level as Il-2 ( same tim ) and is compatible with Il-2FB. The only problem is that i have first version of pacific fighters without addons which is a bit poor on missions ( you can fly USAAF, RAAF, RAF, RN, ML-KNIL, IJA, and IJN).