The 20mm Hispano was drum fed as designed. The drum wouldn't fit in the wing upright as it was designed to be used. When the gun was turned partially on its side to make it fit in the wing it jammed frequently. The lump on the top of the Spitfire's wing is for the drum which still stuck up a bit even turned on its side.
Correct answer, TA. Poor 19 Squadron struggled with the 20mm cannon and when asked for their recommendations suggested ' Give us back our 8-Browning Mk Is...' and that's just what happened. Over to you......
Ok, time for a bit more of a brain teaser. What was the standard US disappearing gun mount design for coastal defense weapons during this period?
Boy, ask a simple question.....what an underwhelming response..... Anyway it was the Buffington-Crozier mount used for everything from 6" to 16" rifles as a "disappearing" mount. Ok, a really easy one: How did the German 81mm bouncing bomb work?
That's part of the answer, but even right-way up the RAF found constant problems with making the gun work reliably. The reason was that it was designed to be bolted firmly to an engine block, and relied on the stiffness that provided. Wings are much less stiff... Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum
After Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb breached the Mohne and Eder Dams on the night of 16 May 1943, the Germans decided to make a bouncing bomb of their own. Their bomb, given the name Kurt, was built at the Luftwaffe Experimental Centre at Travemunde. It was intended that it would skip along the surface of the water and explode when it hit a ship. Early experiments showed it to be dangerous for the crew of the plane delivering it because it would explode when the plane was more or less over the ship. To increase the range at which it was dropped, a rocket tail unit was fitted. This too had its problems because it affected the consistency of the direction. In the end, it was abandoned and never became operational. Is that enough?
And all this has what to do with the 8.1cm bouncing bomb? S0rrry, too much ovodka....see the thing of soviet gnenrals....
Oh, sorry about that. The "bouncing" 8.1cm round worked by having a small black powder charge in the nose which detonated on impact throwing the bomb back up into the air 2 - 4 meters where the main fuze (having been initiated by the impact too) went off causing this round to have an air burst effect making it more useful against infantry in the open. One problem with it was it didn't work well on soft ground and the bouncing effect was somewhat erratic. The round was issued in small numbers operationally in late 1943 - 44 before being discontinued.
Saw a photo in a book called HOW WEAPONS WORK of a soldier (can't remember nationality) putting? dropping? a mortar round into the tube, but it did not look like it would have gone all the way down the tube because there was a large spherical object at the end of it (the round)which also looked like it had some sort of detonator on the huge "ball" end of it. Was this the "bouncer" or something else???
What is the armor penetration of a US M18 57mm recoilless rifle HEAT round? (Arguement with friend on this so more info would help....)
