Air to air missiles on biplanes & synchronised gatlings

[pyro-manic]

The British recoilless gun was to be 4.5" calibre. Never actually built AFAIK.

[rickshaw]

If you are going to use floats, put the miniguns on top of the floats, outside the propeller arc.  They could be placed well back from the front of the floats to protect against spray.  Being naval of course, I'd expect them to be made of non-corrosive bronze, anyways. 

A large calibre recoilless weapon would make a good substitute for rockets or even a torpedo, particularly against U-Boats.

I really can't see a Sidewinder fluttering too much at 150mph or less, Weaver.  Anyway, what stopped the aeroelastic twisting of the Swordfish wing with RPs?   I suspect we are forgetting how tough the Swordfish actually was.

Anyway, all we seem to be doing is adding more hard things to be hit and damaged in the Swordfish!   

[Dizzyfugu]

Hmmm, I just visualize a Swordfish with two or four HUGE recoilless cannons (3-4" caliber) under its wings... 

[Weaver]

The original recoilless gun, the Davis gun, was an aircraft weapon for use on WWI biplanes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_gun

[Weaver]

I really can't see a Sidewinder fluttering too much at 150mph or less, Weaver.  Anyway, what stopped the aeroelastic twisting of the Swordfish wing with RPs?   I suspect we are forgetting how tough the Swordfish actually was.

3" RPs were way smaller, in particular shorter, than a Sidewinder at 4'7" long and 88lb and were supported by a launch rail whose mounting points were near the ends of the RP. A Sidewinder would protrude way beyond the leading and trailing edges of the wing, and therefore beyond any possible mounting points (remember the rear mounting point has to be in front of the flap/aileron hinge). Sidewinders are usually mounted on jet fighters which have to have wings that are very torsionally stiff to resist aileron reversal at the kind of speeds they fly at. It's the very fact that the Swordfish was so slow that makes me wonder how torsionally stiff it's wing was.

Not saying it definately would be problem (havn't got the numbers for that), but if your were doing it for real it would definately be a factor worth looking at in flight test/weapon clearance.

[Rheged]

How about a Molins gun or two mounted in a Vickers Victoria  (that big bulbous nose is crying out for some ordnance)  or  even Sidewinders under the wings of a Vimy?

[PR19_Kit]

(that big bulbous nose is crying out for some ordnance)

You could get a 25 pdr in there, or even a 5.5 Medium with a bit of a squeeze. Whether the Vic would fly is sometihing else entirely of course. 

[NARSES2]

(that big bulbous nose is crying out for some ordnance)

You could get a 25 pdr in there, or even a 5.5 Medium with a bit of a squeeze. Whether the Vic would fly is sometihing else entirely of course. 

It might fly a couple of yards backwards when fired....just before it fell apart

[zenrat]

Excellent spitballing folks.  This is all great food for thought.  I used Swordfish and Sidewinder because they were the first names that came to mind.  It could easilly end up being Archers mounted on an He61.

[Weaver]

If you've got biplanes with missiles shooting at other biplanes with missiles, then the requirements for those missiles might be significantly different from those that real, jet-age missiles had to meet. They wouldn't need to be anywhere near as fast for a start, and that would mean they'd be shorter (good) but with bigger wings (bad). Also, if the technological mix was different enough to lead to this scenario, then you'd have to decide what guidance systems were and were not available and how effective they'd be. It might be the case, for example, that only wire or radio command guidance was available, but then at combat speeds of less than 200mph, and relative speeds down into double figures, that might be quite effective.

[PR19_Kit]

Prop driven missiles? 

[TallEng]

Prop driven missiles? 

Now there's a thought
They could be powered by those 2stroke type engines as used in Radio controlled Models.
Some of them fly pretty fast, of course they couldn't be radio controlled as the servos and receivers
Hadn't been invented then ( I think ) or if they had, they would be too big. But you could make them
Wire guided maybe? Like control line models, in actual fact you could probably build them out of Balsa as well

Regards
Keith

[Rheged]

Prop driven missiles?  

Now there's a thought
They could be powered by those 2stroke type engines as used in Radio controlled Models.
Some of them fly pretty fast, of course they couldn't be radio controlled as the servos and receivers
Hadn't been invented then ( I think ) or if they had, they would be too big. But you could make them
Wire guided maybe? Like control line models, in actual fact you could probably build them out of Balsa as well

Regards
Keith

Wire guided?  Purely for guidance, or would the wire itself act as an offensive weapon------all those fragile fabric wings and wooden props thrashing about!

[Weaver]

Well there have been propellor-driven "missiles" including early "cruise missiles" and, IIRC (at work without my reference books) a WWII proposal for a prop-driven, anti-aircraft "robot plane" that was to be radio controlled from a modified Defiant flying alongside the target bombers.... (think there's something about it in BSP4)

[NARSES2]

Don't forget the original A to A missiles were the Le Prieur rockets used by the French and Brits as balloon busters in WWI