Machine Guns and Cannons (Ground, Vehicle, and Aircraft Mounted Weapons)

[PR19_Kit]

Or a Vulcan, back in the days when B-52's carried them.

I'm having this vision of a B-52 with an AVRO Vulcan perched on top and I'm thinking 'Say WHAT?'       

[Gondor]

Or a Vulcan, back in the days when B-52's carried them.

I'm having this vision of a B-52 with an AVRO Vulcan perched on top and I'm thinking 'Say WHAT?'       

I had the same problem until I realised that Old Wombat was referring to the self defence rear gun in the tail.

Gondor

[Howard of Effingham]

Or a Vulcan, back in the days when B-52's carried them.

I'm having this vision of a B-52 with an AVRO Vulcan perched on top and I'm thinking 'Say WHAT?'       

I had the same problem until I realised that Old Wombat was referring to the self defence rear gun in the tail.

thanks to those who answered my q's here. the wording of the reply from old wombat had me laughing loudly too until i'd got his drift
but then again I did once know a chap who'd actually been a B-52 gunner right up to the time the USAF chopped this 'trade'. apparently when they withdrew B-52 gunners they were allowed to pick themselves [within reason] their next service assignment so my friend then chose to fly
in AC-130's iirc as a sensor op'.

when I was typing my q originally, I was thinking of say a AW Meteor NF11 type a/c or DH mosquito NF30 modified to include a RAF version of 'schrage musik' up against a raid by soviet heavy bombers in the late 1940's to early 1950's. my idea was partly inspired
by the pictures in chris gibson's  of the green mace AA gun.

[Weaver]

Problem with that is that the only Soviet target aircraft that wouldn't present the speed differential problem was the Tu-4 Bull, and being based on a B-29, it had two ventral gun turrets each armed with 2 x 23mm cannon with a lot more range and hitting power than the original .50cals. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't be mad-keen to formate on that at close range.

Schrage Musik was really a specialised solution designed to exploit the weak spot presented by the RAF bombers' lack of ventral guns. Take away the weak spot and you take away it's raison d'etre. There were a number of such scheme studied post-war, including batteries of ADEN cannon and upwards-firing rocket batteries. None of them were judged to be viable, however.

[NARSES2]

Was Schrage Musik only used on night fighters ?

As for Britain's armed forces and calibres the Sten gun was designed to use the huge stocks of Italian 9mm ammo captured in N Africa or so I was always told. Came in handy when we supplied it to resistance fighters in Europe as well afterwards

[Librarian]

I've always thought that a nasty trick would be to take advantage of fighters trying to pick off stragglers. Have a bomber act like a lame duck behind the others (under remote control) but in reality its a flying Claymore...might not be too effective but it would give subsequent intercepting pilots something to worry about.

[rickshaw]

Great Britain and most of the commonwealth used the a .303 version of the Browning M1919 in their aircraft and on Lease Lend vehicles like the Sherman the .30'06 version and in UK made vehicles the BESA in 7.92mm a cezch design (Like the Bren). It always struck me as strange that they didn't standardise onto a .303 Browning and introduce a ground mounted one to come between the Bren and the Vickers!

What Rickshaw said, plus the .303 Browning was a specifically RAF project for the purposes of arming the new 8-gun fighters, and inter-service rivalry being what it was (and is) that alone would be enough to ensure that the other two services wouldn't take it. As for the rest of the calibre mish-mash, well most of it happened after the war had started or immediately before, and getting things into production was more important than spending agesw redesigning them to different calibres. In the case of the BESA, I beleive it could have been converted, but they elected not to because it wasn't seen as cost-effective: the tank Corps had a different logistics structure from the infantry anyway, so the fact that 7.92mm BESA was specific to tanks wasn't seen as a big deal.

The British Army in many ways had an over-abundance of excellent weapons.  I know a lot of people deride that service but when you look at it's machine guns you had the Bren, the BESA and the Vickers, all superb weapons in their classes.   They were extraordinarily reliable and had very good rates of fire.  Only the Germans had as good.  The Brownings were good weapons but despite their designer's reputation weren't as well designed (try and change a barrel on one and you'll understand what I mean) nor as reliable.  The .30 cal had a higher ROF and the .50 cal a harder hitting round, but they never gained the reputations the other three had.  The Vickers could outrange the .50 cal.  The Bren was more accurate than the .30 cal.

[rickshaw]

Was Schrage Musik only used on night fighters ?

As for Britain's armed forces and calibres the Sten gun was designed to use the huge stocks of Italian 9mm ammo captured in N Africa or so I was always told. Came in handy when we supplied it to resistance fighters in Europe as well afterwards

The Sten was the "Woolworth's gun" - cheap, cheerful and nasty.  It was, particularly in it's earlier versions as dangerous to the user as the intended target, all too often.  It's chief advantage was that it was available and it worked (most of the time) when Britain desperately needed an SMG.   Most of the war was spent trying to find a successor to it.   It came over very badly compared to either the German MP40 or the Australian Owen gun in trials we carried out downunder (when Army was trying to resist the Owen's adoption strenuously - they wanted either the Sten or the Army's own designed weapon, the Austen which was an even cheaper produced Australian version of the Sten).  The Sten was badly built and very prone to both stoppages and slam-fires (where the bolt would be half-cocked by movement of the weapon and this would result in a round being loaded and fired without the owner being able to stop it), because of the lack of a very good safety mechanism.

The one chief advantage of the Sten was that it wasn't very fussy about who's ammunition was used in it.  It's very poor quality allowed it to accept and fire German, Italian, British or almost anyone else's without a worry, whereas most other SMGs were much fussier.   Interestingly, Hollywood were the ones to develop the safest way of holding the Sten and firing it, by the magazine.  The service manuals had the holder holding it around the cooling jacket it in such a way that they were likely to lose the tip of their left-hand's (assuming they were right-handed) little finger which often inadvertently would fall into the ejection port, where the bolt would come forward on firing and smash it.  The only problem with holding it by the magazine was that the magazine would often be pulled off, because the magazine catch was so weak.

All these problems were fixed in it's successor, the Patchett, which saw limited use in late 1944-45.  The Patchett was further developed into the Stirling, an excellent weapon by all accounts but by then, the days of the SMG were numbered.  A new kid had arrived on the block, the Assault Rifle.

[Go4fun]

I'll stick to putting a Gatling cannon on a zeppelin. Well, sort of a zeppelin and sort of a Gatling cannon.

[scooter]

All these problems were fixed in it's successor, the Patchett, which saw limited use in late 1944-45.  The Patchett was further developed into the Stirling, an excellent weapon by all accounts but by then, the days of the SMG were numbered.  A new kid had arrived on the block, the Assault Rifle.

There are still times an SMG is preferable over an assault rifle, urban warfare in particular and certain security scenarios.  After 9/11, as a Guardsman we were tasked with supporting the Port Authority of NY and NJ with infrastructure security.  One of those tours included trolling through the non-secure areas of Newark Airport's terminals, and at Teterboro.  Lugging around an M-16A1 (Hey, we're the National Guard- we don't get the nifty toys the Active Duty gets) through the terminal areas or driving around with them was awkward to say the least.  Either an MP-5/UMP or variable rate of fire Thompson would have been much more preferable over a long rifle in such close confines.

[Old Wombat]

The Sten was the "Woolworth's gun" - cheap, cheerful and nasty.  It was, particularly in it's earlier versions as dangerous to the user as the intended target, all too often.

My father told me a story about when he was doing firearms training for the Czech resistance; K98, Lee-Enfield, MG34/42, Bren gun, not a problem (except a somewhat sore shoulder from the K98, which he said kicked like a mule).

Then it was SMG's; MP40 - no problem, PPShK - no problem, Sten - he's flat on his back with the Sten emptying the last of its mag behind him.

Instead of firing a short burst as intended the Sten had (sorry, I forget the actual term) just gone mad & emptied its entire mag, even after he had taken his finger off the trigger, even after it had flown out of his hand onto the ground behind him.

He was 16 at the time.

[Weaver]

Great Britain and most of the commonwealth used the a .303 version of the Browning M1919 in their aircraft and on Lease Lend vehicles like the Sherman the .30'06 version and in UK made vehicles the BESA in 7.92mm a cezch design (Like the Bren). It always struck me as strange that they didn't standardise onto a .303 Browning and introduce a ground mounted one to come between the Bren and the Vickers!

What Rickshaw said, plus the .303 Browning was a specifically RAF project for the purposes of arming the new 8-gun fighters, and inter-service rivalry being what it was (and is) that alone would be enough to ensure that the other two services wouldn't take it. As for the rest of the calibre mish-mash, well most of it happened after the war had started or immediately before, and getting things into production was more important than spending agesw redesigning them to different calibres. In the case of the BESA, I beleive it could have been converted, but they elected not to because it wasn't seen as cost-effective: the tank Corps had a different logistics structure from the infantry anyway, so the fact that 7.92mm BESA was specific to tanks wasn't seen as a big deal.

The British Army in many ways had an over-abundance of excellent weapons.  I know a lot of people deride that service but when you look at it's machine guns you had the Bren, the BESA and the Vickers, all superb weapons in their classes.   They were extraordinarily reliable and had very good rates of fire.  Only the Germans had as good.  The Brownings were good weapons but despite their designer's reputation weren't as well designed (try and change a barrel on one and you'll understand what I mean) nor as reliable.  The .30 cal had a higher ROF and the .50 cal a harder hitting round, but they never gained the reputations the other three had.  The Vickers could outrange the .50 cal.  The Bren was more accurate than the .30 cal.

Plus the .30 cal Browning was rather too heavy and awkward to carry to be an easily portable belt-feed MMG to sit between the Bren and the Vickers. For that role, you'd really need something more akin to the post-war FN MAG, i.e. something closer to a belt-fed Bren than a lightweight Vickers.

Worth pointing out that for all the awesome reputation of the MG-34 and MG-42, the German army still used thousands of Czech Vz.26s (the original 7.92mm weapon that was evolved into the Bren) throughout the war.

[Weaver]

Interestingly, Hollywood were the ones to develop the safest way of holding the Sten and firing it, by the magazine.  The service manuals had the holder holding it around the cooling jacket it in such a way that they were likely to lose the tip of their left-hand's (assuming they were right-handed) little finger which often inadvertently would fall into the ejection port, where the bolt would come forward on firing and smash it.  The only problem with holding it by the magazine was that the magazine would often be pulled off, because the magazine catch was so weak.

It may have been safer for your fingers, but my understanding is that holding the magazine was pretty much guaranteed to get you a mis-feed in short order which could get you killed, so it was hardly a good alternative. The best user option was to hold the gun as instructed and make damned sure you DIDN'T get your fingers in the ejection port, and the best design solution was the front handle seen on some later marks.

All these problems were fixed in it's successor, the Patchett, which saw limited use in late 1944-45.  The Patchett was further developed into the Stirling, an excellent weapon by all accounts but by then, the days of the SMG were numbered.  A new kid had arrived on the block, the Assault Rifle.

And of course, Austalia developed the F1 SMG from the Sterling, by rotating it's magazine to the vertical position, (as per the Owen Gun) fitting it with the grip and trigger group from the SLR, and giving it a straight-through stock and raised sights.

[rickshaw]

Interestingly, Hollywood were the ones to develop the safest way of holding the Sten and firing it, by the magazine.  The service manuals had the holder holding it around the cooling jacket it in such a way that they were likely to lose the tip of their left-hand's (assuming they were right-handed) little finger which often inadvertently would fall into the ejection port, where the bolt would come forward on firing and smash it.  The only problem with holding it by the magazine was that the magazine would often be pulled off, because the magazine catch was so weak.

It may have been safer for your fingers, but my understanding is that holding the magazine was pretty much guaranteed to get you a mis-feed in short order which could get you killed, so it was hardly a good alternative. The best user option was to hold the gun as instructed and make damned sure you DIDN'T get your fingers in the ejection port, and the best design solution was the front handle seen on some later marks.
[/quote

Yes, but Hollywood wasn't worried about such things...

All these problems were fixed in it's successor, the Patchett, which saw limited use in late 1944-45.  The Patchett was further developed into the Stirling, an excellent weapon by all accounts but by then, the days of the SMG were numbered.  A new kid had arrived on the block, the Assault Rifle.

And of course, Austalia developed the F1 SMG from the Sterling, by rotating it's magazine to the vertical position, (as per the Owen Gun) fitting it with the grip and trigger group from the SLR, and giving it a straight-through stock and raised sights.

No, the F1 SMG was not developed from the Sterling.  It was developed completely independently and while it looked superficially similar was a completely different gun.  The only thing it shared with the Sterling was the magazine, which was exactly the same to allow a degree of commonality.  The F1 was pretty unique and had perhaps the strongest safety catch in any SMG - it was a modified L1a1 rifle one and came complete with the pistol grip which was taken lock, stock and barrel (more of less) from the L1a1, as was the butt.   The F1 consisted of five major pieces of metal and wood - butt, body, bolt, trigger group/pistol grip and magazine.  I used to instruct Army Reserve (roughly equivalent to the Territorials) recruits on the F1 and my favourite trick was cutting down Figure 11 targets at the range.  Most impressive for them.   

If there was an ancestor to the F1 it was the Owen.  The F1 wasn't designed as well for mass production (quite a bit more machining was required) but it was as rugged and nearly as reliable.   Of the two, I preferred the Owen (which I had a fairly unique opportunity to fire, as it was when I served some 15+ years out of service), as it was a slightly heavier weapon and so more accurate.  You could also fire it without the butt if you really wanted to, something you couldn't do with the F1, as the butt formed the end cap on the body.   My only real criticism of the F1s design was the poor choice to use a non-folding cocking handle (an L1a1 one which was fixed open).  It made it carrying slung across the back uncomfortable.  I always felt that was poor ergonomics, the Owen's was fixed but it was inclined so it didn't dig into your back all the time.

So, the F1 shared its wooden butt, it's pistol grip, cocking handle and trigger assembly and it's barrel (while 9mm it was bored out) with the L1a1 so it achieved considerable economies of scale.  It's body consisted of a simple tube with cut outs for the magazine housing, the trigger sear and the ejection port.  The body was closed off at the front by the barrel/breech, which was held inside a cooling jacket with machined holes in it (which was what you held) and at the rear with an end cap with the butt directly attached to it.  The bolt had helical grooves in it to help clear any mud/obstructions which might have got in. 

Either way, the effective range of a 9mm SMG is only about 25 metres.  Outside of urban combat or thick jungle, that is way too short to be used generally.   Oh, and the old question, "Why is the F1 magazine curved?  So if the enemy is more than 25 metres away you can throw it at them and if you miss, it will come back!"   

[rickshaw]

All these problems were fixed in it's successor, the Patchett, which saw limited use in late 1944-45.  The Patchett was further developed into the Stirling, an excellent weapon by all accounts but by then, the days of the SMG were numbered.  A new kid had arrived on the block, the Assault Rifle.

There are still times an SMG is preferable over an assault rifle, urban warfare in particular and certain security scenarios.  After 9/11, as a Guardsman we were tasked with supporting the Port Authority of NY and NJ with infrastructure security.  One of those tours included trolling through the non-secure areas of Newark Airport's terminals, and at Teterboro.  Lugging around an M-16A1 (Hey, we're the National Guard- we don't get the nifty toys the Active Duty gets) through the terminal areas or driving around with them was awkward to say the least.  Either an MP-5/UMP or variable rate of fire Thompson would have been much more preferable over a long rifle in such close confines.

I agree in part.  I'd prefer a carbine but not the M4, which is really just a large calibre SMG anyway.  It's barrel is too short IMO.   I like the Steyr AUG F88 carbine which we use downunder.  As short as an SMG with a useful barrel length and a full calibre round.    It's also highly visible, so acts as a visible deterrent, whereas the short MP5s look like toys (but aren't).   The 9mm round is really too weak to be effective.  A modicum of armour can stop it (in Korea, when Chinese or North Korean troops wore their quilted cotton winter clothing, there were numerous accounts of them being short by soldiers with Owen guns and them getting up and continuing to charge.  The cold weather affected the 9mm ammunition and gave it a significantly lower MV and the cotton padding was sufficient to stop it.  I've seen 9mm in warm weather stopped by two wet woollen blankets in demonstrations).  5.56x45mm SS109 won't allow that except if you're wearing real armour.

You do need a handier weapon but one that is still powerful enough to knock down anybody but the best armoured opponent IMO.