.50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

Please can anybody tell me - during this period US fighters were armed with wing mounted .50 Brownings - were the weapons fed by drum or belt ? What sort of capacity in either case ?
thanks

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

nobody ?

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

Hi Pete.
Had you any fighter in mind? From 1922 to 1938 standard armament ( in noses) was 1x .30 and 1x .50 or 2 x .50s; wing guns when fitted were .30s. The P-40D (1941) and Kittyhawk I had wing .50s with 281 rpg. in belts with feed chutes.
The 6 wing guns on P-51s from 1941 had 500 rpg (inboard) (400 later) and 270 rpg in centre and outboard.
First P-47s 267 rpg or 300 (if 6 guns) and 425 (if 8).
As per the manuals. Presumaby these were max. loads.

Nick

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

I'm not aware of any drum fed .50 used in fighters.

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

Thanks guys, I guess I was pondering the P-40 types particularly. Thanks for your help.

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

I found in technical manual of each P40

P 40, B, C, G: 2x .50 synchronized(fuselage), 380rds per gun (and 2 or 4 .30cal on wing)

P 40D: 4x .50 , 615rds/gun

P 40E up to N, 6x .50, 235rds/gun (1410 total in normal load) and 281 rds(1686 total as overload)
first N model are delivered with 4 guns had 940 rds (1206 overload)

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

Hi. I'm curious as to where you got the idea that many 0.5 inch machine guns were drum-fed. (Please, no insult is intended, this is just a question.)

I thought about the Vickers 0.5inch mgs on naval mountings and they appear to be drum canisters; but in reality were belt-fed rounds wrapped in a circular container for storage.

The French used 300-round drum magazines for their Darne and then MAC1934 machine-guns; but these were rifle calibre 7.5mm. The British/Commonwealth used drum canisters/magazines for their 0.303 inch Lewis and Vickers K aircraft guns on flexible mounts. The LRDG and SAS used both Vickers K and 0.5inch guns on their trucks (possibly with drum and circular-belt magazines) - as well as a lot of other captured weapons.

The closest thing I had heard of to a US drum magazine was the "horseshoe" extended magazine used for the 37mm cannon in the later P-39s and P-63s.

Regards,
...geoff

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

Thanks waroff

Hi Bearoutwest, Perhaps my question would have been better if it was more briefly worded, ie: how were the guns fed?

I made no speculation that many were fed by any particular means just asking for advice on how the job was done.

Re: .50 armament on US fighters 1939-41
 

Cool.
Here I was, hoping you'd discovered something interesting about early US 0.50-inch machine gun ammo-feeds. :D


...geoff