[Johnny .45]

-Bill: Where is this "Flight" website? Do you think it has a cutaway diagram of a "C" wing Hurricane? Because that's one important piece I'm missing. I'm pretty limited in my resources...I have a cheap book of cutaways, but the only Hurricane they show is the "A" version, with the 8 x .303 Brownings. I'm very curious to see how the design changed between the "A", "B", and "C" versions.

-Graham: First, where did you get the idea that the Hurricane didn't have wing-tanks? It did have tanks in the wings....34.5 Imperial gallons per wing. In fact, I was just reading somewhere the other day that although the fuselage tank was notorious for turning the cockpit into an incinerator if it was ignited, many pilots considered the real vulnerable spot to be the wing tanks. I guess for an enemy on your six, the wing tanks are a lot easier to hit! All the same, I think I'd prefer to have a spar burned through than to have my LEGS burned through. Which did happen...I've heard some pretty gruesome tales about pilots caught for even a few seconds in the cockpit of a Hurricane one the flames started coming through the bulkhead.
As for the ammo capacity of the 4 vs 2 cannon Spitfires, I think I have a pretty good idea...Mk V with "B" wings had a single Hispano in each wing, each with a 60-round drum. When they went to the "C" ("Universal") wing, the 4-cannon types had box-magazines with 120 linked rounds per gun, for a total of 480 rounds (a pretty good leap!). However, I don't know whether the "C" types with both .303 Brownings and cannons used the space in the second gun-bay to give each of the two Hispanos 240 rounds or not. I've never heard it before....probably a weight thing? Two .303's with 350 rounds each probably weighs close to a single Hispano with 120 rounds.
So, basically a Hispano with belt-feed (i.e. any type after the "B" wing) has a MINIMUM of 120 rpg....the only guns that held only 60 were the early drum-fed ones. Here's a good site that someone directed me to a while back...
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/conc...ing-types.html
That's the sort of article I need to find for the Hurricane!

(Correcting my original post...the box magazines held 120 rounds per gun, not 125. I was thinking of the outer-wing guns of the Fw 190)

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