[Graham Boak]

My apologies: I was thinking of the tank before the pilot as the only Hurricane tank.

The Hispano was a heavy gun: Perhaps the Hurricane Mk.IIc manual quotes the masses of guns (or the Spitfire equivalent). I'll dig them out later. Laddie Lucas on Malta was critical of the 4-cannon Spitfire Mk.V, and guns were removed from the Takali-based fighters (not always the outer ones). The Admiralty agreed that although they had required 4 cannon on the Seafire (to take care of BV shadowers on the Actic convoys), the handling and performance were too limited and the service aircraft was restricted to two.

There is a classic historial argument against placing any guns in the wings of fighters, on the grounds of the moments of inertia restricting the agility. Yakovlev (and apparently Lavochkin, judging from his designs) were entirely opposed, although the lighter and smaller Russian cannon would have been less restrictive than the long heavy Hispano. Messerschmitt also disapproved, and the loss in agility from the gondolas on the Gustav are, I think, well recorded in Luftwaffe memoirs. The Fw 190 suffered less, but it did have superb ailerons. Even so some examples were seen without the outer guns, and not just the fighter-bombers.

Today I was looking at the Haynes manual for the Hurricane: it has a lot of interesting items, and some previously unpublished photos. However, from memory, it also has a cutaway for the Mk.IIc. I saw it in WHSmiths at Deepdale, Preston, so presumably it is quite common elsewhere.