[Bruce Dennis]

Hello Graham et al,
I think the engineering questions and the historical data should be separated: I suggest that the only reason guns were ever put in wings in the first place was because the front of the plane was taken up with the engine and prop. As soon as jet propulsion was reliable enough, single-engined fighters appeared with the guns back in front of the pilot. There was no longer any need to put them in the wings, but designers would have done so if there had been an advantage to exploit.

Having said that, I don’t want you to think that I am blind to the reasons for guns to be wing mounted. That was a simple place to put them, the armourers wouldn’t be tripping over the erks servicing the engine, and in all probability, it was cheaper. Aerodynamically, if the wing concept had a thick enough cross section, there was no penalty to pay in that respect either. One point I had forgotten until this interesting thread came along was that with wing-mounted guns it was generally possible to store the ammunition perpendicular to the CG. While this didn’t alter the fact that several hundred pounds of ammunition might be outboard (in the wings), it was better than having it in the nose.

Bruce