Wing 20mm Cannons on FW190

[Jon]

Can some one please tell me where the compressed air bottle to activate the wing cannons on a FW190A-5 were situated...obviously in the wing but where exactly?

Also in general : If a cannon was armed on the ground and cocked by the armourer before take off and, i assume the cannon, on firing reloaded and cocked itself due to the blow back from the round infront when fired, like on any self loading weapon....what exactly did the compressed air bottle do?

[cproyston]

See attached scan for locations: - Source: AJ-Press Fw 190 A,F,G Pt 2, ISBN 83 86208 19 8

Hope this helps,

Chris

[cproyston]

Actually managed to attach the file this time!

Item 16 appears to be the air bottle,

Chris

[dufleuve]

Actually, the guns were cocked just before use. Having the guns at ready when taking off is not really safe...
Activating a switch on the armament panel cocked the gun, either electrically or pneumatically. MG151/20 were generally electrically cocked trough the ADSK-B and ED151 devices, while the MG FF used compressed air. Same system cocked the gun in case of misfire.
If you want the full details, buy some repro of the original manuals of the MG FF and MG 151/20 ( if you can read german of course)

Cheers,
Pascal

[Jon]

Thanks for the answer dufleuve.
Can i ask another question you may have the answer to.

The inboard 20mm cannons fire through the Propellor as do the MG17's or 131's depending on the mark. Obviously the 20mm and the machineguns had a very different rate of fire, how did the disruption gear account for two different weapons potentially firing at the same time with different firing times!! this must have effected the potential performance of the FW190 ?

[George Hopp]

Since the interrupter gear for the cowling guns and for the inner cannon simply shut off the current to the guns as the propeller blade swept into each weapon's danger area, it didn't affect the performance of the a/c, but did slow down the cyclic rate of the synchronized weapons.