[C19fan]

What an interesting story. Who says math is not useful. Spitfires and Hurricanes would have been seriously short of firepower if only armed with 4 .303 machine guns. I believe the original designs called for a cannon through the nose but the Brits could never work that out.

[mad_as_he$$]

Thanks for posting this.

[mad_as_he$$]

Thanks for posting this.

[Fresh Wind]

Awesome photos!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Popular Mechanics had an interesting article on fighter aircraft armament in 1942. They tried to reduce firepower to horsepower, by rating horsepower of the various armaments, an admittedly inadequate metric.

The Germans and Japanese favored heavier caliber guns with lower rates of fire, good for lobbing shells at bomber formations from a distance, and carrying a high explosive charge in order to do damage when they hit. 30-caliber seems like a pea shooter by comparison. The Americans tended to use Browning 50-cal for fighters, with six or eight on the wings. The P-38 had all its guns in the center nacelle, firing straight ahead, and two 20 mm cannon, which gave it awesome firepower.

[Tallguy]

There was ample room in the Spitfire wing for 4 guns in each. It was one of the advantages of the elliptical wing... a happy coincidence that an aerodynamic feature lent itself to the ability to carry extra guns.

This article is a bit overdone. The work was done in 1934. The Spitfire was still on the drawing board. The Hurricane also wasn’t introduced until 1937.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

For informational purposes only unless you know how to spoof British web addresses: The Battle of Britain - 3 Days That Saved The Nation

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Germany is often erroneously thought of as having the best weaponry then, but not always the case.

German bombers were only two engines, lacking the range and load carrying capacity of Allied bombers. Germany's famous panzers had relatively narrow tracks which were unable to cope with Russian mud and snow. And the Wehrmacht relied on horse drawn wagons for most of their logistics. 80% of German infantry traveled on foot because the Wehrmacht lacked mechanized transport.
 

[gattaca]

later

[exPBRrat]

Looking forward to the BBC documentary...thanks for the story.

[Oscar in Batangas]

Compare with today’s 13 Year Olds with billions of times more computing power in their cell phone.

Well. at least ours are pretty good at killing zombies and finding porn.

[IncPen]

Ping

[Gay State Conservative]

Very interesting indeed.

[Gamecock]

A life well lived.

[Robert DeLong]

Night after night throughout the early months of 1934, Captain Fred Hill and his 13-year-old daughter Hazel (above) burned the midnight oil, plotting graphs and labouring over complex algorithms

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[outofsalt]

Brief video of this story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRpWMlZ6s3M

[Jan_Sobieski]

Read later