Historic Spitfire Mk1/1a loadout

[Plt Off JRB Meaker]

I have been playing about with loadouts recently and read that during the Battle Of Britain the aces loaded up two of their guns with incendiary,two with armour piercing and the rest with the regular .303 rifle ammo,although it did'nt mention tracers,presumably these being incorporated into the .303 rifle ammo?

Has anybody got any more infomation on historic loadouts please,I'm very interested,thanks.;)

[winny]

Early BoB - 3 guns loaded with ball, 2 with AP, 2 with Mk IV incendiary tracer (smoke tracer) and 1 with Mk VI (De Wilde) incendiary.

Later on (when De Wilde / Dixon were more common) 4 guns with ball, 2 with AP and 2 with incendiaries (Mk VI) with 4 of the last 25 rounds being tracer (Mk IV incendiary/tracer) to let the pilot know he was running out of ammunition
(although some pilots didn't like this as they thought it also let the enemy know too!)

Initially the guns were aligned to fire a pattern (not converged into one point) but this changed pretty quickly to convergence at 300 yards down to 200 yards, some pilots had them converged at 50 yards ( Flt Lt Pete Brothers being one of these)

Source : Fred Roberts Book "Duxford to Karachi - An RAF Armourer's War"
And "Flying Guns of WWII" by Anthony G williams

It was also dependant on rank, Sergeant Pilots were often told how their guns were set by the Armourers (same rank) whereas the Officer pilots could order the armourers to do what they wanted.
Lots of interesting stuff in there for anyone interested.

[Plt Off JRB Meaker]

Thanks Winny top stuff,I appreciate it mate:grin:

[Vengeanze]

What you mean pattern convergence changed pretty quick?

I like pattern as I prefer z&b (even though I fly brits).
Guess point convergence is good if one sneaks up.

You got more info on which type pattern or point that was used for what and by whom and why?

[winny]

What you mean pattern convergence changed pretty quick?

I like pattern as I prefer z&b (even though I fly brits).
Guess point convergence is good if one sneaks up.

You got more info on which type pattern or point that was used for what and by whom and why?

It's hard to find concrete evedence of what the 'Pattern' was but it wasn't a single point (if anyone knows what it was let me know).

Fred Roberts just says that initially they set the guns to fire a pattern and that after Dunkirk pilots asked for them to be converged to a point (Quote: " the size of a dartboard"). I've seen photo's that appear to show the target they used to align the guns to this pattern and it looks like it was 4 points (roughly high and low and left and right) about 4 or 5 feet left to right and maybe 3 or 4 feet top to bottom (it's hard to tell). It's in a book I have somwhere, I'll try to find it. So I'm guessing they 'paired' the guns.

Pete Brothers (RAF) says that in order to make sure you killed what you were shooting at you needed to get in close, very close, and the original pattern meant that, because the guns fired upwards slightly, (11 degrees I think) when you got in close your bullets went over the top. He started at 250 yards, single point but then went to 50 yards. (This was for the 8 x Brownings) simply because it was "much more devastating" and accurate. He preffered to fly through the rear-gunners crossfire "collecting a couple of holes, if you were lucky" kill the rear-gunner and then get as close as possible and give them a good 4 second burst - He reckoned even the bombers would go down from a 4 second burst at 50 yards.

200 yards seems to have been the most used distance on average and was more effective for head-on attacks, a 2 second burst starting at 400 yards into the cockpit, then turn down the line and try and get another one. Then get the hell out of there.

Another bit of interesting info from Fred Roberts was that the only person allowed to fire the guns was the pilot, the armourers aligned the guns using a periscope that looked down the barrel, they never test fired them unless the pilot wanted to.

[skouras]

quick question
why we don't have a smoke tracers :confused:

[winny]

quick question
why we don't have a smoke tracers :confused:

They are there, but they are not called tracers, they are the Mk IV incendiary.

Basically a dual purpose, incendiary / smoke tracer. No visible light.

[Tavingon]

Why only have a couple of guns with armor peircing ammo, was it too expensive?

[winny]

Why only have a couple of guns with armor peircing ammo, was it too expensive?

Partly to do with supply, but it was basically deemed too ineffective. AP is only effective if it hits 'straight on'. They found that the bullets would tumble as they passed through the superstructure drastically losing speed and just bounce off any armour plate (this applies mainy to bombers). Ball ammo didn't suffer from this effect (tumble) and was mainly there because it was in plentiful supply and it was pretty good at killing the crew.

Interestingly, the Germans realised this way before the Brits and they phased AP out except for specialised roles - ie. Ground attack. They knew the best way to bring down an aircraft was to use HE rounds, hence the early adoption of cannons.

EDIT: Another point about the RAF guns during the BoB was that they tended to load all the guns with the same type of ammo, they didn't mix it. This was because they found that the different recoil characteristics of the rounds meant the guns were more likley to jam if mixed ammo was used. There were exceptions of course, but this was the standard for RAF armourers. If you watch any RAF BoB gun camera footage you can notice this.

[skouras]

thanks winny for the reply:-)

[Moggy]

There was a major unforeseen problem with the .303 AP round. When it was tested, it could go through armour plate with no problem. However, if it struck another surface before it hit the armour plate (such as aircraft skin), the energy would dissipate quickly and not have enough energy to penetrate or even reach the armour.

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/BoB.htm

I'm sure I've got some more details of the tests somewhere.

[Plt Off JRB Meaker]

Yeah again really appreciate this info winny,thanks.

And top info moggy,we would like to see more info if you can find it.

[Skoshi Tiger]

[QUOTE=winny;334333] Ball ammo didn't suffer from this effect (tumble) and ....QUOTE]
This is incorrect.

From WWI the british were using the MKVII round. (MKI round was used in the Boer war and although Australia was making rifles using the MVI round up to WW1 Britain had moved on to the MKVII round by the start of WWI) Why we have the MKI and MKVI (using 215gn round nosed bullets) in the sim is a bit of mystery to me unless they were using up their pre-WWI stocks?????

The MkVII .303 Ball) round is designed to tumble on impact. The copper jacketed round has a lead base and light weight aluminium tip (Sometimes substituted with wood or even compressed paper- sterilised to avoid infection of course!)

The bullets were designed this way because the round fired from the standard service rifle would only travel at about 2440fps which not quite fast enough to cause cavitation injuries comparable to Mauser splitzer rounds. So to stay within the Hauge convention rules they had to make the bullets tumble to impart thier energy to their intended targets (people), this makes them less than efficient on targets like planes.

Does anyone know why we don't have the MKVIII round in our load outs? This was slightly more powerful than the MKVII and had a more aerodynamic boat tailed round. It was developed for the Vickers Machine gun but as far as I know there wouldn't have been any problem running it through the Colt Brownings used by the RAF. In the SMLE rifles it did cause more barrel wear and it's use was discouraged.

Cheers!


http://web.archive.org/web/20080707041617/http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-weapons/303.htm

[Moggy]

Yeah again really appreciate this info winny,thanks.

And top info moggy,we would like to see more info if you can find it.

Pist-N-Broke, made a very good post on the .303 ammunition, he explains it in a way I cannot. You can find his post here (#38);

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=271459#post271459

[Plt Off JRB Meaker]

Thanks mate;)

[Skoshi Tiger]

Pist-N-Broke, made a very good post on the .303 ammunition, he explains it in a way I cannot. You can find his post here (#38);

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=271459#post271459

Although a good general post, Pist-n-Broke has some errors in his designations of the rounds. "His Mk7" was actually B.MK VI or B.MK VIz( We hve the z round in the game which designates nitrocellulose propellant as opposed to cordite) . I don't think the B.Mk VII (very similar in design) was introduced until about '42

Try http://cartridgecollectors.org/cmo/cmo07feb.htm for a discussion of Major Dixons round.

[Moggy]

If memory serves (and I admit I could be wrong), the Mk.VII was the American produced version of the Mk.VI and this was adopted because it slimlined the production methods. I believe it was being produced in 1940 but again this is off the top of my head and I could well be wrong.

[Skoshi Tiger]

If memory serves (and I admit I could be wrong), the Mk.VII was the American produced version of the Mk.VI and this was adopted because it slimlined the production methods. I believe it was being produced in 1940 but again this is off the top of my head and I could well be wrong.

As you said the US adopted a very similar design for their .30 and 50 incendiary rounds, it didn't have the brass screw in the base like B.Mk VI round. This simpler design was copied by the British as the B.MK VII.

I didn't think it was as early as 1940 so I'ld be interested to see a reference to it.

For that '42 date I was going from wiki (dangerous I know)

"These rounds were extensively developed over the years and saw several Mark numbers. The last tracer round introduced into British service was the G Mark 8 in 1945, the last armour-piercing round was the W Mark 1Z in 1945, and the last incendiary round was the B Mark 7 in 1942. Explosive bullets were not produced in the UK after 1933 due to the relatively small amount of explosive that could be contained in the bullet, limiting their effectiveness, their role being successfully fulfilled by the use of Mark 6 and 7 incendiary bullets."

I wonder if the US were supplying the simplified projectiles under lend lease before they were given a designation by the British?

Cheers!

[Osprey]

In Al Deere's book "Nine Lives" he reports how pilots were crying out of De Wilde ammo but there wasn't enough. The Air Ministry said that incendiary tracer was just as effective in tests but pilots protested. I think their point was that they could see when they were hitting with De Wilde and the Air Ministry eventually relented. Either way, they were in very short supply of De Wilde until later in the BoB.

[Moggy]

As you said the US adopted a very similar design for their .30 and 50 incendiary rounds, it didn't have the brass screw in the base like B.Mk VI round. This simpler design was copied by the British as the B.MK VII.

I didn't think it was as early as 1940 so I'ld be interested to see a reference to it.

For that '42 date I was going from wiki (dangerous I know)

"These rounds were extensively developed over the years and saw several Mark numbers. The last tracer round introduced into British service was the G Mark 8 in 1945, the last armour-piercing round was the W Mark 1Z in 1945, and the last incendiary round was the B Mark 7 in 1942. Explosive bullets were not produced in the UK after 1933 due to the relatively small amount of explosive that could be contained in the bullet, limiting their effectiveness, their role being successfully fulfilled by the use of Mark 6 and 7 incendiary bullets."

I wonder if the US were supplying the simplified projectiles under lend lease before they were given a designation by the British?

Cheers!

I've got myself mixed up. The Mk.VI was sent to the Americans in 1940 who simplified the production and this new round (as we know) became the Mk.VII. I'd think that the Americans were supplying us with Mk.VI ammunition until the Mk.VII became available in 1942 but this is only speculation on my part.