A question for bf109 'experten'
 

so I came across a couple pics of an Emil that took me by surprise. there is something odd about the wing armament configuration, it appears to have 2 access ports for mgs/cannon, instead of the more customary single wing cannon port.

can any of you tell me what variant this is an how common it was during the war.

heres a BoB emil at the imperial war museum: note 2 wing ports.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...22/me109-2.jpg

and the second i found was this russian captured Emil... looks to be a later E series (pointed nose cone)... one port being occupied by a cannon, the other an MG?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ptd-Stalgd.jpg

what gives?

the inner holes were used when the wing had the E-1 armament, means MG17 instead of MG-FF.
the idea was to ease the production.....as E-1 and E-3 (at least) were produced during the same time.
Its like the universal SpitfireMk.V C wing.

if you look closer at canon armed Emil pictures from the front you see that these inner holed are just faired over.

the spinner says nothing about how old the aircraft was or what version it is btw ;)

so the E1 had 2 mg17s in each wing? or just one with the cannon port open?....

and about the cone... what variants got the open spinner and which got the pointed?

thanks btw:)

no, the 109E-1 had an armament of ONE MG17 (500rounds) in each wing - no canons at all. So, 4xMG17 in total (2xfuselage, 2xwing).
The wing MG17 were shooting through the inner holes. The outer canonholes were than faired over and there was no bulge (needed for the ammodrum of the canon) below the wing.

the pointed spinner was first inroduced with the E-7, but was interchangeable with the earlier spinner ;)
the soviet captured 109E looks like a Fighterbomber of a Schlachtgeschwader, hence its SC50 ETC under the fuselage.

gracias aigo!

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FYI ;)

http://users.teledisnet.be/web/mfe39146/E1.jpg

http://users.teledisnet.be/web/mfe39146/E3.jpg

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Of course in the E4 the the MG-FF wing cannon were replaced with the externally identical MG-FF/M cannon. The MG-FF/M had a different recoil mechanism allowing a higher RoF and allowing it to fire high-explosive "mine" shells.