Friday October 12 - Release Candidate 2

[Catseye]

Originally Posted by Osprey

Oh, about De Wilde. Command had terrible trouble convincing pilots that DeWilde was not more effective than other incendiaries. They proove this at the firing ranges but pilots were insistent and command caved in to demand to raise the supply. It was a placebo.

On the other hand, here are some statistics that show that the DeWilde was more effective than the .303. B. Mk IV used at the time.

"The incendiary ammunition was also variable in performance. Comparative British tests of British .303" and German 7.92 mm incendiary ammunition against the self-sealing wing tanks in the Blenheim, also fired from 200 yards (180m) astern, revealed that the .303" B. Mk IV incendiary tracer (based on the First World War Buckingham design – it was ignited on firing and burned on its way to the target) and the 7.92 mm were about equal, each setting the tanks alight with about one in ten shots fired. The B. Mk VI 'De Wilde' incendiary (named after the original Belgian inventor but in fact completely redesigned by Major Dixon), which contained 0.5 grams of SR 365 (a composition including barium nitrate which ignited on impact with the target) was twice as effective as these, scoring one in five."

Based on information from 'Flying Guns: World War 2'
© Anthony G Williams 2004