109E3 cannons or spud guns

[Crumpp]

Originally Posted by drewpee

I'm reading Most Dangerous Enemy. What a great book. In it it states the Germans wanted to out gun the Spitfire and Hurricanes eight MGs. Problem was they only had enough room for one gun in each wing. That's why they went for the cannons. With its slow rate of fire it was hard to hit it's target but if an AC was hit with a 20mm round it was said to be devastating.

I would say that is the authors interpretation influenced by a heavy dose of national pride.

Simply count the number of fighter aircraft that had all rifle caliber machinguns for primary armament by the wars end.


Here is a good article on the debate:

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

You can compare the effectiveness of the Bf-109 to the Spitfire armament here too:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm

If you understand the physics and run the math, you will quickly see that cannon's far outstrip rifle caliber machineguns in terms of ability to destroy enemy aircraft and they tend to be lighter in weight!

The German decision to go with cannon probably had nothing to do with trying to copy British fighter armament of the day.