De Wilde, or armor piercing?

[JG52Uther]

Did pilots have a choice of what ammo they loaded their plane with, or was it just standard belting? I would guess the former, as I doubt there would have been time during the BoB to make up individual ammo belting.
IF that is the case, is it not 'gaming the game' to use custom belts?

[reflected]

Thanks for the link! It says that AP bullets weren't too effective, but De Wilde ammo was very much so.

According to books they mostly used that, whenever they could. Whether itwas their choice or a standard belting, I don't know. But using De Wilde-s is more historical than using AP-s, I guess. I might be wrong though.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by JG52Uther

Did pilots have a choice of what ammo they loaded their plane with, or was it just standard belting? I would guess the former, as I doubt there would have been time during the BoB to make up individual ammo belting.
IF that is the case, is it not 'gaming the game' to use custom belts?

1st:
This is still game, custom belts are part of the fun.
Following your logic I would have to fly wingtip to wingtip next to 110s...

2nd:
I dont think those belts came ready from the factory. In the field you get: Links, ammo amd a machine.
So, if you want a custom belt, talk to the ground crew and there you go.

Rem: Based on swiss army experience, the link assembly machine we had must have been from WWI, looked like a manual coffee grinder, lol.

[pupaxx]

Originally Posted by JG52Uther

Did pilots have a choice of what ammo they loaded their plane with, or was it just standard belting?....

i dont know, but for sure they were forced to face the availability for every type of ammo, that was not unlimited and the overall amount of them should be equally shared at squadron level (my thought)

[reflected]

Another source for the Battle of Britain armament gives four guns with ball, two with AP and two with incendiaries (presumably Mk VI) with four of the last 25 rounds being tracer (presumably Mk IV incendiary/tracer) to tell the pilot he was running out of ammunition. It is not clear why ball was used at all; presumably there was a shortage of the more effective loadings. (By 1942 the standard loading for fixed .303s was half loaded with AP and half with incendiary.)

This part is very interesting. So it was half AP half De Wilde after all, except in the beginning, when there was a shortage and they had to use regular ball ammo too.

Using AP only didn't prove to be more effective than half-half. Now I'll try De Wilde only and see, but I'll probably go back to half DW half AP.

[kristorf]

I have mine set as half and half, with the outers having white incedery trace mix for marking, also last 50 rounds in outer two guns with red trace as a warning. Works well for me with a 180 yard convergance

[reflected]

Would it make sense to load the 2 outer pair of guns with AP and the 2 inner pairs with DW? If the AP is more useful for wings and DW is more useful for fuselage hits (fuel tanks and such), I reckon I have a better chance like this. Or should it be the other way around? does it make sense or is it better to have DW-AP-DW-AP-AP-DW-AP-DW ?

[Moggy]

I use the 1942 setup of half DW\Inc and half AP. DW's on the outside 4 guns and AP on the inside 4 guns. Like Kris, I use tracers (1 in 5 I think) in the last 50 rounds to let me know when the guns are running low.

Actually, tell a lie. In the outer 2 guns (1&8), I use the white incendiary tracer.

[klem]

Originally Posted by reflected

Would it make sense to load the 2 outer pair of guns with AP and the 2 inner pairs with DW? If the AP is more useful for wings and DW is more useful for fuselage hits (fuel tanks and such), I reckon I have a better chance like this. Or should it be the other way around? does it make sense or is it better to have DW-AP-DW-AP-AP-DW-AP-DW ?

hmmmm... well, in theory if you are shooting at convergence they will all pass through the same small area at your target/aim point so it shouldn't make any difference unless you are inside convergence (and aiming a bit low to compensate) when the outer guns might hit the wings.

Assuming you are shooting at convergence you need to consider what it is you are trying to achieve. AP is good for destruction (control surfaces, possibly entire wing, etc?), bomber engines I guess or pilots/crew. Incendiary types for starting fires. Tracer incendiaries tell you where your shots are going, DeWilde (an element of incendiary) has no 'tracer' but gives a nice splash to confirm when you are on target. The RAF pilots loved DeWilde when it was introduced. So do I

[Hellbender]

I fly with 4x Red tracer Ball ammo on the 2 most outer guns ( reminds me of the P-51 in 1946) and 2x Ap and 2x DeWilde on the 4 inner guns. With the convergence setting and the wingspan of your targets the damage is horrific:

Wingspan of the targets for your gunsights:

Bf 109 32 ft
Bf 110 53 ft
Do 17 59 ft
Ju 87 45 ft
Ju 88 60 ft (a-1 version)
He 111 74 ft
BR. 20 70 ft


With the correct convergence one can easily concentrate on ripping of the wings of bombers .