’PLANE’S 17 MACHINE-GUNS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 February 1940, Page 12

’PLANE’S 17 MACHINE-GUNS

NEW ARMAMENT METHODS. Air fighting in the present war has not so far completely established the employment of the shell gun as an item in aeroplane armament (writes Major Turner in the London “Daily Telegraph”). Some machines of each side are equipped with it; but I understand there have not been more than one or two instances of its successful employment. Machine-guns are still the principal armament, their position unshaken. In fact, their use is likely to be increased. Thus, an aeroplane called the “Thunderbolt,” designed for the United States Army Air Corps, is to be armed with 17 machine-guns, and will have a crew of four men.

This elaboration of the multi-gun fighter bears upon aircraft armament problems now beginning to be fought out by the hard test of war. Three main armament methods are now standardised, and expert opinion is still found to. differ considerably as to their respective merits. They are: 1. Machine-guns in fixed positions firing forward, the pilot gunner “aiming” his machine at the enemy craft. 2. Machine-guns in power operated turrets, enabling the weapon to be “trained” in any direction clear of parts of the aeroplane' itself. 3. Shell guns, usually of about §in bore, firing projectiles which explode on impact. The “Thunderbolt” will not be the only type in which the present maximum of eight machine-guns will be exceeded. . "

CASE FOR THE SHELL GUN. Many experts pin their-faith to this type of armament as, in their opinion, superior to the shell gun. It is true that a shell from'this weapon ejects destruction over a square yard, which is sufficiently serious in nearly every case to bring a machine down, ■ Another advantage claimed for the shell gun is its greater range.

This, however, may be offset by the fact that greater range demands finer marksmanship and that inevitably there is a greater proportion of misses.

The movable turret, developed for the R.A.F. so successfully that it is one of the strongest points of British superiority over the enemy in the present war, affords an aeroplane fields of fire abeam, below and above. It provides bombers and reconnaissance machines with defence, and brings into being a’ new class of air fighter or fighter-bomber.