Yes. Spitfire and Hurricane both had 8 x .303s, before being equipped
with a mixture of .303 or .5 mgs with 20mm canon in later marks. Typhoon
had 4 x 20mm canon. P51s came with 6 x .5 mgs and, if I'm correct, the
P47s had 8 x .5 mgs.
On 25/07/2018 12:31 PM, Chris Trask wrote:
Many aircraft back then sported multiple machine guns, as many as six
with three on each side.
That is some firepower, but I wonder if they could fire them separately,
and why they would have both sizes of weapon. The .303 (?) machine gun
was soon judged less effective air-to-air than the 20mm cannon, and it
would certainly not have been much use for air-to-ground, unless they
wanted higher rpm for strafing soft targets in convoys, for instance.
The fighter bomber version came with 4x machine guns and 4x 20mm
cannon in the nose. There was also a photo reconnaissance version used
by both Brit and US forces (reverse lease-lend).
Chris
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
- Hunter S. Thompson
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