Weapons of the Second World War. Guns of high flight and understanding

Author: zaCCCPanec

23 August 2022 13:36

Tags: aircraft guns stories about weapons history pages

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Here we come to the finale. To aircraft guns, capable of causing, if not respect, then amazement by the mere fact of their existence. Meanwhile, they fought with varying degrees of success.

See all photos in the gallery

In general, an arms race in the air is a very peculiar matter. And here progress has gone very far, because literally at the end of the 30s two rifle-caliber machine guns were considered normal weapons. And literally 6-7 years later, four 20-mm cannons no longer surprised anyone. They killed, yes, but they didn’t surprise. This has become the norm. But I still consider the epics of development to be those monsters that brilliant engineers still managed to cram into airplanes. Or was the plane already gathering around the cannon? It’s hard to say, so let’s take off! I thought for a long time about how to sort my heroines. And I decided, without further ado, to arrange them in ascending order of caliber.

40 mm Vickers Class S gun. UK

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It should be noted that it was the British who became the pioneers in installing large-caliber (by aviation standards) guns in aircraft. It's hard to say who they were going to shoot with such shells in 1936, but that's when Vickers and Rolls-Royce were tasked with developing a 40mm gun for installation on aircraft.

The Vickers cannon won the competition, and it began to be mass-produced and installed on aircraft.

The most interesting thing is that the cannon was first installed on bombers. Wellingtons and B-17s. And these planes worked against enemy submarines, and quite successfully. The 40-mm projectile performed quite well.

In 1940, when the Wehrmacht showed what tank forces could be capable of with proper management, the military department realized that a 40-mm armor-piercing shell was something that could be countered by tanks. In principle, it is logical that the armor of “Panzers” I and II was quite within his capabilities.

Engineers at Hawker Aircraft were able to modify the design of the Hurricane fighter to allow the S cannon to be placed under each wing. For this purpose, a whole installation was designed to accommodate the gun and magazine, which stubbornly did not fit into the thick wing of the Hurricane. But designer P. Haigson managed it.

In general, everyone believed that the Mustang would be much better than the Hurricane, but the P-51 wing required more comprehensive improvements. The tests were not without incidents. The test pilot was not prepared for the fact that when both guns were fired, the plane would actually stop and fall into a dive. To solve this problem, a recommendation was developed for pilots to turn the control stick toward themselves when opening fire. The S guns were aimed through a conventional Mk.II reflex sight, but in addition, the aircraft were equipped with two Browning 0.5 sighting machine guns loaded with tracer bullets. The first unit to receive the Hurricane Mk.IID with 40 mm cannons was the sixth squadron, based at the Egyptian Shandar airbase. The Hurricane Mk.IID's baptism of fire took place on June 7, resulting in the destruction of two tanks and several trucks. In total, during operations in Africa, the pilots of the 6th squadron disabled 144 tanks with 40-mm cannon fire, of which 47 were completely destroyed, as well as more than 200 light armored vehicles. It is clear that these were light tanks with bulletproof armor. But it was paid for, and brutally. The suspension of such guns reduced the already not enormous speed of the Hurricane by 60-70 km/h. It turned out that the Hurricanes quite calmly beat the Germans’ equipment, and the German Bf-109Fs calmly shot down the Hurricanes.

With the adoption of Hurricane Mk.IID rockets into service, units began to be removed from service. A number of aircraft were transferred to the Far East to Burma, where they were used very effectively by 20 Squadron. The Vickers S gun was actually used on a large scale only in battles in North Africa and Asia, where lightly armored targets were sufficient for its shells. It was gradually abandoned in favor of rockets, but statistics showed that during combat operations in the Asia-Pacific region, the average firing accuracy was 25% (for comparison, the accuracy of a salvo of 60 unguided missiles when attacking a tank-type target was 5%). The accuracy when firing high-explosive fragmentation shells was twice as high as when firing armor-piercing shells. This was explained by the fact that high-explosive fragmentation shells had ballistics more similar to those used for shooting Browning 0.5 machine guns. Advantages: large weight of the projectile, large damaging effect, high accuracy during single firing, the guns were placed in pairs, that is, one shot - two projectiles. Disadvantages: huge recoil during long shooting, low initial speed, low rate of fire, low ammunition capacity (15 rounds per barrel).

Aviation weapons of the USSR

ShKAS. Shpitalny - Komaritsky Aviation Rapid-Fire Machine Gun, 7.62 mm.
SHVAK. Shpitalny - Vladimirov Aviation Large-caliber, 12.7 mm.
SHVAK. Shpitalny-Vladimirov aircraft gun, 20 mm.
Ш-37 (ШФК-37). Shpitalny aircraft gun, 37 mm.
VYa. Aviation cannon Volkov, Yartseva, 23 mm.
UB. Berezina universal machine gun, 12.7 mm.
B-20 Berezina aircraft gun, 20 mm.
NS-23 Nudelman-Suranov aircraft gun, 23 mm.
NS-37 Nudelman-Suranov aircraft gun, 37 mm.
Air bombs
USSR rockets

Carrying out a simple comparison of the weapons and ammunition of Soviet fighters: MiG-3, La-5FN Yak-9U- (improved with a more powerful VK-107A engine) and FW-190A-8, you draw unexpected conclusions for yourself. The ammunition load of Soviet fighters was several times less than the German one. Judge for yourself:

Armament of the MiG-3

The main option is a 12.7 mm UBS machine gun (300 rounds) and two 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns (375 rounds each). the weapons were clearly insufficient. Several vehicles with AM-38 were equipped with two synchronized 20-mm ShVAK cannons (100 rounds each). A small series was released.

Armament of the Yak-9U

The main option is the ShVAK cannon (120 rounds) and two synchronized UBS machine guns (120 rounds each). Depending on the combat mission in the field workshops, the ShVAK cannon could be replaced with a VYA-23 or even an NS-37, while the right machine gun could be removed.

Armament of La-5FN.

Two synchronized 20-mm ShVAK cannons (with 2X170 rounds of ammunition).

Armament of La-7.

Three synchronized 20-mm B-20 cannons (with 3 X 130 rounds of ammunition).

Armament FW-190A/8

A pair of 7.9 mm MG 17 machine guns with 1,000 rounds of ammunition per barrel were installed at the top of the forward fuselage. Two MG 151 cannons of 20 mm caliber were installed in the wing roots, and another pair was mounted in the wing consoles, the ammunition capacity of each gun was 200 rounds.

It is not difficult to calculate that the total ammunition load of the FW-190 A-8 (the Germans call 20-mm cartridges cartridges, and our 20-mm cartridges are respectfully shells) was 800 rounds of 20-mm caliber and 2,000 rounds of 7.9-mm ammunition in a machine gun.

The total ammunition load for the Soviet Yak-9 was 240 rounds of 12.7 mm machine guns and 240 rounds of 20 mm caliber. For the La-5, the total ammunition load is 170 shells X two ShVAK cannons. With a rate of fire for the ShVAK cannon of 800 rounds/min, after simple calculations we obtain a burst time with a simultaneous salvo of two cannons for the La-5 aircraft - 12.8 seconds. Is this enough for a quick dogfight? For a Soviet ace, yes. Moreover, this ammunition was not fully used and was often reduced. Neither the fuel reserve (the fuel reserve of the La-5FN aircraft was 40 minutes, even less in afterburner) nor the power supply of the aircraft allowed it to be increased. A good aircraft is the optimal combination of its characteristics to achieve certain goals. The Luftwaffe was faced at the end of the war with the need to fight American superfortresses. Fulfillment of this task required an increase in the ammunition load of German fighters.

Messages from German commanders regarding the armament of Soviet fighters (Walter Schwabedissen "Stalin's Falcons") are approximately the same.
In 1941, fighters were armed with several machine guns, some also had cannons in the wings. Although the firepower was insufficient, the weapons themselves are rated as good. It is noted that its combat characteristics were reduced by the manner of Soviet pilots to spray fire and open it from too great a distance, as well as by the reluctance of Russian pilots to approach German aircraft. Sometimes Soviet fighters were equipped with missiles, with which they tried to fight off German fighters attacking from behind. Basic characteristics of machine guns on USSR and German fighters


		USSR		Germany
		ShKAS	UBS	MG 17	MG 131	MG-151/15
Caliber, mm		7,62	12,7	7,92	13,2	15
Weight, kg		10,5	21,45	10,2	16,6	38,1
Length, mm	machine gun	—	1350	1175	1170	1916
Length, mm	trunk	1140	1524
Rate of fire rds/min		1800	700-800	1200	900	740
Initial bullet speed, m/s	ordinary	825	850	855	750	960
	armor-piercing	—	—	905	710	850
	sub-caliber	—	—	—	—	1030
Chuck size, mm		7.62x54	12.7x108	8x57	13x64	15x96
Bullet weight, g	ordinary	9,6	—	11,5	34	57
	armor-piercing	—	—	—	38,5	72
	sub-caliber	—	—	—	—	52

For comparison, below are the data on the ammunition load for the Me-109, which fought on the Soviet-German front (by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Emilys were already considered obsolete and practically did not participate in the air war):

Me 109F3 - one 15-mm MG-151/15 motor cannon with 200 rounds of ammunition and two 13-mm MG-17 synchronized machine guns with 500 rounds of ammunition per machine gun.

Me 109G6 - one 15-mm motor machine gun MG-151/15 with 150 rounds of ammunition and two 13-mm synchronized machine guns MG-131 with 150 rounds of ammunition per machine gun and two 20-mm MG-151/20 cannons in gondolas under the wing with 120 rounds of ammunition per gun.

Note.

Armament data for the FW-190 is given for the A-8/R2. (Additionally one 500 kg bomb and two 250 kg bombs or a 300 l dropable fuel tank). This type of weapon was installed on the FW 190 A-8 Panzerbock, piloted by non-commissioned officer Ernst Schroder in October-November 1944 in defense of the Reich. In October 1944 From the FW 190A-8, the II Assault Group of the 300th Fighter Squadron was formed under the command of Major Kurd Peters, awarded the Knight's Cross, and became one of the fighter air units opposing the landings in Europe. (source - "Luftwaffe Combat Aircraft" - edited by David Donald). This is exactly the option I took for comparison.

The standard armament of the FW-190 consisted of two synchronized 13 mm Rheinmetall MG 131 machine guns mounted in the forward fuselage, with 400 rounds of ammunition per barrel; two synchronized Mauser MG 151/20E cannons in the root parts of the wings (ammunition 250 rounds per barrel); two unsynchronized Mauser MG 151/20E cannons in the wing consoles (ammunition 125 rounds per barrel).

With regards to the options for weapons and ammunition, I provided fragmentary data on weapons not with the goal of giving a complete analysis of German weapons, but only to show the excess ammunition of German aircraft over Soviet ones. For the Fokkers, who took a large part in the Second World War, it was impressive. To be precise, which is exactly what you should be precise, you should keep the following in mind.

The power of a second salvo or muzzle power is decisive for defeating the enemy. Muzzle power is proportional to the square of the initial velocity of the projectile, the mass of projectiles fired per second, which obviously depends on the caliber of the projectile, the number of barrels and the rate of fire of the gun. Here the superiority of the FW-190's weapons is obvious. (The 20-mm Mauser cannon is also interesting because it fired cartridges with electric ignition. This made it possible to significantly reduce the synchronization time, and the rate of fire of the synchronized version did not decrease as significantly as with mechanical (capsule) ignition).

In the Luftwaffe, aircraft were adapted to different needs using special sets of additional equipment. There were two types of such sets. Factory ones - Umrust-Bausatze - could only be installed in factory conditions, and field ones - Rustsatz - were used for re-equipping aircraft in repair units at the front. The letters U and R and the kit type number were used to identify converted aircraft. Based on the variant of letters and numbers after the type of aircraft, one can judge the type of armament and, accordingly, the ammunition load.

One of the features of American fighters was the presence of powerful weapons, consisting of eight heavy machine guns installed in the wing consoles. This arrangement of machine guns was standard for almost all American single-engine fighters, which was due to the lack of effective aircraft guns in the United States. American Colt-Browning 12.7 mm machine guns were considered one of the best in the world; In terms of such characteristics as muzzle power, these machine guns were even superior to the German MG-FF 20 mm caliber and MK-101 30 mm caliber guns. To defeat enemy interceptors, which did not have good armor and did not have the same combat survivability as bomber and attack aircraft, the fire of heavy machine guns was quite enough. In addition, when conducting an air battle between fighters, the time the target was in the crosshairs was sometimes a fraction of a second. And if the Colt-Browning machine gun managed to fire several shots during this time, then the American AA aircraft gun, at best, fired one, and more often than not, none. The presence of eight heavy machine guns with 1,800 rounds of ammunition on the P-47 fighter led to the fact that it became the most powerful single-engine fighter in the world. Moreover, in terms of the total muzzle power and the total mass of a one-minute salvo of eight machine guns, it significantly exceeded not only single-engine, but also many heavy twin-engine cannon fighters, with the exception of some super-heavy fighter-interceptors converted from bombers.

In the technical literature, the quality of a weapon is assessed by such indicators as the quality of the weapon, which is calculated by dividing the power of a second salvo (muzzle power) by the mass of the weapon in kg:

n=(power of a second salvo)/M

power of a second salvo (muzzle power) = (mV2/2g)(N/60)

where N is the rate of fire in rounds per minute

V - initial speed in m/sec

m - projectile mass in g

g- free fall acceleration

For Soviet aviation weapons, the quality indicators were as follows:

ShKAS-1000, UB-1400, ShVAK-990, VYA -1250, NS-37 - 840, NS-45-1090

Main characteristics of guns on USSR and German fighters
		USSR			Germany
		SHVAK	NS-37	NS-45	MG 151/20	MK-103	MK-108
Caliber, mm		20	37	45	20	30	30
Weight, kg		40	140	152	42,7	145	58
Length, mm	guns	1679	3410	2520	1766	2335	1057
Length, mm	trunk	—	2300	1104	1200	580
Rate of fire rds/min		700	160	—	750	380	650
Initial projectile speed, m/s	fragmentation	815	900	850	805	860	540
Initial projectile speed, m/s	armor-piercing	815	880	—	705	960	—
Chuck size, mm		20x99	37x198	45x186	20x82	30x184	30x90
Projectile mass, g	fragmentation	96	735	1065	183	530	330
Projectile mass, g	armor-piercing	96,6	760	—	205	440	—

45 mm NS-45 cannon. USSR

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Yakov Grigorievich Taubin

To begin with, let’s remember two good designers, without whom there might not have been much in our aviation weapons industry. Yakov Grigoryevich Taubin and Mikhail Nikitich Baburin, falsely accused by denunciations of colleagues and shot. But the potential that they incorporated into their projects, developed at OKB-16, subsequently made it possible to create a whole family of large-caliber aircraft guns, which were in service with Soviet aviation in the next 30 years.

Mikhail Nikitich Baburin

In the previous article about large-caliber aircraft guns, we noted the very successful design of the NS-37 gun, which was a modification of the PTB-37 gun by Taubin and Baburin. The gun was modified by A.E. Nudelman and A.S. Suranov, and they gave the gun its name. A relatively light and fast-firing weapon for its class, with excellent ballistics, it was capable of destroying any enemy aircraft with a couple of hits and confidently fighting armored vehicles, at least in the early period. However, the development of armored vehicles at the level of 1943 made the gun ineffective. In connection with this state of affairs, at the beginning of July 1943, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the development of a 45 mm caliber air cannon. Today, of course, it is very easy to evaluate everything that happened several decades ago. And very convenient. What is easy and understandable today was given with sweat and blood during the war. Today it is very easy for me to classify such a decision as controversial. And then, and even in the wake of the successes of the Il-2 with Shpitalny Sh-37 37-mm cannons and Nudelman and Suranov guns of the same caliber... Apparently, they simply did not have time to really evaluate all the consequences of installing these guns. There was no time for that, and today it is understandable and justifiable.

Meanwhile, no one canceled physics even during the war, and if today it is clear that the higher the energy of the cartridge, which consists of the mass of the ammunition and its initial speed, the higher the recoil of the weapon affecting the design of the carrier airframe. But then you needed a weapon capable of hitting the enemy. And so Nudelman and Suranov did it. We were able to rework our NS-37 for the 45x186 cartridge. The prototype of the 45-mm 111-P-45 gun appeared less than a month after the assignment for its development. It is clear that the lion's share of the gun components were retained from the NS-37, which, however, cannot be said about the results. Initially, only the barrel with chamber and receiver with newly designed belt links were redesigned. However, the very first tests showed that the recoil force of the gun ranged from 7 to 7.5 tons. There were doubts that there would be an aircraft available that could withstand such an impulse. We quickly made a muzzle brake. The version with a muzzle brake was designated NS-45M, but due to the fact that it was this version that went into production, the letter “M” was usually omitted from the designation. As in the case of the 37-mm NS-37 cannon, the main carriers of the 45-mm gun were supposed to be the Il-2 attack aircraft and the Yak-9 fighter.

It didn’t work out at all with the IL-2. Although the idea was quite good, the guns were installed in the root part of the wing, or rather, under it, along with a hefty ammunition supply of 50 rounds. And then there was an overlap between the vibrations of the wing and the barrels when firing. Aimed shooting at ground targets turned out to be impossible due to the strong vibration of both the gun itself and the wing. A similar situation, although to a lesser extent, arose with the 37-mm version of the Il, which had been discontinued by that time, so the work on equipping the attack aircraft with 45-mm cannons lost all meaning. A few shots and in return the plane with its wings flying off is doubtful. With the Yak-9, miracles began immediately. The internal diameter of the M-105PF motor shaft, through which the gun barrel passed, was 55 mm. And the barrel diameter of the NS-45 was... 59 millimeters! And so that the cannon barrel could be passed inside the shaft, its thickness was reduced from 7 millimeters to 4. By the way, this even reduced the weight of the gun. NS-45 weighed 152 kg, and NS-37 - 171 kg. It is clear that you have to pay for everything. Naturally, the life of the barrel itself dropped, plus the long but light barrel began to “play” when shooting, which affected the accuracy. To reduce this harmful effect, a special device with a ball bearing was installed on the propeller hub, centering the gun shaft relative to the axis of the hollow gearbox shaft. Overall it worked out. And the Yak-9K went into production (albeit a small one), but it was not possible to repeat the success of the Yak-9T with the NS-37 cannon.

When firing from the NS-45 cannon, the recoil affected the aircraft significantly more than with the 37 mm caliber. The higher the flight speed and dive angle, the less impact the recoil had on the aircraft. When firing at a speed of less than 350 km/h, the plane turned sharply, while the pilot in his seat made sudden movements back and forth. Targeted shooting was possible and effective at speeds greater than 350 km/h, and with short bursts of 2-3 shots. The high recoil force of the NS-45 gun had a significant impact on the aircraft's design, leading to oil and water leaks through various seals and cracks in pipelines and radiators. However, the tests were generally considered satisfactory and a military series of 53 Yak-9Ks was built between April and July 1944.

44 Yak-9Ks underwent military trials. 340 combat sorties were carried out with a total flight time of 402 hours 03 minutes, and 51 air battles took place. The opponents were FW-190A-8, Me-109G-2 and G-6. 12 enemy fighters were shot down (there were no encounters with bombers), of which 8 FW-190A-8 and 4 Me-109G-2; their losses were one Yak-9K. The average consumption of 45 mm ammunition per enemy aircraft shot down was 10 shells. However, the war was coming to an end, and it was decided to limit itself to military testing of four dozen Yak-9Ks. He didn't make it into the series. This was the end of the military service of the NS-45; most of the issued (194 pieces) guns remained unclaimed. Advantages: good ballistics, destructive projectile, light weight, decent ammunition. Disadvantages: recoil, low barrel life, difficulties with installation and maintenance.

AIRCRAFT GUNS - NOT ALL SO SIMPLE

Alexander IIIprokorad

The question of arming aircraft arose in the very first days of the First World War. At that time, the only air combat weapon could only be a 6.5-8.0 mm machine gun. Machine guns were successfully used in battles, but already in 1915-1918. The first attempts were made to equip aircraft with conventional small-caliber (37-47 mm) guns. These experiments were unsuccessful - the mass of guns and ammunition, and most importantly, the recoil of the gun when firing did not correspond to primitive aircraft designs.

Therefore, in 1915-1916. Independently of each other, experimental recoilless aircraft guns appeared in Russia and France. Russian Colonel Gelvich designed and tested 76 mm and 47 mm recoilless rifles with the so-called inert mass. In guns of this type, a projectile flew in the direction of the target, and an inert mass flew in the opposite direction. In the 76-mm cannon, the inert mass was the barrel, which flew back after the shot and then descended by parachute; The 47-mm gun had two barrels directed in opposite directions. Shooting was carried out simultaneously from both barrels. A live projectile was flying towards the target, and a “dummy” projectile was flying back.

After the First World War, the aviation boom began. In the 20-30s, heavy two-six-engine bombers appeared. To combat them, along with fighters armed with machine guns, multi-engine air cruisers with artillery weapons were also designed. In the USSR, air cruisers were supposed to be equipped with Kurchevsky automatic recoilless guns of 37-152 mm caliber, 76-mm regimental guns of the 1927 model and “classic” machine guns of 37-45 mm caliber. However, in 1937 this work was completely stopped. In 1943-1947. In the Central Design Bureau under the leadership of Grabil and in the “sharashka” OKB-172, several prototypes of 76-mm automatic recoilless rifles (S-14, N15-105, BL-15) were created, but they never entered service.

In the 1930s, experiments were carried out in the USSR with the installation of swinging parts of 76-mm regimental guns on TB-1 and TB-3 bombers. These firings, as well as firing from Kurchevsky’s 76-100 mm guns, showed that it is inappropriate to fire at air targets from guns of 76 mm caliber and higher. To destroy an aircraft in the event of a direct hit, a shell of a smaller caliber was sufficient, and in case of a miss, it was necessary to detonate the shell near the target. Proximity fuses appeared only in 1944, and even then aircraft shells were not equipped with them. By analogy with an anti-aircraft missile, an aircraft projectile could be equipped with a remote tube, but it was not possible to create an on-board automatic remote tube installer. Finally, the very weak point of all aircraft guns was the sight. Due to the lack of good automatic sights during the Second World War, aircraft opened fire at best at a distance five or more times less than the effective range of the gun*.

The failure to create heavy aircraft guns and the increase in aircraft speeds in the second half of the 30s made the idea of creating an air cruiser hopeless.

Nevertheless, it was impossible to do without aircraft guns. In April 1933, firing took place at P-1 type aircraft from various guns and an analysis of the damage to the aircraft was carried out. The commission’s conclusion stated: “The 20-mm projectile is weak against any aircraft; A 37-mm projectile requires two to five hits to disable an aircraft, but for a 45-mm projectile one hit is enough.” Looking ahead, let's say that the US Navy in 1946, having analyzed the action of small-caliber artillery on kamikaze aircraft and range firing on captured Japanese Nakajima and Baka aircraft, came to the conclusion that with single hits 12.7 and 20 -mm shells have extremely low effectiveness, 40mm shells are more effective, and the optimal weapon against aircraft of this type is a 76mm automatic cannon.

Of course, even a successful hit from one 12.7 mm bullet could have brought down the plane; another question is what the probability of such an event is. Therefore, we will leave the tales that “one hit by a 37-mm NS-37 shell caused any aircraft to crumble into pieces” to be left to the conscience of the memoirists.

Serial automatic air cannons appeared abroad in the 1920s. Among them, it is worth noting the 37-mm Vickers-Amstrong automatic cannon, adopted for service in 1925. The cannon was manufactured only in a turret version. The automation operated on recoil energy during a long recoil of the barrel. The gun was quite reliable and effective, but its practical rate of fire was only 10-12 rounds/min due to the small magazine capacity (5 rounds). In the USSR in the mid-30s there were several types of aircraft guns of 20-45 mm caliber. Of greatest interest is the powerful 37-mm cannon of the Kondakov system (Artakademiya Design Bureau). A detrimental role in the development of automatic guns was played by the decision made in 1928 to concentrate the production of all automatic guns without exception at plant No. 8 (Kalinin plant near the Podlipki railway platform).

The plant had neither personnel nor experience in the production of automatic guns, and was much more financially interested in “drive a wave” of 45-mm anti-tank, tank and naval guns. As a result, until 1940, the Lipkovites were never able to establish mass production of automatic guns.

The designers and factories that dealt exclusively with machine guns came to the rescue. In 1935, production of the 12.7-mm ShVAK (Shpitalny-Vladimirov aviation large-caliber) machine gun began. And in 1936, the 20-mm ShVAK cannon was created on its basis. To do this, they only replaced the barrel, without changing the dimensions of the moving system. This is how the first domestic large-scale aircraft gun appeared. With the launch of the gun into series production, the production of 12.7 mm ShVAK machine guns was discontinued. In combat conditions, the ShVAK cannon was first used on the Khalkhin Gol River on an I-16 aircraft in 1939.

The Germans followed the same path with the MG-151 assault rifle, where by replacing the barrel of a 15-mm machine gun they got a 20-mm cannon.

The automation of most cannons and machine guns worked due to recoil energy during a short recoil or due to the energy of powder gases removed from the barrel. In some cases, these two types of automation were combined (30-mm German MK-103 cannon, 20-mm Hispano Mk.I cannon).

During the war, the best automatic cannons were the Soviet 23-mm VYa and the German 30-mm MK-103. The heavy projectile, combined with a high initial velocity and high rate of fire, made them an effective means of destroying air and ground targets. Because of these qualities, VYa and MK-103 have also found use as anti-aircraft guns. And after the war, the ZU-23 and ZSU-23 “Shilka” anti-aircraft guns, which are still in service with the Russian army, were designed for ballistics and the VYa cannon cartridge.

Aircraft guns with a caliber over 30 mm, along with their advantages, also had significant disadvantages, so their assessments in memoirs and even in reports must be approached with caution.

In the USSR in 1944-1945. 53 Yak-9K aircraft with a 45-mm NS-45 motor cannon (ammunition load - 29 shells) and 2,748 Yak-9T fighters with a 37 mm NS-37 motor cannon (ammunition load - 30 shells) were built. According to the reports of the units where they underwent military tests, 147 20-mm ShVAK cannon shells, or 31 37-mm NS-37 cannon shells, or 10 45-mm NS-45 shells were spent on one downed enemy aircraft. But, on the other hand, it should be taken into account that fighters with 37-45 mm cannons operated mainly under the cover of fighters with 20 mm cannons, including slave vehicles. Accurate firing from 37-45 mm cannons was achieved only on the first shot; the rest of the shells flew past. After a burst of three shots fired even at maximum speed, the speed dropped sharply, the stability of the aircraft was lost and oil and water leaks were observed in the pipelines.

For comparison, we note that from the ShVAK and VYA cannons on any aircraft flying at a speed of at least 400 km/h, it was possible to fire in long bursts, and almost no recoil was felt.

Small-caliber machine guns turned out to be ineffective even as defensive weapons for bombers, which gradually began to be rearmed with 12.7-20 mm turret mounts.

All machine gun and cannon turrets at the beginning of the war were aimed manually. At the end of the war, electric drives with remote control began to be used on the turrets and stern installations of bombers. The American B-29 bomber with 5 twin 12.7 mm mounts truly became a “flying fortress” and could successfully repel attacks by propeller-driven fighters armed with 20 mm cannons. However, the advent of jet fighters with 30-37 mm caliber guns made it impossible for the B-29 to fly without fighter escort. The end to the fighter-“flying fortress” dispute was finally put to rest during the Korean War. In the era of jet aviation, the main defense of a bomber was its speed, and defensive weapons were reduced to stern gun mounts.

When operating against ground targets, the effectiveness of each type of gun was determined by the nature of the target.

Thus, when firing at open live targets, the effectiveness of a 7.62 mm bullet differed little from a 20 mm or 37 mm projectile, since their fragmentation effect was very weak and a direct hit was required to hit personnel.

When firing at cars, trains and small watercraft, 7.62-12.7 mm machine guns were ineffective, and the effect of aircraft guns increased sharply with increasing caliber. and the mass of the projectile.

The massive destruction of tanks from aircraft guns, widely advertised in films and memoirs, in most cases refers to “hunting stories.” It is simply impossible to penetrate the side armor of a medium or heavy tank with a 20-45 mm aircraft cannon. We can only talk about the tank's roof armor, which was several times thinner than the vertical armor and amounted to 15-20 mm for medium tanks and 30-40 mm for heavy tanks. Aircraft guns used both caliber and sub-caliber armor-piercing shells. In both cases they did not contain explosives, but only sometimes a few grams of incendiary. The VYa cannon's sub-caliber projectile penetrated 25 mm armor at a distance of 400 m, and the NS-37 cannon's caliber projectile penetrated 50 mm armor at a distance of 200 m. In this case, the projectile had to hit perpendicular to the armor. It is clear that in combat conditions, shells hit the roof of tanks at much smaller angles, which sharply reduced their armor penetration or even caused a ricochet.

During the war, an experimental shooting of stationary tanks was carried out at the NIIBT training ground. In a calm situation, from a distance of 300-400 m, 3 shells from 35 LaGG-3 shots hit the tank, and 3 shells from 55 IL-2 shots also hit the tank. To this we must add that not every small-caliber projectile that penetrated the armor of a tank disabled it.

That's why the Germans and Americans tried to install swinging parts on planes to fight tanks

50-75 mm anti-tank guns. These guns were semi-automatic, but this did not matter significantly, since there could only be one aimed shot anyway.

In general, during the war, combat losses of Soviet medium and heavy tanks by type of weapons were: from artillery - 88-91%, from mines and land mines - 8-4%, from bombs and artillery fire from aircraft - 4-5%. Although in some operations losses from aviation fire reached 10-15%.

Summing up the use of aircraft weapons, it should be noted that aircraft guns have completely replaced machine guns of both conventional and large caliber. The war showed that the optimal caliber of fighter guns should be 23-30 mm, and for defensive weapons of a bomber - 20-23 mm.

The creation in Germany of jet bombers and fighters, as well as cruise missiles (such as the V-1 and others) forced designers to begin designing aircraft guns with a rate of fire of more than 1000 rounds per minute, and this already required radical changes in the design of the guns. So, back in 1943, the Mauser company created a 20-mm automatic cannon MG-213C/20 of a revolver type with a rate of fire of more than 1700 rounds per minute, but the Germans did not have time to bring it into large-scale production. The problem of creating highly effective ultra-fast-firing aircraft guns was finally solved only after the war.

Production of aviation weapons in the USSR 1942-1945.

Table of contents

57-mm air cannon No-401. Japan

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The ancestor of this monster was also a 37 mm cannon. The No-203 was such a successful design that, on orders from above, Dr. Kawamura decided to pump his brainchild with steroids to a caliber of 57 millimeters. This happened in 1943, when it was possible to develop a system for the low-power 57x121R cartridge for the 57-mm Type 97 tank gun. The automation scheme of the new 57-mm aircraft gun completely repeated the earlier No-203 of 37 mm caliber. Even externally, the guns were very similar, the difference was that the No-401 had a muzzle brake. The No-401 gun was fed from a closed drum-type magazine, similar to that used on the 37-mm No-203. The magazine capacity was 17 rounds. Unfortunately, despite the good weight and dimensions for such a caliber (weight is only 150 kg), the No-401 inherited from its predecessor all the negative characteristics, of which there were a lot. The short barrel and small cartridge charge gave a parabolic trajectory and low initial velocity of the projectile. And the rate of fire of 80 rounds per minute was, let’s say, very low. Plus the recoil was high and threw off the aim. So all these disadvantages predetermined the use of the gun exclusively for assault operations, when it was possible to fire only one aimed shot in one run.

The exact number of No-401 guns manufactured is unknown; the approximate number is estimated at around 500 pieces. The only aircraft that was designed for this system was the heavy twin-engine attack aircraft Kawasaki Ki-102 Otsu, in which the Ho-401 was compactly located in the nose, only slightly protruding beyond the dimensions of the aircraft. 215 of these vehicles were built in 1944-45, but they were almost never used in battle. They were preserved to counter the expected Allied landing on the Japanese Islands. Later, some of these attack aircraft were re-equipped with new 37-mm No-204 cannons, turning them into heavy interceptors. Advantages: light weight, good ammunition load. Disadvantages: low rate of fire, disgusting ballistics, weak cartridge for such a heavy projectile.

Weapons of World War II. Air cannons 20(23) mm

Continuing the theme of aircraft weapons, quite predictably we move on to aircraft guns of the Second World War. I’ll immediately make a reservation that in general the article is dedicated to 20-mm cannons, and a single 23-mm cannon is included here because it is still closer in characteristics to its 20-mm colleagues than to those that will be discussed further.

And one more point that I would like to focus on, based on previous articles. Some readers ask why we didn’t talk about some developments? It's simple: our ratings involve actual combat weapons, not developed weapons. And the best, in our opinion.

And we are very grateful to you for your votes in favor of this or that weapon. Although, it seems to us, we have some excessive patriotism (in relation to the same ShKAS). Although everything was natural in large-caliber machine guns, the Berezin really was a perfect weapon.

So, air cannons.

Oerlikon FF. Switzerland

If there is a weapons-grade aviation god somewhere, then in our case his first word would be the word “Oerlikon”.
Not quite the correct transcription, but God bless him, right? The main thing in our story is that it was from the developments of Dr. Becker that numerous aviation and anti-aircraft automatic guns from Oerlikon Contraves AG were born. The name already contained the essence: from the Latin contra aves - “against the birds.” In fact, they are primarily anti-aircraft, and secondarily aviation. The Oerlikon air cannons attracted the interest of many. Simply because no one really produced them in the early 30s. And all this advanced design led to a well-known situation - during the Second World War, almost the entire world shot at each other precisely from Oerlikons.

Oerlikon guns were fired not only by those who were unable to use air cannons, but even by those who were able to. It’s not for nothing that the famous German MG-FF is similar in name to the Oerlikon FF...

Initially, the Oerlikons were mostly turret-based. It was assumed that the fighter, anticipating victory over the bomber, might have been somewhat saddened by receiving a 20 mm cucumber in the forehead instead of a handful of 7.7 mm peas. And this was the essence and understanding of the situation.

Therefore, immediately after the turret versions of the AF and AL guns went on the market, Oerlikon, having acquired a patent from Hispano-Suiza for installing guns in the camber of a water-cooled engine, began developing a new generation of weapons.

This series of Oerlikon guns entered the market in 1935. It received the trade designation FF (from the German Flügel Fest - “wing installation”). These guns were already considered as fixed offensive weapons. Although, if desired, they could also be installed as a turret, simply without installing a pneumatic reloading mechanism.

But the most interesting feature of Oerlikon was the huge range of peripherals that were sold with each gun. Various mounts for the engine, turrets, wing installations, pneumatic and hydraulic loading mechanisms, wheeled and anti-aircraft guns in infantry, tank and ship versions, as well as various stores. For each of the guns, a set of drum magazines with a capacity of 30, 45, 60, 75 and 100 rounds was offered, and for the company's old clients the possibility of using old 15-round drum magazines from the 20s was retained.

In general, indeed, “any whim for the client’s money.” But in reality it is a superbly unified weapon system for almost all occasions. And all this from a rather modest Becker gun, invented back in 1918...

The only drawback of these guns was that the blowback-based operation did not make it possible to synchronize the operation of the guns with the engine. But, as we know, this did not greatly sadden those who used them. MG-FF in the wing root of the FW-190 with 180 rounds of ammunition - it was quite weighty.

A significant number of countries have become Oerlikon's clients. Guns based on the FF family were used by Germany, Japan, Italy, Romania, Poland, Great Britain, and Canada.

By the beginning of World War II, the development of aviation versions of the Oerlikons had ceased. In terms of the main parameters, the Oerlikon FF air guns definitely began to be inferior to French, Soviet and German guns. But mainly, the impossibility of synchronizing the guns with the engines played a role.

The first was not easy at all times...

Advantages: excellent set of peripherals for adapting the gun, reliability.

Disadvantages: inability to synchronize.

MG-151. Germany

The first prototype of this gun appeared in 1935, but it was only in 1940 that the MG 151 gun was put into production.
They spent so long digging not because there were any difficulties, but because the German command could not decide on priorities. But when the Luftwaffe realized that something had to be done with the rapidly aging MG-FF, everything went as it should for the Germans, that is, quickly. This is how the MG-151/20 turned out, in two guises: a 15-mm heavy machine gun and a 20-mm cannon.

Some “experts” regard the 15-mm and 20-mm versions as some kind of double-caliber weapons, seriously saying that with “a slight movement of the hand” a 15-mm machine gun was transformed into a 20-mm cannon by simply replacing the barrel.

Of course, this is not true, but we will forgive non-specialists. The machine gun was not turned into a cannon, since this would require not only changing the barrel, but also the chamber chamber, the cartridge receiver, the buffer body and the rear buffer itself, and the sear.

But the unification was indeed quite high, we must pay tribute to the German engineers. And indeed, at the assembly stage it was possible to assemble both a machine gun and a cannon in one workshop.

The cartridge, by the way, remained the same low-power 20x82, the projectile of which was unified with the MG-FF projectile. The sleeve was different.

Unification was not beneficial. It turned out that the 15-mm machine gun had more luxurious ballistics than the 20-mm cannon. The 15-mm MG-151 was, perhaps, one of the best representatives in its class, but the MG-151/20 turned out to be very mediocre thanks to its weak cartridge.

The high-explosive projectile, which was very powerful, perhaps the most powerful in its class and with good ballistics, came to the rescue. The armor-piercing one was completely weak in all respects.

However, this did not bother the Germans at all, since there was only one gun in the world that was really stronger than the MG-151/20. The Soviet ShVAK had better combat characteristics, with better ballistics and rate of fire. The only place where the 151st had an advantage, I repeat, was in shells.

The 20-mm MG-151/20 has become the main armament of Luftwaffe aircraft since the end of 1941. In fact, there was no aircraft in German fighter aviation that did not carry this weapon in at least some submodification. On Bf-109 fighters it was installed in engine and wing versions. On the FW-190, a pair of MG 151/20s were installed synchronously in the wing root. The strength of the 151st was that the synchronized versions did not lose much in rate of fire. The rate of fire decreased from 700-750 to 550-680 rounds/min.

And in bomber and transport aviation, the aircraft had turret versions of the MG 151/20 cannon, which were equipped with two handles with a trigger and a frame sight mounted on a bracket.

Such guns were installed in the firing points of the FW-200 and He-177 bombers, in the nose turret of the Ju-188 and were intended to be used not so much for defense against fighters, but for shelling ground and surface targets. In HDL.151 turret turrets of several modifications, the MG-151/20 cannon was mounted on the Do-24, BV-138 and BV-222 flying boats and some versions of the FW-200 and He-177 bombers in the top mount.

In general, we can say that ALL German aircraft armed with air cannons were in one way or another connected with the MG-151/20.

MG-151 aircraft guns were produced in Germany from 1940 until the very end of the war, at seven enterprises. The total number of guns of all modifications produced is estimated at 40-50 thousand pieces. This quantity was enough not only for the needs of the Luftwaffe. The Italians received about 2 thousand MG-151/20 guns, which were used to arm the Macchi C.205, Fiat G.55 and Reggiane Re.2005 fighters. The Romanians received several hundred - they armed IAR 81C fighters. In September 1942, 800 MG-151/20 guns and 400 thousand cartridges for them were delivered to Japan. They were armed with Ki-61-Ic fighters.

In general, the MG-151/20 can be called the main Axis air cannon.

Advantages: reliability, rate of fire.

Disadvantages: weak cartridge with poor projectile ballistics.

Hispano-Suiza HS.404. France

The whole essence of the French company Hispano-Suiza can be expressed in one name: Marc Birkigt.
In French life - Marc Birkier. It was he who created the 404 model and all those that followed it. Strictly speaking, there was nothing fundamentally new in the design of Mark Birkje’s gun. Just a well-assembled old one, but how...

The bolt is a principle patented by the American gunsmith Karl Svebilius back in 1919. The trigger mechanism is made by Italian designer Alfredo Scotti.

Birkje combined the developments of Svebilius and Scotti, received an original design, while maintaining a certain design continuity with the Oerlikon guns.

And after the 404th model, Birkje had far-reaching plans to create even more powerful guns. For example, the 25-mm HS.410 cannon chambered for the promising 25x135.5 Mle1937B and 25x159.5 Mle1935-1937A cartridges and the 30-mm HS.411 for the modified Hotchkiss cartridge 25x163 mm, which was increased in size to 30x170 mm.

In 1937, France nationalized all private enterprises working with military orders, including the Hispano-Suiza plant. Birkje was offended and moved production to Geneva.

All of Birkje’s developments, which existed in the form of prototypes, were transferred to the state government, where it was planned to complete the development and introduce new guns into the series. But since the designers and engineers partially left for Switzerland with Birkje, the matter was delayed in France. So much so that in 1938 the Hispano-Suiza company went bankrupt.

Birkje took most of the documentation on his designs to Switzerland, hoping to establish the production of guns there. A wide advertising campaign was launched in the hope of attracting the interest of foreign buyers.

It turned out to be a most amusing situation when the same developments were offered for sale by a French state-owned company and a Swiss private company. Moreover, production facilities and equipment were located in France, and documentation and “brains” were in Switzerland.

But there was also a third party, Great Britain. There, at a specially built BRAMCo plant, they also began to produce HS.404. We must pay tribute to the British, they managed to bring the HS.404 cannon to the level of the highest world standards. The Americans, who started a year later, were less fortunate; they brought the gun up to standard only towards the end of the Second World War. Well, it was relatively successful.

Already during the outbreak of the war, a belt feeding mechanism for the gun was developed at the state arsenal "Chatelrault". However, this mechanism was not introduced before the armistice and occupation, and the British began fine-tuning it, eventually receiving a new modification of the Hispano MkII cannon. Also, the French did not have time to bring drum magazines of increased capacity for 90 and 150 rounds to production.

Considering the very large range of aircraft used by the French Air Force during the war, there is no point in listing all types of aircraft that used Hispano guns. All the latest French fighters were armed with HS.404 motor cannons, and the Bloch MB.151 fighter even carried two wing-mounted cannons of this type.

The HS.404 cannon, adapted for turrets, formed the basis of the defense capability of the newest Amiot 351/354, Liore et Olivier LeO 451 and Farman NC.223 bombers.

Advantages: rate of fire, reliability, very serious projectile.

Disadvantages: the need to lubricate cartridges before loading into drums, lack of belt power.

Hispano Mk.II. Great Britain

Yes, it’s strange, but the main gun of the British Royal Air Force was a French gun, the same “Hispano-Suiza Birkigt type 404”.
The gun successfully fought in many armies, except for its native one, and remained in service for a long time after the war. But we can’t help but say something special about the British version of the gun. In general, when all the defense ministries rushed for guns, although the choice was small, it was there. “Madsen”, “Oerlikon”, “Hispano-Suiza”...

The French gun was good. The HS.404 was superior to the Oerlikon in the main combat parameters: rate of fire, initial speed, but was technically more complex. The British preferred the French development.

The English-made gun received the official designation "Hispano-Suiza type 404", or "Hispano Mk.I", the version produced in France was called "Hispano-Suiza Birkigt Mod.404" or HS.404.

The first British aircraft to receive HS.404 cannons was the twin-engine Westland Whirlwind interceptor, designed specifically to install a 4-gun battery in the nose.

The reliability of the guns in the first series of production was disheartening, but the British made every effort to ensure that the gun finally worked properly. And this pushed them to take an unprecedented step: to collaborate with Birkigt, the author of the development. But this is a separate detective story in the style of James Bond and we will pay attention to it in the very near future.

And a miracle happened: the cannon started working. Yes, at the cost of reducing the rate of fire from 750 rounds/min in the basic version to 600-650 rounds/min. But reliability increased to a level of 1 failure per 1500 rounds.

One of the significant drawbacks of the HS.404 gun was its ammunition supply system. It was an exceptionally bulky 60-shot drum mechanism, which also weighed 25.4 kg. Plus, this thing greatly limited the installation of the cannon in the wings and was a subject of torment until the moment when the belt method of powering the cannon was invented.

With the ribbon, the gun became known as “Hispano Mk.II”. The gun was not only liked, but was installed on all aircraft, from the Hurricane and Spitfire to the Beaufighter and Tempest. Production has ceased to keep pace with demand. There was even an attempt to supply guns under Lend-Lease from the USA, but the quality of the American version did not stand up to criticism.

To sum up the history of the use of the Hispano cannon in British wartime aviation, it should be said that it was an iconic weapon. The production of Hispano guns continued in various modifications for many years after the end of the war, until it became completely obsolete. There is no exact data on the number of guns produced, but according to a rough estimate, about 200 thousand guns were produced in Great Britain alone during the war years, which makes it the most popular aircraft gun of all time.

Advantages: good projectile with good ballistics

Disadvantages: required lubrication of shells before loading.

SHVAK. USSR

SHVAK... Perhaps there are few models in the world of weapons that have so many legends and fictions around them.

Let's start with the fact that even today it is really impossible to understand and determine when exactly work on this gun began. According to a number of documents, the development of the gun was carried out in parallel with the 12.7 mm machine gun of the same name, and all this was within the framework of the creation of some kind of bicaliber system in the spring of 1932, that is, almost in parallel with the 7.62 mm ShKAS machine gun.

According to other sources, the start of work on the 20-mm version of the ShVAK dates back to the beginning of 1934, when Shpitalny decided to rework the 12.7-mm machine gun for a more powerful cartridge.

Considering what happened in the 30-40s of the last century among Soviet designers, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Perhaps Shpitalny really had an idea about unified weapons for different calibers. Otherwise, why was it necessary to build such a heavy, complex and expensive machine gun for 12.7 mm caliber?

However, who said that in the Soviet Union the difficulties frightened anyone? On the contrary, they even stimulated me.

And Shpitalny did it. Having implemented its work in the ShVAK cannon in the form of a 10-position drum mechanism for step-by-step removal of the cartridge from the belt. This achieved the same crazy rate of fire of the ShKAS, and the ShVAK cannot be called slow.

The first Soviet aircraft to install a ShVAK cannon was the Polikarpov I-16 fighter. In July 1936, an experimental version of the fighter, the TsKB-12P (cannon), was equipped with two ShVAK wing cannons. Already in the next year, 1937, this modification under the designation type 12 began to be mass-produced at plant No. 21.

And at the very end of 1936, it was possible to place the ShVAK in the cylinder chamber of the M-100A engine in the I-17 fighter.

The synchronous version appeared much later, since the matter was, unlike European design bureaus, completely new. But they coped with this too, installing two synchronous ShVAKs on the I-153P in 1940.

With the beginning of the war, ShVAK began to be produced and installed en masse on all Soviet fighters.

It was more difficult with bombers. The only production aircraft that had ShVAK turrets standardly installed was the Pe-8 heavy bomber. But this bomber cannot be called numerous. Rather, piece production.

And when the I-16 was discontinued, and the Il-2 began to be equipped with VYa cannons, the need for a wing version of the ShVAK was no longer necessary. True, there was a small series in 1943 to replace machine guns on Hurricanes.

Speaking about the role of ShVAK in the war, it is worth talking about quantity. Taking into account the pre-war production, the ShVAK gun was produced in more than 100 thousand copies. In fact, this is one of the most popular aircraft cannons of its class and, in terms of quantity, is second only to the Hispano cannon, which was mentioned above.

How to evaluate ShVAK so that everything is fair? There were many shortcomings. And a frankly weak projectile, and unimportant ballistics, and complexity of design and maintenance. But the first two shortcomings were more than compensated for by the rate of fire.

However, the ShVAK gun of Shpitalny and Vladimirov was the main weapon of the Red Army Air Force in the fight against the Luftwaffe. And even weak ShVAK shells were enough to destroy all the aircraft at the disposal of the Luftwaffe. The case when quantity and rate of fire were decisive.

Of course, if the Germans had heavy and well-armed bombers like the American “fortresses,” our pilots would have a very difficult time. But leaving the subjunctive mood aside, let’s say this: in the duel with German guns, ShVAK clearly emerged victorious.

Advantages: rate of fire.

Disadvantages: complex design, weak projectile with poor ballistics.

No-5. Japan

The Japanese had their own way.
However, as always, on the verge of understanding. The Japanese Air Force had guns before the war. No-1 and No-2. To say that they were unsatisfactory is to say nothing; they were created on the basis of the Type 97 anti-tank rifles.

These were rather cumbersome systems, with a terribly low rate of fire, not exceeding 400 rounds/min. And already in 1941, the Japanese command began to solve the problem of developing new aircraft guns.

Moreover, in Japan in 1937, licensed production of Swiss Oerlikons was established. But the Oerlikons remained naval anti-aircraft guns, and the army abandoned them under the pretext that they could not synchronize with the engine. But seriously, most likely the matter is in the eternal confrontation between the army and navy, which harmed and brought the Japanese armed forces to final defeat.

There were deliveries of German Mauser guns, which were installed on Japanese fighters. But the “Germans” could not be called successful guns, so the Japanese chose the third path.

The army relied on its genius Kijiro Nambu. Before the war, the general designer very successfully tore up the American Browning model of 1921, so much so that the Americans themselves were amazed. No-103 showed a rate of fire 30% higher than the original, without compromising reliability.

In general, General Nambu did not bother, given that time was really running out. He simply took and proportionally enlarged the barrel bore and the cartridge feed system. The most interesting thing is that it helped!

The No-5 gun surpassed all modern imported models in terms of performance characteristics. And not only guns, but also some heavy machine guns. At the beginning of 1942, only one aircraft gun in the world was as good as the No-5 in practical rate of fire. It was a Soviet ShVAK, but at the same time it was almost 10 kg heavier and much more technologically complex.

Until the very end of the war, American aircraft received “greetings” from their Japanese colleagues, fired from copied American machine guns and cannons.

Advantages: reliability, rate of fire, practicality.

Disadvantages: low rate of fire in synchronized version

VYA-23. USSR

This is the exception.
A slightly different caliber, but we won’t pass it by. Moreover, if the Japanese No-5 was weaker, it was not very much. When it became clear that the ShVAK was frankly weak, a decision was made to develop a gun for a more powerful cartridge.

In general, in the pre-war world there was a tendency to increase calibers, but how to put it, not very actively.

The Danes from Madsen converted their 20mm machine gun to a 23mm caliber. Hispano-Suiza developed 23 mm versions of the HS-406 and HS-407. The companies are famous and respected, which is probably why Soviet designers paid attention to the 23 mm caliber. There was even a small scandal about the alleged sale of technical documentation for the 23-mm HS-407 motor gun by employees of Hispano-Suiza.

It is difficult to say whether this was true or not; documentary evidence could not be found. But these accusations against Birkje strangely coincide in time with the issuance of an order by the People's Commissariat of Armaments in the USSR to design a new 23-mm aircraft gun in the summer of 1937.

And intelligence in the Soviet Union could do a lot...

During the same period, the development of a new 23-mm cartridge for the gun began. And there is an interesting nuance here. For some reason, all foreign companies preferred cartridges with moderate power. “Madsen” - 23x106, “Ispano” - 23x122, but the Tula masters decided differently, creating a 23x152 cartridge that was superior to all imaginable analogues.

The reason for creating such ammunition is a little unclear. Definitely, the power was excessive, and unreasonably excessive. In addition, the use of such a cartridge generated recoil, which not any design could cope with.

Perhaps it was planned in the future to unify this cartridge for use in anti-aircraft guns. But it turned out that the 23x152B cartridge turned out to be very successful; it was destined to have a long life in a wide variety of artillery weapons systems.

However, at first, the biggest problem was the high recoil of the new guns. S.V. Ilyushin, who tried in every possible way to refuse to install VYa on his BSh-2 attack aircraft, motivated his reluctance precisely by the high recoil force.

Indeed, in March 1941, experiments were organized to measure the recoil values of competing guns. It turned out that the recoil force of the competitors' MP-6 gun is 2800-2900 kgf, and that of the TKB-201 gun (in the future just VYa) is 3600-3700 kgf.

True, it should be noted that the recoil of 3.5 tons from the VYa guns did not prevent it from going through the entire war on Il-2 attack aircraft. However, only this aircraft with an armored frame and a reinforced center section was able to carry these guns. But with what efficiency...

In this material, we will not consider the use of the VYa-23 as an anti-tank weapon, but no one would think of disputing the fact that the IL-2 was a very effective attack aircraft.

Advantages: a very powerful projectile with good ballistics, good rate of fire.

Disadvantages: recoil, which prevented the use of a gun other than the Il-2.

Summarizing in some way everything that has been written, we note that against the background of their foreign classmates, Soviet guns look quite themselves, despite the fact that the Soviet design school was very much inferior to everyone else in terms of its existence.

However, we had our own (and very good) weapons.

We now invite you to vote for the best example.

Sources Based on materials from the works of Evgeniy Aranov.

Molins 6-pounder Class-M. Great Britain

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In early 1943, the Air Force Command began to discuss replacing the 40 mm Vickers S anti-tank guns installed on Hurricane IID aircraft. The armor became thicker, the shells of 40-mm cannons became less and less dangerous for it. For the sake of replacement, it was designed by a group of specialists led by G.F. Wallace's is a truly monstrous Molins gun. During testing, the gun showed itself to be very good, and the only thing that could prevent its use on airplanes was possible problems with the automatic feed and loader due to overloads (from 3.5 g) that arise during maneuvering. On the other hand, who would shoot from such a cannon, maneuvering so actively? It is clear that there was no talk of any re-equipment of the Hurricanes, since the cannon weighed almost a ton. Plus the recoil was “only” 4.5 tons. Although, in principle, for such a weapon it’s not that much. Therefore, they decided to stuff this gun into the Mosquito, fortunately, its nose was empty after all. Or almost empty. It is worth recalling that the Mosquito was a wooden plane with a balsa core. Lightweight and durable. But 4.5 tons of recoil is 4.5 tons of recoil. Static tests were carried out and the balsa passed. This is how the anti-submarine Mosquito appeared with a 57-mm cannon in the forward fuselage.

The Molins were placed at a slight downward angle and 100 mm to the right of the longitudinal axis, with the gun barrel protruding 610 mm from the fuselage. The return spring was located under the barrel. And we didn’t even have to throw away the machine guns. There were different options, with four or two 0.303 Browning machine guns with double ammunition. A machine gun is generally a useful thing, you can also throw tracers for shooting, you can explain to the anti-aircraft gunners that they need to run through the cracks... An interesting system was implemented for collecting shell casings, which were not thrown out, since they could actually damage the tail of the aircraft. The shell casings remained inside the aircraft, in the catcher.

For aiming, a Mk.IIIa reflex sight was installed. The Molins gun received the official name “Airborne 6-pounder Class M”, and the “Mosquito” armed with this colossus began to be called “Tse-Tse”. A mixed anti-submarine squadron 248 was formed, armed with Beaufighters and Mosquito-Tse-Tse. The first combat flight of the Mk.XVIII took place on October 24, 1943. The Mosquito searched for enemy submarines, and on November 7 of the same year the first combat engagement took place. A pair of Mosquitoes discovered a submarine on the surface. Having received several hits in the wheelhouse, the boat sank, surrounded by black smoke. But the pilots managed to reliably sink a German submarine for the first time on March 25, 1944, off the coast of France. Advantages: you just had to hit the target. The rest was taken care of by the projectile. Disadvantages: weight of the gun, only armor-piercing shells were included, low rate of fire.

Air cannons of World War II and after it: how did the caliber grow?

Bombers gradually became all-metal - rifle-caliber machine guns could no longer cause serious damage to them. The history of weapons continued - the caliber of weapons of fighters and bombers began to increase.

Georges Guynemer Photo: ru.wikipedia.org

Guns came to aviation. In fact, the first cannons were installed on airplanes back in the First World War: in 1916, the French ace Guynemer installed a semi-automatic 37 mm caliber cannon in the camber of his airplane’s engine. He took aim, fired, took the spent cartridge case out of the breech and inserted a new shell... On the Spud fighter, pilot Fonck managed to shoot down six German planes in one day with the same cannon.

Unfortunately, these two guns could not “make the difference” - the pilots needed automatic guns. And since they were needed, they appeared. At first these were heavy machine guns: 12.7 mm, 15.1 mm... And then the caliber began to increase.

During the Spanish War, the Germans tested the combat capability of the first model Me-109E (Emil), it was armed with four machine guns and was only slightly faster in speed than the main Red Army Air Force aircraft I-16. But it was made with hit-and-run tactics in mind. Launch an attack from a height, shoot at a target, and gain altitude again without getting involved in battle.

And in 1941, fighters of Messer’s next model, the Friedrichs, were already going into battle, they had cannons instead of machine guns, and a more powerful engine - which means their speed was higher, they could dive, fire and go vertical, And- 16 I couldn’t catch up with them there.

By the beginning of the war, the latest models of our main I-16 fighter had two guns installed, but their speed remained the same. It was difficult for them to fight the Me-109°F.

Restored MiG-3 at an air show - Mochishche airfield, Novosibirsk region Photo: ru.wikipedia.org

On the new Soviet fighters - MiG-3, Yak-1 - 20 mm ShVAK-20 cannons were installed in the engine camber, firing through the hollow propeller hub.

In addition to the ShVAK-20, the Red Army Air Force was also armed with the VYA-23, a very lethal gun, but which had very strong recoil when fired. Also in the Red Army Air Force during that war, guns of the Nudelman-Suranov system appeared - NS-37 and NS-45.

VYA-23 (Volkov-Yartsev) - Soviet aircraft gun of 23 mm caliber Photo: Source

VYA-23 cannons were standard in Il-2 attack aircraft. And the NS guns were installed on various Yak aircraft.

The Yak-9T (tank) was armed with the NS-37. A hit from a couple of shells from this gun would break a Yu-88 or He-111 in the air, and the shell would penetrate tank armor up to 30 mm thick. It was possible to shoot at a bomber from 600 m (from machine guns - at a distance of no more than 200 m).

However, the recoil of the gun made it impossible to shoot accurately after the 3rd shot, and the ammunition capacity was only 30 shells. The plane was very heavy, but if it was protected from the attacks of the Messers, it would destroy the formation of enemy bombers almost instantly. And after several heavy bombers scattered in the air at once, the offensive fervor of the survivors tended to zero.

The Yak-9K was armed with the NS-45. The armored FV-190 crumbled from the impacts of the shells of this gun. Alas, due to the unreliable cannon of these aircraft, only a few dozen were produced. Of these, they formed one of the air regiments, commanded by Major Kleshchev. His fighters shot down more than 100 enemy aircraft in 2 months.

Yak-9K Photo: Source

It should be noted that the caliber of the gun, although important, is not the only important characteristic of an aircraft gun.

The Japanese installed two Ho-301 40 mm cannons on one of the modifications of the Ki-44 fighter. Cool? Knock down whoever you want? Alas. These guns had caseless projectiles; the propellant charge was pressed into the bottom of the projectile. The projectile flew only 150 meters. This means that in order to hit the American Superfortress, it was necessary to approach it within 150 meters. This is despite the fact that the bomber fired back with heavy machine guns and automatic cannons, effective at a distance of up to 1000 m. That is, each such attack was an act of recklessness worthy of a kamikaze.

The fate of the American heavy fighter P-39 Airacobra is interesting. American and British pilots did not like him. Due to lack of maneuverability. But in the USSR it was rated very highly. Heavy and fast, armed with a 37 mm cannon and machine guns, it was excellent against German bombers - and in falcon attacks (the Germans favored the “hit-and-run” principle). Especially when all the firing points were combined on one trigger. He dived, took good aim, pressed the trigger - and the enemy bomber disintegrated in the air.

The correct targeted use of a generally successful machine made it possible to strengthen its good aspects, removing its weaknesses. Want an example? During the Pacific War, the B-25 bomber was equipped with a 75 mm cannon. It turned out to be an excellent anti-ship attack aircraft.

Alas, after World War II, fighters moved away from guns to guided missiles... But air guns are still not losing ground. They are installed on both infantry support helicopters and infantry support aircraft.

Only today these are guns with a rotating block of barrels: 6000 rounds per minute allows one gun to replace an entire battery.

By the way, in fighter combat it suddenly became clear that the ability to hit an enemy plane from afar with a homing missile was great. But if the enemy breaks into close combat, then the revolver cannons will make a sieve out of the most perfect and invincible aircraft of the great empire of good.

So it’s too early to write off air cannons! They haven't said their last word yet.

What else to read on the topic?

What were they like, those “old men” who went into battle? The first ten Soviet aces of the Great Patriotic War Pages of Russian history. How did engineer F. Petrov rearm the entire Soviet army? An aircraft. How many of them did aircraft designer Antonov create?

Tags: weapons, history of weapons, aircraft, history, war, bomber, Yak aircraft

75 mm M4 aircraft cannon. USA

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Well, really, why waste time on trifles? Probably, if it had been possible, the Americans would have inserted a 152-mm howitzer into the plane. Well, they had everything - the very best and not a cent less. In general, the Americans were great in this regard. Succumbing to the temptation to hit everything that could be reached from an aircraft, including ships, they brought this idea not just to series, but released B-25s armed with 75-mm cannons in very decent numbers. And it all started quite long before the war, in 1937. Probably they got infected from the British overseas. The terms of reference for the development of a cannon aircraft provided for armament with a caliber of no more than 75 mm, with a moderate rate of fire and unitary cartridges. The serial M2 guns with a barrel length of 28.47 calibers and M3 with a barrel length of 37.5 calibers were chosen as the aviation version of the 75-mm cannon. Both guns were developments of the old French Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897 field gun, which was in service with the US Army. They wanted to equip an escort fighter with the short-barreled M2, and put the long-barreled M3 on a bomber. After deliberation, only M3 was left. It is characteristic that the Americans, having analyzed the tactics of using large-caliber aircraft systems, came to the conclusion that the high recoil of the gun would still not allow more than one shot to be fired accurately. Accordingly, there is no need to complicate the design of the gun with automatic reloading. And since 1943, B-25s armed with M4 or M5 cannons began to appear in theaters of war. The difference, in general, was in the machine.

In general, it turned out to be a truly flying self-propelled gun. The M4 was mounted on a carriage under the co-pilot's seat, also occupying part of the bomb bay. The almost three-meter trunk had to go somewhere. The crew of the aircraft consisted of two pilots, a gunner, a radio operator and a navigator, who was appointed loader. In addition to the M4 cannon, two fixed 12.7-mm machine guns with 400 rounds of ammunition per barrel were installed in the forward part of the fuselage. The cannon and front machine guns were aimed at the target by the pilot. The aircraft was equipped with an N-3B optical sight and an A-1 bomb-artillery sight. In addition, for shooting it was possible to use the tracks of the forward machine guns. When the target came under machine gun fire, the gun was launched. On average, it was possible to fire a cannon three times during one combat run. Theoretically, a well-trained crew could ensure a rate of fire of the M4 gun of up to 30 rounds per minute, however, as a rule, in practice the rate of fire did not exceed 3 - 4 rounds per minute. The B-25G and B-25H cannon attack aircraft, armed with 75 mm M4 and M5 guns, proved to be very useful in the Pacific Ocean for attacking small Japanese transport ships and submarines, in the hunt for tanks and anti-aircraft batteries. In Burma, during attacks on the Laniva oil fields, one of the Mitchell attack aircraft, firing only 4 shells, caused a firestorm at an oil storage facility. Cannon "Mitchells" were also used in the Mediterranean Sea in the hunt for shipping. It happened that attack aircraft were too tough for more serious targets: on June 8, 1944, 30 miles from the city of Manokwari, New Guinea, a group of two B-25Hs from the US 345th Bombardment Group even sent a Japanese destroyer to the bottom with 75-mm cannon fire. "Kharusami" with a displacement of 1700 tons. It took only five 75mm shells to destroy the ship and kill 74 of its crew.

But in Europe, cannon attack aircraft did not take root. The better quality of counteraction from the Luftwaffe and air defense had an effect. For them, the B-25 was just a target, since its speed dropped by 110 km/h and the slow attack aircraft (maximum speed dropped to 450 km/h) became an easy target. However, only about 1000 B-25N were produced. Advantages: it can hit any target, a powerful projectile with good ballistics. Disadvantages: slow rate of fire due to manual reloading.

World War II guns

The very fact of using a cannon on an airplane was not forgotten. Twenty years later, this idea was developed in many countries - already during the Second World War.

Without knowing it, Giulio Douhet, commander of the Air Force of fascist Italy, played a major role in the development of the idea of equipping fighter aircraft with artillery. In the 1920s, Douhet developed a theory about the leading role of bomber aircraft in achieving victory, which, by destroying the enemy's rear, could decide the outcome of the war. This theory dominated the minds of many European politicians and generals. That is why designers in many countries began searching for an effective means of protection against armadas of bomb carriers. The experience of the First World War showed the extremely low effectiveness of machine guns against giant aircraft such as “Staaken” or “Ilya Muromets”, so machines were required whose armament would be based on fairly powerful guns that could easily hit even a huge multi-engine bomber.

Work in this area began quite early in the USSR. We can even say that they have practically not stopped since 1915. After the revolution, engineer L. Kurchevsky energetically worked on the creation of recoilless rifles for aviation. These guns were called DRP (dynamo-rocket guns) for short. Experiments were carried out on guns of various calibers from 37 to 305 mm! However, by 1937 he had to stop his work.

In 1923, tests were carried out on the Yu-13 aircraft, which had 6-inch guns. In 1930, the accumulated experience made it possible to begin experiments on arming fighter aircraft with such systems. For the first time, two three-inch guns were installed on an I-2 aircraft. Later, Polikarpov's experimental four-gun fighter and Grigorovich's IP-1 and IP-2 fighters, armed with large-caliber dynamo-rocket cannons, were created. But the military was not satisfied with these models - the guns were practically single-shot, and an aircraft capable of conducting massive fire was required. In the 1930s, experiments were also carried out to create 76-mm guns with swinging parts. They were installed on TB-1 and TB-3. During these experiments, the designers came to interesting conclusions: it turned out that to confidently destroy an aircraft, guns with a caliber of more than 76 mm were simply not needed.

In 1933, firing at heavy aircraft from various guns took place, and the commission made the following decisions: a 20-mm shell was considered insufficient to successfully destroy almost any aircraft; A 37-mm shell destroyed the plane after three or five hits; The 45mm shell was capable of destroying an aircraft with one shot.

Therefore, in the mid-1930s, synchronized and wing-mounted automatic cannons began to appear on aircraft. In 1935, in France and the USSR, two fighters, the Devuatin-510 and I-17 with S-9 and ShVAK cannons, entered testing almost simultaneously. Tests of the new weapon exceeded all expectations, but due to the cramped cockpit and unreliable landing gear system, the I-17 did not go into production. A more powerful and reliable machine was required. In France, the 510th was put into mass production in 1935 and discontinued in 1940, due to the development of a more advanced model D.520S1, which served until 1953.

In the USSR, the new all-metal three-gun fighter I-30, created at the Yakovlev Design Bureau, more fully met the requirements. The combat qualities of the new product turned out to be so promising that preparations for mass production began even before testing was completed. But the beginning of the Great Patriotic War made severe adjustments to these plans: it turned out to be impossible to launch an expensive all-metal aircraft into series under wartime conditions. The Yak-3 index assigned to it was transferred to a completely different machine.

Soviet fighter Yak-9T.

Polikarpov chose another way to increase the firepower of the fighter; instead of increasing the number, he increased the caliber, creating an ITR fighter with a powerful M-107P engine of 1700 hp. With. and a 37 mm caliber cannon that fired through the hollow propeller shaft.

But this car did not make it into the series.

Our industry was able to master the production of three cannon fighters designed by A. S. Yakovlev only in 1943, but at that time the three-gun Messerschmitt also appeared at the front.

For a long time, the designers of Nazi Germany did not pay due attention to the armament of fighter aircraft; it was believed that enemy aircraft would never threaten the territory of the Reich. Therefore, the main fighter of the Luftwaffe, the Me-109, was prepared to fight machines of the same type, and the 20-mm rapid fire was perfect for these purposes. From the beginning of 1942, the situation began to change, as massive bombing of German cities by heavy bombers became regular. This forced us to immediately begin strengthening the Me-109’s armament. In addition to the cannon in the fuselage, two more were installed in the nacelles under the wings.

However, Soviet designers did not stand still.

In 1943, a 37-mm cannon appeared on the Yak-9T, the mass of a second salvo of which was no less than three barrels of the Me-109. In 1944 he entered the Yak-9K series. The caliber of the gun this vehicle was armed with was 45 mm! Not satisfied with this, the designers of the Yakovlev Design Bureau installed a cannon on the Yak-9, the caliber of which was more likely to correspond to a tank than an aircraft - 57 mm.

The propeller spinner and cannon of the Yak-9K aircraft.

It must be said that until recently no one was able to install guns of such a huge caliber on fighter planes. True, these heroes were released in a series of only a few dozen copies. The monstrous recoil for a fragile aircraft (with a force of 6975 kg) of such a large gun required very complex and expensive work to strengthen its skeleton with special aluminum beams, which made its cost “unaffordable” for wartime conditions.

However, these combat vehicles were still an ordinary fighter with a gun of a slightly larger caliber than the standard one, and with all the will in the world, the idea of creating them cannot be considered paradoxical. Judge for yourself, the Yak-9K weighed 3246 kg, developed a speed of 573 km/h and had a flight range of 1300 km. Therefore, the word “heavy” can not be applied to the car, but only to the cannon, which was installed in the camber of the V-shaped engine and provided enormous firepower.

Suffice it to say that a shell fired from a 45-mm aircraft cannon penetrated 48-mm tank armor, and there is no need to talk about aircraft. For example, in 1944, four Yak-9K regiments of Major Kleshchev met four Focke-Wulf-190s, which launched a frontal attack. Our people accepted her. A few shots - and three planes with swastikas fell down one after another. In just two and a half months of fighting, the regiment shot down 106 enemy aircraft. Externally, the Yak-9K differed from other vehicles of this type in that the cockpit canopy was moved back 400 mm and the shape of the propeller spinner, from which the gun barrel protruded half a meter.

It was different in Germany. Around the same time, one of the serial Yu-87s was converted into a tank destroyer by mounting two containers with 37-mm anti-aircraft guns under its consoles.

Underwing 37-mm cannon of the Yu-87 aircraft.

The ammunition load of each barrel consisted of only 12 shells in two magazines protruding from the sides of the container. The long-barreled anti-aircraft gun provided its sub-caliber projectiles with tungsten cores with an initial speed of more than 1000 m/s. This was quite enough to destroy the side and top armor of a medium tank.

However, having received powerful weapons, the new version of the “thing” also acquired a number of disadvantages. Each of the cannon containers weighed more than 300 kg, so the modernized Junkers flew as if constantly with bombs on board. The aerodynamic resistance of the containers turned out to be so great that the already low speed characteristic of the Yu-87 decreased by 40 km/h. Finally, the maneuverability of the vehicle noticeably deteriorated, but the Germans still put the aircraft into mass production.

The first cars were converted production “things”. The wing machine guns, trapezoid for attaching bombs, underwing bomb racks and brake flaps were dismantled, but the brackets for attaching them remained, i.e., it was possible to “reverse” by dismantling the guns. The conversion was carried out directly in combat units: in total, about 100 vehicles were converted.

The next batch of anti-tank Junkers, called Gustav-2, was manufactured in the factory. The base vehicle was the D-5 variant, so the Gustav differed from its predecessors in its increased wingspan. Not only were the brake flaps completely missing, but also the brackets with drive mechanisms. Some aircraft retained built-in 20-mm cannons, while others had them removed. The main purpose of these machine guns was to zero before using the “main caliber”. Some cars were equipped with tubular flame arresters on the exhaust pipes. These planes could be used to hunt tanks at night.

Of the 208 “factory” Yu-87s produced, more than half - 174 vehicles - were built at the Lemverde plant. At the last stage of the war, anti-tank “things” were used by the Germans to “patch holes” that arose when Allied tanks broke through. The aircraft was popular and received numerous nicknames from Wehrmacht soldiers, such as “Bird with a Gun” or “Tank Killer.” However, such high-profile names did not eliminate the main defect of the Yu-87 - complete helplessness in front of enemy fighters, so these machines did not play a big role in the war.

After the appearance of new Soviet tanks on the Eastern Front, the German command decided to strengthen the armament of anti-tank aircraft. Since the capabilities of the Yu-87 were practically exhausted, the designers turned their attention to the heavier and more modern Yu-88.

In the summer of 1942, a modification of the Yu-88 was created, equipped with six launch tubes for 210 and 280 mm caliber rockets! This model showed pretty good results during testing, but did not go into production. Around the same time, the FV-190G-8/R5 was assembled as a field modification, equipped with similar 210-mm rocket launchers, but in single quantities.

In 1944, a new model Yu-88A-4 appeared: a massive container with a 75-mm cannon, similar to the cannon of the T-IV tank, was mounted in the bow. After shooting at a special training ground, the Germans decided to strengthen the gun even more, so they installed a 75-mm long-barreled anti-tank gun on the vehicle, which showed itself well in ground battles. The weight of the container reached a ton, and the cannon protruded almost one and a half meters from the body! In order to somehow dampen the exorbitant recoil, the barrel was crowned with a massive muzzle brake. This modification of the Junkers also did not become widespread, but went down in history as the carrier of the most powerful aircraft cannon.

However, the epic of creating an anti-tank “thing” reveals only one side of the work on creating heavy cannon aircraft in Germany. For the Reich, it was much more natural to strive to develop the next “miracle weapon”, capable of immediately pulverizing all enemies. In 1944, on the orders of Hitler himself, they began to produce a kind of “flying gun” - a heavy (about 10 tons) twin-engine fighter Me-410.

German heavy fighter Me-410.

During development, the Me-120 was taken as a basis. Retaining the external features of its prototype, the 410 received more powerful engines and was armed with a 50-mm tank gun sticking three meters forward from the nose of the vehicle. It was an all-metal cantilever low-wing aircraft with a single fin. Seats for two crew members - a pilot and a gunner-radio operator - were located above the bomb bay. They were covered with a common solid canopy, providing excellent visibility.

The first Me-410 aircraft took off in the fall of 1942. After a whole series of tests, the aircraft, called the Hornet, went into production. It was a true bomber killer: one shell was often enough to turn even an American four-engine giant into a pile of burning debris. But the firepower came at the cost of excess weight: the 900-kilogram gun had a recoil of about 7 tons, so the Messer was equipped with a massive frame. The ammunition capacity was only 21 rounds, they were located in a round magazine and were supplied using compressed air. In addition, the Me-410 was not much more maneuverable than its intended victims, and the gun often jammed after several shots.

Realizing that poorly finished 50-mm paper could fail, German designers simultaneously began producing the Me-410A2, a heavy fighter with two 30-mm cannons. In addition, additional sets of weapons installed in the field have become widespread.

The delivery of this “flying gun” to combat units began in April 1943. In total, the German industry produced and transferred to the troops 1,160 Me-410 aircraft of various modifications.

The Japanese, driven to despair by American massive bombing, were forced to take a similar path, but due to the lack of heavy fighters, the fight against the “flying fortresses” was entrusted to other aircraft. In 1944, the Ki.46 long-range reconnaissance aircraft was converted into a heavy two-seat night fighter.

Japanese heavy fighter Ki.46.

The alteration boiled down to the fact that two 20-mm aircraft and one 37-mm anti-aircraft guns were installed in the bow of this twin-engine vehicle. The aircraft was in service with air defense units from November 1944 and was used to repel heavy bomber raids until the very end of the war.

It went even further by creating a loitering interceptor for heavy bombers based on the Ki.67 bomber.

In February 1944, the aircraft was tested under the name Ki. 109 went into production. A total of 22 cars were built. A powerful 75 mm cannon was installed in the nose of this twin-engine, three-seater aircraft. Since December 1944, Ki. 109 was used in air defense units of the metropolis against the B-29, but without much success - the speed and maneuverability were let down. From February 1945, these aircraft were used as attack aircraft at sea.

Japanese fighter-attack aircraft Ki.109.

Aircraft designers in England and the USA found themselves in a slightly worse position, since their engines could not be adapted for a cannon that fired through the propeller shaft, so the guns had to be placed only in the wings. For example, the Typhoon fighter, created in 1942, had four wing cannons. This is how the Spitfire became by the end of the war.

The only exceptions were the twin-engine Lightning and the famous Airacobra, the latter being mainly supplied to the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. It is known that out of 9558 vehicles produced by US industry, 4924 were transferred to the USSR Air Force.

However, the first attempt to install a powerful cannon on an American aircraft was made back in 1937, when a heavy fighter with two pusher propellers and two 37-mm cannons located in the bow of the engine nacelles was launched. The aircraft, named "Aerokuda" ("Air Barracuda"), successfully passed flight tests, but did not go into production due to poor maneuverability.

After this, the company worked hard to create a high-speed, maneuverable fighter with powerful weapons, which they decided to call the “Airacobra.”

American fighter "Airacobra" P-39.

In their new car, they simultaneously applied several innovations: a three-wheeled chassis with a nose wheel, an engine located behind the pilot’s seat and a 2.75 m long shaft to transmit rotation to the propeller. That is, the creators of the machine, in order to increase maneuverability and at the same time improve visibility from the cockpit, placed the most massive units near the center of gravity of the aircraft. Thus, the engine was behind the cabin, the gearbox was in front of it. This made it possible to mount a 37-mm cannon in the bow, firing through the propeller shaft. Two synchronized machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber, located on the fuselage, fired through the propeller. Each had 200 rounds of ammunition.

The plane turned out to be light (3490 kg) and high-speed (640 km/h). According to the famous Soviet ace A.I. Pokryshkin, who flew the Airacobra, the effectiveness of the weapon was such that one successful hit was enough to turn the Junkers-87 into a cloud of debris. The American also had significant disadvantages - an increased take-off run and difficulty in recovering from a spin.

As for the Lightning, the spacious nose of its fuselage, free of the engine, easily accommodated an entire battery: a 37 mm cannon and four 12.7 mm machine guns. The car turned out to be quite heavy (6700 kg), but fast and with an excellent flight range. A total of 9923 copies were produced.

American fighter "Lightning" P-38.

It is interesting to note that this heavy fighter achieved its first victory in 1943, when it shot down the long-range reconnaissance submarine gunner Focke-Wulf 200 in the skies over the Atlantic. Huge German four-engine colossuses were previously practically inaccessible to Allied aircraft.

The pearl of cannon aviation, which many times surpassed other aircraft in its combat qualities, armament and protection, throughout the Second World War was the Soviet Il-2 attack aircraft.

Soviet attack aircraft Il-2.

No country in the world had an aircraft equal to this machine in terms of combat qualities, and not a single aircraft in the world was built in such quantity. The need for attack aircraft was greater than for any other aircraft, and if in the first half of 1941 only 249 Il-2 aircraft were built, then in total during the war years 40,000 Ilyushin attack aircraft arrived at the front, which made up a third of all combat aircraft of Soviet aviation .

The IL-2 met all the requirements for an attack aircraft - powerful weapons and invulnerability to small arms fire and, in part, small-caliber guns. The IL-2 armor was not just armor, but also a skeleton! She carried the load and played an active role. The gun designed by A. Volkov and S. Yartsev also turned out to be excellent. The 23-mm gun weighed 66 kg and, with a rate of fire of 600 rounds/min, gave a 200-gram projectile an initial speed of 900 m/s. When German tanks “grew up their skin,” the attack aircraft were rearmed in 1943. Instead of two wing guns, the Il-2 was equipped with two 37-mm NS-37 underwing guns. With the same weight as the German Mk-101 cannon, the NS-37 fired 735-gram shells. Not a single aircraft weapon in the world even remotely approached the Soviet one in its parameters.

By the end of the war, more powerful Il-10 attack aircraft began to arrive in aviation units. With a speed of 420–510 km/h, they carried 37 mm cannons and 12.7 mm machine guns, but the main weapons were 82 mm or 132 mm rockets. But this is a topic for a separate book.

However, the IL-2 was not entirely unique. During the war, the Sukhoi Design Bureau created the Su-6 attack aircraft, which significantly surpassed its famous predecessor in speed (500 km/h) and armament (37 mm guns), but did not go into production. For reasons of minimizing costs when switching to a new model, preference was given to the IL-10. Until the very end of the war, the Ilys were an air ram for breaking enemy defenses, tank destroyers, and reliable infantry assistants.

What about the Germans? The Nazis were let down by their adventurous bet on the blitzkrieg, which they intended to win with the same weapons that crushed half of Europe. At a later stage of the war against the USSR, the Germans nevertheless created a tank destroyer aircraft. It was a twin-engine Henschel-129, armed with a 37 mm Mk-101 cannon.

German attack aircraft "Henschel-129".

The French-made engines installed on this vehicle did not always work satisfactorily, and the gun did not perform well, although it “pulled” a good 150 kg. Its rate of fire was 200 rounds per minute, each weighing 330 g. The air superiority won by Soviet aviation in heavy battles in 1943 did not allow the Germans to widely use this clumsy aircraft on the Soviet-German front. A total of 841 Henschel-129s were produced. Of course, this was too little to help ground troops in the fight against armadas of Soviet tanks.

Without a special attack aircraft, Anglo-American aviation also began fighting in the European theater. After the Normandy landings, medium and even heavy bombers helped the troops on the battlefield. Spitfire, Typhoon, Tempeot, Mustang and Thunderbolt fighters were widely used for the role of attack aircraft. It is clear that this was a necessary measure. But the overwhelming numerical superiority of their aircraft and the massive use of their aircraft saved the Allies from too heavy losses. In North Africa, Hurricane fighter-bombers equipped with a 40-mm cannon actively operated against Rommel’s tanks. The B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, the same ones that bombed Tokyo from the Hornet aircraft carrier (see “From Under the Water to the Sky”), equipped with a 75-mm short-barreled gun in the bow, fought in the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. fuselage. But the heavy-cannon Hurricanes and B-25s were produced in small numbers. Therefore, they were unable to play any noticeable role in the war.

A cannon version of the Mitchell was developed and the vehicle was designated B-25G. The main feature of this aircraft was that the 75 mm M-4 cannon, located in the forward fuselage, was completely hidden in the hull. Its ammunition consisted of 21 shells weighing 6.8 kg. Loading was carried out manually, for which a sixth person was added to the crew. After the construction of 405 aircraft, their production was stopped, which was due to problems that arose in loading the cannon and firing from it. They decided to replace the M-4 with a more advanced T-13E automatic cannon. As a result, the crew size was again reduced from six to five. The new version was designated B-25N. It also had increased offensive machine gun armament. In total, the B-25N had 14 12.7 mm machine guns. In addition, some machines were equipped with eight PC guides.

Only towards the middle of the war, for the US Air Force, it built and tested a prototype of the two-seat multi-purpose aircraft XA-38 “Grizzly” with a powerful 75-mm cannon in the nose of the fuselage. The car was supposed to be used as an attack aircraft. The Grizzly weighed 13,548 kg, had a maximum speed of 632 km/h, a range of 4,640 km, and a length of 15.6 m.

American XA-38 Grizzly aircraft.

During the Second World War, a cannon aircraft became the most formidable weapon in the fight against bombers and tanks. Having received its first baptism of fire during the First World War, the aircraft cannon reached the apogee of its development at this time. Unprecedented successes in the field of rocket science have relegated guns to the background, but even now they occupy a worthy place in the aviation arsenal as close combat weapons. True, their calibers are inferior to their ancestors.

"Tsar Cannons" of Soviet aviation

By the time Germany attacked the USSR, our aviation had two types of aircraft guns in service: the 20-mm ShVAK (Shpitalny-Vladimirov aviation large-caliber), the design of which was in many ways similar to the 7.62-mm ShKAS aircraft machine gun and the 23-mm. VYa (Volkova-Yartseva). The 20-mm ShVAK cannon was produced in the following versions: wing-mounted, turret-mounted and motor-cannon. The weight of the guns is 40 kg - 44.5 kg. Rate of fire 700-800 rounds/min. Initial speed 815 m/s. Synchronous and wing-mounted 20-mm ShVAK installations were installed on fighters I-153P, I-16, Yak-1, Yak-3, Yak-7B, LaGG-3, La-5, La-7, Pe-3, and in 1943 158 guns were produced for installation on Hurricane fighters to replace the 7.92 mm Browning machine guns. Two fixed guns were placed on the Tu-2 bomber and on part of the Pe-2 bombers. Defensive turrets with 20-mm ShVAK cannons were installed on Pe-8 and Er-2 bombers.

The ShVAK was superior in all respects to the German MG-FF aircraft gun, which in 1941 was the most common in German aviation.

In 1940, designers A. A. Volkov and S. A. Yartsev created the 23 mm VYA-23 automatic cannon for the new 23 mm cartridge. Weighing 66 kg, the gun fired 550-650 rounds per minute.

The VYa air cannon used shells weighing 200 grams, which is twice as much as that of the ShVAK. An armor-piercing incendiary projectile at a distance of 400 m normally penetrated 25 mm armor.

The recoil of the VYa cannon was quite high, and it was not initially installed on fighters. By the beginning of the war, its only carrier was the Il-2 attack aircraft, each wing of which was equipped with one VYa cannon with 150 rounds of ammunition per barrel. Later, Il-10 attack aircraft and partially LaGG-3 fighters were armed with it.

During the fighting, it turned out that Soviet aircraft guns of 20-23 mm caliber were able to effectively fight only enemy light armored vehicles; medium tanks and self-propelled guns were “too tough” for them.

In the second half of 1942, the Il-2 variant armed with 37-mm ShFK-37 cannons was produced in a small series. The 37-mm ShFK-37 aircraft gun was developed under the leadership of B.G. Shpitalny.

The weight of the gun when installed on the Il-2 aircraft was 302.5 kg. The rate of fire of the ShFK-37, according to field tests, averaged 169 rounds per minute with an initial projectile speed of about 894 m/s. The gun's ammunition included armor-piercing incendiary tracers (BZT-37) and fragmentation incendiary tracers (ZT-37 ) shells.

The BZT-37 projectile penetrated German tank armor 30 mm thick at an angle of 45 degrees. to the normal from a distance of no more than 500 m. The shell penetrated armor 15-16 mm thick or less at impact angles of no more than 60 degrees. at the same distances. Armor 50 mm thick (the frontal part of the hull and turret of medium German tanks) was penetrated by the BZT-37 projectile from distances of no more than 200 m at angles of impact not exceeding 5 degrees.

The large overall dimensions of the ShFK-37 guns and the magazine feed (magazine capacity is 40 shells) determined their placement in fairings under the wing of the Il-2 aircraft. Due to the installation of a large magazine on the cannon, it had to be lowered significantly down relative to the construction plane of the wing (the axis of the aircraft), which not only complicated the design of attaching the cannon to the wing (the cannon was mounted on a shock absorber and, when firing, moved along with the magazine), but also required it has bulky fairings with a large cross-section.

Tests have shown that the flight performance of the Il-2 with large-caliber ShFK-37 air cannons, compared to the serial Il-2 with ShVAK or VYa cannons, has noticeably decreased. The aircraft has become more inert and difficult to pilot, especially during turns and turns at low altitude. At high speeds, maneuverability deteriorated. Pilots complained about significant loads on the rudders when performing maneuvers.

Aimed shooting from the ShFK-37 cannons on the Il-2 aircraft was largely difficult due to the strong recoil of the guns when firing and the lack of synchronization in their operation. Due to the large separation of the guns relative to the center of mass of the aircraft, as well as due to the insufficient rigidity of the gun mounting, the attack aircraft experienced strong shocks, “pecks” when firing and strayed from the aiming line, and this in turn, taking into account the insufficient longitudinal stability of the Ila, led to significant dispersion of projectiles and a sharp decrease (by about 4 times) in firing accuracy.

Firing from one cannon was completely impossible. The attack aircraft immediately turned towards the firing cannon in such a way that it was not possible to introduce corrections to the aiming. In this case, only the first projectile could hit the target.

During the entire testing period, the ShFK-37 guns operated unreliably - the average percentage of ammunition fired per failure was only 54%. That is, almost every second flight on an Il-2 combat mission with ShFK-37 guns was accompanied by the failure of at least one of the guns. The maximum bomb load of the attack aircraft decreased and amounted to only 200 kg. All this significantly reduced the combat value of the new attack aircraft.

Despite the failure with ShFK-37, work in this direction was continued. In 1943, production of the NS-37 air cannon began (designers Nudelman and Suranov). It used belt feed, which made it possible to increase the rate of fire to 240-260 rds/min. The initial projectile speed is 810 m/s, the gun weight is 171 kg. Thanks to belt feeding and lower weight, it became possible to install the new system on fighter aircraft.

Military tests of the gun were carried out on the LaGG-3 from April 21 to June 7, 1943 on the Kalinin Front and on the Yak-9T from July 22 to August 21, 1943 on the Central Front. After military tests, the gun was put into service under the designation NS-37. The Yak-9T (tank) aircraft was produced from March 1943 to June 1945. A total of 2,748 aircraft were produced.

According to the designers, increasing the firepower of fighters was supposed to increase the targeted shooting distance and the likelihood of hitting a target. In order to shoot down a fighter, as a rule, one hit from a 37-mm shell was enough; for a twin-engine bomber, two or three were required.

However, the new air gun also had its drawbacks. Increasing the caliber reduced the rate of fire and the number of shells in the ammunition load on board the fighter. Firing at air targets was effective only with single shells, since when firing from a Yak-9 aircraft, the aircraft swayed strongly, and aimed fire was obtained only with the first shot; with subsequent shots, the shells were scattered. It is worth noting that on most Soviet fighters there were no high-quality sights built during the war; as a rule, it was the simplest “Vasiliev’s Visor” consisting of rings painted on the windshield and a front sight on the hood, this of course affected the effectiveness of shooting at medium and long distances.

On July 20, 1943, military tests of the Il-2 with two 37-mm NS-37 air cannons began, lasting until December 16. In total, 96 Il-2 attack aircraft with NS-37 were involved in military testing.

Compared to the serial Il, armed with ShVAK or VYa cannons, the Il-2 with the NS-37 and with a bomb load of 200 kg became more inert, difficult to turn and turn in combat.

The deterioration in the flight characteristics of the new attack aircraft, as well as the Il-2 with ShFK-37 cannons, was associated with a large mass difference along the wing span and the presence of cannon fairings, which worsened the aerodynamics of the aircraft. Over the entire range of alignments, the IL-2 with the NS-37 did not have longitudinal stability, which significantly reduced the accuracy of shooting in the air. The latter was aggravated by the strong recoil of the guns when firing from them.

Tests have shown that firing from the Il-2 aircraft from the NS-37 cannons must be carried out only in short bursts of no more than two or three shots, since when firing simultaneously from two guns, due to the non-synchronization of their operation, the aircraft experienced significant dives and strayed from the aiming line. Correction of aiming in this case was, in principle, impossible.

When firing from one cannon, hitting the target was possible only with the first shot, since the attack aircraft turned towards the firing cannon and correction of aiming became impossible. The defeat of point targets - tanks, armored vehicles, cars, etc. with normal operation of the guns it was quite achievable.

At the same time, tanks were hit in only 43% of sorties, and the number of hits to spent ammunition was 2.98%.

According to the general opinion of the flight personnel who flew the Il-2 with the NS-37, the attack aircraft had no advantages over the Il-2 with smaller caliber guns (ShVAK or VYa) with a normal bomb load of 400 kg when attacking small targets. At the same time, the use of IL-2 with NS-37 against large area and volume targets, ammunition depots, tank concentrations, artillery and anti-aircraft batteries, railway trains, small vessels, etc. could be quite successful.

When operating against ground targets, the effectiveness of each type of gun is determined by the nature of the target. Thus, when firing at openly located living targets, the effect of a 7.62 mm bullet differed little from the effect of a 20 mm projectile, since their fragmentation effect is very weak and a direct hit was required to hit personnel. When firing at cars, railway stations and small watercraft, 7.62-12.7 mm machine guns were ineffective, and the effect of aircraft guns increased sharply with increasing caliber and weight of the projectile. This is where larger caliber guns were needed.

The massive destruction of tanks from aircraft cannons, widely publicized in films and memoirs, in most cases refers to hunting stories. It is simply impossible to penetrate the vertical armor of a medium or heavy tank with a 20-mm - 37-mm aircraft cannon. We can only talk about the armor of the tank roof, which is several times thinner than the vertical one and amounted to 15-20 mm for medium tanks and 30-40 mm for heavy tanks. Aircraft guns used both caliber and sub-caliber armor-piercing shells. In both cases they did not contain explosives, and only sometimes a few grams of incendiary substance. In this case, the projectile had to hit perpendicular to the armor. It is clear that in combat conditions, shells hit the roof of tanks at much smaller angles, which sharply reduced their armor penetration or even resulted in a ricochet. To this we must add that not every shell that penetrated the armor of a tank disabled it.

Considering the decrease in flight characteristics and the reduction in bomb load on the Il-2 aircraft armed with the NS-37, this modification of the attack aircraft was not widely used. The PTAB-2.5-1.5 cumulative bombs, which entered service in 1943, turned out to be a much more effective anti-tank weapon.

On the basis of the NS-37 cannon, while maintaining the overall dimensions, an aviation, automatic 45-mm NS-45 cannon was created. The weight of the gun was 150-153 kg. Rate of fire 260-280 rounds/min. The gun is powered by a belt feed. For the first time in the USSR, the 45-mm NS-45 aircraft gun used a muzzle brake on an aircraft, which absorbed up to 85% of the recoil energy. In 1944-45, a total of about 200 guns were produced. The Yak-9K (large-caliber) fighter with an NS-45 cannon in the engine camber, with 29 rounds of ammunition, was designed and built specifically for this gun. A total of 53 aircraft of this type were manufactured.

44 Yak-9K aircraft underwent military tests from August 13 to September 18, 1944 on the 3rd Belorussian Front and from January 15 to February 15, 1945 on the 2nd Belorussian Front. It was assumed that fighters with large-caliber guns would operate against groups of enemy bombers, being outside the effective defensive fire zone of their firing points. On average, ten 45-mm shells were spent on one enemy aircraft shot down.

However, the Yak-9Ks themselves needed cover for fighters with 20-mm cannons, which included slave vehicles. Accurate shooting from 45-mm cannons was achieved only on the first shot; the rest of the shells flew past. After a burst of three shots, fired even at maximum speed, the latter dropped sharply, the stability of the aircraft was lost, and oil and water leaks were observed in the pipelines.

In addition, encountering a large group of enemy bombers at the end of 1944 was very rare, and there was no particular need for such a fighter. Based on the results of military tests, the Yak-9K was not put into mass production.

In the USSR, during wartime, aircraft guns and larger calibers were developed. The 57-mm N-57 automatic cannon was developed under the leadership of leading designer G. A. Zhirnykh at the end of the Great Patriotic War. For such a caliber, the gun had a relatively small mass - 135 kg. A small series of 36 guns was produced.

The gun was successfully tested on the MiG-9 F-3 jet fighter (third prototype). This was the first and only case in the history of aviation of installing a 57-mm cannon on a jet fighter. But the MiG-9s were launched into production with the N-37 cannon with a 37 mm caliber, although some of the aircraft of the first batch were still equipped with the N-57 cannon. Subsequently, on all aircraft it was replaced by the N-37 cannon.

In 1943-1945. at TsAKB, which was headed by V.G. Grabin, work was carried out to create large-caliber automatic aircraft guns. 65-mm, 76-mm, 100-mm automatic aircraft guns were developed.

In 1948, two prototypes of the 65-mm gun were manufactured and factory tested. In 1949, one sample was sent for field testing at the Air Force Research Institute. Two shots were created for the 65-mm cannon: with an OFZT projectile and with a BRZT projectile. At a distance of 600 m, the BRZT projectile penetrated 60 mm of armor at an impact angle of 30°. Thus, this shell could penetrate the armor of any tank of that time from above.

In 1948, work began at TsNII-58 on the 100-mm B-0902 aviation automatic cannon. It was supposed to be installed on bomber aircraft such as Tu-2 and Tu-4, which were going to be converted into fighters. Naturally, neither propeller-driven (Yak-3, JIa-5, La-7, La-9, etc.) nor jet (Yak-15, MiG-9, etc.) fighters could physically carry this gun because of its weight and recoil.

Automation of the 100-mm gun is a mechanical type with a long barrel stroke, and all operations were performed automatically. The gun was equipped with a powerful muzzle brake, which absorbed 65% of the recoil energy. The gun was made compact due to the rational placement of all its components. Store-bought food without tape. The store held 15 unitary cartridges.

The gun fire and pneumatic reloading were controlled from the pilot's cockpit. The weight of the gun without power box was 1350 kg. The rate of fire is 30.5 rounds per minute. Recoil force - 5 tons.

For the B-0902 cannon, three shots were specially created at TsNII-58: with an FZT projectile, with a BRZT projectile and with a remote grenade.

The cartridge with the FZT (high-explosive incendiary tracer) projectile had a weight of 27 kg and a length of 990 mm. The weight of the propellant charge was 4.47 kg, due to which the projectile had an initial speed of 810 m/s. The projectile itself, weighing 13.9 kg, contained 1.46 kg of explosive. The effective firing range of the FZT projectile was 1000-1200 m.

The cartridge with the BRZT projectile had a weight of 27.34 kg and a length of 956 mm. The weight of the propellant charge was 4.55 kg, and the projectile received an initial speed of 800 m/s. The projectile itself, weighing 14.2 kg, contained a small amount of explosive (0.1 kg). During test firing, a BZRT projectile penetrated 120 mm armor at a distance of 600 m (at an impact angle of 30°).

For firing at air targets, a 100-mm remote grenade with lethal incendiary elements was created. Grenade weight 15.6 kg. The grenade contained 0.605 kg of explosive (explosive charge) and 93 incendiary elements weighing from 52 to 61 g each. The projectile was equipped with a VM-30 spacer tube. In 1948-1949 experimental batches of grenades with a unitary and annular arrangement of lethal-incendiary elements were tested. To test the effectiveness of the fragments and their “incendiary ability”, ground firing was carried out at aircraft.

The 100-mm B-0902 gun became the most powerful automatic aircraft gun not only in the USSR, but also, apparently, in the world. From a technical point of view, it was a masterpiece of engineering. The only trouble is that she was five years late. In 1944-1945 a high-speed bomber with a piston engine could use it with almost impunity to shoot flying fortresses B-17 and B-29 flying in a dense formation from a distance of 1 km or more. But the advent of jet fighters radically changed the tactics of air combat, and heavy aircraft guns lost all significance, at least for firing at aircraft.

Based on materials: Shirokorad A. B. History of aviation weapons. - Minsk: Harvest, 1999. https://www.airwar.ru/weapon/guns/vya23.html https://www.plam.ru/tehnauka/genii_sovetskoi_artillerii_triumf_i_tragedija_v_grabina/p36.php

All about weapons

Large-caliber machine guns and the first cannons appeared on board aircraft during the First World War, but then these were only timid attempts to increase the firepower of the first aircraft. Until the mid-30s of the 20th century, this weapon was used in aviation only sporadically. The real heyday of aircraft rapid-fire guns occurred in the pre-war years and during the Second World War.

In the Soviet Union, one of the most famous aircraft guns, which was installed on a huge number of aircraft from I-16 to La-7, and was used as part of turrets on Pe-8 and Er-2 bombers, was the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft automatic gun (Shpitalny -Vladimirov Aviation Large-caliber). Mainly, this gun was used to arm Soviet fighters.

At the same time, none of the Soviet aircraft guns could boast of such production volumes as the ShVAK. In 1942, a rather difficult year for the entire country, Soviet enterprises were able to produce 34,601 aircraft guns of this type. The production of ShVAK was established at the Tula Arms, Kovrov Arms and Izhevsk Machine-Building Plants. In total, more than 100 thousand copies of the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft gun were manufactured in the USSR, taking into account the pre-war production. Its slightly modified version was also used to arm light tanks, for example, the mass-produced T-60 tank. Considering the volume of production and use of this artillery system, it is rightly classified as a “weapon of Victory.”

ShVAK is the first Soviet automatic aircraft gun of 20 mm caliber. It was put into service in 1936 and was produced until 1946, when the last 754 guns of this type were assembled. The aircraft cannon was produced in four versions: wing-mounted, turret-mounted, motor-cannon and synchronous. The motor gun was distinguished by the presence of a longer barrel and a shock absorber. In its design, the ShVAK was completely similar to the large-caliber 12.7-mm machine gun of the same name, which was put into service back in 1934. The only difference was in the diameter of the barrel used. Tests of the ShVAK heavy machine gun demonstrated to the designers that, thanks to the existing safety margin, the caliber of the system can be increased to 20 mm without changing the dimensions of the moving system, simply by replacing the barrel. The ShVAK gun had a belt feed; the reloading process was carried out mechanically or pneumatically.

ShVAK aircraft cannon

Synchronized ShVAK on the La-5 fighter

For the first time, a new gun was installed on an IP-1 fighter designed by Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich. In the summer of 1936, it was presented to the Air Force Research Institute for state testing. At the same time, it took about four years to fine-tune it. Only in 1940 did the ShVAK cannon designed by Boris Gavrilovich Shpitalny and Semyon Vladimirovich Vladimirov begin to be mounted on Soviet fighters, both in the cylinder block of the M-105 aircraft engine (motor-gun) and in the wing. The combat debut of the new Soviet aircraft gun came in 1939. ShVAK air cannons were mounted on I-16 fighters, which were used in battles with the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol.

Structurally, the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft gun repeated the previous models of the ShKAS and ShVAK machine guns (12.7 mm). The gun's automation operated on the basis of a gas outlet. The air cannon had a fixed barrel, which, when assembled, was connected to the assembled box using a locking insert. As in previous developments, the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft gun used the highlight of the Shpitalny systems - a 10-position drum mechanism for the gradual removal of the cartridge from the belt, thanks to its use the high rate of fire of the system was ensured. But this operating scheme required the use of its own welted cartridge with a protruding flange-rim, which clings to the screw groove of the gun drum. For this reason, no other type of cartridge could be used in Shpitalny's weapon.

Today we can safely say that the idea of unifying weapons for different calibers is quite sound. Many systems in world practice followed the same path; today, in the first quarter of the 21st century, multi-caliber weapons are experiencing a real heyday. However, in the case of Shpitalny’s models, everything was not so clear. The thing is that his first project for the ShKAS aviation machine gun was built around an existing 7.62x54R rifle caliber cartridge with a rim, which was completely justified in order for the machine gun to achieve a high rate of fire. But the ShVAKs already demanded from the Soviet industry the creation of fundamentally new ammunition of a welt design. In the version with a 12.7 mm machine gun, such a solution turned out to be unsuccessful. This caliber was intended to be universal; it was planned to be used not only in aviation. With the Degtyarev 12.7x108 mm cartridge already existing at that time, which was more convenient for magazine feeding, even the assertiveness that was characteristic of Shpitalny was not enough to push through the parallel production of a similar 12.7x108R welt cartridge. Such a cartridge was produced in the USSR for a short time in parallel with the production of a small series of ShVAK heavy machine guns. In the end, it was simply discontinued.

Wing ShVAK on the I-16 type-17 fighter

But the 20-mm version of ShVAK had a much more successful fate. At the time of the development of this aircraft gun, there were simply no other 20-mm cartridges in the Soviet Union. As a possible option, the production of the “Long Solothurn” - a powerful Swiss ammunition of 20x138R caliber, for which the Atsleg AP-20 universal assault rifle was created in KB-2, was considered, however, in general, the niche of 20-mm ammunition in the USSR was not filled, which completely freed up the hands to the creators of the ShVAK air cannon.

Other negative aspects of the unification of the 12.7-mm and 20-mm versions of ShVAK, experts include the fact that Vladimirov’s group, trying to maintain a single design of the components of the two aircraft systems, was forced to equalize the geometric dimensions along the length of the two types of cartridges. The length of both cartridges was 147 mm, which ensured a single design of the most labor-intensive component of the system in production - the feed drum structure. However, if the 12.7 mm cartridge was powerful enough for its class, the new 20x99R turned out to be one of the weakest 20 mm caliber ammunition among its foreign counterparts.

Ultimately, the motor cannon formed the basis of the armament of the Soviet Yak and LaGG fighters; in the wing version, it was also used on the first Il-2 attack aircraft with ammunition of 200 rounds per barrel. The beginning of the Great Patriotic War spurred both the mass production of 20-mm ShVAK air cannons and the introduction of synchronized versions of the gun, which began to appear on Lavochkin fighters in 1942, and were installed on certain series of the MiG-3 fighter.

Aircraft engine VK-105PF with ShVAK motor-cannon

But the turret version of the ShVAK could not boast of a successful fate and did not take root in Soviet aviation. Too heavy and bulky, it did not fit into the light turret mounts of our bombers. Its use was extremely limited. The gun was installed on the MTB-2 (ANT-44) flying boat, as well as on the Myasishchev DB-102 experimental bomber. Almost the only production combat aircraft that was equipped with a standard ShVAK turret version was the Pe-8 (TB-7) heavy bomber, the production of which was practically one-off throughout the war years. And at the very end of the war, a ShVAK cannon was also installed on the upper turret of the Er-2 bomber.

Thus, the main consumer of ShVAK aircraft guns throughout the entire period of their production was Soviet fighter aircraft. ShVAK was installed on the I-153P, I-16, I-185, Yak-1, Yak-7B, LaGG-3, La-5, La-7 and Pe-3 fighters. When the I-16 fighter was discontinued from production, and the Il-2 attack aircraft began to be rearmed with the new 23-mm VYa aircraft cannon, the production of the wing version of the ShVAK was almost completely curtailed. In 1943 alone, 158 of these guns were produced to re-equip Lend-Lease Hurricanes, where they were installed instead of 7.7 mm Browning machine guns. And at the end of the war, the wing version of the cannon again found its use, becoming the offensive weapon of the Tu-2 twin-engine high-speed bomber.

At the same time, the ShVAK motor gun, with some changes in design in 1941-42, was mounted on light tanks T-30 (modification of T-40) instead of the 12.7-mm DShK machine gun, which made it possible to significantly increase the power of their fire impact on the enemy and gave tankers the opportunity to hit lightly armored enemy vehicles (armor penetration - up to 35 mm with a sub-caliber projectile), anti-tank guns, machine gun nests and enemy manpower. A version of the gun designated ShVAK-tank or TNSh-20 (Nudelman-Shpitalny tank) was serially installed on T-60 light tanks.

TNSh-20 gun in the T-60 light tank

In May 1942, specialists from the Air Force Research Institute came to the conclusion that the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft cannon works flawlessly on the I-16 fighters (in the wing), Yak-1 and LaGG-3 (through the gearbox). The projectile of this gun is effective against enemy aircraft, armored cars, light tanks and vehicles, and railway gas tanks. The ShVAK cannon shell is not effective against medium and heavy tanks. In general, the ShVAK projectile was inferior in weight, and therefore explosive efficiency, to the shell of German aircraft guns of the same caliber (the ShVAK projectile weighed 91 grams, and the German MG FF aircraft gun weighed 124 grams). It was also noted that in terms of effectiveness against targets, the ShVAK was significantly inferior to the 23-mm VYa aircraft cannon.

Comparing the Soviet ShVAK with the German MG FF aircraft cannon, you come to the conclusion that the German cannon, which used the recoil energy of a free shutter (on the ShVAK - a gas outlet), had an advantage only in the weight and breaking force of the shells used. At the same time, the initial projectile speed of the German gun was at least 220 m/s less, but the second salvo for wing-mounted aircraft guns was almost the same. At the same time, the MG FF was 15 kg lighter, including due to the use of a shorter barrel. At the same time, this advantage of German guns was lost with the advent of the new B-20 aircraft gun in the USSR.

Today it is quite difficult to objectively assess the value of the 20-mm ShVAK aircraft gun. Of course, it had a certain set of shortcomings - weak ammunition with poor ballistics, operational and technological complexity, which, especially at the initial stage of production, led to the high cost of the gun. At the same time, the first drawback was easily compensated for by the enormous rate of fire of the ShVAK, which reached 800 rounds per minute, and the cost reduction occurred due to the establishment of mass production and adaptation of industry. It is worth noting that in terms of rate of fire, the ShVAK had no equal among the mass-produced aircraft guns of other countries. True, the synchronized versions, which were installed on the excellent Soviet fighters La-5 and La-7, depending on the engine operating mode, had a lower rate of fire - 550-750 rounds per minute.

Comparison of the 20x99R cartridge with other ammunition

In any case, we can say that the Shpitalny-Vladimirov air cannon became one of those iconic weapons of the Red Army that were able to ensure victory for our country in the Great Patriotic War. According to fighter pilots of those years, the power of even the relatively weak 20-mm shells of the ShVAK cannon was enough to combat any Luftwaffe aircraft. Of course, if Germany had massively acquired heavy bombers or Soviet aviation had to face armadas of American “flying fortresses” in the sky, our fighters would have had a hard time, but in reality none of this happened.

It is also important to remember that in the Soviet Union there was simply no alternative to ShVAK for a long time. The development of the promising B-20 aircraft cannon designed by Mikhail Evgenievich Berezin, also created by him on the basis of a heavy machine gun and based on the same principle of operation as the ShVAK, was seriously delayed due to the illness of the designer. For this reason, the ShVAK aircraft cannon, despite its “weakness,” remained the main weapon of fighter aircraft during the Great Patriotic War.

The training of Soviet pilots, which grew during the war and made it possible to effectively use the weapons at their disposal, also played a significant role. It is no secret that the personnel of the Red Army Air Force, who met the war on June 22, 1941, had extremely low qualifications and an almost complete lack of experience in the combat use of their aircraft. The only exceptions were command personnel who managed to go through Spain, Khalkhin Gol, and the winter war with Finland, but there were few such pilots. And they, basically, passed on the accumulated experience in accordance with the training “Course for the combat use of fighter aircraft.” This was confirmed by the consumption of ammunition against air targets, which varied throughout the war from its first months to its last. If at the initial stage of the war, Soviet pilots often opened fire on the enemy from a distance of 300-400 meters, then already in 1942, having gained experience, from a distance of 100-150 meters, and sometimes from 50 meters. This led to an increase in shooting accuracy and a reduction in ammunition consumption. In relation to the ShVAK aircraft cannon, this increased the effectiveness of its projectiles. When the enemy plane turned into a colander, the lower explosive force of the Soviet cannon shells was no longer significant.

The wing of a German Bf.109 fighter after being hit by 20-mm ShVAK shells

During the pre-war period and the years of World War II, Soviet industry produced more than 100 thousand ShVAK aircraft cannons, which makes it one of the most popular artillery systems in the history of aviation. Production of ShVAK was discontinued only in 1946. It was replaced by the more advanced B-20 aircraft cannon, which, while possessing similar combat characteristics, was more reliable and lighter.

Performance characteristics of ShVAK: Length/weight: Wing version – 1679 mm/40 kg. Turret version – 1726 mm/42 kg. Motor gun – 2122 mm/44.5 kg. The stroke length of the moving parts is 185 mm. Rate of fire – 700-800 rounds/min. The initial velocity of the projectile is 815 m/s. Cartridge – 20x99 mm R.

Sources of information: https://www.airwar.ru/weapon/guns/shvak.html https://nvo.ng.ru/armament/2018-08-10/13_1008_weapons.html https://www.airbase.ru /alpha/rus/sh/shvak/20/shvak.html Materials from open sources

Chapter II. Aircraft guns

Section I. Small arms and cannon weapons Chapter II. Aircraft guns. "Armament of the aircraft", 1941.

The guns are installed on aircraft to combat air, ground and sea enemies. In aerial combat, cannons have an advantage over machine guns due to the more powerful destructive effect of the projectile. Where an ordinary bullet makes a simple hole with a diameter equal to its caliber, an aircraft cannon shell produces the most serious destruction.

During recent wars, there were often cases of aircraft returning to base with several hundred bullet holes. In order to shoot down an enemy plane, you need to either disable the pilot, or damage the engines, or light the gasoline tanks. Bullet holes in other parts of the aircraft do not disable it. In other words, you need to hit the vital parts of the enemy aircraft. It becomes more and more difficult to hit them with machine guns of normal, and sometimes large, caliber.

The pilot can be protected from behind and from the sides by placing him in an armored shell. In front, the pilot is protected by a motor and a bulletproof visor made of a thick plate of plexiglass or some other transparent plastic. A parachute covers it from below. Gasoline tanks are equipped with protectors consisting of several layers of fabric and rubber. If a bullet hits such a tank, the rubber instantly seals the hole, preventing even gasoline from leaking out.

A remedy has also been found against incendiary bullets, which cause gasoline to ignite when it hits the upper part of a gasoline tank filled with gasoline vapor. When the free space is filled with some neutral gas, the evaporation of gasoline is greatly reduced, and gasoline vapors do not ignite. Bullet damage to the motor is only dangerous with liquid cooling. An air-cooled motor whose cylinder is pierced by a bullet does not necessarily fail. The probability of hitting the control system cable is absolutely negligible, and a bullet hole in the tubular control rod does not disable it.

In all these cases, being hit by an explosive round of at least a 20mm caliber will cause damage that will disable the aircraft. A visual representation of the destructive effect of a 20-mm projectile is given by the photographs in Fig. 40, 41, 42. Tactics for the combat use of cannon aircraft have not yet been developed. Guns were not used in air battles in Spain and China. Cannon fighters were widely used in the second imperialist war, but we still do not have any data on the nature of the air combat of cannon fighters and their effectiveness.

In the current war, cannon weapons have been used with great success against ground targets. German cannon fighters, along with dive bombers, attacked enemy tanks and firing points. In Poland, guns were used to destroy military trains. First, German fighters used cannon fire to disable the locomotive and stop the train, after which it was subjected to dive and assault attacks.

It is extremely tempting to use aircraft cannons to fire at light naval vessels - torpedo boats, submarines and floating landing craft. Along with very significant advantages, small-caliber aircraft guns have many significant disadvantages. This primarily includes a reduction in the probability of a hit compared to normal or large caliber machine guns. This is explained by the low rate of fire of aircraft guns. The gun of the best modern foreign model has a rate of fire that does not exceed 550 rounds per minute. It is not possible to compensate for the low rate of fire of one cannon by increasing the number of cannons on an aircraft, since aircraft cannons are relatively heavy and quite cumbersome. In addition, for the same reasons, i.e. due to its heavy weight and bulkiness, a cannon aircraft can only take a strictly limited supply of cartridges, usually no more than 60-100 pieces. for each gun.

All this slows down the development of cannon weapons, the idea of which appeared at the end of the first imperialist war. England, the USA and Italy are still distrustful of guns and do not arm their production aircraft with them. The first experiments on installing guns on airplanes were carried out back in 1913. These experiments showed that the recoil force did not affect the stability of the airplane. The results of these experiments served as an incentive for further study of issues related to the installation and use of guns in aviation. Experiments of this kind were carried out in France, where in 1915 a 37-mm cannon (Fig. 43) was installed on the nose of the fuselage of the Voisin aircraft.

In England, guns were mounted on twin-engine biplanes. In Russia, a 75-mm special cannon was even installed on an Ilya Muromets type aircraft. Mobile cannon installations received almost no widespread use during the First World War. Their maneuverability was too insignificant for successful air combat. It turned out to be impossible to manually aim a 37-mm infantry cannon at a target with high angular velocities.

In 1916, the French pilot ace Guynemer proposed installing a 37-mm semi-automatic cannon in the camber of the cylinder blocks of a V-shaped Hispano-Suiza engine of 200 hp. With. (Fig. 44). The gun had a compressor that significantly reduced the recoil force. The gun barrel passed through the hollow propeller sleeve and protruded slightly outward. The cannon fired grenades or buckshot. In the latter case, the projectile had 16 spherical bullets with a diameter of 16 mm. The initial velocity of the projectile was 400 m/sec. The gun had a very light weight, only 40 kg. The fire was semi-automatic. At the moment of firing, the cannon rolled back. The gun was returned to the forward position by the knurling mechanism. Towards the end of the roll, the shutter automatically opened and the spent cartridge was ejected. After this, the pilot removed the cartridge from the magazine and manually loaded the gun. The descent was carried out using a Bowden cable connected to the steering wheel. A similar installation was used on the Spad fighter with a 220 hp engine. With. on which pilot Fonck in 1918 shot down six enemy aircraft with eleven shots in one day.

The first automatic aircraft cannon was the German 20-mm Becker cannon (Fig. 45). This gun was designed in 1917 and was in large numbers in service with the German army. Thanks to the automatic fire, it could be operated by one person. When shooting, there was no need to rest your shoulder on the butt, as in the case of using 37-mm movable guns. The gun was aimed by two handles on its butt plate, so its maneuverability was much higher than that of a 37-mm movable gun.

The initial velocity of the Becker cannon projectile was 500 m/sec. The maximum firing range is 2500 m. It is fed from a magazine with a capacity of 10 rounds. The explosive shell of the Becker gun (Fig. 46) was equipped with an impact fuse with cocking by centrifugal forces. Between the firing pin and the primer there were two latches held in place by pins with springs. After the projectile left the barrel, the pins released the valves, and they flew out of the projectile head under the influence of centrifugal force. After this, the striker was held only by a safety spring. The projectile weighed about 130 g. The Becker gun weighed only 30 kg, and with 150 rounds - 115 kg.

The low muzzle velocity of the Becker cannon made it more suitable as a weapon for ground troops than for aviation. We will describe the principle of operation of the Becker gun in more detail, since the automation of modern Oerlikon guns works on this principle. The Becker gun uses the principle of rolling out the bolt with a stationary barrel.

The heavy bolt of the gun is sent forward by a return spring, which is manually cocked for the first shot. When cocking the gun, the bolt engages with two triggers mounted in the rear of the receiver. When you press the trigger, the bolt rushes forward and along the way captures the next (lower) cartridge from the magazine. The capsule breaks before the forward movement of the moving parts ends. The pressure of the gases absorbs the manpower of the moving parts, stops the bolt and throws it to the rear starting position, where the cocking arm again jumps behind the sear. By continuously pressing the trigger, automatic fire is obtained. Automatic guns operating on the principle of rolling out the bolt require the strength of the cartridge case, especially near its head, since the charge ignites before the bolt stops and the chamber is locked.

Let us consider according to the diagram shown in Fig. 47, automatic operation of the Becker gun.

1 - position of the moving parts before the first shot. 2 — the shooter pulled the moving parts back by the handle; a combat platoon jumped behind the sear; moving parts are in the rear position. 3 - the shooter pulls the trigger. The bolt is released and, under the action of the return spring, moves forward, captures the cartridge and inserts it into the chamber. 4 - the blade M meets the stop T, rotates around its axis and with its upper end sends the firing pin forward, breaking the capsule slightly earlier than the bolt reaches its extreme forward position. 5 - the shutter is in the extreme forward position. 6 - when the bolt moves back under the action of powder gases, the blade again meets the stop T, turns in the opposite direction and pulls the firing pin back. Simultaneously with the movement back, the spent cartridge case is thrown out.

Naturally, the Allies were extremely interested in the Becker gun, the first automatic 20-mm cannon. The Treaty of Versailles included a special article requiring Germany to transfer to the Allies all materials relating to the Becker gun. Subsequently, the Becker gun came to the Swiss company Oerlikon, where it served as the basis for the creation of a whole series of 20-mm aircraft guns produced by this company.

After the end of the war, they stopped being interested in aircraft guns. Until about 1930, no country in the world had guns in service with aviation. They returned to guns again due to the increased survivability of aircraft caused by the introduction of metal into their design.

In 1932, a new automatic 37-mm Vickers-Armstrong gun was installed on the English flying boat Blackburn Perth. The Vickers-Armstrong company produced several samples of aircraft guns. One of them was an ordinary Vickers machine gun, increased to a caliber of 20.3 mm. The gun weighed 72.5 kg, was very unreliable and therefore was not used. Attempts to use Colt automatics also proved unsuccessful. The 20.3- and 37-mm Vickers-Armstrong-Colt guns also did not enter service with aviation.

When designing the new 37-mm Vickers-Armstrong gun, which was mounted on the Perth seaplane, many of the shortcomings of previous models were eliminated. However, this gun did not become widespread and was not further developed. Nevertheless, it marks a certain stage in the development of cannon weapons. Also in 1932, Italy installed Oerlikon mobile cannons on the Savoy S-62 and S-55 flying boats.

To date, aircraft guns have received full recognition only in Germany and France. In France, 20-mm Hispano-Suiza 404 and S9 cannons, which are modifications of Oerlikon cannons, are installed on all domestic fighters in combination with wing-mounted machine guns of normal caliber. In Germany, guns of the Oerlikon and Rheinmetall Borsig types are used. They are also installed on some series of single-seat single-engine fighters Messerschmitt Me-109 and Heinkel 112 and on twin-engine heavy fighters Messerschmitt Me-110 and Focke Wulf 187.

In addition to these two countries, aircraft guns are also in service in a number of small states, where they came along with aircraft imported from France and Germany.

In England, the issue of cannon armament has long been studied. In addition to domestic Vickers-Armstrong guns, England, according to periodicals, bought a license for 20-mm Hispano-Suiza guns and is setting up their production. But to this day, guns are not in service with the British Air Force. The same applies entirely to the USA. Here, as well as in England, licenses for 20-mm Oerlikon and Hispano-Suiza guns were purchased. The American 37-mm AAS-37 cannons are not accepted in aviation. Italy also has its own aircraft guns, but does not dare to use them on a mass scale, focusing on large-caliber machine guns.

Content

"Armament of the aircraft", 1941.