The Messerschmitt Bf 109's guns

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chriswallace85

chriswallace85

Striker
Right, I'm a little puzzled about this, and the last few days has shown there's a few clued up posters on here regards to this stuff, so how on earth did this work...

Reflecting Messerschmitt's belief in low-weight, low-drag, simple monoplanes, the armament was placed in the fuselage. This kept the wings very thin and light. Two synchronized machine guns were mounted in the cowling, firing over the top of the engine and through the propeller arc.

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Okay, so that answers it I kna, but...
Fancy firing through the bloody propellers. :eek:
 


They'd being using that technology in the first war as well, gave the Germans a big advantage over the British & French planes which had guns mounted on the top wings
 
Meant the guns fired into a more central position which improved accuracy at the distances which would cause the most damage. FW190 was the same with cowling mounted guns. I think the Soviet Il-2 Sturmovik also had a cannon mounted through the propeller hub and machine guns on the cowling and the Mitsubishi Zero also had cowling mounted machine guns/.
 
Germany introduced the synchronised guns on fighters during the 1st WW. the ME109 also in later variants had 2 additional guns installed into the wings for greater fire power
 
FW190 A8 also had 2 x 20mm cannon in the wing roots which were synchronised, as well as 2 x 20mm cannon further out on the wings and 2 x 13mm in the fuselage.
 
rugga said:
They'd being using that technology in the first war as well, gave the Germans a big advantage over the British & French planes which had guns mounted on the top wings
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I believe the allies recovered a crashed Fokker plane and reverse engineered the mechanism.
 
The main requirement with WW1 fighters was thrust. The tactic was to gain height as soon as possible both before engagement and after each sortie. The tri-planes gained superiority over bi-planes in the end, such as the Fokker DR1 which was very manoeuvrable and relegated the Sopwith Camel to simply troop support. The DR1 was structurally suspect though with many early versions falling apart under stress. The Camel was also difficult to bank left due to engine torque and it was usual for a pilot to do a 270 degree right turn instead.

Although the Red Baon was famous for flying the DR1 most of his sorties were with the Albatross.
 
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why didnt they just put the guns above and behind the cockpit if they needed to keep it central? Firing over the top of the prop? Or in a more central location on the wings?
 
pragmatic optimism said:
why didnt they just put the guns above and behind the cockpit if they needed to keep it central? Firing over the top of the prop? Or in a more central location on the wings?
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If you keep them close together on the fuselage you don't need to 'train' the guns so that their fire converges at a specific point in space for maximum damage.

Having guns on the wings means they're less effective outside of this point.

Having guns in the wing roots or the fuselage means they're in the propeller arc anyway so still need to be synchronised.

On biplanes - mounting then on the upper wing massively reduces their accuracy - if you can point your plane at an opponent and fire it's one less thing to think about in a dogfight.

Above & behind the cockpit changes the centre of gravity and would introduce aerodynamic issues due to changes in fuselage shape (not to mention being bloody loud :))
 
Lost in Hull said:
If you keep them close together on the fuselage you don't need to 'train' the guns so that their fire converges at a specific point in space for maximum damage.
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One problem with the centrally mounted guns on WW1 planes was that if the pilot crashed landed they could cause serious injury. Still, I suppose the increased accuracy and ease of use in the air made their location more desirable. Not a problem by the time of the WW2 planes of course who also had parachutes.
 
WHD said:
I believe the allies recovered a crashed Fokker plane and reverse engineered the mechanism.
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I can remember seeing a kids' adventure series called Tom Grattan's war when I was very young, and this was the theme of one show.
 
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