So we come to the finale. Aviation cannons, capable of evoking, if not respect, then amazement at the mere fact of their existence. Meanwhile, they fought with varying degrees of success.
In general, an arms race in the air is a very peculiar business. And here progress has stepped very far, because literally at the end of the 30s, two machine guns of rifle caliber were considered normal weapons. And literally 6-7 years later, four 20-mm cannons did not surprise anyone. They killed - yes, but they did not surprise. This has become the norm.
But I still consider the epic of development those monsters that brilliant engineers still managed to stuff into airplanes. Or was the plane already gathering around the cannon? It's hard to say, because - take off!
I thought for a long time how to sort my heroines. And I decided, without further ado, arrange them in ascending order of caliber.
40-mm cannon Vickers Class S. Great Britain
It should be noted that it was the British who became the pioneers in the installation of large-caliber (by aviation standards) cannons in aircraft. It is difficult to say at whom they were going to shoot such projectiles in 1936, but it was then that Vickers and Rolls-Royce were tasked with developing a 40-mm gun for installation on an aircraft.
The competition was won by the Vickers cannon, and they began to produce it in series and install it on airplanes.
The most interesting thing is that at first the gun was installed on bombers. Wellingtons and B-17. And these planes worked on enemy submarines, and quite successfully. The 40-mm projectile performed very well.
In 1940, when the Wehrmacht showed what tank troops can be capable of with proper control, the military department realized that a 40-mm armor-piercing projectile is something that can be opposed to tanks. In principle, it is logical that the armor of the "Panzer" I and II was quite capable of him.
Hawker Aircraft engineers were able to redesign the Hurricane fighter to accommodate an S cannon under each wing.
For this, a whole installation was designed to accommodate the cannon and the store, which stubbornly did not fit into the thick wing of the Hurricane. But the designer P. Haigson did it.
In general, everyone believed that the Mustang would be much better than the Hurricane, but the P-51 wing required more global improvements.
During the tests, there were some incidents. The test pilot was not prepared for the fact that when fired from both cannons, the plane would actually stop and fall in a dive. To solve this problem, a recommendation was made for pilots to choose the control stick for themselves when opening fire.
The S cannons were aimed through the usual reflex sight of the Mk. II, but in addition, the aircraft had two Browning 0.5 sighting machine guns, loaded with tracer bullets.
The first unit to receive the Hurricane Mk. IID with 40mm cannons was the 6th squadron, based at the Egyptian Shandar airbase. Baptism of fire "Hurricanes" Mk. IID took place on June 7, as a result, two tanks and several trucks were destroyed. In total, during the operations in Africa, the pilots of the 6th squadron with 40-mm cannon fire disabled 144 tanks, of which 47 were completely destroyed, as well as more than 200 units of light armored vehicles.
It is clear that these were light tanks with bulletproof armor.
But it was paid, moreover, cruelly. The suspension of such cannons reduced the already not great speed of the Hurricane by 60-70 km / h. It turned out that the Hurricanes were quite calmly beating the equipment of the Germans, and the German Bf-109Fs calmly shot down the Hurricanes.
With the introduction of Hurricane Mk. IID rockets into service, they began to withdraw from service units. A number of aircraft were transferred to the Far East in Burma, where the 20 squadron was used very effectively.
The Vickers S cannon was actually used on a large scale only in battles in North Africa and Asia, where lightly armored targets were enough for its shells. Gradually, they abandoned it in favor of rockets, but statistics showed that during the hostilities in the Asia-Pacific region, on average, the accuracy of firing was 25% (for comparison, the accuracy of a salvo of 60 unguided missiles when attacking a target such as a tank was 5%). The accuracy when firing high-explosive fragmentation projectiles was twice as high as when firing armor-piercing projectiles. This was due to the fact that high-explosive fragmentation shells had ballistics more similar to those used for zeroing in Browning 0.5 machine guns.
45 mm NS-45 cannon. the USSR
To begin with, let's recall two good designers, without which there might not be a lot of things in our aviation weaponry.
Yakov Grigorievich Taubin and Mikhail Nikitich Baburin, falsely accused by denunciations of colleagues and shot. But the potential that they laid down in their projects developed at OKB-16 subsequently made it possible to create a whole family of large-caliber air cannons that were in service with Soviet aviation over the next 30 years.
In the previous article on large-caliber air cannons, we noted a very successful design of the NS-37 cannon, which was a refinement of the PTB-37 gun of Taubin and Baburin. The cannon was modified by A. E. Nudelman and A. S. Suranov, and they gave the name to the cannon.
A relatively light and fast-firing gun 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 of the early period.
However, the development of armored vehicles at the 1943 level made the weapon 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 assess everything that happened several decades ago. And it's very convenient. What is easy and understandable today, during the war, was given by sweat and blood. Today it is very easy for me to write such a decision into controversial ones. And then, and even on the wave of the success of the IL-2 with 37-mm Shpitalny Sh-37 guns and Nudelman's and Suranov's guns of the same caliber … Apparently, they simply did not have time to really appreciate all the consequences of installing these guns. It was not up to that, and today it is understood and justified.
Meanwhile, physics has not been canceled 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 velocity, the higher the recoil of the weapon affecting the structure of the carrier airframe. But then they needed a weapon capable of hitting the enemy.
And so Nudelman and Suranov were able to. We were able to rework our NS-37 chambered for 45x186. The prototype of the 45 mm 111-P-45 cannon appeared less than a month after the assignment for its development. It is clear that the lion's share of the cannon nodes was retained from the NS-37, which, however, cannot be said about the results.
Initially, only the barrel with the chamber and the receiver with the 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. Doubts arose that an aircraft would be available to 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 she who went into the series, the letter "M" in the designation was usually omitted.
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.
The Il-2 did not work at all. Although the idea was quite, the cannons were installed in the root of the wing, more precisely, under it, along with a hefty 50 rounds of ammunition. And then there was an overlap of oscillations of the wing and barrels during 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, albeit to a lesser extent, developed with the 37-mm version of the Ila, which by that time had been discontinued, so the work on equipping the attack aircraft with 45-mm guns lost all meaning. A few shots and instead of a plane with wings flying off - it is doubtful.
With the Yak-9, miracles began immediately. The inner diameter of the M-105PF motor shaft, through which the gun barrel passed, was 55 mm. And the diameter of the NS-45 barrel was … 59 millimeters!
And so that it was possible to skip the barrel of the gun inside the shaft, its thickness was reduced from 7 millimeters to 4 millimeters.
By the way, this even reduced the weight of the gun. The NS-45 weighed 152 kg, and the NS-37 171 kg. It is clear that you have to pay for everything. Naturally, the resource of the barrel itself fell, plus the long, but light barrel began to "play" when firing, which affected the accuracy.
To reduce this harmful matter, a special device with a ball bearing was installed on the screw sleeve, centering the gun shaft relative to the axis of the gearbox hollow shaft.
In general, it worked out. And the Yak-9K went into series (albeit small), but it did not work 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 much 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 aircraft turned sharply, and the pilot, while in his seat, made sharp movements back and forth.
Aimed 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 cannon had a significant impact on the design of the aircraft, leading to oil and water leaks through various seals and cracks in pipelines and radiators.
Nevertheless, the tests, on the whole, were considered satisfactory, and in the period from April to July 1944, a military series of 53 Yak-9Ks was built.
Military trials were carried out by 44 Yak-9K. There were 340 combat sorties 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), including 8 FW-190A-8 and 4 Me-109G-2; their losses - one Yak-9K.
The average consumption of 45 mm ammunition per shot down enemy aircraft was 10 rounds.
Nevertheless, the war was coming to an end, and it was decided to limit the military trials of four dozen Yak-9Ks. He did not go into the series. This ended the military service of the NS-45, most of the released (194 pieces) guns remained unclaimed.
57-mm air cannon No-401. Japan
The ancestor of this monster was also the 37mm cannon. But-203 was such a successful design that, by order from above, Dr. Kawamura decided to pump up his brainchild with steroids to a caliber of 57 millimeters.
It happened in 1943, when it turned out to develop a system for a low-power 57x121R cartridge for a 57-mm Type 97 tank gun. The automatic scheme of the new 57-mm air cannon completely repeated the earlier No-203 of 37 mm caliber.
Even outwardly, the guns were very similar, the difference was in the presence of a muzzle brake on the No-401.
The No-401 cannon was powered 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 charge of the cartridge gave a parabolic trajectory and a low initial velocity of the projectile. And the rate of fire of 80 rounds per minute was, shall we say, very low. Plus the recoil was great and knocked out the sight.
So all these disadvantages predetermined the use of the gun exclusively for assault operations, when in one approach it was possible to make only one aimed shot.
The exact number of No-401 guns manufactured is unknown, the approximate number is estimated at around 500 pieces.
The only aircraft designed for this system was the heavy twin-engine attack aircraft Kawasaki Ki-102 Otsu, in which the No-401 was compactly located in the bow, only slightly protruding beyond the dimensions of the aircraft.
215 of these machines were built in 1944-45, but they were almost never used in battles. They were taken care of to counter the expected landing of the allies on the Japanese islands. Later, some of these attack aircraft were rearmed with new 37-mm No-204 cannons, turning them into heavy interceptors.
Molins 6-pounder Class-M. United Kingdom
In early 1943, Air Force Command began discussing the replacement of the 40mm Vickers S anti-tank guns installed on Hurricane IID aircraft. The armor became thicker and thicker, the shells of the 40-mm cannons became less and less dangerous for her.
For the sake of replacement, it was designed by a group of specialists under the leadership of G. F. Wallace's truly monstrous Molins cannon.
On tests, the gun showed itself from a very good side, and the only thing that could prevent its use on aircraft was possible problems with the automatic feed and loading from overloads (from 3, 5 g) arising during maneuvering.
On the other hand, who would fire from such a cannon, maneuvering so actively?
It is clear that there was no talk of any rearmament of the Hurricanes, since the gun weighed almost a ton. Plus the return was "only" 4.5 tons. Although, in principle, there is not so much for such a weapon.
Therefore, they decided to shove this gun into the Mosquito, fortunately, his nose was still empty. Or almost empty.
It is worth recalling that the Mosquito was a wooden plane based on balsa. Lightweight and durable. But 4.5 tons of recoil is 4.5 tons of recoil.
Static tests were carried out and the balsa survived. This is how the anti-submarine "Mosquito" appeared with a 57-mm cannon in the nose of the fuselage.
Molins was placed at a slight downward angle and 100 mm to the right of the longitudinal axis, while the barrel of the gun protruded from the fuselage by 610 mm. The recoil spring was under the barrel.
And I didn't even have to throw away the machine guns. There were different options, with four, two 0.303 Browning machine guns with doubled ammunition. The machine gun is generally a useful thing, you can throw the tracers for zeroing, you can explain to the anti-aircraft gunners that they need to scatter through the cracks …
Interestingly, a system for collecting sleeves was implemented, which were not thrown out, since they could actually damage the tail of the aircraft. The casings remained inside the aircraft, in the catcher.
For aiming, a reflex sight Mk. IIIa was installed.
The Molins cannon 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 sortie of the Mk. XVIII took place on October 24, 1943. "Mosquito" searched for enemy submarines, and on November 7 of the same year, the first combat clash took place. A pair of Mosquitoes found the submarine on the surface. Having received several hits in the wheelhouse, the boat sank, surrounded by black smoke.
But the pilots managed to reliably drown a German submarine for the first time on March 25, 1944, off the coast of France.
75-mm aircraft cannon M4. USA
Well, really, why was there a trifle? Probably, there would be a possibility, 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 respect. Having succumbed to the temptation to hit everything that can be reached from the aircraft, including ships, they brought this idea not just to a series, but released B-25s armed with 75-mm cannons in a very decent amount.
It all started long before the war, in 1937. Probably from the British they got infected 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.
As an aviation version of the 75-mm cannon, the serial M2 guns with a barrel length of 28, 47 caliber and M3 with a barrel length of 37, 5 calibers were chosen. Both guns were a development of the old French field gun Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897, which was in service with the US Army.
They wanted to arm an escort fighter with a short-barreled M2, and put a long-barreled M3 on a bomber. After some thought, 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 large recoil of the gun would still not allow making more than one sighting shot. Accordingly, it is not necessary to complicate the design of the weapon 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 tool.
In general, it turned out to be a really flying self-propelled gun. M4 was installed on a gun carriage under the co-pilot's seat, occupying part of the bomb bay. The almost three-meter barrel had to be put somewhere.
The aircraft's crew consisted of two pilots, a gunner, a radio operator and a navigator, who was assigned to be the loader. In addition to the M4 cannon, two fixed machine guns of 12, 7-mm caliber with 400 rounds of ammunition per barrel were installed in the nose of the fuselage. The pilot pointed the cannon and the front machine guns at the target. The aircraft was equipped with an N-3B optical sight and an A-1 bomb-artillery sight. In addition, for zeroing, it was possible to use the tracks of course machine guns. When the target was under machine gun fire, the gun was launched.
On average, in one combat run, it was possible to shoot from the cannon three times. Theoretically, a well-trained crew could provide the rate of fire of the M4 gun up to 30 rounds per minute, however, as a rule, in practice, the rate of fire did not exceed 3-4 rounds / min.
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 for attacks on Japanese small transport ships and submarines, in the hunt for tanks and anti-aircraft batteries. In Burma, during the attacks on the Laniva oil fields, one of the Mitchell attack aircraft fired only 4 shells and set a firestorm on the oil storage.
Used cannon "Mitchells" and in the Mediterranean Sea in the hunt for shipping.
It happened that more serious targets also turned out to be in the teeth of attack aircraft: on June 8, 1944, 30 miles from the city of Manokwari, New Guinea, a group of two B-25Ns from the 345th bomber group of the USA fired 75-mm guns to the bottom even a Japanese destroyer "Harusami" with a displacement of 1700 tons. To destroy the ship and kill 74 of its crew members, it took only five 75-mm shells to hit successfully.
But in Europe, cannon attack aircraft did not take root. Affected by better countermeasures of the Luftwaffe and air defense. For them, the B-25 was just a target, since its speed dropped by 110 km / h and a slow attack aircraft (the maximum speed dropped to 450 km / h) became an easy target.
However, only the B-25N was produced about 1000 pieces.
75 mm VK-7.5 aircraft cannon. Germany
Well, and the quintessence of destruction. A German monster created by the dark geniuses from Rheinmetall-Borzig immediately after VK.5 (50 mm anti-tank gun adapted for an aircraft).
Yes, this is the progenitor of VK 7.5.
If the main idea behind the development of the 50 mm cannon was the desire to defeat enemy bombers outside the range of their defensive weapons, then the 75 mm cannon was considered as a weapon for assault operations.
The Americans, too, did not waste time on trifles in terms of caliber. Why did the Germans have to lag behind?
I would blame the Germans for some excess and gigantomania. But I can't help but admire their design ideas. Because it is necessary to be able to automate a conventional land anti-tank gun PaK-40. And the Germans did it.
Even in ordinary life, the gun was semi-automatic, with a horizontal wedge breechblock, and then new products were added. The gun used very powerful 75 × 714R unitary cartridges, effective against any modern tanks of the anti-Hitler coalition allies.
In general, it was possible not to be driven like that, and to use the shortened KwK 40 tank guns as an initial sample, using less powerful 75x495R cartridges, more suitable for aircraft armament.
But no, if you do - so that Valhalla will be welcomed with open arms. And in 1942, VK 7.5 appeared, aka PaK 40L, that is, for the Luftwaffe. Later the name was changed to BK 7.5, where the word “Bordkanonen”, the side gun, was hidden behind the letters “BK”.
And from the tank gun, the electric ignition of the C / 22 or C / 22 St electro-igniter sleeve was borrowed, which was installed in the standard cartridge instead of the capsule.
The pneumatic automatic loader, in general, repeated the constructively used on the 50-mm VK 5 cannon, with the help of a pneumatic cylinder, which sent the cartridge into the chamber of the gun. However, the ammunition supply scheme was significantly different and varied depending on the carrier on which the gun was installed.
One of the first projects on which it was planned to install a gun was the Junkers Ju-88 bomber.
When the tests were passed, and everyone realized that the 88th was a strong car and would not fall apart from the shooting of this monster, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. And they launched the cannon into series.
The electro-pneumatic charging system was just finalized, the gun received a clip for 10 rounds. True, usually only 8 rounds were loaded into it, plus one in the breech of the gun. In flight, more cartridges could be loaded into the clip, which was what the shooter of the lower rear machine-gun turret did.
In addition to the cartridges in the clip, the aircraft's ammunition load included 7 more cartridges.
The automatic charging mechanism made it possible to achieve a technical rate of fire of about 30 rds / min, although in reality no more than two shots could be fired in one run.
Military trials of several produced serial Ju.88P-1 took place in the fall of 1943 in the central sector of the Eastern Front in the Versuchskommando fur Panzerbekamfung unit.
As the first battles showed, the rate of fire of the VK 7, 5 cannon was so low that the pilot managed to fire no more than two shots in one attack, although usually even one direct hit was enough to set any tank on fire.
Since there is practically no information on the combat use of the Ju 88P-1, it can be concluded that their successes were very modest.
Subsequently, the use of the VK 7.5 gun on the assault Junkers was abandoned, preferring to replace them with less powerful, but faster-firing VK 3.7 and VK 5 on the subsequent submodifications of the “R”.
Thus, on the VK 7.5 cannon at the beginning of 1944, one could put a bold cross, remembering it only in the context of one of the samples of the "miracle weapon" of the 3rd Reich, but it was remembered at the very end of the war, using it as the main offensive weapons of attack aircraft Henschel HS 129.
We had to do something with Soviet tanks, especially ISs. Yes, hitting a 75-mm projectile from above guaranteed to put any of our tanks out of action, but … 700 kg of the installation turned the Henschel, even if it was deprived of 20-mm cannons for the sake of relief, into something that could hardly hobble at a speed of 250 km / h and miraculously kept direction of flight after each shot.
Even at the best of times, the 129th was not an example of controllability and fluttering like a butterfly, and after the installation of VK 7.5, everything became completely sad.
Nevertheless, VK 7.5 decided to give a second chance and launch the new attack aircraft into mass production. The anti-tank attack aircraft received the index Hs.129B-3 / Wa and the unofficial nickname "can opener" (Buchsenoffner).
During July-October 1944, the Germans managed to release about 25 aircraft of this type, which were sent to the Eastern Front. They say they took part in the battles for the Seelow Heights and even knocked out something there. It seems like 9 of our tanks.
I don’t presume to judge how true this is. To be honest, I'm sure that if anyone knocked out the tanks, it was ground artillerymen. And the Henschels, if they took off, with such speed and controllability, most likely were simply shot down.
Don't forget spring 1945. And the total advantage of our aviation. So - most likely a fairy tale from the losers.
However, this does not detract from what the guys from Rheinmetall-Borzig have created. It was a good job, whatever one may say. Especially when you consider that the VK 7.5 could fire the entire range of ammunition from the PaK 40 anti-tank gun. It was only necessary to replace the percussion capsule with a C / 22 or C / 22 St.
Yes, it is not easy to assess the use and success of large-caliber air cannons with a simple glance. As practice has shown, large caliber on aircraft did not take root (except for gunships in the United States) and gave way to medium-caliber guns, with a less powerful projectile, but a higher rate of fire. Well, rocket weapons played an important role. But these guns made their (albeit not very large) contribution to the history of artillery.
