The WW2 spitfire had both machine guns and cannons.?

Question

What exactly are cannons? how did they work? what makes them different to machine guns?

Answer 1

The spitfire was originally fitted with 8 303 calibre colt browning machine guns. During the the 1930's as speeds of aircraft increased Squadron leader Ralph Sorley calculated that with the increas in speeds a pilot would onl be able to hold an enemy aircraft in his sisghts for 2 seconds so he calculated that 8 guns firing 1,200 rounds per minute would be required to do sufficient damage to cripple or shoot down the plane. Each gun was fitted with a magazine of 300 rounds so that in 14 seconds all of the amuntion on the plane would be exhasuted. The muzzle velocity of the browning was 2,660 ft/per second and orignally the guns where harmonized for 800 yards, however at this range it was not effective enough and the harmonisation was later reduced to 250 yards. The Browning was extensivley modified and could eventually fire differen type of bullets such as, Ball, incendary, tracer (night and day) high explosive, semi armour piercing and armour piercing. In summer 1940 the hispano 20 mm cannon was tested in the spitfire but at the time they where mounted on their sides and this caused the cannons to jam, later they where mounted correctly and this usually with the machine gun made the siptfire pack a heavy punch. By the end of the war the standard armament on the spitfire was 4x 20 mm cannon.

The cannon as stated elswehere is basically a heavier version of a machine gun with a longer range and a heavier projectile capable of much more penetration and destruction

Answer 2

The difference is size alone, they are completely the same thing. A Machine gun, by definition, is just an automatic gun, regardless of cartridge type, explosive or otherwise.

There are two upper calibre sizes. 12.7mm (or .50) or 20mm (.78 calibre) depending on which country you're in.

There is mention of explosive tip shells. It doesn't matter if the shell is explosive or not, the calibre is the defining feature.

There's another feature, if the size is over the prescribed limits, that only makes it a cannon. The spitfire had Autocannons which, unsuprisingly, are automatic cannons.

To be clear, a gun with a calibre of more than 20mm that needs manually reloading after each shot is a cannon. A gun with a calibre of more than 20mm that can fire more than one round without manual reloading is an autocannon.

The same is said to define the difference between a gun and machine gun.

On an interesting note, the spitfire's cannons fired 20mm shells at 3600 rounds per minute at a velocity of 580 metres per second. Someone mentioned the A-10 further up, that fires 30mm rounds at 1067 metres per second. Interestingly, the recoil on the A-10 is so great that the pilot cannot fire for more than 2 seconds or the plane will literally come to a stop in mid air.

If you think thats fast, Sandia Labs have developed an electro magnetic pulse gun that fires metal slugs at 33866 metres per second, scary.

So to answer your original question, a machine gun and an autocannon are the same thing, a cannon just has a bigger calibre.

Similarly, a gun and cannon are the same except for calibre size.

Answer 3

The original spitfire, had 6, 3 on each wing, .303. caliber belt feed automatic firing guns. The term Cannon as used in aircraft weaponry. The cannon fired at a slower rate automatically, but the shell was bigger then the usual 30 caliber or 50 caliber guns. The cannon projectile also exploded upon contact with the opposing aircraft. It was very deadly. One hit could bring down a plane.
Machine guns were often aimed to a pilots best aiming spot by adjusting each gun to hit in a certain area. Say the out board was wide the middle slightly in and the inside guns aimed straight on down the fuselage, this gave the pilot a wider area to spray the opposing foe.
Pilots had about 10 to 15 seconds of holding the trigger before they ran out. They usually shot in short bursts. Every 5th round was a tracer a shell that when fired had colored powder on the tip, so the pilot could actually see where his rounds were going so he could adjust his fire accordingly right, left, high low.

The statement about depleted uranium shells having terrific velocity is not true. It is the density of the depleted uranium rod that cuts through steel, just like a metal knife goes through butter that has been out all day, not the kinetic enegy. Only problem is that uranium is then contaminating the troops who fire it, as it gets all over everything. It comes from Nuclear power plants. It's half life is about 250,000 years. That's why the real Gulf War veterans who got sick with strange diseases ands such did not last long. The sand is like talcum powder and when a tank goes boom all that radiation is spread all over the desert and our troops, the Iraqis and anyone downwind for the next 250,000 years. Pretty weird, each new war the govt. figurers out a new way to get rid of our troops faster. Less medical care for the troops we save some money and look good.

Answer 4

The early Marks had purely machine guns (typically eight .303s) whereas later marks, notably from the mark five onward had two cannons as standard and only four machine guns.
Basically a machine gun has a quicker rate of fire but delivers smaller calibre bullets (diameter) whereas a cannon is used to deliver bigger shells as it were but at a slower rate. Cannon shells also caused much more damage on what the came in contact with! Also, a spitfire could carry more machine gun bullets and a limited amount of cannon armanent due to space restrictions

Answer 5

The original Spitfire (as used in the Battle of Britain) did not have a Cannon, just eight machine guns, 4 mounted in each wing.

The Bf 109 of the same period had 4 machine guns or 2 machine guns and two cannon (one cannon or machine gun in each wing and two machine guns in the cowling firing through the propeller). Later a cannon firing through the centre cone of the propeller was fitted.

A machine gun fires bullets, which are shaped lumps of metal, a cannon fires explosive shells which look similar to bullets, but are larger, hollow, and filled with explosives that explode on impact. This makes quite a difference to the aluminium construction of an aeroplane.

the downside of cannons is that they are much heavier than machine guns, but deliver much more threat to the enemy.

Later versions of the spitfire did have wing mounted cannon, but it took engineers quite a while to Find a way of installing them in its unusual wing design (double elliptical)

Answer 6

Spitfire Guns

Answer 7

That depended on the model. Early planes mounted 8 .303 cal machine guns. Later models changed over to .50 cal and 20mm cannon combo and last models had 4- 20mm cannons. The difference between machine gun and cannons is mainly the ammo. Machine guns are simply metal jacketed lead bullets. The cannon rounds have a explosive warhead on them and the shear force of being hit by such a large round tend to tear and shatter large areas of a airplane, While a machine gun just riddles the target with hits hoping to hit something vital. The difference in their use was due to the fact you could load lots of small machine gun rounds but only a few cannon rounds so you used your cannons only when you were sure of the target. Hope that was enlightening.

Answer 8

A machine gun is a fully-automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rifle cartridges in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred bullets per minute. Earlier machine guns were manually operated, for example, by turning a hand crank. In US law, the term machine gun is used non-specifically to describe any automatic firearm, for example in news media or legal code.

An cannon is a projectile weapon with a larger caliber (bore) than a machine gun, but smaller than field gun or other artillery. They have mechanisms to automatically load the ammunition and have a faster rate of fire than artillery.

The term cannon was used during WWII to describe guns used in aircraft, where the distinction was that the shells were explosive. After the war similar guns were used with non-explosive rounds in the anti-tank role, and the name autocannon started to become popular. Autocannon today are typically distinguished by their incorporation of some method of automated loading and firing.

Examples of an autocannon are the 25 mm M242 Bushmaster mounted on the M2 Bradley, the Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun, the Mauser BK-27, which is used in all aircraft and on all navy vessels of the Bundeswehr and also by the US Navy, or the 30 mm GAU-8 in the A-10 Warthog close air support airframe

Answer 9

Not all cannon rounds are explosive. The 20mm that was used on the C130 gunships were not. They relied on the tremendous amount of rounds fired, thousands of rounds per minute to blanket an area. The A10 sometimes uses depleted uranium in its shells to create an astonomical amount of energy per square inch to destroy any armored vehicle, or pretty much anything, in its path.

And by the way, the A10 will not stop in the air from recoil after two seconds. It is just bad for the barrels of the Gatling gun to fire excessive rounds due to heat buildup. Too long of a pickle on the trigger requires gun removal, which is not conducive to good ops or maintenance practice.

Answer 10

It's simply the general name for a larger calibre weapon. The machine guns fired smaller, general rounds (the same used by infantry with rifles and light machine guns), and the cannon fired larger, specialised rounds (usually armour piercing). Modern military aircraft are armed with cannon, usually 27mm or 30mm in calibre.