Just been “googling” for an hour to check if the Sea Gladiator had provision for an extra two .303 guns in the upper wing?
Picked up a “coffee table” style book for my son in “Past Times” of all places and its generally very good (WW11 Aircraft encyclopedia,by Paul Eden) – some odd choices (no Battles, but the P-80 features?) Anyway, for a 9 year old undergoing intended brain washing by his father, it was a steal at £10.
The Gladiator section details that the “second batch of 60 full standard” Sea Gladiators had the extra two guns. I was curious as I’d never read of this before and wondered if there was any knowledge out there?
thank you !
By: BSG-75 - 5th April 2009 at 22:18
33,000 in a Gladiator???:eek: words fail me ……
Thanks for the replies – as per with this forum, you ask, you get answers and learn something new as well.
By: G-ASEA - 5th April 2009 at 20:36
Yes some Sea Gladiators did have provision for two extra 303, Also my late W.O E.A.C.Barfoot school teacher and close friend flew a Gladiator K6147 and crashed it on landing 18/10/43 (flat tyre) At Habbaniya Iraq,this aeroplane was fitted with six machine guns. He also flew this aircraft to a hight of 33,000ft on 23/4/43 on a met flight. This was endorsed in his log book. He later wrote a book of his wartime life called ‘AIRBOURNE FOR THE DURATION’ the odyssey of a ruptured crab.
Dave
By: Moggy C - 5th April 2009 at 19:35
During the siege of Malta the standard four-gun set up (two lower wing, two fuselage) was never felt to be sufficient to combat the well armoured Stuka particularly. So they did experiment with a lash-up mounting of two additional machine guns on the centre section of the top wing, which apparently gave the chosen Gladiator a very WW1 look.
Not sure if it ever took part in combat in this configuration though.
Moggy
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April 5, 2009 at 7:14 pm