'Accidental' cannon fire – Bristol Brigand

Many years ago I was stationed in Vietnam and we had a Huey fire off a salvo of rockets due to static electricity discharge.

An old family friend who flew Venoms in the 1950s once told of a similar scenario in Germany when a couple of rounds were fired by a parked aeroplane, neatly going either side of an ‘erk’ who was crossing the apron in front of it!

😮

I suspect the Brigand incident may have been due to a ‘short’ or even a static electricity discharge in the electrical firing circuit.

An old family friend who flew Venoms in the 1950s once told of a similar scenario in Germany when a couple of rounds were fired by a parked aeroplane, neatly going either side of an ‘erk’ who was crossing the apron in front of it!

Apparently the problem was sufficiently frequent for the poor erk to be charged for disobeying a standing order that no-one crossed in front of ‘live’ armed aeroplanes!

Heard a story from more then one Spit pilot, independent of the others about a Spit driver who had a cannon go off on the ground that killed someone in the tower. Had to face an inquiry and was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Dan

…..
What I’d like to know is – did incidents like these actually happen, or are they the serviceman’s version of an ‘urban myth’ ? ……

A 100th BG ball turret gunner was killed after a mission. I think his name was Sgt Parish. While working on the guns outside the turret, one gun began to fire on its own. The gunner was killed running for cover. The B-17 and others around it were damaged by the 200+ rounds which fired until the gun emptied itself.

Steve

Could it not be something like a short in the firing system (I assume it was electrical by the time of the Brigand?).

Maybe not quite the same thing, but

on 10 March Flt. Lt. Dewar took off from Martlesham [in the prototype Spitfire, K5054] for what was intended to be the final one in a series of armament tests: the firing of all guns at 32,000 feet. On this occasion the trial did not go quite according to plan, however. The official report stated:

Only three of the eight guns fired, the number of rounds fired from these guns being as follows:

No4 port gun – 171
No2 starboard – 4
No 3 starboard – 8

The cause of the stoppages in Nos 2 and 3 guns, and the failure of the remaining 5 to fire at all, was the low air temperature (-53 degrees C), coupled with the fact that the guns being mounted in the wings must have their breeches open until firing takes place.

That was bad enough, but when Dewar touched down at Martlesham after the flight the shock of landing released the breech blocks of three of the guns that had not fired, and each loosed off a round in the general direction of Felixstowe!

(From The Spitfire Story – Alfred Price)

Perhaps not the same as the Brigand episode, though.

Yeah, never heard of ammunition being so unstable as to cook off because of heat….and where did it wind up going? Surely all the rounds did’nt wind up in the cannon breech, I would assume maybe one went through the cannon barrel and the rest just cooked off (if they did at all) in whatever direction they were facing, which would probably mean that the plane’s nose got destroyed?

M

I have heard that in some versions of the Browning MG, a single round could be left in the barrel after firing which could go off at random, set off by the heat of the barrel. As for firing a burst, not sure this could happen short of the aircraft catching fire.

Must have gotten awfully bloody hot to cook off ammunition likt that