Battle of Britain fighters

As I understand it,the RAF chose .303 because this is what the armaments industry was geared up to make at the time.The standard heavy calibre bullet in British service had been the .303 for nearly half a century so there was also a stockpile of .303 to use up.Much better to have a plentiful supply of smaller calibre bullets than a limited supply of something new.
That’s my understanding of it anyway…

I could be wrong, but as I understand the sequence, the British started the war ‘undergunned’ with .303 MGs, and when it was realised thet they needed to have more punch, went to cannon, without stopping on the way for an interim .50.

That said, as Eddie’s pointed out the Rose turret and the Spitfire were armed with that weapon, and I think the Spit’s setup was efectively a compromise or interim soloution.

Boulton Paul were certainly working on cannon turrets, and the Rose turret was again, I think an in-between solution.

Sheesh, naiveity shines through….

Thanks Eddie

I wasn’t aware that in the following marks of these aircraft they had in fact upgraded to the 50 cal but I guess my question was why weren’t they installed in the initial versions.

Gerry

Both Bombers and Fighters did use .50s – the Lanc had the Rose Rice rear turret fitted, and the Martin upper turret.

Spitfires had an armament configuration, where they had two Hispanos and two .50 calibres.

Good morning Tony

I’ve often wondered (and maybe it was a production issue or a to early issue) but why is it that British Fighters and for that matter Bombers never used or were updated to the 50 Cal.

After reading your article it would appear that you’ve done some serious research on the subject, would installing 50 cals on fighters and bombers been considered an upgrade?

Thanks Gerry Hagan

Amendments to article

I have amended the ‘Battle of Britain Armament’ article to include additional information about the loading of the .303 guns and the selection of the 20mm Hispano.

See: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/BoB.htm

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum