Vickers/Besa Aircraft Gun

The basic 12.7 x 81 Vickers round would have increased effective
range to at least 800 yards; the powerful 12.7 x 120 V.669 version with a muzzle velocity of some 3,000 fps would easily have reached 1,500 yards in air combat.

Apparently the 50-caliber Vickers was considered by the RAF
during the war:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Vickers.html

PS – ‘Blacksmith’ – a remark made by a gunsmith to me when talking about revolvers of the wild west – easy to make go bang, easy to repair and possible to make new parts for, unlike a semi-automatic.

That’s alright James – Colonel Colt, Robert Adams, Philip Webley, Messrs Smith & Wesson, William Tranter (founder of BSA) & myself are not insulted.

😀

I think it’s tragic that not flying skills, but weak
rifle-calibre weapons cost the British pilot his life.

And lousy discipline, and rotten gunnery. It’s sad, but it sounds just like a inexperienced new pilot.

During the Battle of Britain chasing fighters back to France is not what he should have been doing!

Upto the modern era of air-fighting a basic tenant was to get in close and hit hard, preferably without the other guy seeing you. Get in close, hit hard get out. Squirting optimistically is not a good tactic.

The idea of putting a bigger ‘punch’ into Britain’s 1940 fighters is a perfectly logical one, but, I think historically unlikely, as for the reasons outlined below, the .50 was not a viable alternative, and the next step was cannon, much more worthwhile. Does anyone know if a) the .50 would have been available for Hurricanes and Spitfires? b) Would the British have been able to make or obtain enough ammunition? I don’t think so.

Cheers

PS – ‘Blacksmith’ – a remark made by a gunsmith to me when talking about revolvers of the wild west – easy to make go bang, easy to repair and possible to make new parts for, unlike a semi-automatic.

The .303 Browning simply doesn’t have enough
range – 400 yards, I think.

One ex-Bf 109E pilot wrote in his write-up that
during the Battle of Britain, he was being chased,
almost at sea level, all the way back across the
English Channel by a Spitfire, who kept firing his
.303s sporadically at him.

The German noted in his rear mirror that the British
bullets were not reaching him, but dropping into the
sea some distance behind. He waited until, on almost
reaching the French coast, when the Englishman gave up
and turned back, he immediately climbed and wheeled his
own fighter around in the tightest turn possible, got the
Spitfire in his sights and blasted him right into the sea.

I think it’s tragic that not flying skills, but weak
rifle-calibre weapons cost the British pilot his life.

[QUOTE=JDK]I’m wary of pronouncing in this arena, not being in any manner expert, but to say Webley are good revolvers is fair comment – however, revolvers are the simplest firearm design – hardly precision engineering to achieve a high rate of fire – they are almost blacksmith level[QUOTE]

Well for strength, and the ability to keep going in tough conditions the “blacksmith level” revolver, as you so quaintly put it, 😀 is still used worldwide. Handguns don’t need to be complex, all they need to do is work when and how you want, when they are needed.

But in the long run this is little to do with aircraft armament. The golden rule for downed airman was, chuck the pistol away at the first sign of the enemy. One downed pilot armed only with a pistol is no match for a squad of infantry. Outcome could be fatal. 🙁

IIRC Webley Semi-Auto pistols were made up to the sixties in a variety of calibres. IMHO very well made but not not such good designs as Browning’s.

When did the USA start fitting fifty-calibre MGs on aircraft? I presume the first to carry them was the early B17 but which was the first .50 fighter? When I look at a Browning MG I see excellent use of space and weight, products by Vickers or the Besa seem slightly archaic by comparison.

The quick fix was to up the number of the new Yankee imported gun to a suitable calculated weight of fire that would do the job – wasn’t it Freeman who worked it out.

Ralph Sorley IIRC but I’d have to look it up to be certain.

Hee hee 😀 -dont worry Jimbo – for the first time ever i knew something you didnt :p – I dont think I’m making a habit of it 😉

All t best

Ben

Sorry JDK you’re wrong – Webley and Scott produced a series of Self Loading Pistols duriing and after WW1 – they were mostly issued to the RNAS/ RN if memory serves – they are now VERY rare and collectable

BANG! Arghh.

Rare… Does that mean they were rare then, and maybe not very good? Doesn’t matter I guess.

Back on topic (Who me?)

If you look at 1940 British aircraft armament from a pre-war perspective, it made sense. If you look at it from after 1940, it seems undergunning the aircraft. Simplistically, it is another form of hindsight.

Sorry JDK you’re wrong – Webley and Scott produced a series of Self Loading Pistols duriing and after WW1 – they were mostly issued to the RNAS/ RN if memory serves – they are now VERY rare and collectable

Malcolm – an RFC marked .455 WOW! Great find – a nice AM stamped .38 would also be a cracking find –
I have one of both but are not serviced marked – although i had the .455 deacted and it came with its original 1914 holster -from a chap that used it (he had started waving it around in the post office when collecting his pension so his family gave it to me)

as for whether the .38 was a good weapon, not sure – poor range a lot of smoke…. certainly some pilots i have spoken to replaced theirs with a .38 S&W victory model, 7.65 Browning or Beretta either privately purchased or captured.

Know an ex-Tiffie pilot who used a 9mm Browning HP which he bought pre-war – 13 rounds gave you a good advantage in a fight…

My understanding is that the ‘aint broke so why fix it’ line applied to .303 calibre – also it wasnt a million miles away from the US .30 leading to easy modification at design stage plus the fact that post WW1 stocks of .303 ammo and arms were enormous – look at the amoutn exported (and still used) by third world countries today.

When I was a cadet we were using 1942 dated Long Branch No.4s and 1945 ammo!

TT

Revolvers: In the days when it was possible to, I tried out almost every type of pistol that would have been available in the ETO in WW2 and felt that German, Italian and US product was superior. Only my opinion, though. Webley did make a semi-auto, I felt it was robust and simple but not as good as anything designed by John Browning.

MGs: Which brings me back to the original post. I think that the Browning MG seems to have been an exceptional design and our pilots were lucky to have it. Shame about the rifle calibre at the start of the war though.

I’m wary of pronouncing in this arena, not being in any manner expert, but to say Webley are good revolvers is fair comment – however, revolvers are the simplest firearm design – hardly precision engineering to achieve a high rate of fire – they are almost blacksmith level.

As far as I can recall (and I’m prepared to be shot down on this… 😉 ) the British never designed and produced a semi-automatic pistol, unlike Belgium, Germany and France.

However the point here is about aircraft guns. It seems odd in hindsight that Britain went to war with what we now would regard as a small calibre machine gun – designed in the USA.

The logic behind that decision may have been something like this:

Britain used .303 ammunition for rifles and later machine guns.

In W.W.I a couple of handy machine guns were the easiest legal method of shooting someone down. Rockets and ‘Buckingham’ incendiary ammunition wasn’t acceptable

In the twenties and thirties aircraft design stagnated, but when more weight of fire was needed, they just doubled the existing armament – from 2 x .303 to 4 x – Gladiator.

In the late thirties it was becoming clear that this wasn’t going to be enough – but what could be done? Cannon had a slow rate of fire and were all foreign, and there were no good new machine guns of any calibre in use in the UK – the Bren was (for instance) a Czechoslovak design brought in in a rush. The quick fix was to up the number of the new Yankee imported gun to a suitable calculated weight of fire that would do the job – wasn’t it Freeman who worked it out? Sure there were bigger alternatives, but would the aircraft lift them? Would they fire when they were meant to? Would we have the ammo? Don’t forget the problems the early cannon armed Spitfires had in 1940. A very real alternative is a fighter force with guns that worked 1 time in 10. And what were those cannon? British? Oerlikon and Hispano are not Anglo-Saxon names…

Corrections? Just guessing…

For one of the world’s great arms manufacturers, Britain’s made a poor showin of actually designing any machine guns and cannon.

I think that the Lewis was also an American invention. Britain had very productive gun industries but not such good designs (e.g. Enfield revolvers v. superior S&W or Colt product).

Not quite – speaking from some experience of these (revolvers) whilst the S & W is an excellent design, the Colts of the period are marred by an excessive trigger pull.

You are right about the original Enfield Mk1 which had a most peculiar system where the cylinder was jacked forward to extract the fires cases and for loading. It was out of production and serious use by WW2. Its major problem was not stopping power but difficulty of loading and a rather sensitive action.

However Enfield went on to licence produce the Webley top-break revolvers, following a contractual fight between Webley and the British Government in 1930, which were extensively used in WW2, as were their Webley made brothers and these are superlative service weapons. Smooth trigger pull, strong and very easy in the hand to manage. For sheer stopping power the only equal of the .455 round used in the larger calibre Webley revolvers is the .45ACP or .45Colt.

Many of the Enfield/Webleys were chambered in .38 calibre – I have my eye on one which is stamped to show issue to the RAF. It would fit nicely with my .455 S & W which has WW1 RFC issue marks(No 43 Squadron).

Coupled with all this is that they are a very rugged pistol and every bit the equal of the Smith & Wesson. The British revolvers were the equal and in many cases far better than their foreign rivals. Unfortunately just another industry the silly succession of British Governments have let die.

I think they mainly jumped the problem. They basically went from 303 calibre machine guns (ie rifle calibre machine guns) to 20mm cannon, which are more effective than 50 cals in many respects (except weight).

I think that the Lewis was also an American invention. Britain had very productive gun industries but not such good designs (e.g. Enfield revolvers v. superior S&W or Colt product).

A good riff on an old question.

It’s more about Calibre than make; Britain seemed wedded to the .303 round for all high-velocity weapons – I guess there were a lot of bullets in store to use! 😀

As to “The British had excellent indigenous weapons manufacturers.” Makers maybe. As designers Britain makes a very poor showing. A quick review of the weapons used by the British military in the 20th C shows a high number of imported designs and imported designers (often adapted, in varying amounts). Including the Besa, Bren, Browning, Colt, Thompson, Bofors – need I go on? A lot of Britain’s W.W.II machine guns were imported. Even the Aden Cannon was adopted from foreign ideas. Without Colt, it would have been hard to find a decent machine gun to put in the RAF’s fighters – the Vickers and Lewis guns were simply not suitable.

Where’s Tony our gun guru…