Bk 3,7
The Bordkanone 3,7 (BK 3,7) ("on-board cannon 3.7") was a German anti-tank/bomber autocannon of World War II and based on the earlier 3.7 cm Flak 18 made by Rheinmetall. It was mounted on Luftwaffe aircraft such as the Junkers Ju 87 G-1 and G-2; Henschel Hs 129B-2/R3; Messerschmitt Bf 110G-2/R1-3; Junkers Ju 88P-2 or P-3 and others. The cannon could be attached under the wings or the fuselage of the aircraft as self-contained gun pods with 12-round magazines. It fired Armour Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR, Tungsten-cored) ammunition or high-explosive shells at 160 rounds per minute. Service history BK 3,7 equipped ground attack aircraft were developed for tank hunting on the Eastern Front in an effort to blunt the massive numerical superiority of the Soviet T-34 tank as the war turned against Germany. The concept was rather rudimentary, suffered from poor accuracy, severe weight penalty making the craft vulnerable to fighters, and low ammunition capacity; but could be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Junkers Ju 87
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', "dive bomber") was a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 and served the Axis in World War II from beginning to end (1939–1945). The aircraft is easily recognisable by its inverted gull wings and fixed spatted undercarriage. Upon the leading edges of its faired main gear legs were mounted ram-air sirens known as ', which became a propaganda symbol of German air power and of the so-called ''Blitzkrieg'' victories of 1939–1942, as well as providing Stuka pilots with audible feedback as to speed. The Stuka's design included several innovations, including automatic pull-up dive brakes under both wings to ensure that the aircraft recovered from its attack dive even if the pilot blacked out from the high g-forces. The Ju 87 operated with c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ground Attack
In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces and attacks with aerial bombs, glide bombs, missiles, rockets, autocannons, machine guns, and even directed-energy weapons such as lasers.''Close Air Support''. United States Department of Defense, 2014. The requirement for detailed integration because of proximity, fires or movement is the determining factor. CAS may need to be conducted during shaping operations with Special Operations Forces (SOF) if the mission requires detailed integration with the fire and movement of those forces. A closely related subset of air interdiction (AI), battlefield air interdiction, denotes interdiction against units with near-term effects on friendly units, but which does not require integration with friendly troop movements. The term "b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ho-203 Cannon
Ho-203 was a Japanese autocannon that saw considerable use during World War II. It was a long-recoil automation of the Year 11 Type direct-fire infantry gun. It was fed by a 15-round closed-loop ammunition belt. It was operationally used only as the nose gun of the Kawasaki Ki-45-KAI heavy fighter, the anti-bomber workhorse of the Imperial Japanese Army, and tried out in the upper fuselage of the III-KAI variant of the Mitsubishi Ki-46 ''Dinah'' twin-engined warplane as a Japanese form of the Nazi ''Luftwaffe''s ''Schräge Musik'' upwards-aimed armament system for heavy fighters. Specifications *Caliber: 37 mm (1.45 in) *Ammunition: 37 x 112R (475 g) *Weight: 89 kg (196 lb) *Rate of fire: 120 rounds/min *Muzzle velocity: 570 m/s (1,870 ft/s) *Effective range: 900 m (2,950 ft). Similar ordnance designs * BK 37, 37mm ''Bordkanone'' BK 3,7 (Nazi Germany) See also *Ho-5 cannon *MK 108 cannon *Ho-155 cannon *Ho-204 cannon *Ho-301 cannon *Ho-401 cannon Refere ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vickers S Gun
The Vickers 40 mm Class S gun, also known simply as the "S gun", was a 40 mm (1.57 in) airborne autocannon designed by Vickers-Armstrongs for use as aircraft armament. It was primarily used during World War II by British aircraft to attack ground targets. It was largely replaced by the RP-3 rocket from 1943 on. Development The Vickers 40 mm Class S gun was developed in the late 1930s as defensive weapon for bomber aircraft. The ammunition was based on the 40x158R cartridge case of the 40 mm naval QF 2-pounder anti-aircraft gun (known as the "pom-pom"). The gun itself was derived from the Coventry Ordnance Works 37 mm gun which used a long-recoil operation to fire a projectile. The Vickers S was tested in a turret mounting on a Mark II Vickers Wellington; this was not adopted for service. In March 1941, researchers with the Fighter Interception Unit at RAF Tangmere fitted the fourth prototype Mk I Bristol Beaufighter night fighter with the Vicker ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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COW 37 Mm Gun
The COW 37 mm gun was a British automatic cannon that was developed during First World War as a large-calibre aircraft weapon. It was tested in several installations and specified for the Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter for attacking bombers. The tests did not yield satisfactory results and the weapon did not enter general service except on a few flying boats. The design was later adapted as the basis of the Vickers S, which saw some service during the Second World War as an anti-armour weapon. Design and development Coventry Ordnance Works had been set up in 1905 by a consortium of British shipbuilding firms (John Brown, Cammell Laird and Fairfield) to compete with the duopoly of Vickers and Armstrong-Whitworth in producing naval guns. Besides the larger naval gun, COW worked at the smaller end on anti-aircraft guns. There was a demand for a weapon that could be mounted on an aircraft. Their first attempt at an automatic gun was a "1-pounder" (the nominal weight of the shell) f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BK 5 Cannon
The Rheinmetall ''Bordkanone'' 5, or BK-5, was a WWII-era German 50 mm autocannon primarily intended for use against Allied heavy bombers, such as the United States Army Air Forces's (USAAF) Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The shells had a high muzzle velocity and significant kinetic energy, allowing them to be fired from distances outside the range of the bombers defensive guns. The large explosive content of each shell almost ensured the destruction of any bomber that was hit. Rheinmetall was given a contract in 1943 to adapt the 50 mm 5 cm ''KwK'' 39 tank gun, from the Panzer III tank, for aerial use in the twin-engined Messerschmitt Me 410 ''Hornisse'' bomber destroyer. They were installed as ''Umrüst-Bausätze'' ("factory modification") 4 in the Me 410 A-1/U4, and, experimentally, in two Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a/U4 jet fighter prototypes (though these were not used operationally),Ziegler, Mano, "Me 262: Hitler's Jet Plane", Greenhill Books, London, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Air Force Museum Cosford
The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, located in Cosford in Shropshire, is a free (currently, 2022) museum dedicated to the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force in particular. The museum is part of the Royal Air Force Museum, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and also a registered charity. The museum is spread over two sites in England; the other site is at the Royal Air Force Museum London at Colindale (near Hendon) in north London. History The London museum was officially opened at the Colindale (then part of Hendon) London site on 15 November 1972 by Queen Elizabeth II. The hangars housed just 36 aircraft at opening. Over the years, the collection increased and aircraft were stored at RAF stations around the country when they were not on display to the public. On 1 May 1979, the Cosford site was opened at RAF Cosford, one of the RAF stations which had been used to store the museum's collection of aircraft. On opening, the museum initi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Armour-piercing
Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate either body armour or vehicle armour. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armour carried on many warships and cause damage to their lightly-armoured interiors. From the 1920s onwards, armour-piercing weapons were required for anti-tank warfare. AP rounds smaller than 20 mm are intended for lightly-armoured targets such as body armour, bulletproof glass, and lightly-armoured vehicles. As tank armour improved during World War II, anti-vehicle rounds began to use a smaller but dense penetrating body within a larger shell, firing at very high muzzle velocity. Modern penetrators are long rods of dense material like tungsten or depleted uranium (DU) that further improve the terminal ballistics. History The late 1850s saw the development of the ironclad warship, which carried wrought iron armour of considerable thickness. This armour ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dive Bombing
A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact throughout the bomb run. This allows attacks on point targets and ships, which were difficult to attack with conventional level bombers, even ''en masse''. After World War II, the rise of precision-guided munitions and improved anti-aircraft defences—both fixed gunnery positions and fighter interception—led to a fundamental change in dive bombing. New weapons, such as rockets, allowed for better accuracy from smaller dive angles and from greater distances. They could be fitted to almost any aircraft, including fighters, improving their effectiveness without the inherent vulnerabilities of dive bombers, which needed air superiority to operate effectively. Method A dive bomber dives at a steep angle, normally between 45 and 60 degrees or even ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bomber Destroyer
Bomber destroyers were World War II interceptor aircraft intended to destroy enemy bomber aircraft. Bomber destroyers were typically larger and heavier than general interceptors, designed to mount more powerful armament, and often having twin engines. They differed from night fighters largely in that they were designed for day use. The United States Army Air Corps considered powerfully armed destroyers, like the Bell YFM-1 Airacuda prototype, to counter a potential attack of high-performance bombers. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Bell P-39 Airacobra were also initially specified to carry very heavy armament based on a central 37 mm cannon, specified as interceptor aircraft working in the anti-bomber role. Great Britain, by contrast, favored specialized "turret fighters", such as the Boulton Paul Defiant, which mounted heavy armament in a rotating turret. The P-38, a small, single-crewed example of the bomber destroyer type, was eventually outfitted with a 20 mm canno ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Junkers Ju 88P
The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast for fighters of its era to intercept. It suffered from technical problems during its development and early operational periods but became one of the most versatile combat aircraft of the war. Like a number of other ''Luftwaffe'' bombers, it served as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, torpedo bomber, reconnaissance aircraft, heavy fighter and at the end of the war, as a flying bomb. Despite a protracted development, it became one of the ''Luftwaffe''s most important aircraft. The assembly line ran constantly from 1936 to 1945 and more than 15,000 Ju 88s were built in dozens of variants, more than any other twin-engine German aircraft of the period. Throughout production the basic structure of the aircraft remained unchanged.Angelucci and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Junkers Ju 87G
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', "dive bomber") was a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 and served the Axis in World War II from beginning to end (1939–1945). The aircraft is easily recognisable by its inverted gull wings and fixed spatted undercarriage. Upon the leading edges of its faired main gear legs were mounted ram-air sirens known as ', which became a propaganda symbol of German air power and of the so-called ''Blitzkrieg'' victories of 1939–1942, as well as providing Stuka pilots with audible feedback as to speed. The Stuka's design included several innovations, including automatic pull-up dive brakes under both wings to ensure that the aircraft recovered from its attack dive even if the pilot blacked out from the high g-forces. The Ju 87 operated with con ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |