M2 Cannon
The HS.404 is an autocannon originally designed and produced by Spanish/French company Hispano-Suiza in the mid-1930s. It was widely used as an aircraft, naval and land-based weapon by French, British, American and other military services, particularly during World War II. The cannon is also referred to as Birkigt type 404, after its designer Marc Birkigt and later versions based on British development are known as 20 mm Hispano. Firing a 20 mm calibre projectile, it delivered a significant load of explosive from a relatively light weapon. This made it an ideal anti-aircraft weapon for mounting on light vehicles, as well as a fighter aircraft gun, replacing the 7.62 mm (.30 calibre) and .303 inch (7.7 mm) machine guns commonly used in military aircraft of the 1930s. The HS.404 was produced by the French subsidiary of Hispano-Suiza, and under license by a variety of companies in other countries. Development From Oerlikon to Hispano The first widely used 20 mm airc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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TCM-20
The M45 Quadmount (nicknamed the "meat chopper" and "Krautmower"Rottman, Gordon L., Browning .50-Caliber Machine Guns', Osprey Publishing (2010), , p. 19-20 for its high rate of fire) was a weapon mounting consisting of four of the "HB", or "heavy barrel" .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns (of the M2 Turret Type (TT) variant) mounted in pairs on each side of an open, electrically powered turret. It was developed by the W. L. Maxson Corporation to replace the earlier M33 twin mount (also from Maxson). Although designed as an anti-aircraft weapon, it was also used against ground targets. Introduced in 1943 during World War II, it remained in US service as late as the Vietnam War. History In order to develop a mobile anti-aircraft weapon, several 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) twin machine gun mounts were tested on the chassis of the M2 half-track including Bendix, Martin Aircraft Company, and Maxson. The Maxson M33 turret mount was preferred and—on the larger M3 half-track (T1E2)â ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Explosive
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material, which may either be composed solely of one ingredient or be a mixture containing at least two substances. The potential energy stored in an explosive material may, for example, be * chemical energy, such as nitroglycerin or grain dust * pressurized gas, such as a gas cylinder, aerosol can, or BLEVE * nuclear energy, such as in the fissile isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239 Explosive materials may be categorized by the speed at which they expand. Materials that detonate (the front of the chemical reaction moves faster through the material than the speed of sound) are said to be "high explosives" and materials that deflagrate are said to be "low explosives". Explosives may al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oerlikon 20 Mm Cannon
The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German Becker Type M2 20 mm cannon design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models employed by both Allied and Axis forces during World War II. Many versions of the cannon are still used today. Blowback-operated models History Origins During World War I, the German industrialist Reinhold Becker developed a 20 mm caliber cannon, known now as the 20 mm Becker using the advanced primer ignition blowback (API blowback) method of operation. This used a 20Ă—70mmRB cartridge and had a cyclic rate of fire of 300 rpm. It was used on a limited scale as an aircraft gun on ''Luftstreitkräfte'' warplanes, and an anti-aircraft gun towards the end of that war. Because the Treaty of Versailles banned further production of such weapons in Germany, the patents and design works were transferred in 1919 to the Swiss firm SEMAG (''Seeba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gas-operated
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent case and insert a new cartridge into the chamber. Energy from the gas is harnessed through either a port in the barrel or a trap at the muzzle. This high-pressure gas impinges on a surface such as a piston head to provide motion for unlocking of the action, extraction of the spent case, ejection, cocking of the hammer or striker, chambering of a fresh cartridge, and locking of the action. History The first mention of using a gas piston in a single-shot breech-loading rifle comes from 1856, by the German Edward Lindner who patented his invention in the United States and Britain. In 1866, Englishman William Curtis filed the first patent on a gas-operated repeating rifle, but subsequently failed to develop that idea further. Between 1883 a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hispano-Suiza 8
The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza 8A was rated at and the later, larger displacement Hispano-Suiza 8F reached . Hispano-Suiza 8 engines and variants produced by Hispano-Suiza and other companies under licence were built in twenty-one factories in Spain, France, Britain, Italy, and the U.S. Derivatives of the engine were also used abroad to power numerous aircraft types and the engine can be considered as the ancestor of another successful engine by the same designer, the Hispano-Suiza 12Y (and Soviet Klimov V12 derivative aero-engines) which was in service during the Second World War. Design and development Origins At the beginning of World War I, the production lines of the Barcelona based Hispano-Suiza automobile and engine company were switched to the production of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oerlikon FF
The FF were a series of 20mm autocannon introduced by Oerlikon in the late 1920s. The name comes from the German term ''FlĂĽgel Fest'', meaning ''wing mounted, fixed'', being one of the first 20mm guns to be small and light enough to fit into a fighter aircraft's wing. The FF series inspired many 20mm cannon used in World War II, including the Hispano-Suiza HS.404 (adopted by the French, British and U.S. forces), the German MG FF, and the Japanese IJNAS's Type 99 cannon. Design The basic design was based on the original Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, in turn based on the German Empire's Becker 20 mm cannon of World War I. In the post-war period, Oerlikon had developed the original design to produce three autocannons with increasingly powerful rounds; the original model, later known as the "F", used the Becker 20x70mm round, the newer "L" model used a 20x100 round, and finally the "S" model used a 20x110. All of these weapons used the API blowback operational principle. In 1935 Oerlikon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Advanced Primer Ignition
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gas created by the ignition of the propellant charge. Several blowback systems exist within this broad principle of operation, each distinguished by the methods used to control bolt movement. In most actions that use blowback operation, the breech is not locked mechanically at the time of firing: the inertia of the bolt and recoil , relative to the weight of the bullet, delay opening of the breech until the bullet has left the barrel. A few locked breech designs use a form of blowback (example: primer actuation) to perform the unlocking function. The blowback principle may be considered a simplified form of gas operation, since the cartridge case behaves like a piston driven by the powder gases. Other operating principles for self-loading firearms include delayed blowback, blow forward, gas operation, and recoil operation. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Becker Type M2 20 Mm Cannon
The Becker Type M2 20 mm cannon was a German autocannon developed for aircraft use during World War I by '' Stahlwerke Becker''. It was first mass-produced in 1916 and was installed in a variety of aircraft. It was the only German autocannon to see service in the air during the war. The Becker also served as the pattern for the famous Swiss-built Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, which is in service to this day, and in a later form, was the original inspiration, through the Swiss design after World War I, for the World War II German Luftwaffe's MG FF (''Maschinengewehr FlĂĽgel Fest'', "fixed wing-mount automatic ordnance") 20 mm autocannon design. History Design and development The original design was based on the 19 mm Becker Cannon cartridge by the Conder brothers at ''Stahlwerke Becker'' of Reinickendorf, Germany. Development commenced in 1913 and was therefore already advanced when the War Ministry issued a specification in June 1915 calling for an aircraft cannon of unde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Machine Gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower, and are not considered true machine guns. As a class of military kinetic projectile weapon, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod, a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils. Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns, medium machine guns, heavy machine guns, general purpose machine guns and squad automatic weapons. Similar automatic firearms of caliber or more are classified as autocannons, rat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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303 British
The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7Ă—56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows the traditional black powder convention. It was first manufactured in Britain as a stop-gap black powder round put into service in December 1888 for the Lee–Metford rifle. From 1891 the cartridge used smokeless powder which had been the intention from the outset, but the decision on which smokeless powder to adopt had been delayed. It was the standard British and Commonwealth military cartridge for rifles and machine guns from 1889 until the 1950s when it was replaced by the 7.62Ă—51mm NATO. Cartridge specifications The .303 British has 3.64 ml (56 grains H2O) cartridge case capacity. The pronounced tapering exterior shape of the case was designed to promote reliable case feeding and extraction in bolt-action rifles and machine guns a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |