The Berezin B-20 (Березин Б-20) was a

20 mm caliber 20 mm caliber is a specific size of popular autocannon ammunition. It is typically used to distinguish smaller-caliber weapons, commonly called "guns", from larger-caliber "cannons" (e.g. machine gun vs. autocannon). All 20 mm cartridges ...

autocannon used by

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Development

The B-20 was created by Mikhail Yevgenyevich Berezin in

1944 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in Nor ...

by converting his 12.7 mm

Berezin UB The Berezin UB (russian: УБ - Универсальный Березина) (''Berezin's Universal'') was a 12.7 mm caliber Soviet aircraft machine gun widely used during World War II. Development In 1937, Mikhail Yevgenyevich Berezin bega ...

machine gun to use the 20 mm rounds used by the ShVAK cannon. No other changes were made to the weapon which was pneumatically or mechanically charged and was available in both synchronized and unsynchronized versions. In 1946, an electrically-fired version was created for the turrets of the

Tupolev Tu-4 The Tupolev Tu-4 (russian: Туполев Ту-4; NATO reporting name: Bull) is a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid-1960s. It was reverse-engineered from the American Boeing B-29 ...

bomber until the

Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 The Nudelman-Richter NR-23 is a Soviet autocannon widely used in military aircraft of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. It was designed by A. E. Nudelman and A. A. Richter to replace the wartime Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 and Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23, ...

cannon became available. The B-20 was a welcome replacement for the ShVAK because it was significantly lighter - 25 kg (55 lb) to the 40 kg (80 lb) ShVAK - without sacrificing rate of fire or muzzle velocity.

Specifications

* Ammunition:

20×99mm 20 mm caliber is a specific size of popular autocannon ammunition. It is typically used to distinguish smaller-caliber weapons, commonly called " guns", from larger-caliber "cannons" (e.g. machine gun vs. autocannon). All 20 mm cartridges h ...

* Empty weight: 25 kg (55 lb) * Muzzle velocity: 750–770 m/s (2,460-2,525 ft/s) * Rate of fire: 800 rounds/min * Mass of one-second burst: 0.95 kg (2.1 lb)

Production

The Soviet archives register the following production numbers by year:Shirokograd, p 119 * 1944 — 2,275 * 1945 — 7,240 * 1946 — 440 * 1947 — 780 * 1948 — 1,686 * 1949 — 2,931

Notes

References

* Широкоград А.Б. (2001) ''История авиационного вооружения'' Харвест (Shirokograd A.B. (2001) ''Istorya aviatsionnogo vooruzhenia'' Harvest. ) (''History of aircraft armament'') * {{Russian and Soviet Aircraft Ordnance 20 mm artillery Autocannons of the Soviet Union Aircraft guns of the Soviet Union KBP Instrument Design Bureau products Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1944

Development

Specifications

Production

See also

Notes

References