50 Cal Vs. 20mm Engine Damage in WW2 

I had to laugh when you talked about American V8s losing a cylinder and some people not noticing. Back in the 1970s there were a lot of American servicemen stationed at Upper Heyford and Croughton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK. They brought over their big V8s and sold them locally when they were posted back to the States. In 1976 I bought a 1966 Pontiac Parisienne convertible and drove it around for a while. It was a fabulous car that turned a lot of heads. After I sold it, I was told it had been running on 7 cylinders for a long time....! Thanks for the video Greg, much appreciated as always.

The most impressive damage I ever say was during Vietnam on one of our Corsair 2's it came back with a rocket or cannon hole in the tail just slightly smaller than a basketball. What was far more impressive to me was the tree branch stuck in the fiberglass at the mouth to the air intake, how he made it back without fodding the engine is beyond me.

thanks for the work you put into the channel, your audience appreciates you sir

Greg, your videos are not only great source of nerdy technical knowledge but also a real historiographic research. Such vast plethora of facts snatched from the jaws of time.

I absolutely love the fact that you have this obsession with data, and the ability and knowledge to interpret it for the rest of us. I'm one of the oddballs that enjoys this careful analysis of minutia. So thanks, Greg. Another great one.

There were also British tests post-war of the mk-108. Showed the thin-walled HE shells were devastating. The took photos, showing static Spitfire fuselage with tail blown off from one hit in rear fuselage, and wing demolished with one hit. I believe there is a piece of combat film footage purporting to show a B-17 losing its wing at the root following 4 rounds of 30mm from a Me-262's firing pass.

I marvel at the mechanics that managed to maintain these complex machines in crappy conditions, and the sheer numbers required in both theaters.

Nice video. A note on the bullet weight: This was virtually identical for the MK 103 and MK 108. The mine shell weighed 330g for both. The propellant loading was very different.

Heard from a P-47 pilot 35 years ago that if you loose all oil if you immediately bring the power on the engine back to minimum power needed to stay aloft the engine could run for a long time without any oil.

a 20 second burst? they must've had huge ammo hoppers

The quality of castings that could be achieved in the 1940's for those radial cylinder heads is pretty amazing.

The P-47 Thunderbolt Pilots Association rented a pair of P-47s and brought them to Santa Rosa back around 2000, California. A group of us helped get the veterans into and out of the planes and their stories were great. One of the guys that I knew flew in Italy and he had been hit by 20mm in the engine. He said that he lost 2 cylinder heads being blow off but the rest worked and flew back to base with no oil pressure for 30 minutes. He has a piece of his glass that was shattered

I'm glad to hear you say "MK103" etc, rather than thinking MK is short for "mark" (as on British things) - I've heard that other places, when in reality it's short for MaschinenKanone

It's simply amazing the sheer amount of data that was gathered and collated during WW2...... just this little topic slice is incredibly interesting.

Greg, if the cylinder shot off was the "master" or number 1 cylinder of the row, the engine would seize immediately. Any of the other 8 cylinders could be shot away, and the crank could still turn. The master rod was connected to the crank pin. The other cylinder connecting rods were connected to the master rod.

I once had a Chevy Nova with the inline 6. There was an aftermarket air conditioner added, mounted on a bracket over the sixth spark plug. Took forever to get off when changing the spark plugs. When I did, I found the last spark plug was very dirty and old, and a different brand than the other 5, because no previous mechanic took the trouble to change the sixth plug. I wonder if that cylinder was even firing.

My father served in the 326th squadron, 92nd bomber group, in 1942. In their briefing room was a piece of a B-17 main spar that was severed by a single .50cal hit in a friendly fire incident. For air to air combat, particularly between fighters, I think The. 50 was probably the best choice for American planes for the extra round count if nothing else. If we were intercepting B-17s a cannon would have been better but the .50 would have been OK. I've often wondered what the score would have been like if the RAF had adopted a .50cal, even the weaker Vickers round, before the Battle of Britain. Figure six in the Hurricane and four in the Spitfire? Far fewer damaged German planes would have returned to base. Cheers!

Cracking upload, telling me everything I have ever questioned about these flying tanks and their offensive abilities, thanks again 👍

Fantastic job Greg! I really enjoy content showing the whys and hows about how things actually occur. I didn’t think any of this was dry.

The angle used in the test is a big factor. Rounds per minute or rounds per second is very important in air combat , at the angle tested, if my understanding is correct would produce a closing rate of considerable speed. What a FUN test to participate in!

Greetings Greg! I see you too a beloved follower of our patron Dakka Lord of the Many Rounds.

The Hawker Typhoon at time 15:15 is XP-P R7620 of No. 174 squadron, hit by flak on 22nd February 1945. It was the oldest operating Typhoon at the time having entered service in January 1942. The crash landing was at Volkel, The Netherlands, a No. 274 squadron Hawker Tempest in in the background.

love your work looking forward to the follow up video with the other engines and the damages

Thanks for the great content Greg! Von Neumann and Morgenstern also made a contribution to this very topic. I think the conclusion was that the likelihood of hits outweighed the power of larger calibres.

Lots of granular detail put into the testing of weapons and their effects. Very illuminating. Great work Greg.

So I’ll be writing comments piecemeal as I watch this, but the “Ph” column is probably “Percent Hits”. Note how for each gun the number of hits and the Ph is the same: for the M2, 1 hit = 0.02 Ph, 2 hits is 0.03, 3 hits is 0.05, etc. Assuming this is meant to be percentages (i.e. .25 Ph = 25%), then we can work out the rounds fired and with the fire rate how long each burst was. For the M2, this works out to about 64 rounds fired, or a 5 second burst. I don’t know the rate of fire for the T39 or M97 offhand, but I’m calculating 21 rounds and ~15.8 rounds fired for these guns, suggesting the goal was a short burst. I imagine that for the sake of the tests they had short belts rather than trying to time each burst directly.

Your channel is my favorite by a long shot. I'm always very excited and happy to pull up RU-vid and finding I get to enjoy a new video of yours. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and creating this space on the internet.

Thorough and extremely informative as usual. Thanks Greg!

I had access to a USAF report that also looked at the P-Sub H factor at the determined that MV, Muzzle Velocity and BC, Balistic Coefficient, had a relatively large effect of how easy it was to get hits and thus shoot down enemy aircraft. Not the Brits were not that lucky on a per engagement score when armed with the Hisso Mk-V in Korea, because the MV was only 840 M/S and the Blunt nosed shell lost velocity very rapidly. They, the USAF, concluded that the best shell was a new, much lighter 20 MM shell with 9-12 grams of PBX with a new, much more pointed M-50 shell! Because the new shell was so much lighter than the old 130 gram Hisso round it had a MV of 1,036M/S From a smaller shell, 102 MM long Vs 110 MM long for the Hisso. The new combo of 102 gram pointed shell at 1,036 M/S and fired at up to 7,100 Rounds per minute was a winner and became standard issue until the F-22. The F-22 by the way had a similar Vulcan Gun, but with longer BBLs and a new even lighter shell that only Massed 84 grams with a new very high energy propellent gave 1,525 M/S!

On the topic of rate of fire and total amount of fire, this is partly why the .60 Cal machine gun program was halted. They found that aircraft could carry far more .50 cal than .60 cal, and that the extra energy didn’t provide enough benefit to justify the drastically reduced capacity and increased weight.

🤔 This study seems to have made the Naval Aviation arm go cannon post war. While USAF fighters in Korea still had .50 Bmg. Navy Panther, Banshees, Fury, Etc. Choose the 20mm.....

From a technical standpoint concerned with important details about how to make a great episode of a technically oriented channel, all is there. The subject is clear, not to be too redundant but the voice over is perfectly conversational, though still narration. I personally love the R-2800 having worked on them, as a mechanics helper I have to add, but paying attention to them. I looked at them an awful lot. These were powering the DC-6 used for freight. About every one of these 40 and more years old aircraft had their pressurization equipment pulled out. Typical flights would be up to 12 thousand feet AGL or MSL. I did get to fly a DC-6 in the air left seat for 2 hours. I also once flew a Tomahawk from Fort Lauderdale International to Pompano on single mags because I was stupid and had not turned the mag switch to both mags.

Love the notion of illustrating the report by using the simulator footage, even though it can be distracting to the point I have to frequently go back and re-listen. Great stuff, and thanks for doing this

Anthony Williams wrote some excellent articles on WW2 aircraft weapons. One of the reasons the US didn’t embrace the Hispano 20mm to a large degree, the gun that the RAF used to great success, was a manufacturing error that plagued US built Hispano cannons. The US built the Hispano with a bit too much clearance in the receiver. This resulted in a high frequency of misfires or jams. A plane with wing mounted guns, experiencing this malfunction, is in trouble (a jam in the nose mounted Hispano in the P-38 could be cleared by the pilot). Rather than fixing the tolerance error, the US coated the 20mm shells with wax to try and compensate for the clearance issues. Unfortunately this tended to introduce dirt and other contaminants which just exasperated the problem. However as the .50 cal machine guns were getting the job done (the U.S. mostly faced other fighters, or lightly protected bombers), the U.S. mostly stayed with the .50 throughout the war and into the post war period. Also a high rate of fire from multiple .50 cal guns, tends to reward “spray and pray” firing that pilots with minimal or median training/experience. With 6/8 guns, and firing a 5 second burst, a pilot with even mediocre skills has a good likelihood of hitting. It should be noted that the U.S. Navy saw the need for cannon much sooner than the USAAF/USAF. This need for a harder punch really becomes apparent in Korea, with the .50 cal F-86, dicing with the 23mm/37mm armed MiG-15. With the higher engagement speeds, getting only a few hits had to really count. In fact, late in the conflict, some USAF F-86s were modified to carry 4x20mm cannon, and higher kill results were seen.

Wow....great stuff. Love vids that go to period appropriate primary sources. Well done.

Concerning your opening question - The engine says "That tickles." As always, an enjoyable education. Thank you.

I have seen a video of a P-47 returning to base with an entire cylinder shot off. You could see the connecting rod bobbing up and down as it taxied back to park.

Very interesting. Great attention to detail which beefs up the historical value. Thanks a lot, Colin UK.

Outstanding analysis and commentary - as usual!

Really interesting stuff, I love how these old report can bring so much life to the subject by showing how things really worked.

Company in town(air north) used to run dc3/4s I used to laugh when they had oil delivered in 205l drums. Then they used a waste oil burner to hear the hangar

I thank you for your pasion dedication & hard work in each every aspect of your videos, there are more a in depth documentary rather than any other thing. I love your Chanel & your content. Great ! & Thanks again!!!

This is so interesting because a coworker of mine had their air conditioner compressor shot in Chicago by a 9mm and it effectively disabled their Malibu. Because aparently we need a critical cooling component (the water pump) to share the same belt as every single other non critical engine driven accessory these days. I guess gears are too expensive.

Good video.. Re the Typhoon at 15:33, nice ;) (When I sat through a 30 minute video about ww2 gun stats and "whooped" at an RAF plane on it's arse (I did!) it says more about me than other things perhaps, but hey. ) Go Greg. :) )

Machine guns operate in what is called a beaten zone. whatever the beaten zone of that era .50 cal M2 will be based on the rate of fire, ammo used and the mount. If we have an idea of what kind of mount and which M2 was used we can get an idea of the area likely to get all of those rounds. From there we can determine how many are likely to hit the area available of the planes engine housing. Update. According to FM 23-65 page 116 (6-3) "Thea beaten zone is an elliptical pattern formed by the cone of fire as it strikes the ground. The beaten zone is always about 2 meters in width. There is lots more in that manual and as I find more I'll add it here.

By far my favorite channel!!

You put quite a lot of work into each video - thanks. This is agreat start at pealing the onion of a complex subject that so many over simplify.

Nice to hear from you again.

Interesting. This whets my appetite for more. Thank you, Greg. :-)

It’s a real pity they made less than 200 Mustang lAs. A relatively early Mustang made for the British with 4 x 20mm cannnon. Some being transferred direct from the factory to the USAF when the war started. Hence the images of 1 or more in US colours in Italy. The original Mustang I & Apache came with one .5 in each wing, 2 synchro .5s in the chin & 2 x .3 (or .303) in each wing. So it’s a real pity the IA didn’t keep the 2 chin mounted .5 guns, as centreline guns are much more effectively aimed with simple sights too. Imagine if the Mustang originally came out with the Malcom Hood (rather than a copy of the BF109’s naff side lifting hood) with the 2 chin mounted centreline .5 Brownings & 4 x20mm cannon in the wings.

Hi Greg, thank you for providing the very best classic aviation content on the entire internet. A hemi-engine using a 2 spark plug ignition system will usually run a significantly lower total spark advance timing to achieve the proper flame front propagation speed within its combustion chamber than the same engine using a single spark plug ignition. Therefore, if it would be possible to increase the total ignition advance to the value it would have in an engine using a single spark plug system the power loss would be rather small. A practical example I´m familiar with is the old "air-head" BMW motorcycle boxers, they do gain some extra power with a good dual spark plug set-up compared to the standard single set-up, but it is not a huge amount, perhaps in the order of 5 % or so. However, in an engine with a very large bore, which is certainly the case in the R-2800 🙂, it would not be possible to advance the spark timing much at all when running on only one of the plugs, because the very long flame front propagation distance would provoke detonation if trying to use a high enough advance needed to make full ( or even close to full ) power. The conclusion is that in the practical case of most aero engines you are perfectly right. Also, I assume that the maximum spark advance you can set from the cockpit is probably limited to the maximum advance intended for the system while both magnetos are working properly? Very Best Regards / Jan.

Great stuff, Greg! Thanks again!

I’m a new subscriber and love the data, graphics and videos you used!

After over 30 year's of building and working on Harley engine's, which their basic cylinder construction is very similar to radial aircraft engine's, I've seen some things that if I hadn't seen them keep running with damage and other issues with my own eye's I'd never have believed it, cylinders broken off at the base, faulty machine work inside of engine's or wrong parts installed that led to top ends or flywheel (crankshaft) assemblies running oil starved with some of them running for surprisingly long periods of time, and wherein not an engine I once gave a 4 speed transmission back to a guy I rebuilt and told him he needed to add lube to it when he installed it, in his haste installing it the night before leaving on a road trip with his friend's he forgot to do it, that thing went all the way from southwestern Pa to northern Georgia before it burned up, when assembling one of the pre mid 79 4 speed Harley transmissions there's loose needle bearings that must be packed with grease to hold them in place to assemble one, knowing that I still wouldn't have believed one would go that far without lube in it before gears started locking up on shafts. I had an engine brought to me once that a guy had been having top end problems with for over 15 year's, he had that thing in shops from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, no less than 5 of them before I took a crack at and found the problem, it'd been built with 84 ci S&S stroker flywheels, even the shops that tore apart most of the bottom end looking for the problem failed to do the last step needed to locate it, split the engine cases and look inside. When you put stroker flywheels in any big twin from the 36 Knucklehead to the last of the Evo engine's made in 99 there's an area in the right side engine case that needs to be clearenced for the connecting rod pin nut on the right side of the flywheel assembly, the more stroke the further that nut is moved towards the rim of the flywheel, there's a step on the inside of the casting of the right side engine case that the nut will hit when stroker flywheels are used that must be clearemced, it's a pretty simple process that can easily be done with a rotary file and a special tool that has different holes in it for each stroke amount that you stick a scribe in the appropriate hole for whatever stroke your building (I always just clearance them for the biggest stroke possible anyways, it's not like it's really any more work) and swing it through the area to scribe the area needing clearenced, on this engine the guy who owned the shop that did the work in the 80's took it to a place that obviously put an end mill in a vertical milling machine and without using that marking took just hogged out the entire area cutting into an oil passage, on the outside of the right engine case there's a hole that passage leads to with a ⅛" NPT thread a fitting screws into that's the bottom fitting for the external oil line that goes to the rear cylinder rocker box of a 66 to 84 Shovelhead big twin, from the front of the rear rocker box there's a short crossover line that goes to the rear of the front rocker box, that's how oil circulates through everything in the top end, 😢by cutting into that passage inside the right case it essentially oil starved the entire top end of the motor, instead of oil going to the top end it was just pumping it into the bottom end of the engine which of course there was no way of knowing without the explatory surgery I did, neither myself or anyone else around when I found the problem including the owner who'd been riding for years and two other friends of mine who also owned shops could believe that thing ran as long as it did between the issues it'd been having over that 15 year period, you'd think it wouldn't be able to make it across town much less last several years between incidents. I've seen flywheel assemblies run for years after having the incorrect cam cover gasket put on cone motor Shovelhead engine's, 70 through mid 72 has an oil hole moved, by using the wrong gasket on either a 70 to mid 72 or mid 72 to 84 Shovelhead it'll oil starve the connecting rod roller bearings, without seeing it with my own eyes I'd never believe one could make it through several summers before the bearings went out. I've had several engine's brought to me with holes burned in pistons from large vacuum leaks causing an excessive lean condition, one actually pulled into my place running after it dropped a cylinder from over 5 miles away, I'll grant you he didn't set a land speed record getting there but it pulled in running after burning a hole in a piston of a 2 cylinder engine, amazing, and considering that the carb and intake are common for both cylinders it's really amazing that it was even running with as much as the power had to be down from one piston having a hole melted in it and the other cylinder running on an excessive lean condition, never would have believed that was possible. You're absolutely right about dual plugs, the 36 to 84 big twins and the 57 to 85 Sportster engine's are true hemi engine's, when we dual plug them ignition timing can't be run at the stock setting, usually a reduction of around 3 to 4 degrees is necessary to avoid knock and if you drop one side it'll lose power just like doing a mag check before take off. Just about when i think I've seen it all something else comes along that astounds me, I would not be one bit surprised if radial engine's continued running with a cylinder completely shot off, considering that the 20 and 30mm German shells were explosive I wouldn't doubt a hit straight to a cylinder could blow one off, and there'd be a good chance it'd snap the connecting rod off right at the big end, if that happened you wouldn't have a connecting rod and piston flopping around which from my experiences I can believe one would keep running, given the oil capacity and the fact that they're dry sump engine's I could see one making it back to a base, maybe not across the Channel but after D-Day they were operating from bases in France and Belgium that were sometimes less than 10 minutes to where they were conducting ground attack missions, after some of the things I've seen I can believe one could make a short flight like that back to a forward base, heck in the Pacific Corsair's were bombing targets so close to where they were taking off from they didn't even bother raising their landing gear, after some of the things I've seen I wouldn't discount the stories about them coming back with cylinders shot off, I certainly wouldn't bet against it, heck, Apollo 13 made it back after it blew up and it had to go all the way around the moon from halfway there to do it. If life's taught me anything it's that anything's possible with machines, the experiences I've conveyed here just scratch the surface of some amazing things I've seen machines survive, like I said just about every time I think I've seen it all something else comes along and surprises me.

Pretty sure that ".60 cal" was the German MG151/15, which was indeed a most effective autocannon.

Of course, Greg is great. During WW2 US mathematicians did statistical analysis of various aspects air to air combat involving ballistics. Looks like Greg got his hands on one. Years ago my class used one such study. To go over the statistical analysis that was used.

You may have already known this, but the aircraft M2 had about double the rate of fire found in the ground based M2. I have seen rates quoted between 1000 and 1200 RPM, which may affect "time to kill" calculations

Love the stuff you do...

Back in the late 70's, I was stationed at March AFB. We were just starting the museum there so we were out going to DM to get some. I did a trip to China lake NAS as a scouting mission for an F-89 they had there and it was in an area where they were testing aircraft survivability. They put aircraft into fixtures, shot at them or did explosives damage while blowing air over that aircraft or componant set. I can't fully remember but they used either a clipped wing KC-97 or B-50 as their wind machine.

Thanks for Ur video & thanks for clearing up this claim of operational radial engines while having cylinders shot off. If a cylinder was shot off the engine dragging a damaged jack rod through the engine would result in immediate catastrophic failure of the engine.

Wonderful - really makes it clear why to M2 was used so much in US Aircraft.

Mr. Greg thanks for another great coverage, I've always found interesting when veterans would talk about the missions they have gone through from ww2 and onwards they were always mentioning the sheer effectiveness of 50 cal even later they've flown aircraft with more powerful cannons or sophisticated missile systems. Mr. Greg is there a way for viewers to participate in selecting the topics for videos?

Charles Lamb author of _War in a Stringbag_ recounted a Fairey Swordfish shedding a couple of cylinders & still making it back to base.

not much to add besides that 5 seconds seems like a really long time for an enemy fighter to just sit there taking fire.

23:52 Actually 2 hits to the oil tank, and 1 hit to the oil sump which was a B kill. This aligns with your explanation about oil level.

Thanks for putting this stuff up, really interesting and informative. Excuse me if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but I think the interpretation of the P(h) column of the chart shown at 5:38 may be probability of hit per rounds fired. For the .50cal it works out to about about 50-67 rounds. Allowing for two the decimal place rounding in P(h), it seems reasonable. For the 20mm it would be about 15-17 rounds. Looking at the weapons characteristics chart at 30:20, it seems that they were trying for some kind of equivalent weight of ammo carried or weight of fire, not equivalent firing time, as it works out to around 3 secs for a .50 cal M3 and 1.2 secs for a 20mm M3.

Boy, that Buick Riviera is beautiful. Looks a lot like the Fiat 130, another "personal luxury car". I wonder which one came first ?

Aah, perfect to listen to over dinner. Ty Greg for another entertaining video.

Interesting and - as usual - well done, Greg. From my Dad's combat report with VF-19 from the USS Lexington in the western Pacific in October, 1944, flying an F6F-5: "On 14 Oct. 44 while having a field day burning planes on loaded Taiyohara Field, Formosa, where revetments were jammed with as many as 10 planes, was hit by a 20 mm AA on the propeller hub causing the engine to lose oil pressure. Engine ran cool, if a little rough on 250 mile trip back with 10 lb.oil pressure. Two days previous [12 Oct., 1944] was hit by 3 40 mm AA while strafing at Pescadores and engine brought me home 200 miles with 15 lb. oil pressure." I have a photo showing the mangled prop hub from 14 Oct., 1944, as well as an oil-covered engine front. I also have photos of damage to the plane (including the engine) on 12 Oct., 1944. In that case, at least one hit to the lower port side of the engine took out a cylinder as well as part of the cowling, and another hit was near the wing root in the aft portion of the port wing, just aft of the cockpit, with structural members easily visible inside the wing center section beyond the bent and mangled sheet metal wing surface and oil from the engine hit(s) streaking the side of the fuselage. Somewhat to my surprise, the landing gear still functioned, and he landed aboard safely. The plane wss judged "unrepairable" and, after a brief scavenging for usable equipment, was pushed over the side into the Pacific.

Excellent presentation.

Great work really good info

A 20 second burst does seem unlikely, but I could be wrong. Anyway, yes, a dry subject, but absolutely fascinating information generated by the report. This is why I'm subscribed: Dense technical data that has meaningful real world significance. Thanks for all your work, Greg!

The reason for the large oil tanks on a radial air-cooled engine was that the oil went from the tank to and through-out the engine, then into the cylinders and out the exhaust. I was told by an A-1 Skyraider (Spad) pilot (a Naval Aviator) that the range and time of flight was limited by the Spad’s oil capacity, not the amount of fuel it could carry for the 2,700 hp Wright R3350-26W Cyclone engine. So oil was carried for planned flight time and reserve fuel amount. But the ability in an emergency to keep going when a liquid cooled in -line would have stopped us a great asset. I apologize if I missed this in your presentation or the comments. Your videos are always anticipated and viewed to their fullest. I learn something every time.

Holyshit this video is an astonishing thing to stumble into while I’m randomly scrolling.

The story of an aircraft making it back with a cylinder or two missing is reiterated in Rudel's book "Stuka Pilot". Where he describes an FW 190 returning from a misson over the Russian Front with several cylinders absent, oil all over the front, but running. Seems it wasn't only the P+W that was "bulletproof " !

I'm a gun guy with extensive experience with machine guns. I owned a store with a classification of license that allowed me to buy and sell machine guns, silencers etc. My knowledge of aircraft is far less but still an interest of mine. I've been thinking about the 25% hit ratio you mentioned early in the video. I imagined myself in a flying aircraft firing a flexible mount mg at another flying aircraft and whether or not I could get a 25% hit rate at 500 yards. My answer is I highly doubt it. I realize this is not what is happening in this report or your video but its what I have a greater ability to imagine. I also imagine it would be much more difficult to point a flying aircraft at the right spot in space to get hits on another flying aircraft. If I with extensive experience firing mgs could not do it with a flex mount gun and making hits with fixed mgs in an aircraft is more difficult, a 25% hit rate to me seems high. Obviously I cannot scientifically test this. I'm going by my knowledge of mgs superimposed over my knowledge of aircraft and the complexities involved getting hits. So my conclusions are going by my gut only. Take it for what its worth. Great channel and video!

Love your videos❤

Hey Greg, I am a new subscriber, and I find your knowledge and insight amazing! Some day could you do a video about the series 5 Italian fighters? It is really hard to find good information about them, specially on the Reggiane.

Ironically - a bank of cylinders in a radial engine is always an odd number. This is to prevent two cylinders from directly opposing each other. If an engine has an even number of banks, it will have an even number of cylinders.

**off topic The AN-225 appears to be in the early stages of either repair or chopping from a recent photo. Left wing is mostly chopped with scaffolding under it. Some nose too with another scaffold. What made me wonder which is b/c the floor is swept very clean in the hanger. Too clean I think just to be scrapping it out. Right wing was resting down on it's engines. Photo ended behind wings so can't say about tail. I haven't heard anything besides maybe repair with the sister plane that's lighter or cut it up. I know they have bigger fish to fry right now but something is goin on.

Very interesting and a question I have had for a while.

i often listen to this stuff late in the evening, 2 weird things happened: 1) my gf is coming into to basement bcs she thinks you have a soothing voice and it helps her to get in the mood for sleep 2) she started asking me about ww2 airplanes and she thinks the thunderbolt is sexy (actually not that weird bcs she thinks im sexy too). Just a warthunder scrub but the thunderbolt is actually my favourite plane there, clapping bottom feeders all day (use no tracer, api, avoid messerschmidts and other energy fighters like the plague, maintain situational awareness, never try to turn after someone, always try to go straight and use diving to escape, never go below 500m unless youre trying to get away from someone on your tail. If you get it right you can boom and zoom all day without anything ever touching you).

Excellent Topic I Like a Combination of Both 😀😮😊 Greg

Cant wait for the next one.

This is wonderful. Thank you.

I once heard a story/anecdote about a low flying P-47 being introduced to a brick chimney. The P-47 landed safely and ground crew had to remove the bricks from the cowling and a couple cylinders came detached from the crankcase.

Very cool. An entirely new topic for me.

Top notch, as usual

Yes, my Grandmother drove her '67 Impala 396 for just under a year with a spark plug wire off. Gas station kid though it "sounded off", popped the hood and fixed it.

these videos are awesome!

Dual sparkplugs are very beneficial in large displacement engines, where combustion chamber is quite big and single sparkplug does not provide even and fast combustion. In Engines like R-2800 or V-1650 or any similar engine of that time dual spark was essential for power output. Redundancy is done that way that both magnetos provide spark for every each cylinder so when one is out you still have spark on every cylinder.

Gran vídeo!😊👍🏻

Hi Greg, love your work! I was looking back at some of my resources and a 2-3 second burst against an enemy fighter whose pilot was not asleep was a long burst. A five second burst was more typical against a non manoeuvring bomber target. Many people have seen that slow-mo footage of the FW-190 taking apart a B-17 and think that long bursts were normal but even in the Battle of Britain more experienced pilots told the rookies get in close let loose and get out! I cannot imagine a 20 second burst. Just sit and could how long that was. From what I have read 20 seconds would just about empty the magazines of a P-51D.

The .60 cal cartridge was eventually modified to become the 20x102mm.

I'm curious what kind of ammo they used in the .50, was the standard mix of AP, inceniary, and tracer? I know this is new, but an All Purpose round wooud be interesting. Army snipers were taking out APCs in Irag with it. BTW, what ever became of the M3 .50 cal?

About the machinegun accuracy, at 500 yards you can expect at least half of your shots to hit if it is a fixed or mounted MG and the target is stationary or moving predictably.

Good to hear your voice Gregg. Very good stuff

This is fascinating.

Very interesting topic. One must not forget the importance of convergance. Many of the German WW2 planes, had their armament centered in or around the fuselage. This will make the plane more versatile range wise. In the topic of getting more rounds on target.

When flying against the p-47 the most effective tool for the job is the mk108, at least in dcs or il2. Absolutely devastating, especially considering how much mg131 the jug can eat up. Thanks greg