Note for the Royal Armouries editor: shoot for -6db to -3db for audio normalization. Most RA videos are rather quiet, but Jonathan's bit in this video is nearly inaudible on normal setups.
@@Ndrew556 No doubt a busy day. The RU-vid presence is secondary (or tertiary, even) to foot traffic and the facility, so it's understandably low priority. However, the production quality otherwise, aside from Jonathan's class defining presentation, is overall highly polished. Just a quick audio correction before exporting would bring the RU-vid page to top shape. Def some kind of filter, though not sure what.
@@nicholasvaultonburg9152 to isolate Jonathan’s voice from the background noise, I didn’t explain myself properly lol, as in “there was a lot of noise in the background so they isolated his voice”
I like to think that Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, carried this to the table with his tiny curator arms
As an aviation guy rather than an arms guy it’s really impressive to hear the presenter, primarily an arms guy, have such a sound appreciation of both the engineering of the aircraft and the way it is operated.
If my grandfather were still alive, he'd have loved this video. He purchased one at a military auction when I was a kid. I never knew what it was until he casually mentioned he had an AA cannon that he was working on (I woulda been about 16 at that time)
I have a 20mm hispano cannon shell and shell-head that was taken as a souvenir by my grandfather who was a Police Officer in rural Leicestershire during WW2. In rural areas there was no air raid warning system except for Police telephones and my father told me that, “ on one occasion a report of a lone enemy aircraft was telephoned in.” Indeed, in 1942 with the R.A.F. bombing of the historic towns of Lubeck and Rostock, there were a number of reprisal raids, which targeted places of cultural significance, known as Baedeker raids which was a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German Luftwaffe on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, including detailed maps, which were used to select targets for bombing. After one such raid, a lone, fast twin engine aircraft was spotted in the area and my grandfather went out to investigate the report. Whether he saw the plane I do not know, but two Spitfires from somewhere close-by -possibly R.A.F. Newton- were scrambled to intercept and shot at the fleeing plane, which was obviously lost. The Spitfire by this time had these 20mm Hispano cannons and my grandfatherr picked up two spent cannon shells off the road which had been ejected from one of the fighters involved in the chase. Then, a little further down the road he spotted a piece of the tailplane a field, with the unexploded head of a 20mm cannon shell still lodged in it, which he also retrieved as a souvenir! These two spent cannon shells and accompanying shell head stood on the mantelpiece at my Nan's one of which is now in my care, along with the shell-head, which, slots neatly into the shell casing. Being interested in all things wartime as a youngster, I was always fascinated by these old shells which I used to pick up and examine every chance I got, and polished faithfully every Saturday after my shopping jobs for Nan! On one occasion when granddad was still with us, he told me to look at the end of the shell-head which had the letters BMARC on it which he told me, was British Manufacturing and Research Company (Marco’s) of Springfield Road, Grantham, to which he further added, “it didn’t travel very far did it?” which of course meant from its manufacture in an arms factory in Grantham, to farmland somewhere near Tilton on the Hill! The base of the shell casing is marked K2 1942 which coincides with an early fitting of 20mm Hispano cannons to Spitfires that same year. As you say, initially these were not popular with the pilots because of the tendency of this type of cannon to jam. The fact that it had been fired from a Spitfire was confirmed for me by an ex-R.A.F. armourer that I met in 2002 in Bakewell, who told me that, “if it was fired by a Spitfire, it should have a neat dent-line, two thirds of the way up the shell casing which was made by the ejector mechanism in the Spitfire wing, which worked by clockwork”, which indeed it has!
This is a brilliant series of events and some really interesting info about the early 20mm Hispano cannons on Spitfires, and as a Leicester born-and-raised lad myself, I want to thank you for putting it all down :D That bit of the tailplane with a shell stuck in it - I bet it looks fantastic. less fantastic for the pilot though!! It'll be a great story and bit of physical history to be handed down through your family over time.
Interesting. When I was young I lived near Melton Mowbray and a local farmer told me about finding a cannon round in a field. He tried to remove the shell from the cartridge, with a hammer, but it exploded. He still had his fingers and hands so he must have been lucky.
Sweet presentation but can you do something with Jonathan's sound levels - listening on headphones I had to turn up Jonathan's spiel which left the IWM bit quite loud and the adverts bloody deafening. Other than that, pretty informative because I'd never have believed that drum mag would have fitted inside a Spitfire wing before seeing this vid.
I was with the Special Constabulary in Manchester in the early seventies and heard this tale, whether it's true or not I'm not sure but I was assured so at the time. Chap came into the police station and asks if the no questions asked firearms amnesty was still in force. On being told this was so, he said I have a gun to hand in. Sergeant says "well, bring it in then". Chap says he'd need a lift. Turns out to be a 20mm aircraft cannon in the back of his van!
The early Beaufighter night fighters had the ammo drums and the radar operator had to change four of them which was a complete nightmare in the dark until replaced by belt feeds.
Props to Johnathan! His presentations are always far more interesting and packed full of -- relevant -- trivia than any other historians I've come across. Well done, Johnny-boy!
funnily, in Poland before WW2, a 20mm rapid-firing auto-loading gun was just called NKM (Heaviest Machine Gun), to distinguish it from a CKM (Heavy Machine Gun) which would be a 7,62mm gun like Maxim). Only after WW2 there appeared a separate term for a .50cal machine gun as WKM (large-caliber machine gun), introduced by the Soviets, while the 20mm NKMs and above were renamed to autocannons ("działko" - little cannon).
To add on to the comments about low volume, it would in no way bother me if there was a clamp-on table/clip-on shirt microphone for when less than ideal noise conditions are present. I'm here for the mechanism to tickle my 'tism. Keep up the great work, shout out that LadLuty
That was terrific! I was born in WWII so always had a keen interest in the RAF fighters. Until a few years ago I thought the Spitfire and Hurricane were equipped only with machine guns but someone told me about the cannons. This video really showed how the latter worked. Thank you!
Yeah, they realized pretty quickly that the .30 cal machine guns weren't sufficient even with 8 or 12 of them installed. Especially against bombers. And the German fighters showed how well canon/machine gun combinations worked.
Fascinating! I have been building kits of Spitfires, Hurricanes etc for years and have always been puzzled by the apparently simple looking design of the Hispano 20mm cannon. Many mysteries now solved thanks to your superb break-down of this widely used gun, many thanks, would love to see more of these on other weapons such as the heavy cannons used by the Luftwaffe.
I have been researching the Hispano series for quite a while, they are very interesting guns and the US development in particular is a rabbithole of versions and variants. Got myself one now and gathering parts to get it running again.
For anyone interested in the mechanics of this in depth, look up "The Machine Gun" By Col George Chinn, they were amazing books made for the navy so they are freely available as PDFs online, volume one but more particularly volume III has a wonderfully long segment on the different versions and mechanics.
The favorite thing for me that came out of US Hispano development was them trying to put it in the P-400 fighter, realizing the gun just doesnt really work, and slapping in the 37mm M4 instead and calling it the P-39 Airacobra.
@@builder396 the US basically screwed up their hispano production from the start and the issues followed those guns for the rest of the service life Book is a good read to learn about it
@@builder396 The P-39 was designed with a single 37mm autocannon and a mix of two .30 and .50 MGs to start with. Fairly hard hitting but lower velocity. The P-400s built for the RAF were re-designed with to take the 20mm. They tried some Airacobras and said politely. Not only no, but bloody NO. The saga of the US production of 20mm Hipano cannon is a sad one. From what I understand the fault lay not with the manufacturer so much as the Board of Ordinance. They screwed up when converting the drawings to inches from metric. Not in the as print dimensions. But in the tolerancing system being used. When the British inspected some of the early ones they commented on just how beautifully made they were *. They just couldn't use them. Also the first US fighters equipped with cannon (P-38 and P-39) were also built with with a system to clear jams. The P-38 had 20mm right from the start. *Oldsmobile was the contractor iirc. The BoO also messed up with the drawings for the MG-42 when they tried to copy it. I'm not sure just what type of tolerancing system the that HS used but even so converting the values should not have been a problem. I guess the designer at BoO wasn't allowed to take his shoes off that day to do higher mathematics.
I've always been curious why these didn't fire shot shells. I would think if each round fired 15-20 half inch ball bearings, it would be very effective against the aircraft of the time.
My grandad was in the polish Air Force during the war and flew spitfires, then mustangs. 0:00 He thought that 6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time. He also mentioned that there was a significant loss of airspeed when you fired a long burst from the cannon in the spitfire.
" *6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time* " Even if it was better, it was much heavier setup, and it would never fit in a Spit. Regardless, it wasn't a better setup. The Brits both considered and even did extensive tests on .50 cals before the war. It turned out that while they did hit a bit harder, the effectiveness was largely reduced if the rounds tumbled while passing through the outer skin of the plane. They decided that fifties weren't worth it. For the same weight, you could do just about as well with a bunch of thirties, and for the long run they knew right away they will need cannons. As it turned out, they were correct.
@@SmedleyDouwright " *Didn't the RAF put .50 cals in late war Spitfires?* " Yes, but it was basically because it was better to have two fifties than two thirties as the MGs. Technically the Spit used to have two thirties in each wing (and a hispano), but the outboard .30 cals weren't really worth it. They hardly ever hit and they had a disproportional impact on performance, so at least some aces were ford of removing those outboard emgees. One inboard fifty was surely better than a spread out pair, so that was the decision, as far as I understand it. BTW - One of the guys known for removing the outboard MGs was Jan Zumbach. His Spit with a characteristic Donald Duck nose art is pictured everywhere. You've seen it many times for sure. So it's likely that this Spit had the outboard MGs removed. BTW - I'm curious if the grandpa of the OP ever met Jan Zumbach.
Perhaps I should have phrased that differently. He preferred to go to war in the mustang. Obviously comparing the armament across different aircraft flying different missions requires a longer discussion than a RU-vid comment section.
Finally! I’ve been waiting on a Hispano cannon video for years. There’s a WWII submarine memorial in a park where I live in Marquette, Mi and on the mockup conning tower there are a pair of anti-air autocannons. I was well familiar with the Oerlikon from Ian’s work and these cannons on the memorial were clearly not that. They almost look like someone asked a metal worker to fabricate something that looks like a period autocannon, made out of scrap, but the more times I checked these guns out, I saw features like the gas piston that meant this has to be the real gun. I knew next to nothing about the Hispano and the online pictures aren’t great, but I assumed these mystery guns must be Hispanos because what else would they be? Damn it feels good to have my suspicions validated.
Poor low level performance, Zeros and FW 190s had superior two speed superchargers giving high performance over a wider altitude band. Much better Spitfire VIIIs were sent east later.
I find the explanations quite convoluted, the reality is quite simple: Hispano Suiza was originally a Spanish car manufacturer, but, diversifying into aviation, these new activities were entirely installed in France as a Franco-Spanish company. During the creation of the 12Y engine which will first equip the Morane 406 then the Dewoitine D520, it was decided to integrate a 20mm cannon firing through the axis of the propeller: this is the famous Canon HS404 , also known in the Soviet Union under the designation ShWAK integrated into the Klimov 105 engine which is nothing other than an evolution of the 12Y for which the Soviets had purchased the rights before the war and which equipped the Yax 1, 3 and 9. The British quickly understood the advantages of this excellent, precise, powerful and reliable canon, and quickly installed it on certain Spitfires, however, this gun being designed to operate in the heat of the engine, posed numerous jamming problems due to the icing, in addition the drum magazine was too bulky and of low capacity (60 rounds) and did not properly fit in the wings, the British branch of Hispano Suiza therefore revised the design and also adapted it to a belt feed. Naturally , the installation of such a powerful weapon posed some problems on planes not initially designed for that, but the British preferred it to the cal 50 heavy machine guns favored by the Americans. The HS404 cannon has had a very long career, as it equipped the F8FN Crusader in service until 1999 in the French navy.
Yes, they went from cars to also making aircraft engines before the WW1 (because both engines & customers were basically the same at the time), then added wing-mounted cannons to diversify their business again, and then combined the latter two areas to make this gun.
That was an excellent video although the sound was somewhat lacking. You should mentally separate g from attitude. The two are not related. You can be upside down pulling 1 g (or 3 g) or the “the right way up” at zero g. Air-to-air gunnery typically requires the hunter to turn towards and aim at a point ahead of where their target is flying. The hope is that the target flies into their projectiles’ path. The task of computing “lead” was aided by the gyroscopic gunsight. Before these it was pretty much a hit or miss affair with the preponderance towards the latter.
0:55. I believe the French called it a canon due to the shape. I speak Portuguese, which same as French, is a Latin based language. ‘Canó’ is Portuguese for pipe. So I think ‘canon’ must be French for a pipe shaped item is some way.
In the Swedish armed forces during that era something was classified as a canon if it could fire explosive projectiles. Thus the smallest canon in Swedish service was 13,2mm.
I was always under the impression that a "cannon" in this regard meant it fired ammo with an explosive projectile as the norm. Whereas machine guns normally fire a solid projectile.
The nazis used low velocity, low rate of fire blow back operated Oerlikons in the Bf 109E. They were used later in the _Jazz Music_ upwards firing night fighter installation.
My grandfather served in the War, and one of the things I inherited from him is a lighter built out of an unfired round from one of these beasts. It doesn't work anymore, but it seems like the lighter fluid would go where the cordite goes and the bullet is unaltered. (Obviously not a high-ex bullet, that would not be a good choice for a lighter body.) It's a neat little bit of history to have around.
I recall seeing an interview with Michael Bentine of the Goons, also a WWII fighter pilot. He was reduced to tears as he discussed the disadvantage of the British pilots with their .303 armaments and the devastating 20mm canons carried by the Hun.
The early Spitfire's armament was the result of calculations made by 13 year old Hazel Hill. She worked out that it needed at least eight machine guns rather than the four it was originally destined for.
If eight were insufficient just think how bad four would have been. Granted one rifle caliber round in theright place will take down a single and possibly a twin engined bomber of the period. Specifically a hit on the engine coolant or oiling system. These fluids were being pumped at high volumes with a limited supply which would lead to engine failure. Radials are less susceptible to this being air cooled but also suffer from higher drag on the engine installation. That is until the FW-190 and a few other types proved otherwise.
I always remember this from the Pattern Room when I worked at the RA. It was down at the bottom behind a wall of racks and I always loved the huge drum magazine. Great times
My grandfather was a design engineer with Ford's at Dagenham during the entire war... I remember him telling of working on the spitfire, Churchill tank,and other various things they did there for the war efforts. He may well have been heavily involved with the transition of the spitfires all round performance... I do know that he had several 303 rounds and a couple of old Canon shells very similar to those shown... His job was whatever came his way ,and to improve,improvise, update, create ...He wasn't allowed to volunteers for active service ,as he was told his and his colleagues efforts would be far more destructive to the enemy than as individuals getting shot as a single soldier...Apparently he always tried ,but his applications used to get put back on his desk lol.. So he went home guard instead ,and was in charge of 6 anti aircraft guns near the factory... A lot of his work became easier as well due to the Americans bringing in all their newest tools of mass production and specialist tools ...Britain needed...
Had one dug up back in the day close to what was RAF Bishops Court... Had it in the armoury for a clean up for ages...always wondered what a full y restored one would look like
There's been a lot of armchair historians blabbing over the years about the use of cannon in british aircraft especially the spitfire and giving their less than knowledgeable opinions as to why they believed they were unreliable or even pointless but now it's nice listening to someone who actually knows what he's talking about and giving us the truth.
*chuckles* reminds me of the novel 'Sharpe's Command' which I read the other day. Lieutenant Love (predictably called Cupid behind his back) was in the artillery, and said it seemed appropriate as his father was a canon. Sgt Harper thought he meant /cannon/ so decided Love was as mad as a box of frogs :)
The video is for the most part too quiet, which is a pity, for the topic is quite interesting, especially with such levels of detail. Speaking of which, I was expecting to see the lockwork in more detail. 1:44 Well, judging by the standard given you could say that 1 pdr Maxim guns, the so called 'Pom-poms', dating back to the end of the nineteenth century and used in both Second Anglo-Boer and First World wars, would be the first autocannons. If, however, you meant to say 'aircraft-mounted autocannon', then one has to mention Becker's Type M2, the progenitor of the Oerlikon's S and FF autocannons, which also goes back to WW1. 1:53 Wasn't its main drawback the fact that it wasn't Hispano Suiza's own design, and they had to pay for it to Oerlikon? 12:26 Certainly from the weight point of view it is, and that matters a lot for planes.
The audio is out of my hands unfortunately, and there just isn't time to cover the mechanical side in detail as well as the historical aspects. I'm encouraged to do 15 minutes and frequently go well over that as it is :) 1:44 - You could, yes, but they didn't - obviously there are historical forerunners for most things but I'm talking here about how similar weapons came to be called "cannon". The 1pr Maxim was never referred to as a "cannon". 1:53 - quite possibly. Not something that I came across whilst researching but it would make sense. But designers always think they can beat each other.
Almost all these videos are way too quiet. It's in part Jonathan's natural tone and in part poor sound mixing. I suspect they don't have a professional sound engineer who could easily offset the issue. I do wish they'd invest in some time or money in a pass on the sound.
When I saw the silhouette preview, I thought "That looks like an aircraft-mounted autocannon", and then immediately decided that "Nah, that can't be right." I guess I need to learn to better trust my first impression.
Canon, the round made of steel has a copper drive band formed around the round, alternatively a machine gun, the drive band is formed into the soft bullet casing while being driven down the barrel
The film "The Foreman went to France" Is a true story about a foreman going to France to bring back the machines that make the cannon, before the Germans got hold of them.
I've been following the videos, great series but if you could do something with the way too low sound level that would be great, now the video is just unwatchable with the massive variation. I like my hearing so I won't be turning the volume to double or triple to hear what Jonathan is saying.
A long time ago I helped baby sit a US 20 mm M2 Hispano Aircraft Autocannon for a couple of weeks. My dad although a medic was an Oerlikon gunner when traveling back and forth across the Pacific on Troopships as a US Army Hospital Ship Medic part of a 8 enlisted one Officer regimental level unit. The US copy of the 404 chambers were a tiny fraction of an inch too long due poor measurement conversion in usage at the time which caused jamming on occasion depending on ammo lots.
There were two different criteria applied. One was if the weapon was smooth bore and not hand held. Two was if the projectile carried an explosive charge, again, was not hand held.
The 1972 book Guns Of The Royal Air Force 1939 - 1945 by G.F. Wallace is a fascinating read, and devotes whole chapters to the Hispano 20mm, the .303" Browning and the Vickers Gas Operated. It is cheaply available online.
what tf is up with the audio being so quiet i literally have windows volume at 100, youtube volume at 100 and even my tv is turned all the way up to over 50
IIRC The first autocannon installed on a fighter was the Coventry Ordnance Works 37mm at the very end of WW1. This gun saw further development between the wars and was chosen for use in the Air Ministry specification F.29/27. None of the aircraft submitted were chosen as the concept of firing up at a fixed angle wasn't practical. It was fitted to many interwar flying boats but never saw service in any during WW2. Eventually it was developed into the Vickers 40mm Class S gun that armed ground attack Hurricane variants.
Hey Jonathan, thanks for another great video! As an Aussie I predominantly use metric but because of my age I'm quite fluent in Imperial too so please forgive my confusion. When you say 7.9 feet, do you mean 7 feet 9 inches or 7 feet and 9/10ths of a foot or something I haven't even considered? I'm a little confused by this on a regular basis and suspect it's an artifact of people jumping between both systems but I'm never sure!
I think cannon works because anything 20mm and up is basically a crew served weapon on a mount. even a .50 cal can be used by infantry on foot, this thing needs to be on some kind of wheeled mount
Like the kink to rhe Spitfire, very interesting to see the weapon in the context of how it was used and the developent of the aircraft to accoodate it. big thubs up.
Canon also sound a little more, oomph than gun. I actually prefers your usual background Jonathan, the warehouse shots reminds me of Matrix, 'Guns, we need lots of guns....' Speaking of, have you done a Matrix breakdown?
This is pretty cool to learn about. I had some idea about it's mechanical workings having the documentation for the US versions. An interesting tidbit is that the US did not call them cannons. We called them Automatic Guns. Also, the HS.404 was not an original design by Hispano-Suzia. It was a modified version of the Oerlikon 20mm used in many other aircraft before and during WW 2 such as the Bf 109, A6M2, D.520, and P-38. Essentially what happened with the British version (your Mk. II) was they ended up having to modify it because what was happening was the gun was as you said designed to be mounted in an engine block, and the struggles they were having were related to trying to get it to work in a wing where it was able to vibrate and move quite a bit leading to the constant misfeeds and jamming
While they certainly referred to the Oerlikon in the design of the Hispano-Suiza, it was a fundamentally different gun using an entirely different mechanism
Why was the mistake in the chamber length continued in US versions of the Hispano. I know International Harvester made the initial error, leading to light strikes on the primer and misfires on the M1 version, but why did this continue right up to the M24?
-You are actually correct. The first Hsipani-Suyiza canon were license produced Oerlikons which came out the the German WW1 Becker design. It's a complicated story but roughly its true that the Germans invented the 20mm class of weapons in WW1 (Beckerer M2 Canon that became the Oerlikon FF) and Solothurn ST-5 that became the C30 FLAK. Because of the treaty of Versailes manufacture in Germany was impossible these patents of the German works was sold of to Dutch, Swedish and Swiss companies often with substantial investment by the German companies or in joint ventures using German engineers. -The Becker came back as the Oerlikon MG FF used on Early German Fighters like the Me 109E and the more powerful Soluthurn as the C30 FLAK. -The HS.404 was Hispano's design using an American patent after the relationship with Oerlikon broke down. It used a gas mechanism to operate the bolt thus increasing rate of fire by about 75% -The German 15mm MG151 and the necked up 20mm MG 151/20 were recoil operated and lighter than the Hispano. They had the same ROF but slightly lower velocity and shell weigh so considerably less kinetic energy. The 15mm MG151 actually had better ballistics and muzzle velocity than the US M2 Browning and the Hispano but the small projectile size wasn't destructive enough. The pilots of early Me 109F0/F1 that had the 15mm canon loved it because of its accuracy but the average pilot lacked the skill to take long range shots. In addition when attacking a bomber formation the turbulence mad long range shooting difficult. -The Germans added gas operation to nearly double rate of fire on 30mm MK101 to 30mm MK103 and nearly double ROF with gas operation on 3.7cm FLAK 37 to 3.7cm FLAK 42.
4 x Hispano cannons' were used in the Bristol Beafighter night fighters. Initially the observer / radar operator had to change the drums manually in darkness in the air.
The BB just moves back and forth and it has a tipping/tilting locking flap underneath. U can see the (replaceable) locking shoulder in the bottom/back. Now do a proper one on the Besa, and show us (what's) under the feed cover.
as living 5 minutes from duxford i’ve been a few times and it’s a fantastic place to visit. would recommend highly EDIT: forgot to mention that due to close proximity of the airfield, we get to see a large and varied amount of aircraft pass over which is fantastic, esp in the summer when the airshows are on
I really love these videos but I sincerely wish the audio levels were better - most of these videos are incredibly quiet and I always have to turn my volume way up specifically for these videos.
