Weapons of the Mosquito - bombs, rockets, machine guns, cannon, .. all carried by DH.98 variants
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- The weapons that made the de Havilland DH98 Mosquito so effective in its many roles.
From rifle calibre to BFG.
In this video, we look at the DH.98 Mosquito, and the huge range of weapons that it could carry. Originally designed in 1939 as a high speed bomber, with no defensive guns at all. Subsequently, they designed day and night-fighter versions fitted with four .303 (or 7.7 mm) Browning machine guns mounted in the nose and four 20 mm Hispano cannon in the fuselage belly.
Other variants of the Mosquito included the "Highball" bouncing bomb, the “Tsetse” with an auto-loading 57mm 6-pounder anti-tank gun in the belly, variants carrying armour-piercing or high explosive rockets, and the Sea Mosquito carrying an aerial torpedo.
Do you want to support the Museum? If so, please leave a "Super Thanks" (click on the Thanks heart icon) if you do we will pin your comment. You can make a purchase from our shop dehavillandmuseum.myshopify.com (shipping to UK only)
#vintageaircraft #warbirds
www.dehavillandmuseum.co.uk
Thanks for your hard work making another great video. Here's a couple of quid. Treat yourselves to a cake.🧁
Some of the veneer used in the Mosquito came from my small town in Ontario Canada
Brilliant insight into one of the best planes ever built
Well worth a visit and just down the road from where i live.The Mosquito has always been one of my favourite aircrafts and i had the honour of playing a small roll in getting the Mosquito HJ 711 to East Kirkby airfield home to Lancaster NX 611, by picking up frames and other things needed to move a Mossie.
My uncle Jacky, on joining 605 Sqn wrote home that he had the fastest aircraft in the air, and that it was armed like the 8th Army...no more dodging in and out of clouds at the first sign of trouble for him, he wrote...:)
TA122, the fighter bomber variant you see in the video was in service with 605 Sqn for it's operational life.
@billyredtail Hiya, Yes, I know, I visited the museum a few years ago, was meant to get a sit in the aircraft, but the tailfin had dropped off and the aircraft was being held down with straps onto an anvil, so, no luck there. I have my uncles logbooks, and he flew the original UP-G, I have a combat report of his written after a mission with the aircraft, where he was attacked by heavy light AA fire, s he says he left the area at chimney pot height, on full boost...:)
What an amazing aircraft,,,🙏👏❤ It was head and shoulders above any other aircraft of that time
The Mollins gun was also intended to be used on a lightweight tank destroyer vehicle; this was cancelled when it was thought that the six-pound AP round wasn't strong enough to kill a Tiger. As it turned out, neither was the standard gun on the Sherman tank!
But it was exactly what the Royal Navy's Coastal forces wanted for their larger MGB and MTBs, which coalesced into a single type armed with both a gun and torpedoes.
It was mounted towards the back of the boat (the torpedoes (being effectively aimed by the skipper and helmsman) really had to be at the front and the traversible gun needed to be somewhere steady and relatively dry) and was loaded with the six-pound AP round as the Mosquito for U-boats, and a special "Naval" eight pound HE round for enemy fast boats and transports.
The problem for MGBs up until that point, was that 0.5" machine-gun and 20mm cannon rounds did not penetrate U-boat hulls (as the RAF had found) and yet went through S-boats without making a hole of useful size. And for an MTB to actually hit a target any smaller than a cruiser with a torpedo meant closing to a range which might get it shot to pieces.
Robert Hitchens, in desperation, fitted his smaller (and very fast) MGB [edit] with a Blacker Bombard anti-tank weapon (designed for the Home Guard but too frightening for anyone much to actually use as it threw about a gallon of jellied nitroglycerine in a light steel case up to about seventy yards.) This scored a hit on a German armed trawler, but Hitchens was killed about twenty minutes later in the ferocious machine-gun battle that followed.
So, when the Mollins came along, it became a standard weapon for fast boats for a few years, till the fast boats got big enough to carry a more standard naval gun of effective size.
Thank you for your interesting comment- The Molins is something we want to return to in future video
@@deHavMuseum Yes. No-one ever tried to fit a Blacker Bombard to an aircraft! But the PIAT and both the Hedgehog and LIMBO anti-submarine weapons are descendants. Six pounder ammunition was still being made up to the late 1960s, and the Americans used the basic anti-tank gun in Vietnam with the six-pound HE round used by both British and American armies in WW2, as a sort of light field gun. The US Navy also tested the Molins as armament for the Mitchell, I think it was, and they apparently thought it was really cool, but they couldn't identify a convincing need for it during the post war period. They had used a manually-loaded 75mm gun, but that actually offered less penetration and was only really useful with HE rounds against transport ships.
(In my opinion) This was the 2nd most beautiful looking aircraft of WW2 - The MOST beautiful being of course the de Havilland Hornet. Such a shame you don't have one of these in your superb museum.
The Hornet was not WWII
@nightjarflying designed during it however. Captain Eric brown described it as the best he flew and he flew a lot of types.
@ Not operational until 1946 therefore not a WWII a/c
Heard an interview with an old boy who flew a Tsetse on anti shipping along with fighter bomber and bomber variants . When they were on their attack run they would transmit “salvo, salvo” in that impeccable RAF accent into the RT so everyone else knew to stay tf out of the way… absolute legends.
Fascinating stuff, great video. 👍🏻
Very interesting video, wish my father had got to see it. When he got called up he was asked what his interests were and what he'd like to do. He said he was interested in motorcycles and he'd like to work on engines so they made him an armourer. I remember him telling me about the Hispano cannon and the 60lb rockets, there was a special "safety rocket" with a lump of concrete in the nose to make them fly straight. These were for range practice. He had a collection of photos of Mosquitoes with collapsed undercarriage. Later went onto work on Vampires in Germany.
Great presentation on the mossie
A true multirole
Great video, from one of the best museums in the country.
How Britain produced wonderful machines when they were direly needed 👍.
Thank you for the fine video! Highly interesting!
Excellent presentation. Makes a welcome change from most of the lazily produced , poorly researched, and AI narrated dross that pollutes UA-cam these days. 👍
That's answered a question that I've wondered about for ages - what did firing the 6pdr do to airspeed. Time to visit the museum again!
Thank you. Excellent summary.
I visited Salisbury Hall some years ago very nice indeed!
Stunning and versatile aircraft.
very informative, many thanks to all those involved
My one time boss at Vosper Thornycroft, Geoffrey Kingslake, worked on the design of the Mosquito, and was rather put out when they took a team photo on the day he was away. I seem to remember him talking about trials with a 40mm Bofors cannon under the nose, which when it was fired peeled off the protective plate fitted above the muzzle. Perhaps it was the anti-tank gun referred to.
The Mossie is one of my favorites in DCS. Flying it in VR at low level gives a whole new appreciation for the insane feat of long-range navigation to hit pinpoint targets with unguided bombs and nothing more than a reflex sight for aiming.
A great great great museum that I would highly recommend to anyone
Always wondered if there was a torp mounting mosquito. Thanks.
No mention of its role as a radar equipped defensive night fighter & night attack intruder targeting Luftwaffe airfields?
It's because it destroys the Myth that the RAF bought it as a Bomber. First 50 Mosquitos were originally ordered as Reconnaissance Bombers and Fighters (4 prototypes (1st Aircraft, one PR, one NF and a Trainer), 19 PR I's and 27 NF II's). Somehow 10 of the PR I's ended up as the first B IV's. The first big production Order which followed the first prototype flight was for 150 NF II's. (DD Serials), followed by 50 B IV (DK) and 400 (DZ) aircraft (250 BIV and 150 NF II). The next order (HJ/HK) for 600 aircraft were mostly NF's or FBVI's with a few T III trainers thrown in).
I hope to visit you in March 👍
The Mosquito filled more roles than the local sandwich shop.
Another important role was the “airliner” role, flying people and cargo into and out of Sweden, including specialist bearings used in many weapons.
Thank you.
Thanks :)
Excellent video, though I'm quite surprised that the night fighter versions weren't acknowledged more
Thank you, we were concentrating on weapons we have on display in this video. We will return to mosquito types and missions in future videos. We do cover night fighters in our John Cunningham video ua-cam.com/video/GhEfxl0DsgQ/v-deo.html if you are interested.
One of the truly great WWII aircraft.
I remember the conversation about the 6Lb anti-tank gun when I was visiting the museum in July of last year. Amazing to see that the loading mechanism was inspired by a cigarette company.
The BAOC used the mozzie as a passenger aircraft from UK to Sweden.
very helpful information. Molins were later involved (I now believe) in the design of an extractor system for shells fired in a Challenger I tank, which was not deemed a success. I had previously been told in a Tank Museum Video it was a firm who designed cigarette vending machines, which I did not believe. As a Nottingham resident I once fed tobacco into Molins cigarette machines at John Player.
Thank you. The vending machine comment was a slip of the tongue. The display information card on our Molins gun does say cigarette manufacturing machines. This gun was restored by Molins apprentices in 1984 so thank you to them too. We are planning another video on the Molins as it is such an interesting subject.
Really interesting video, I have the 'Mosquito Story' made by Dehavilland, it shows a raid on shpping with mixed formations
They trialled an even bigger gun in the mossie, but it never made it to service due to the effectiveness of the rockets.
One b mk18 apparently shot the wing off a ju88. The uboats were certainly in for a bad day when they were targeted by the b mk18 as the rounds had a habit apparently of acting a bit like torpedoes when hitting the water and any damage to the pressure hull was doom for a sub. 5:58
That story was made up after some reseacher for a 1975 book found a Trial report for a Muzzle Brake for a 32 pounder gun with a line drawing of the gun instailled on a mosquito with the locations of pressure sensors on the drawing where parts of the airframe would be. The gun was actually fitted to a ground stand when fired (trial was in mid 1945 at Shoeburyness). Had the gun been fitted to a Mosquito, I'm pretty sure de Havilland would have photos and drawings of the Installation as the gun stuck out around 5 feet in front of the nose!!!
A New Zealand company rebuilds them,,Norway wood like the original,,done a couple now..
i have nothing pertinent to add.
these are algo-deity squiggles.