This does have the feel of "Hey! I wonder if we fitted a 75mm cannon to a Ju-88? Let's give it a try and see what happens. With the war situation this dire, what have we got to lose?"
In late 1942 there is a brief flurry in trying to get planes kitted out for anti-tank duties - this is indeed one of those examples. I don't think anyone was under any illusions, we can see that from the orders that these Ju 88 were only meant to attack tanks that had broken through (generally less AA protection). In that context, the LW was prepared to give it a try.
There was also a Mosquito armed with a 57mm cannon: the Mosquito FB Mk. XVIII (sometimes known as the Tsetse) of which ...17 were purpose-built. The Mk.XVIII was armed with a Molins "6-pounder Class M" cannon....The effect of the new weapon was demonstrated on 10 March 1944 when Mk.XVIIIs ... engaged a German convoy of one U-boat and four destroyers, protected by 10 Ju 88s. Three of the Ju 88s were shot down. Pilot Tony Phillips destroyed one Ju 88 with four shells, one of which tore an engine off the Ju 88. The U-boat was damaged. On 25 March, U-976 was sunk by Molins-equipped Mosquitoes.On 10 June, U-821 was abandoned in the face of intense air attack and was later sunk by a Liberator of No. 206 Squadron. On 5 April 1945 Mosquitoes with Molins attacked five German surface ships in the Kattegat and again demonstrated their value by setting them all on fire and sinking them.
Yep. and then they put 8 rockets on the Mosquito and that became the standard anti ship weapon. The 3 inch rocket was a much easier weapon to employ and had better stand off range than the 57mm gun.
@@richardvernon317 Exactly. A big gun just wasn’t needed. Aside from that, once you got rid of the bombs and rockets, the aircraft had better performance, partly for aerodynamic reasons and partly because it wasn’t lugging around a large amount of installed weight, compared to the standard armament.
@@annadalassena5460 There is no evidence that the 32 pounder was ever fitted to the aircraft. A ground based blast trial on a test stand was done using the intended Muzzle brake design in mid August 1945 but there are no records of the weapon ever being trialled on the aircraft and no photo of it was ever taken. De Havilland would have been involved in the design and development of the weapon installation and they have nothing in their archives as far as I'm aware. The Mosquito Trials files in the UK National Archives have nothing that covers the fit of the 32 pounder on the aircraft either.
The fact that there are images from WWII that are still protected by copyright while most the veterans have long since passed on really shows how messed up the system is.
The problem with the aircraft application of the PaK 40 is the fact its a direct derivative of the land-based gun; the US developed the lightweight 76mm M3 gun specifically for the B-25/PBJ, and its so good, that when Cadillac designed the M24 Chaffee light tank, this gun was selected as its main gun.
The reason for 75mm caliber gun on the B-25/PBJ was one of the weapons alongside forward facing 8-12 50 caliber machine guns depending on the variant for its the conversion from a medium bomber to a anti ship and ground attack aircraft specifically designed to be used in the pacific theater.
My Father was in the Air Corps (he never called it the Air Force) during the war. He said they tried a 105 in a B-24. The recoil folded the plane in half.
@@michaelotoole1807 From Wikipedia: *Antecedents* The predecessor organizations in the Army of today's Air Force are: Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps (1 August 1907 - 18 July 1914) Aviation Section, Signal Corps (18 July 1914 - 20 May 1918) Division of Military Aeronautics (20 May 1918 to 24 May 1918) U.S. Army Air Service (24 May 1918 to 2 July 1926) U.S. Army Air Corps (2 July 1926 to 20 June 1941) and U.S. Army Air Forces (20 June 1941 to 18 September 1947) And: In practice, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) was virtually independent of the Army during World War II, and in virtually every way functioned as an independent service branch, but airmen still pressed for formal independence. The National Security Act of 1947 was signed on 26 July 1947, which established the Department of the Air Force, but it was not until 18 September 1947, when the first secretary of the Air Force, W. Stuart Symington, was sworn into office that the Air Force was officially formed as an independent service branch. I have to admit that I thought that it was *during* WW2 that the separation and renaming (from USAAF to USAF) occurred.
@@Defender78 The AC-130? i) They start with an upgraded fuselage ii) It's used for air to ground fire so the loading is very different. The recoil is across the aircraft.
Rate of fire would have been very low, with the chance of counter fire pretty high. Small targets like tanks would have been a bit of a stretch anyway, even if you weren't hammering your aircraft apart yourself.
Even though the Ju-88P was a failure. I still think it is one badass looking plane with the 7.5 cm PAK 40 sticking out! Matter of fact, I LOVE all the German planes that used anti-tank cannons on them. Thanks for the excellent report.
Awesome video! Given that- as you mentioned- there were other aircraft using similar guns (PBJ/410 etc.) did you ever stumble on damage reports along the same lines?
No, but researching at the archives for this video prompted me to start looking. The 7.5cm Pak 40 is a different beast to the adapted 75mm used on the B-25/PBJ, so while I assume there are some limitations to the latter, it was a better fit all things considered. More once I have some data
@@MilitaryAviationHistory I'd love to hear if you stumble over other reports. The 75 on the PBJ had a different muzzle-device, if memory serves me right. I wonder to what extend this was a problem with all 'big gun' aircraft, even down to something like the J87Gs- and what for example the A10 has (smaller gun, but the recoil of a GAU isn't trivial either) to deal with that. Come to think of it, wtf does an AC130 have to mitigate the stress of firing a 105mm sideways...
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Those same PBJ/B-25's with the gun noses and the 75 were being shaken up by large amounts of 50's. So I'd like to see the amount of damage that was being done by that as well. I had heard that the cheek guns were the primary suspects because the aluminum just couldn't take the forces of the 50 calibers firing against it.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory From what I have read The B-25G was the plane that had the 75mm. The 75mm was a much lower velocity than the 75 used on the Ju-88. Overall, it was considered a waste, the rate of fire was way too low as was the accuracy. They later removed the 75mm and put in 4 more .50 cal guns so it now had 14 .50cals 8 in the nose, 4 cheek mounted, and two in the upper turret plus 8 rockets and bombs. The best story I heard was a B-25 crew was flying around shooting the 75mm at Japanese ground targets not expecting to hit anything because they hardly ever did. One shot hit a Japanese ship and blew it up. The loader said to the pilot, "Good grief he hit something!" The pilot's response was, "Don't tell anyone, they might get thinking this was a good idea after all." The 75 was a case of very impressive but not very effective.
@@DavidSiebert Yes the US 75 was a much lower energy weapon than the Pak 40. A quick bit of Wikipedia digging (yes, yes, I know) seems to show that the T13E1 gun on the B-25 fired a 6.76 kg projectile at 619 m/s, giving 1.2 megajoules muzzle energy; while the Pak 40 fired a marginally heavier 6.80 kg projectile nearly 30% faster (790 m/s) giving almost twice the muzzle energy, 2.1 megajoules! No wonder it was so hard on the aircraft!
I always assumed this size of canon would arrest the flight of the aircraft. I recall the 1970s A-10 has only one 30mm rotary auto-canon because math says firing two simultaneously would remove all its airspeed, not advisable for a CAS aircraft. Its still a surprise (but logical) that a center-mounted 75mm recoil would allow the Ju88 to keep flying, but the recoil would rip the plane off its engines (that is the right way to express it I think). The pilots had the original aircraft engineers to thank for surviving these tests. Excellent research & engineering consultation.
@@thedungeondelver that’s not how they thought planning the A-10. Wing mounting two 30mm was an original option, but the weight of a structurally capable wing for that didn’t fit planned manoeuvrability. Then it was considered designing the plane around two fuselage mounted 30mm. It was the calculations of the combined recoil from two burst firing guns on a sub-sonic aircraft that made that idea go away. Whose gonna be frighted of a CAS plane with only one gun in the Cold War? MiG-17 had 3 guns! 😹
I reckon that the poms worked out the best airborne artillery solutions by mounting a special 57mm gun using AP rounds in a Mosquito, to make holes in ships’ engine blocks; and by attaching 6” HE cruiser shells to unguided rockets for use on Typhoons, Beaufighters, etcetera.
The planes with the BK 7.5 or BK5 were fitted with a magnified gun sight for the pilot, specifically the ZFR 3A, 3B or 4A depending on plane, which had a x2 magnification and a reflex sight mounted on top. Smaller guns like the BK 3.7 or the 3cm MK 101 or 103 guns only had the reflex sight AFAIK as their shorter range didnt demand a magnified sight.
@@builder396 thanks for the detail. I did wonder how they allowed for target movement & the recoil must have affected flight characteristics. The stress in the airframe & skin if the aircraft obviously caused serious problems. Perhaps it would be interesting to review the British anti-submarine guns which were fitted to various aircraft including the Mosquito. I think the Russians also tried anti-tank guns in Aircraft.
You have a dream job, but lots of effort. This sounds like minimal engineering analysis because “we’re going to try it either way”. B-25 book is tempting, though I don’t need more books, and my wife agrees.
From the protocols and sources I have, at the end of 1942 the LW very much went with the 'let's try anything and see what sticks' principle. They do seem to be aware that lower caliber guns (eg 3cm) will be better for the task but as we can see, that didn't stop them trying with a 7.5cm
@@MilitaryAviationHistory probably because they could get funding for the "bigger is better" projects more easily, then funnel part of that funding into things that would actually work. The German leadership, from Hitler on down, were obsessed with megalomaniacal ideas after all. From the architectural ideas to tanks to ships and aircraft.
More popular than the Ju-88 was the Henschel Hs 129 B-3, featuring a 75mm Bordkanone. Where do you think the idea for the A-10 came from? Also the Luftwaffe had quite some success destroying tanks with the Ju-87G.
Saw this aircraft in pictures . But never knew the story behind it’s development or how it turned out in combat operations . Great video . Very informative.
I mentioned already a bunch that are outside of the scope of this video, I can’t list every single plane that had a big gun just to tick the magic boxes ;)
Let's make some calculations. The 75 mm 39/42 had 7.2 kg, 935 m/sec muzzle velocity. The whole was 14.3 kg. The muzzle velocity is reached after 4.5 m. The entire weight is 14.3 kg. Let's assume 2 kg is the cartridge, 12.3 kg leave the canon with 935 m/sec. A rocket and a gun barrel are calculated in the same way. Something comes out and accelerates the rocket or the gun barrel in the opposite direction. That's about 93,500 m/sec² acceleration times 12.3 kg. This gives 1,115,000 Newton thrust for 1/100 sec. All the damping can do is to distribute the thrust for a longer time. Let's assume the gun barrel is 600 kg, 400 kg for the rest of the canon. The gun barrel is accelerated by the thrust to 19 m/sec. The gun barrel has only 400 mm to 450 mm way back. In this short distance, the speed of the gun barrel has to be reduced from 19 m/sec to 0. 433 m/sec² deceleration for 0.044 sec can do this. So we have 600 kg * 433 m/sec² gives 260 kN for 0.044 sec force against the structure of the airplane.
Funny thing is that when firing from the air you don't always need the penetration of a Pak40. You can get lots of side, rear and even top hits. BTW cool advertisement. No, I'm serious. I have a 1990's Thrustmaster Joystick. It's still beautiful. Happy to hear that TM is still around and making stuff. Added to my shopping lust. Errr list. (yes that was a real typo)
If I remember correctly the luftwaffe had a better record against tanks early in the war when they used bombs, and the efficiency dropped when they started experimenting with a switch to guns.
Chris, have you done a video about the Tetsi Mosquito with the 17 pounder antitank gun? This was a success and was used not against tanks, but shipping and sank a good number of naval vessels. If you've not covered it it would be a great story about a big gun fitted o a wooden aircraft of all things that was a success.
Heck. These things are ridiculously hard to aim in video games. I can only imagine it would be even harder to properly disable AFVs with low-rof guns like these larger caliber guns. I think these would be more viable to use against lightly armored ships, but the issue with recoil/vibration coming from the gun would still need to be considered for. Among with other drawbacks from putting a gigantic gun infront of a plane.
The best anti-tank aircraft was probably the Ju 87, Luftwaffe ace Hans Rudel knocked up a tremendous score of enemy tanks in his Stuka. The disadvantage of the Stuka was that it was vulnerable to fighters. Perhaps a much smaller anti-tank gun like the Boyes would have been more successful for the Ju 88, and could have been used against enemy bombers as well. The calibre was about .5 in. You need to remember that tanks have thinner armour on top, and the Boyes muzzle velocity woud have been increased by the velocity of the plane which was carrying it, thus increasing its penetrating power. Lots of Boyes A/Tk rifles were supplied to the Russians.
Yeah. This didn't seem like a good idea to me at all. Then I watched the video. Not a good idea at all. If you're going to do this, the aircraft needs to be designed around the gun. I know, it was in the middle of a war and they were just trying things, but that was pretty optimistic to think there wouldn't be serious airframe issues as a result.
@@thedungeondelver "very effective" seems to be up for debate? I'm not sure if the weight and complexity of the weapon give performance any better than using a bomb or unguided rocket?
War Thunder needs to add this effect on all big gun aircraft - a small chance that the fuselage, wings or even the engine may start taking damage with every single shot.
I have not found data on this, but considering the very similar gunpod construction, I believe we can assume that similar issues existed. Mind you, the biggest problem is getting that thing into the air in the first place considering the pure weight issue
@@MilitaryAviationHistoryI read an East German article stating the Soviet Army was fairly impressed by the results the Hs-129 B-3 achieved on the Eastern Front.
I'm still always surprised the German army never put the autoloading 30/37/50/75mm semi-auto cannons for the planes into vehicles. Seems like it would be a decent idea for an infantry suppression system or city fighting vehicle, shooting HE shells. Would also be decent with AP for anti-vehicle situations at closer ranges.
Oh. Well there's my problem. I saw a history channel doc back in the day that brought up the anti shipping B-25. Since then I've randomly tried pursuing more information on the topic. And found information few and far between. Guess it's because the Navy wanted their own name. All the American militaries at the time were just a bit silly.
There were 2 Royal italian AF models equipped to operate in the Mediterrean with a cannon on . Were the long range 4 engines Piaggio P108 A ( A letter identified the artillery) It had and Ansaldo 90 cm cannon . The other model was a Caproni , 2 engines, smaller cannon surfing in my memory but I have to look for the model and the datasheet
Structurally, the Ju-88 was made to carry bombs, not to receive the recoil of the 7.5cm gun. The fuselage was too weak to absorb the forces of the recoil, leading to buckling of the skin and structure. I imagine this was when they were trying to developed their wunder weapons, and the engineers and mechanics were too busy with other things.
Since the Ju-88 was never designed to handle a 75mm anti-tank gun, I'm not surprised that this combination proved to be bad for the Ju-88 itself! But now I'm wondering what would've been necessary to modify/upgrade the Ju-88 to make this feasible...
The concept of the “pylon turn” is not a new technique in aviation. Honestly I’m surprised that none of the powers during the 2nd world war discovered what we recognize today as a gunship. Like the AC specter 130. Why didn’t they try to use side firing cannons and machine guns? Certainly they had big enough cargo aircraft to convert to this task. The first gunships that I’m aware of was spooky in the Vietnam war. Americans took a C47 cargo plane ( ww2 era aircraft) and put 4 rotary cannons on it and used it to great effect, hosing down entire areas of jungle.
Doing a pylon turn around an enemy that can shoot back probably never occurred to them for good reason. The gunships you are thinking about normally operated at night or over areas with no real air defenses. (BTW, the miniguns on the AC-47 were 7.62mm rather than 20mm.)
I assume they fitted some sort of autoloader to the 75mm cannon? Or was there actually a crewman in the gondola handling the loading tasks, as there would be in a tank?
I'm guessing the P.108's ridiculous 102mm was also primarily for shipping, especially as Italy was having to engage the very large US Navy in the Mediterranean by 1942. Although I do wonder if it also shook itself violently when it fired.
The results are very interesting I think. Now I wish they tried out a low pressure cannon with a big caliber and big HE rounds. The lower pressure should not desintegrate the plane and HE rounds are perfect for hitting the top of tanks. The low muzzle velocity might make aiming a pain though.
@@annadalassena5460 Lol thanks I did not know that. Interesting experiment. If they would have fixed the backblast problem it would have made for one of the coolest warplanes ever.
So to “counter” those things, fixing the gun to the engine (obviously having 2 engines 1 gun is a problem lol) and having the gasses of vent up and down may have worked, in theory, I doubt that’s feasible
I know the US Army Air Force experimented with a similar craft, the XA-31 Grizzly, and according to the wiki, knower of all things /s, really liked it, but due to wartime priorities shifting they never ordered any.
"Ve haff reviewed your marketing talking points and found them insufficient to requirement. Zhey shall be substituted with Ersatzargumente that will fit the requirements for the duration."
There were a lot of these kinds of projects during WWII. But in a lot of ways, these were 'a good idea' flying around looking for something to do. People will raise the spectre of the Mosquito with a 6 pounder in it but, in fact, the Mosquito was a better aircraft without it. Carrying bombs, rockets, four 20mm cannon and four .303 machine guns... honestly, I don't know what could have been done better with a big gun. Probably nothing. Even the Beaufighter, carrying a similar armament was a formidable anti-shipping weapon. There was never need to install a big gun on it.
seeing as one JU88 had to return to base because of gun jam, probably some sort of auto feed. IIRC cannons on aircrafts are usually modified to use a magazine
Surely the USAAF was more successful with the B25G,, also bcs the latter had other weapons, contrary to the JU88 that was stripped bare of every other ones, so it was less flexible. Moreover a CAS aircraft need to be not very cumbersome, as the Typhoon or the JU87, and the JU88 was way a bigger target.
At a minimum, none of the experiments with large caliber guns offset from the center of the aircraft generating massive torque upon firing fared very well.
I though the 75mms gun in the B25 was from the pak 75 not a antitank gun. The aircrew said that when the gun fired that the plane would either stop or backup 10 feet.
It was basically the original 75mm gun from the M4 but made with better steel to enable a lighter cannon. ( compare the 3" gun weight to the 76mm gun ).
Having built lots of models of the b-25 strafing planes in the Pacific and also building models of the German tanks one of these strafing aircraft would do them in and let me explain why let's call it a two-second burst of twelve fifty-caliber brownings.. that could be a lot of 50 caliber slugs bouncing into a tiger tank rear engine deck. You only need to hit the coil the carburetor, a radiator, or set external stores alight. The same as a grenade on a tiger engine the shockwave could fracture the distributor cap then your engine won't run. . If you've ever dropped a distributor cap from your granddad's old Opel car that he had or his VW beetle it doesn't take much to take your distributor system out. And your car won't drive
In addition to everything already in the video I would like to point out that using a low volume of firepower while flying at speed and trying to aim at something especially in a world war II context, would make it significantly less accurate since the pilot or Gunner?, would have little in the form of feedback to correct a missed hit... Honestly they should have seen that at the time had to talk to any pilots... Something more rapid fire and therefore with a much higher need for large ammunition stores, therefore smaller, would have made more sense anyway never mind all the structural problems that such a large caliber firing would cause
This does have the feel of "Hey! I wonder if we fitted a 75mm cannon to a Ju-88? Let's give it a try and see what happens. With the war situation this dire, what have we got to lose?"
In late 1942 there is a brief flurry in trying to get planes kitted out for anti-tank duties - this is indeed one of those examples. I don't think anyone was under any illusions, we can see that from the orders that these Ju 88 were only meant to attack tanks that had broken through (generally less AA protection). In that context, the LW was prepared to give it a try.
It bothers me intensely that it wasn't an 88mm in the Ju88
@@NM-wd7kx
The symmetry would have been perfect.
@@NM-wd7kx
My thought too. I don’t know the German experience with recoiless guns, but oh man think of the recoil normally.
@@annadalassena5460
Ohhh, neat!
There was also a Mosquito armed with a 57mm cannon: the Mosquito FB Mk. XVIII (sometimes known as the Tsetse) of which ...17 were purpose-built. The Mk.XVIII was armed with a Molins "6-pounder Class M" cannon....The effect of the new weapon was demonstrated on 10 March 1944 when Mk.XVIIIs ... engaged a German convoy of one U-boat and four destroyers, protected by 10 Ju 88s. Three of the Ju 88s were shot down. Pilot Tony Phillips destroyed one Ju 88 with four shells, one of which tore an engine off the Ju 88. The U-boat was damaged. On 25 March, U-976 was sunk by Molins-equipped Mosquitoes.On 10 June, U-821 was abandoned in the face of intense air attack and was later sunk by a Liberator of No. 206 Squadron. On 5 April 1945 Mosquitoes with Molins attacked five German surface ships in the Kattegat and again demonstrated their value by setting them all on fire and sinking them.
Yep. and then they put 8 rockets on the Mosquito and that became the standard anti ship weapon. The 3 inch rocket was a much easier weapon to employ and had better stand off range than the 57mm gun.
I think I saw this (or some 2 engine bomber) at the RAF Museum, Hendon a few years ago.
@@johnathanh2660 The DeHavilland Museum has the gun
@@richardvernon317 Exactly. A big gun just wasn’t needed. Aside from that, once you got rid of the bombs and rockets, the aircraft had better performance, partly for aerodynamic reasons and partly because it wasn’t lugging around a large amount of installed weight, compared to the standard armament.
@@annadalassena5460 There is no evidence that the 32 pounder was ever fitted to the aircraft. A ground based blast trial on a test stand was done using the intended Muzzle brake design in mid August 1945 but there are no records of the weapon ever being trialled on the aircraft and no photo of it was ever taken. De Havilland would have been involved in the design and development of the weapon installation and they have nothing in their archives as far as I'm aware. The Mosquito Trials files in the UK National Archives have nothing that covers the fit of the 32 pounder on the aircraft either.
8:27 kinda reminds me of the Soviet Mig-27 which also had the tendency to shake itself apart mid air when the gun was fired
The fact that there are images from WWII that are still protected by copyright while most the veterans have long since passed on really shows how messed up the system is.
The problem with the aircraft application of the PaK 40 is the fact its a direct derivative of the land-based gun; the US developed the lightweight 76mm M3 gun specifically for the B-25/PBJ, and its so good, that when Cadillac designed the M24 Chaffee light tank, this gun was selected as its main gun.
The way they talk about the testing: 'Hey, let's just fly it to the front and see how well it shoots tanks!'
That muzzle flash must have been fun to deal with...wait, no the damage report covers it.
I'd hope the test pilots would have mentioned it
@@101jir Among other things like propellers falling off. Generally not good for flying.
@Brian Reddeman Not sure if it was your edit, but at first I read your OP as "no damage report covers it." That confused me at first.
The reason for 75mm caliber gun on the B-25/PBJ was one of the weapons alongside forward facing 8-12 50 caliber machine guns depending on the variant for its the conversion from a medium bomber to a anti ship and ground attack aircraft specifically designed to be used in the pacific theater.
May be the reason - doesn't change the premise of the essay - it didn't work.
My Father was in the Air Corps (he never called it the Air Force) during the war. He said they tried a 105 in a B-24. The recoil folded the plane in half.
wasn't the air corp under army leadership? after the war usa split the air arm into its own seperate air force.
@@michaelotoole1807
From Wikipedia:
*Antecedents*
The predecessor organizations in the Army of today's Air Force are:
Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps (1 August 1907 - 18 July 1914)
Aviation Section, Signal Corps (18 July 1914 - 20 May 1918)
Division of Military Aeronautics (20 May 1918 to 24 May 1918)
U.S. Army Air Service (24 May 1918 to 2 July 1926)
U.S. Army Air Corps (2 July 1926 to 20 June 1941) and
U.S. Army Air Forces (20 June 1941 to 18 September 1947)
And:
In practice, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) was virtually independent of the Army during World War II, and in virtually every way functioned as an independent service branch, but airmen still pressed for formal independence. The National Security Act of 1947 was signed on 26 July 1947, which established the Department of the Air Force, but it was not until 18 September 1947, when the first secretary of the Air Force, W. Stuart Symington, was sworn into office that the Air Force was officially formed as an independent service branch.
I have to admit that I thought that it was *during* WW2 that the separation and renaming (from USAAF to USAF)
occurred.
@@johnathanh2660 thank you
so how do C-130s fire 105mm guns then?
@@Defender78
The AC-130?
i) They start with an upgraded fuselage
ii) It's used for air to ground fire so the loading is very different. The recoil is across the aircraft.
Rate of fire would have been very low, with the chance of counter fire pretty high. Small targets like tanks would have been a bit of a stretch anyway, even if you weren't hammering your aircraft apart yourself.
Even though the Ju-88P was a failure. I still think it is one badass looking plane with the 7.5 cm PAK 40 sticking out! Matter of fact, I LOVE all the German planes that used anti-tank cannons on them. Thanks for the excellent report.
What do you think of the concentration camps?
Great video! I liked the Thrustmaster deal too (those pedals are the best). Hopefully you'll be flying DCS with Bo & friends again soon.
Thanks! Looking forward to flying with him again
@@MilitaryAviationHistory In den Untertiteln heisst dat Ding "Thurstmaster"😂
Awesome video! Given that- as you mentioned- there were other aircraft using similar guns (PBJ/410 etc.) did you ever stumble on damage reports along the same lines?
No, but researching at the archives for this video prompted me to start looking. The 7.5cm Pak 40 is a different beast to the adapted 75mm used on the B-25/PBJ, so while I assume there are some limitations to the latter, it was a better fit all things considered. More once I have some data
@@MilitaryAviationHistory I'd love to hear if you stumble over other reports. The 75 on the PBJ had a different muzzle-device, if memory serves me right. I wonder to what extend this was a problem with all 'big gun' aircraft, even down to something like the J87Gs- and what for example the A10 has (smaller gun, but the recoil of a GAU isn't trivial either) to deal with that.
Come to think of it, wtf does an AC130 have to mitigate the stress of firing a 105mm sideways...
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Those same PBJ/B-25's with the gun noses and the 75 were being shaken up by large amounts of 50's. So I'd like to see the amount of damage that was being done by that as well. I had heard that the cheek guns were the primary suspects because the aluminum just couldn't take the forces of the 50 calibers firing against it.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory From what I have read The B-25G was the plane that had the 75mm. The 75mm was a much lower velocity than the 75 used on the Ju-88.
Overall, it was considered a waste, the rate of fire was way too low as was the accuracy. They later removed the 75mm and put in 4 more .50 cal guns so it now had 14 .50cals 8 in the nose, 4 cheek mounted, and two in the upper turret plus 8 rockets and bombs. The best story I heard was a B-25 crew was flying around shooting the 75mm at Japanese ground targets not expecting to hit anything because they hardly ever did. One shot hit a Japanese ship and blew it up. The loader said to the pilot, "Good grief he hit something!" The pilot's response was, "Don't tell anyone, they might get thinking this was a good idea after all." The 75 was a case of very impressive but not very effective.
@@DavidSiebert Yes the US 75 was a much lower energy weapon than the Pak 40. A quick bit of Wikipedia digging (yes, yes, I know) seems to show that the T13E1 gun on the B-25 fired a 6.76 kg projectile at 619 m/s, giving 1.2 megajoules muzzle energy; while the Pak 40 fired a marginally heavier 6.80 kg projectile nearly 30% faster (790 m/s) giving almost twice the muzzle energy, 2.1 megajoules!
No wonder it was so hard on the aircraft!
I always assumed this size of canon would arrest the flight of the aircraft. I recall the 1970s A-10 has only one 30mm rotary auto-canon because math says firing two simultaneously would remove all its airspeed, not advisable for a CAS aircraft. Its still a surprise (but logical) that a center-mounted 75mm recoil would allow the Ju88 to keep flying, but the recoil would rip the plane off its engines (that is the right way to express it I think). The pilots had the original aircraft engineers to thank for surviving these tests. Excellent research & engineering consultation.
The A10 has one 30mm GAU8/A because there's no room nor need for a second one.
@@thedungeondelver that’s not how they thought planning the A-10. Wing mounting two 30mm was an original option, but the weight of a structurally capable wing for that didn’t fit planned manoeuvrability. Then it was considered designing the plane around two fuselage mounted 30mm. It was the calculations of the combined recoil from two burst firing guns on a sub-sonic aircraft that made that idea go away.
Whose gonna be frighted of a CAS plane with only one gun in the Cold War? MiG-17 had 3 guns! 😹
@@MsZeeZed the A10 has ROF beating multigun planes.
@@MsZeeZed I think you don't realize just how large a gun that is?
I doubt that but I do know the JU87 G 1 and 2 would lose air speed when they fired their twin 37mms
I reckon that the poms worked out the best airborne artillery solutions by mounting a special 57mm gun using AP rounds in a Mosquito, to make holes in ships’ engine blocks; and by attaching 6” HE cruiser shells to unguided rockets for use on Typhoons, Beaufighters, etcetera.
Thank you for good sponsor message placement. I happily watched the full video skipping nothing.
Can we take a moment to admire how adorable that little "tadaa!" in the beginning was?
☺️
One practical question I had with these Anti-tank and anti ship aircraft was - How did they aim them and how easy was that?
The planes with the BK 7.5 or BK5 were fitted with a magnified gun sight for the pilot, specifically the ZFR 3A, 3B or 4A depending on plane, which had a x2 magnification and a reflex sight mounted on top. Smaller guns like the BK 3.7 or the 3cm MK 101 or 103 guns only had the reflex sight AFAIK as their shorter range didnt demand a magnified sight.
@@builder396 thanks for the detail. I did wonder how they allowed for target movement & the recoil must have affected flight characteristics. The stress in the airframe & skin if the aircraft obviously caused serious problems.
Perhaps it would be interesting to review the British anti-submarine guns which were fitted to various aircraft including the Mosquito. I think the Russians also tried anti-tank guns in Aircraft.
The research you do is amazing! Thanks!
You have a dream job, but lots of effort. This sounds like minimal engineering analysis because “we’re going to try it either way”. B-25 book is tempting, though I don’t need more books, and my wife agrees.
From the protocols and sources I have, at the end of 1942 the LW very much went with the 'let's try anything and see what sticks' principle. They do seem to be aware that lower caliber guns (eg 3cm) will be better for the task but as we can see, that didn't stop them trying with a 7.5cm
@@MilitaryAviationHistory probably because they could get funding for the "bigger is better" projects more easily, then funnel part of that funding into things that would actually work.
The German leadership, from Hitler on down, were obsessed with megalomaniacal ideas after all. From the architectural ideas to tanks to ships and aircraft.
The B-25G, B-25H and De Haviland Mk XVIII Mosquito (Tsetse) all worked well with those larger guns.
More popular than the Ju-88 was the Henschel Hs 129 B-3, featuring a 75mm Bordkanone. Where do you think the idea for the A-10 came from? Also the Luftwaffe had quite some success destroying tanks with the Ju-87G.
Saw this aircraft in pictures . But never knew the story behind it’s development or how it turned out in combat operations . Great video . Very informative.
Slightly disappointed you didn't mention the Tsetse version of the Mosquito, which was effective against shipping.
Was it effective against commerce or only uboats and other smaller boats?
I mentioned already a bunch that are outside of the scope of this video, I can’t list every single plane that had a big gun just to tick the magic boxes ;)
The 3 inch rocket was way more effective and that became the standard anti shipping weapon for the Mosquito.
Let's make some calculations. The 75 mm 39/42 had 7.2 kg, 935 m/sec muzzle velocity. The whole was 14.3 kg. The muzzle velocity is reached after 4.5 m.
The entire weight is 14.3 kg. Let's assume 2 kg is the cartridge, 12.3 kg leave the canon with 935 m/sec.
A rocket and a gun barrel are calculated in the same way. Something comes out and accelerates the rocket or the gun barrel in the opposite direction.
That's about 93,500 m/sec² acceleration times 12.3 kg. This gives 1,115,000 Newton thrust for 1/100 sec.
All the damping can do is to distribute the thrust for a longer time. Let's assume the gun barrel is 600 kg, 400 kg for the rest of the canon.
The gun barrel is accelerated by the thrust to 19 m/sec. The gun barrel has only 400 mm to 450 mm way back. In this short distance, the speed of the gun barrel has to be reduced from 19 m/sec to 0. 433 m/sec² deceleration for 0.044 sec can do this. So we have 600 kg * 433 m/sec² gives 260 kN for 0.044 sec force against the structure of the airplane.
Funny thing is that when firing from the air you don't always need the penetration of a Pak40. You can get lots of side, rear and even top hits. BTW cool advertisement. No, I'm serious. I have a 1990's Thrustmaster Joystick. It's still beautiful. Happy to hear that TM is still around and making stuff. Added to my shopping lust. Errr list. (yes that was a real typo)
It's interesting that the Ju 88P-2 was fitted with a pair of 37mm guns.
Italian Piaggio P108A with a 102mm fitted be like: hold my beer.
Check out the muzzle break on that!
It seemed to be a good anti air frame weapon😂
If I remember correctly the luftwaffe had a better record against tanks early in the war when they used bombs, and the efficiency dropped when they started experimenting with a switch to guns.
Interesting. I’m not actually surprised by that.
Chris, have you done a video about the Tetsi Mosquito with the 17 pounder antitank gun? This was a success and was used not against tanks, but shipping and sank a good number of naval vessels. If you've not covered it it would be a great story about a big gun fitted o a wooden aircraft of all things that was a success.
57mm 6 pounder used on the Mosquito. less than 20 aircraft built, 8 left at the end of the war. .
if the Ju88 P1 is available in War Thunder, I want to see him provide AT and CAS for Bo!
That sucker killed me once, because I missed his buddy.
Heck. These things are ridiculously hard to aim in video games. I can only imagine it would be even harder to properly disable AFVs with low-rof guns like these larger caliber guns.
I think these would be more viable to use against lightly armored ships, but the issue with recoil/vibration coming from the gun would still need to be considered for.
Among with other drawbacks from putting a gigantic gun infront of a plane.
The best anti-tank aircraft was probably the Ju 87, Luftwaffe ace Hans Rudel knocked up a tremendous score of enemy tanks in his Stuka. The disadvantage of the Stuka was that it was vulnerable to fighters. Perhaps a much smaller anti-tank gun like the Boyes would have been more successful for the Ju 88, and could have been used against enemy bombers as well. The calibre was about .5 in. You need to remember that tanks have thinner armour on top, and the Boyes muzzle velocity woud have been increased by the velocity of the plane which was carrying it, thus increasing its penetrating power. Lots of Boyes A/Tk rifles were supplied to the Russians.
Please talk about the Düsenkanone Sondergerät 104 (DÜKA 280) supposed to be Installed on a DO 17
Great question, love flying it in WarThunder
It's really hard to aim it in the game, must've been even harder irl
Is this not just the A-10 thunderbolt idea but ~30 years earlier and with a much slower fire rate
I guess the 105mm howitzer in the AC130 Ghost Rider isn't that wild all things considered.
Yeah. This didn't seem like a good idea to me at all. Then I watched the video. Not a good idea at all. If you're going to do this, the aircraft needs to be designed around the gun. I know, it was in the middle of a war and they were just trying things, but that was pretty optimistic to think there wouldn't be serious airframe issues as a result.
I wonder why the 7.5 was a failure while the M4 75mm on the B25 G and H models fared better. Superior engineering?
Different Target. And not sure if it was all that effective?
@@WALTERBROADDUS No it was very effective and kept in production over two variants.
@@thedungeondelver "very effective" seems to be up for debate? I'm not sure if the weight and complexity of the weapon give performance any better than using a bomb or unguided rocket?
The 75 used in the B-25 was a lower velocity, hence lower pressure gun than the Pak 40.
And its so good, they used it on the M24 Chaffee light tank.
Great video and very interesting. Also, I have those thrustmaster pedals and they’re amazing. Well worth the money!
War Thunder needs to add this effect on all big gun aircraft - a small chance that the fuselage, wings or even the engine may start taking damage with every single shot.
you watch too much spookston
Wow, you sound familiar. Like Bismarck from the TBLF videos on UA-cam. Great video by the way.
Great product ad at end, almost as interesting as the post
Did the Hs-129B-3 have similar issues with recoil stress to the 88?
I have not found data on this, but considering the very similar gunpod construction, I believe we can assume that similar issues existed. Mind you, the biggest problem is getting that thing into the air in the first place considering the pure weight issue
@@MilitaryAviationHistoryI read an East German article stating the Soviet Army was fairly impressed by the results the Hs-129 B-3 achieved on the Eastern Front.
I'm still always surprised the German army never put the autoloading 30/37/50/75mm semi-auto cannons for the planes into vehicles.
Seems like it would be a decent idea for an infantry suppression system or city fighting vehicle, shooting HE shells.
Would also be decent with AP for anti-vehicle situations at closer ranges.
They're probably very complex systems with high maintenance requirements. A trained loader for 7.5cm KwK 37 just needs coffee and the occasional beer.
The Germans used many AA Flak in this role. Flak Panzer - Single and quad 20/40 mm also Half-tracks, with and without armour.
Yeah, going that big was probably also unnecessary. Side, Rear and top armor is much thinner. And a Aircraft can attack from those angles much easier.
The Intro was from Warthunder?
(that's also why I watch this video.)
As usual Chris this is an excellent and informative video.
96mm 32 pound shell auto fired Cannon - Mosquito fighter/bomber ..Tested at the end of the war And later scraped
Oh. Well there's my problem. I saw a history channel doc back in the day that brought up the anti shipping B-25. Since then I've randomly tried pursuing more information on the topic. And found information few and far between. Guess it's because the Navy wanted their own name. All the American militaries at the time were just a bit silly.
FARK sent me, great vid.
There were 2 Royal italian AF models equipped to operate in the Mediterrean with a cannon on . Were the long range 4 engines Piaggio P108 A ( A letter identified the artillery) It had and Ansaldo 90 cm cannon . The other model was a Caproni , 2 engines, smaller cannon surfing in my memory but I have to look for the model and the datasheet
Why not shoot the 75mm gun with HE warheads into bomber formations? That would do some damage!
Structurally, the Ju-88 was made to carry bombs, not to receive the recoil of the 7.5cm gun. The fuselage was too weak to absorb the forces of the recoil, leading to buckling of the skin and structure. I imagine this was when they were trying to developed their wunder weapons, and the engineers and mechanics were too busy with other things.
10 points for acting, I'm assuming the box is empty and the pedals are installed. :P
This thing was insane in battlefield V
Thanks for this 👍🇳🇿
what about the tsetse Mosquito - now that was a warplane !!
Great video
Yes it was effective I got footage of it in action,really powerful 👍
I hope it was effective!
Since the Ju-88 was never designed to handle a 75mm anti-tank gun, I'm not surprised that this combination proved to be bad for the Ju-88 itself! But now I'm wondering what would've been necessary to modify/upgrade the Ju-88 to make this feasible...
The concept of the “pylon turn” is not a new technique in aviation. Honestly I’m surprised that none of the powers during the 2nd world war discovered what we recognize today as a gunship. Like the AC specter 130. Why didn’t they try to use side firing cannons and machine guns? Certainly they had big enough cargo aircraft to convert to this task. The first gunships that I’m aware of was spooky in the Vietnam war. Americans took a C47 cargo plane ( ww2 era aircraft) and put 4 rotary cannons on it and used it to great effect, hosing down entire areas of jungle.
Doing a pylon turn around an enemy that can shoot back probably never occurred to them for good reason. The gunships you are thinking about normally operated at night or over areas with no real air defenses. (BTW, the miniguns on the AC-47 were 7.62mm rather than 20mm.)
I understand Britain used a 6poundet hun on hurricanes and mosquitos before deciding anti tank rockets were a better option
I assume they fitted some sort of autoloader to the 75mm cannon? Or was there actually a crewman in the gondola handling the loading tasks, as there would be in a tank?
I'm guessing the P.108's ridiculous 102mm was also primarily for shipping, especially as Italy was having to engage the very large US Navy in the Mediterranean by 1942. Although I do wonder if it also shook itself violently when it fired.
How about the HS 129 ? Did also disintegrate ? Did they go back to the 30mm guns ?
The results are very interesting I think. Now I wish they tried out a low pressure cannon with a big caliber and big HE rounds. The lower pressure should not desintegrate the plane and HE rounds are perfect for hitting the top of tanks. The low muzzle velocity might make aiming a pain though.
@@annadalassena5460 Lol thanks I did not know that. Interesting experiment. If they would have fixed the backblast problem it would have made for one of the coolest warplanes ever.
They should put 120mm smoothbore cannons on the F35.
They should bave usred that platform with fused HE rounds against B-17s
It’s unlikely a PaK 40 armed Ju-88 could have intercepted them.
You don't know that in the German language, when leading with the letter 'J', it is 'YOONK ers', not 'JUNK ers'.
There are very people on YT doing the sort of phenomenal research you do, Chris. Never forget that.
Thank you :)
0:20 Ju 88 it's not called tzankers. It's yunkas.
That's crazy that gun was great in a 27 ton tank, not a 9 ton aircraft, the recoil must have shocked the pilot
So to “counter” those things, fixing the gun to the engine (obviously having 2 engines 1 gun is a problem lol)
and having the gasses of vent up and down may have worked, in theory,
I doubt that’s feasible
I know the US Army Air Force experimented with a similar craft, the XA-31 Grizzly, and according to the wiki, knower of all things /s, really liked it, but due to wartime priorities shifting they never ordered any.
Fantastic explained as always
Their is a B25 not a PBJ in the Hill air and space museum in Roy UTAH that has a 75mm mounted in it.
I bet rockets worked a lot better. Maybe put some Nebelwerfer's on it?
"Ve haff reviewed your marketing talking points and found them insufficient to requirement. Zhey shall be substituted with Ersatzargumente that will fit the requirements for the duration."
England mounts a 75 mm on the mosquito and America did it with the J model B-25 Mitchell
Insanity with wings
So how did the Tsetse overcome this problem?
There were a lot of these kinds of projects during WWII. But in a lot of ways, these were 'a good idea' flying around looking for something to do. People will raise the spectre of the Mosquito with a 6 pounder in it but, in fact, the Mosquito was a better aircraft without it. Carrying bombs, rockets, four 20mm cannon and four .303 machine guns... honestly, I don't know what could have been done better with a big gun. Probably nothing. Even the Beaufighter, carrying a similar armament was a formidable anti-shipping weapon. There was never need to install a big gun on it.
Big deal. They put the very same gun on the Hs 129, which is almost half the size of a Ju 88.
So did these have a gun crew inside loading shells or did they fit some kind of auto feed?
seeing as one JU88 had to return to base because of gun jam, probably some sort of auto feed. IIRC cannons on aircrafts are usually modified to use a magazine
The Mitchell/PBJ 75mm gun is manually loaded, by the plane's navigator.
Surely the USAAF was more successful with the B25G,, also bcs the latter had other weapons, contrary to the JU88 that was stripped bare of every other ones, so it was less flexible. Moreover a CAS aircraft need to be not very cumbersome, as the Typhoon or the JU87, and the JU88 was way a bigger target.
At a minimum, none of the experiments with large caliber guns offset from the center of the aircraft generating massive torque upon firing fared very well.
I have a feeling the damage isn't going to be to the tanks.
Very interesting stuff.
I though the 75mms gun in the B25 was from the pak 75 not a antitank gun. The aircrew said that when the gun fired that the plane would either stop or backup 10 feet.
It was basically the original 75mm gun from the M4 but made with better steel to enable a lighter cannon. ( compare the 3" gun weight to the 76mm gun ).
What about the BK 5cm gun? How did that fare?
had to stop it for a moment to watch the forgotton weapons video of the pak40. has a bit more oompf than 75mm field cannons.
Is the copyright from the book or the manufacturer?
Having built lots of models of the b-25 strafing planes in the Pacific and also building models of the German tanks one of these strafing aircraft would do them in and let me explain why let's call it a two-second burst of twelve fifty-caliber brownings.. that could be a lot of 50 caliber slugs bouncing into a tiger tank rear engine deck. You only need to hit the coil the carburetor, a radiator, or set external stores alight. The same as a grenade on a tiger engine the shockwave could fracture the distributor cap then your engine won't run. . If you've ever dropped a distributor cap from your granddad's old Opel car that he had or his VW beetle it doesn't take much to take your distributor system out. And your car won't drive
audio in this episode was kinda scuffed. Microphone was not happy!
Your videos are very German which is why I love them. JU88 is a huge target for large AA as well..
Would’ve been a bad little aircraft if it had worked. Just think of it being used against bombers 🙈
In addition to everything already in the video I would like to point out that using a low volume of firepower while flying at speed and trying to aim at something especially in a world war II context, would make it significantly less accurate since the pilot or Gunner?, would have little in the form of feedback to correct a missed hit... Honestly they should have seen that at the time had to talk to any pilots... Something more rapid fire and therefore with a much higher need for large ammunition stores, therefore smaller, would have made more sense anyway never mind all the structural problems that such a large caliber firing would cause