Has there ever been an off-center gun?

In article ,
Hobo writes:

Has there ever been an aircraft with a gun permanently aligned
off-center? I don't mean swivel mounted, but permanently fixed at a
point other than straight ahead.

Quite a few, actually. Assuming that you're willing to stipulate teh
defensive guns on bombers ranging from the Be.2C in WW I (ANd yes,
they did drop a few bombs) to the Tu-22M Backfire.

In terms of fighters, It's been done a number of times. The most
mentioned would be the upward-pointing "Shrage Muzik" guns on German
Night Fighters. This allowed them to formate on RAF night bombers in
the one quadrant with no lookouts or guns, and shoot into the largest
possible area - teh entire planform of the aircraft. The Japanese
tried something similar.

Wouldn't a gun pointed at a downward angle make ground attack easier?

Check out the Junkers-Larson ground attack prototype made for the
U.S. Army in the 1920s. It was basically an all-metal Junkers
monoplane transport with something like 30 .45 Calibre Thomson
Submachineguns firing at vatious angle through the bottom fuselage.
The idea was that it would fly along trench lines at low altitude,
saturating the trenches with bullets. (The opinions of the Gun
Plumber on board who'd have to change 30 75 round drum magazines after
each pass has not been recorded. Rest assured that it would have been
short, to teh point, disapproving, and contained a lock of words that
rhymed with "Duck".)

In the 1930s, the French built a large gunship with a downward firing
105mm Howitzer. From the 1960s on, the USAF, and several allied
nations, have flown various transports (C-47, C-119, C-130) with
arrays of guns pointing out of the side, aimed by maintaining a pylon
turn around the target. (Well, at first, at least) These guns have
range from 7.62mm machine guns to 105mm Howitzers, backed up by an
extensive sensor suite and ballistic computers. The side-firing bit
allows you to engange targets without flying over them, which is
generally considered a good thing.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Check out the Junkers-Larson ground attack prototype made for the
U.S. Army in the 1920s. It was basically an all-metal Junkers
monoplane transport with something like 30 .45 Calibre Thomson
Submachineguns firing at vatious angle through the bottom fuselage.
The idea was that it would fly along trench lines at low altitude,
saturating the trenches with bullets. (The opinions of the Gun
Plumber on board who'd have to change 30 75 round drum magazines after
each pass has not been recorded. Rest assured that it would have been
short, to teh point, disapproving, and contained a lock of words that
rhymed with "Duck".)

I could have sworn I saw something on the history channel once about a
modification someone tried on a Canberra... they made a pallet for the bomb
bay and fitted a dozen or so guns pointing straight out the bottom of it...
I think they showed it firing in ground tests, but that's all I've ever
heard about it...

Check out the Junkers-Larson ground attack prototype made for the
U.S. Army in the 1920s. It was basically an all-metal Junkers
monoplane transport with something like 30 .45 Calibre Thomson
Submachineguns firing at vatious angle through the bottom fuselage.
The idea was that it would fly along trench lines at low altitude,
saturating the trenches with bullets. (The opinions of the Gun
Plumber on board who'd have to change 30 75 round drum magazines after
each pass has not been recorded. Rest assured that it would have been
short, to teh point, disapproving, and contained a lock of words that
rhymed with "Duck".)

In the 1930s, the French built a large gunship with a downward firing
105mm Howitzer. From the 1960s on, the USAF, and several allied
nations, have flown various transports (C-47, C-119, C-130) with
arrays of guns pointing out of the side, aimed by maintaining a pylon
turn around the target. (Well, at first, at least) These guns have
range from 7.62mm machine guns to 105mm Howitzers, backed up by an
extensive sensor suite and ballistic computers. The side-firing bit
allows you to engange targets without flying over them, which is
generally considered a good thing.

--

Acutally, I believe the Germans were first. They developed a class of
Riesenflugzeug (Giant Aircraft) which began appearing in 1915. By 1916, LT
Ernst Neuber began working on his idea of mounting a 130mm cannon vertically in
the belly of an R-plane. Static tests began 25 May 1916 using a Gotha East
Experimental. On 6 October 1916 the gun was installed on the R-plane and the
gun was test fired several time in flight on 19 October. The Germans continued
testing and were working on a 105mm automatic cannon firing 20 rounds/minute
when the war ended. Neuber even patented his invention (#305,039).

There are reports of a side-firing .30 calibre machine gun being used on a DH-4
in 1927.

The French system of 1932 used the fameous French 75 mounted side-ways in the
Bordelaise A.B. 22 aircraft.

The USA tested the side-firing gunship concept duirng the summer of 1964 at
Eglin AFB using a C-131 transport and, IIRC, a single .7.62 mini-gun. The first
American gunship was the "FC-47" which carried 10 .30 cal side-firing machine
guns developed by Major Ronald W. Terry at Eglin AFB.


Ed
"The French couldn't hate us any
more unless we helped 'em out in another war."
--Will Rogers



(Delete text after dot com for e-mail reply.)

RobbelothE wrote:

Check out the Junkers-Larson ground attack prototype made for the
U.S. Army in the 1920s. It was basically an all-metal Junkers
monoplane transport with something like 30 .45 Calibre Thomson
Submachineguns firing at vatious angle through the bottom fuselage.
The idea was that it would fly along trench lines at low altitude,
saturating the trenches with bullets. (The opinions of the Gun
Plumber on board who'd have to change 30 75 round drum magazines after
each pass has not been recorded. Rest assured that it would have been
short, to teh point, disapproving, and contained a lock of words that
rhymed with "Duck".)

In the 1930s, the French built a large gunship with a downward firing
105mm Howitzer. From the 1960s on, the USAF, and several allied
nations, have flown various transports (C-47, C-119, C-130) with
arrays of guns pointing out of the side, aimed by maintaining a pylon
turn around the target. (Well, at first, at least) These guns have
range from 7.62mm machine guns to 105mm Howitzers, backed up by an
extensive sensor suite and ballistic computers. The side-firing bit
allows you to engange targets without flying over them, which is
generally considered a good thing.

--


Acutally, I believe the Germans were first. They developed a class of
Riesenflugzeug (Giant Aircraft) which began appearing in 1915. By 1916, LT
Ernst Neuber began working on his idea of mounting a 130mm cannon vertically in
the belly of an R-plane. Static tests began 25 May 1916 using a Gotha East
Experimental. On 6 October 1916 the gun was installed on the R-plane and the
gun was test fired several time in flight on 19 October. The Germans continued
testing and were working on a 105mm automatic cannon firing 20 rounds/minute
when the war ended. Neuber even patented his invention (#305,039).

There are reports of a side-firing .30 calibre machine gun being used on a DH-4
in 1927.

The French system of 1932 used the fameous French 75 mounted side-ways in the
Bordelaise A.B. 22 aircraft.

The USA tested the side-firing gunship concept duirng the summer of 1964 at
Eglin AFB using a C-131 transport and, IIRC, a single .7.62 mini-gun. The first
American gunship was the "FC-47" which carried 10 .30 cal side-firing machine
guns developed by Major Ronald W. Terry at Eglin AFB.

There was an installation in (I think) the Me-163 Komet which would
trigger an upward-firing weapon when the shadow of an Allied bomber
passed over it. AFAIK was used as well.

John

Hobo wrote:


Wouldn't a gun pointed at a downward angle make ground attack easier?

Most likely not, as you wouldn't be able to see what you were
shooting at.

Mike

Has there ever been an aircraft with a gun permanently aligned
off-center? I don't mean swivel mounted, but permanently fixed at a
point other than straight ahead.

Yes. The Japanese Army Air Force regularly mounted oblique cannon
(aimed upward and forward at perhaps a 30-degree angle) in their
interceptors in an attempt (not terribly successful) to shoot down the
B-29s which they couldn't otherwise reach.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Curtiss F-type flying boats in WW1 had a Davis recoiless gun mounted
in the nose cockpit. It had to be fired downward because its recoil
counterweight was a charge of shot in a grease matrix fired out the
back end of the tube.
FWIW I understand the initial idea for the 'Puff' series gunships was
the technique of servicing missionary stations in the Amazon with
Piper Super Cubs by flying in a tight circle while lowering a bucket
on a rope. Due to aero drag on the rope the bucket lagged behind and
pivoted on the polar axis of the circle and the ground people could
remove their mail, etc, and place their outgoing mail and requests in
the bucket which was then hauled back up. The rotation was slow enough
to be no problem, and then the curvature of the rope reminded someone
of the trajectory of a gun so - voila!
As for strafing in the F15 with its upward gun - check the -34 for the
sight mil settings and fire further out so the bullets will drop down
below the extended water line. Time of flight will indicate how far
the bullets will drop - it is all solvable with simple trig.
Walt BJ

From: (WaltBJ)

FWIW I understand the initial idea for the 'Puff' series gunships was
the technique of servicing missionary stations in the Amazon with
Piper Super Cubs by flying in a tight circle while lowering a bucket
on a rope. Due to aero drag on the rope the bucket lagged behind and
pivoted on the polar axis of the circle and the ground people could
remove their mail, etc, and place their outgoing mail and requests in
the bucket which was then hauled back up. The rotation was slow enough
to be no problem, and then the curvature of the rope reminded someone
of the trajectory of a gun so - voila!

There was a photograph in National Geographic where a man in the Amazon is
reaching up towards a can. He had either just released it or was reaching for
it. The aircraft that had lowered it was off in the distance in the same
photograph.

The particular article was printed in the mid 1960s. 1967 or so if memory
serves.

It amazes me I can't remember 24 hours ago yet I can remember 35 years ago.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

This is wonderful. Can either of you or anybody point me to more
information about this service?

I realize there are only 12 issues of Geographic a year, but it would
help if I could narrow it down.

On 08 Dec 2003 06:06:09 GMT, (B2431) wrote:

FWIW I understand the initial idea for the 'Puff' series gunships was
the technique of servicing missionary stations in the Amazon with
Piper Super Cubs by flying in a tight circle while lowering a bucket
on a rope. Due to aero drag on the rope the bucket lagged behind and
pivoted on the polar axis of the circle and the ground people could
remove their mail, etc, and place their outgoing mail and requests in
the bucket which was then hauled back up. The rotation was slow enough
to be no problem, and then the curvature of the rope reminded someone
of the trajectory of a gun so - voila!

There was a photograph in National Geographic where a man in the Amazon is
reaching up towards a can. He had either just released it or was reaching for
it. The aircraft that had lowered it was off in the distance in the same
photograph.

The particular article was printed in the mid 1960s. 1967 or so if memory
serves.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 05:07:41 -0500, Cub Driver
wrote:


This is wonderful. Can either of you or anybody point me to more
information about this service?

I realize there are only 12 issues of Geographic a year, but it would
help if I could narrow it down.


I remember the same photo and I'm pretty sure it's a mid-'60s issue,
probably from 1965-1967.

The photo shows somebody either putting mail in or pulling mail out of
a bucket hanging on a rope, and you can see the aircraft that's
dropping the bucket flying at altitude in the background.

I did a lookup on NGS' pubs website at
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pu...s/explore.html
and got some possibilities:

keyword "Amazon" - Oct 1972 "Amazon--The River Sea"
Aug 1970 - "Colombia, from Amazon to Spanish
Main"
May 1964 - "Indians of the Amazon Darkness"
March 1959 - "Children of the Sun and Moon"
keyword "Colombia" May 1966 "Capturing Strange Creatures in Colombia"
Aug 1970 "Colombia, from Amazon to Spanish Main"
Feb 1966 "Flamboyant Is the Word for Bolivia"

There are many possibilities - try different keywords for various SA
countries and narrow down the results by date.

John Hairell )