Cruisers had two to four and destroyers had two. ^Large ships usually had four quad mountings, but HMS Ark Royal had eight. The hydraulic pump was located off the mounting and this was powered from the engine of the MTB. It was hydraulically powered and the belt feed ran through hollow inner trunnions. ^The Mark V twin turret was a light weight unit intended for MTBs but was also used on a few LCS(M), destroyers and corvettes. ^The twin Mark IV mounting was used mainly on MLs, MMS, some Bangor class minesweepers, and trawlers. It was mounted in quad mounts as the light AA armament of Britsh destroyers, cruisers and capital units (replaced by the 20mm Oerlikon) and in dual mounts aboard Mtotor Torpedo Boats and Motor Gunboats and other small units. No one seems to have mentioned the naval use of the gun. ![]() The Infantry Tank Mk I (Matilda I) was an aberation as Vicker’s Sir John Carden had to design it to a very low price in the depths of the depression. 5 inch machine gun and a coax 303 on their light tanks, let me point out that the contemporarry US M1 and M2 series light tanks (with the exception of the M2A4) mounted 50 and 30 caliber Brownings, the German Panzer I had two 7.92mm MG’s, the Russian T37 and T38 had one 7.62mm gun and the T40 had a 12.7mm and coax 7.62mm. Air-cooled guns would not have been inconvenient, but simply unable to perform in that role.īefore anyone gets on the British for using a. I have read the same things you have posted about unsatisfactory condenser arrangements, and can only surmise that it was due to using MGs in the WWI sense, with the tanks acting as rolling bunkers. Also, with ~7.5 gallons per cubic foot, simply carrying that much spare water would have allowed many times more firing than any air cooled MG. Thus, by the time a condenser would become absolutely necessary, an air cooled MG would have needed what, 5-10 barrel changes? Except, of course, that fixed (coax or bow) mountings wouldn’t allow barrel changes for most MG designs. Thermal-expansion-induced stoppages or ruining the temper of a barrel require far less heat than melting it. Maxim developed the water-cooled MG due to water’s superior specific heat capacity, noting that it takes as much energy to boil a gallon of water (the capacity of a Maxim jacket) as it does to melt five pounds of iron – the approximate weight of two Maxim or Vickers barrels, which didn’t need to be thick or heavy. Tanks not only offer nothing of the sort, but also generally isolate the most heat-vulnerable section of the barrel from any air circulation at all. It’s quite possible though that with the 15mm Besa in the works there was no reason from the user perspective to develop an air cooled version when the Besa was going to be the future anyway.Īircraft Vickers could be air cooled because aircraft provided a continuous volume of high-velocity cooling air. The aircraft version was air cooled so there probably weren’t any technical reasons why this wouldn’t have been possible. 50 would have made more sense for vehicle use. ![]() In terms of performance it was very close to the later Soviet 14.5mm machine guns.Īn air cooled version of the Vickers. ![]() The 15mm Besa was air cooled and a much more modern gun overall. ![]() That was an unsatisfactory solution though, as you had hot water hoses in the tight confines of the interior of the vehicle and you had the problem that the turret had to be able to rotate while somehow connecting these hoses back to the engine compartment.įairly early in the war these guns were replaced by the 15mm Besa in both light tanks and in armoured cars, the latter of which stayed in front line service through the war. The solution adopted was to hook the water jacket into the vehicle radiator system and cool it that way. You can’t do that in a light tank, there simply isn’t the room and you don’t want steam filling the turret anyway. In an infantry application you simply put the condenser can wherever is convenient. Water cooling turned out to be a major headache in the light tanks which were the major users of these.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |