Armaments of aircraft (ww2)

• Cannons shot large, usually explosive rounds. though powerful, cannons were slower firing and took more space than machine guns.
• Machine guns fired small, weaker rounds. However it made up for quality with quantity, able to fire about 12,000 rounds/minute.
• Atg rockets were bigger than other rockets and less accurate than air to air rockets but could pack a larger punch. To make up for loss of accuracy, you were told to fire 4 or 5 rockets in short succession in hopes that they would hit something.
• Air to ground rockets were smaller, but more accurate. Ones later in the war sent radio waves, making them proximity activated.
• Bombing was the way to destroy a factory, bridge, or dam, all of which are needed for power, communications, and the general war effort. There are two main types of bombing. carpetbombing and dive bombing. The latter was where the aircraft went into an extremely steep dive, releasing the payload with deadly accuracy. carpetbombing was used when you had a lot of bombs and you didnt care about accuracy.

Another one of may favorite aircraft currently is the Grumman F7F Tigercat, an aircraft made by Grumman in late WW2, and served in the korean theater. heavily armed (and armored) with four machine guns and four cannons, this was meant as a fighter/ground attackaircraft. It was also meant as a convoy protector.

Among other interesting facts, the F7F was the only two engine aircraft that went into full naval service for a long time.

                 The fairey swordfish was an aircraft by fairey aircraft co. in 1934. Almost obsolete by the time it was serviced, it exceeded expectations, being extremely tough, able to take off quickly, and able to hold a large amount of ordinance.  Its wings could fold backwards to store in the confinements of a carrier deck, and be folded back out quickly in emergencies. Able to hold 2 people on standard swordfishes and a torpedo, the swordfish wasn't the largest of planes, but the second person operated a turret, so it wasn't completely defenseless.


                  This wasn't the most technologically advanced, but this was the plane that crippled the most advanced dreadnought of its time and the entire Italian fleet. Soon to be called "stringbag" the swordfish could operate in atrocious weather conditions, had a range of over a thousand miles, and could land at about 30 miles an hour.