dand%tekgvs.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Dan C Duval) (06/06/90)
From: Dan C Duval <dand%tekgvs.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET> Paul Byers asked about a 28cm gun mounted in a Ju88 or Me110, meant for anti-shipping. Naturally, I misplaced his email address but remembered what it was all about. Here's what I was able to dig up. I looked through a number of books and found snippets and bits here and there, but then I found everything else I'd found before all in one book (which I think is worth snagging if you _really_ want to know everything you can about German aircraft in WW2.) The reference is: "German Aircraft of the Second World War" by JR Smith and Antony L Kay, Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, Baltimore, Maryland: 1972. Generally, this book covers each German production type, all of their variants (including singles built or modified to research a single idea), plus a survey of all the other aircraft projects that never even made it to completed prototype. 750 pages and many black and white photos, but almost all of the planes are seen on the ground (there are some notable exceptions.) This book contains even such obscure things as the Ju 322 "Mammoth" glider, of which exactly two were built and only one was ever towed aloft (the thing looks more like a flying wing than a standard glider.) Anyway, it appears to be a very good reference for someone wanting to research this stuff (so I bought it.) Bad news is that there are no tables of production numbers and it is impossible to find much about numbers in the text, either. Anyway, back to the question. The largest gun mounted for anti-shipping on the Ju88 was a 20mm cannon for the Ju88A-14. A 75mm cannon was mounted in a Ju88A-4 (the KwK 39 cannon used in armored cars) during the summer of 1942, becoming designated as the Ju88P V1 and a few Ju88P-1 s were built as tank destroyers (using the 75mm PaK 40L anti-tank gun) and tried in the USSR in '43. There were no anti-shipping versions of the Me110. However, the Ju288 did have anti-shipping versions. Planned as a replacement of the Ju88, the 288 was never as successful. Though two of the prototypes flew with 50mm BK5 cannon in '44, they never saw combat. In 1940-41, though, there was a _proposal_ to fit the Duesenkanone 280 (a 28cm gun) in a Ju288, but it was never attempted. This weapon would have had a single round, but was believed to be able to penetrate 200mm of armor. The gun was supposed to recoil back into the fusilage and the barrel to retract to 1/3 its normal length, but there was no provision to return it to position, since it could not be reloaded in flight. This scheme was abandoned in favor of the Geraet 104 Muenchhausen (I'm 100% serious here, folks.) which was supposed to have a hydraulic system to extend the gun and return it to position after firing. This weapon also had a single shell and was expected to be able to penetrate 400mm of armor, mostly because it was a 355.6mm round with a combined muzzle and aircraft velocity of 405 m/sec. It was never attempted, either. It was noted in _Smith_ that the purpose of this study was to develop a plane which could attack warships. Myself, I wonder how far backwards the plane would have been pushed by the recoil. For those of you that would like to calculate the probable result, the Ju288 weighs 21,400 kg (fully loaded) and cruises at 518 km/hr. I figure you can assume the length of the shell is about twice its diameter and about 80% steel. (Seriously, the plane wouldn't have gone backwards, but I bet it would have felt like it had just stopped abruptly in midair.) ------- Dan C Duval dand@tekgvs.labs.tek.com