On 11/07/2020 10:08, alan_m wrote:
On 11/07/2020 08:02, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
BBC News article claiming a 13 year olds intricate calculations
persuaded them to fit 8 browning guns rather than the four planned.
Obviously chances are improved of bringing down an enemy aircraft, the
more guns are being fired, but what is the intricate calculation
needed to prove that?

It seems the guns were aimed to coincide at a range of 250 yards. 250
yards seems awfully distant to me, what they show of the films of the
time, it seems much less than 250 yards, maybe as little as 50 yards,
unless the used telephoto lens?


I remember reading something once where it was said that squadrons with
better kill rates adjusted their guns closer. As it wasn't official
policy the recommendations to do so were not "officially" passed on.

From post war accounts I've seen the Germans had much better armament
and could do a lot more damage to an aircraft but were hampered during
the Battle of Britain from doing so by the amount of fuel they had to
stay in the combat zone.

The Merc engined Messerschmidts also had fuel injection which made them
orientation-independent. Merlin engines could stall in certain movements
until an ingenious scientist added, basically, a washer to the fuel
supply: Tilly Shilling's orifice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice