Hispano-Suiza HS.404

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Hispano Mk.II of a Supermarine Spitfire recovered from the Mediterranean and restored
(Malta Aviation Museum)
An HS.404 cannon with a drum magazine (top right) on an HS 12Ydrs aircraft engine (“Moteur Canon” - motor cannon), the two cylinder banks have been removed for a better view

The Hispano-Suiza Hs.404 was a machine gun in caliber mm 20 and one of the most widely used aircraft on-board weapons of the 20th century. It was manufactured in Bois-Colombes (France) by Société Française Hispano-Suiza , a subsidiary of the Barcelona- based automobile company Hispano-Suiza , and was used by British , American and French armed forces, among others . The movable version was named HS.405.

The relatively light with 45 kg of 50 weapon missed 20-mm explosive rounds , more effective than the machine gun - ammunition were what made the HS.404 the ideal board armament for aircraft. In the 1930s it replaced the Browning MGs , which were widely installed in fighter planes and only fired .303 British (7.7 mm) caliber projectiles .

The Israeli army used the HS.404 in their TCM-20 - anti-aircraft guns .

development

After the First World War, Hispano-Suiza manufactured Oerlikon FF machine cannons under license under the designation HS.7 and HS.9 for the French Armée de l'air at the Bois-Colombes plant . These differed only in the suspension from the 20 mm Oerlikon recoil loaders with an unlocked ground lock .

From 1933 Marc Birkigt started his own development, which was designed as a gas pressure loader with a support flap lock and additionally accelerated the lock after unlocking with the residual pressure in the barrel. The inventor Marc Birkigt called this system a combination between a locked gas pressure charger and an unlocked mass lock in the second phase (English: gas and blow-back) and thus achieved a rate of fire ( cadence ) that was 200 rounds per minute higher than the Oerlikon FF. He had his system patented in the late 1930s.

Two years after the start of the Spanish Civil War left Marc Birkigt his company and founded in 1938 in Geneva , the Hispano-Suiza (Suisse) SA Its subsidiary British Manufacture and Research Company (BMARC) based Grantham (Lincolnshire) also presented the HS.404 for Allies here.

Compared to the Oerlikon, this weapon, now called Hispano-Suiza 404 , had a slightly increased muzzle velocity in addition to the higher rate of fire . The Type 404 or HS.404 has long been considered the best on-board weapon of its kind. It was often installed in French and Swiss fighters, where it was mounted between the rows of cylinders of the Hispano-Suiza-12Y aircraft engines and shot through the hollow propeller shaft - an arrangement known as the "Moteur-Canon" (motor cannon). The ammunition was fed through a drum magazine with a capacity of 60 rounds . This supply turned out to be too small. In 1940 Hispano-Suiza therefore developed a belt ammunition feed similar to that for the heavier derivatives of the HS.404 in 23 mm caliber. With the occupation by the German Wehrmacht in June 1940, the development in France was stopped, but continued in Switzerland. The HS 404 served not only as an on-board cannon, but was also used as a light anti-aircraft cannon on suitable mounts.

Meanwhile, Great Britain secured the license to build the HS.404, which was first used as Hispano Mk.I in the Westland Whirlwind . British engineers developed a belt-guided ammunition feed. The so-slightly modified gun was in both the RAF and the FAA as Hispano Mk.II used. Four of these guns each replaced the eight 7.7 mm Browning M1919 machine guns of .303 British caliber in the Hawker Hurricane and in the tropical version of the Supermarine Spitfire ; the weapon became the standard armament of all later models. Most of the other Spitfires had technical difficulties - the cannons were unheated because of the room; This led to icing up at great heights and thus to failure - only two cannons on the inside in combination with four 7.7 mm MGs or two 12.7 mm Browning M2 ( .50 BMG ) in the wings.

1939 U.S. patent drawing of the Birkigt cannon
Ammunition of the M2 Hispano cannon in the nose of a P-38

In the USA, the weapon was manufactured under license as the M1 , with both the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) and the US Navy planning to switch to the 20 mm caliber as soon as production capacities allowed it. Large-scale production of the weapon and its ammunition was planned for 1941. During the tests, the weapons were found to be extremely unreliable; a significant number of misfires occurred because the cartridge ignited with a light blow from the firing pin. The British were interested in the weapon in order to relieve domestic production, but they were disappointed with the test results. In April 1942 a copy of the British Mk.II was sent to the USA for comparison. The main difference between the two was that the British version had a slightly shorter chamber .

The Americans refused to modify the chamber, but made some changes to the design to make it a more reliable M2 . By the end of 1942 the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) had stored 40 million rounds of 20 mm ammunition, but the weapon remained unacceptable. It was not until December 1945 that the American Chief of Ordnance suggested that additional changes be made to the design in order to make the weapon ready for use.

In the meantime, the British had written off the US version and increased their own production capacities to such an extent that this matter was no longer an issue. The weapon was further redesigned to become the Hispano Mk. V , which featured a shorter barrel, lighter weight, and higher cadence at the expense of a lower muzzle velocity . One of the main British fighter jets that the Hispano Mk.V used was the Hawker Tempest Mk.V Series II , which used four Hispano cannons. The Americans followed this development with the M3 , but the reliability problems persisted. After World War II, the USAF adopted the M3 as the M24 , which was identical to the M3 except for the electrical ignition . The British Mk V and American M3 / M24 guns were lighter and had a higher rate of fire than the previously manufactured HS.404. The same applies to the HS.404 cannons, which were further developed after the Second World War, which were manufactured under license under the designation HS.820 in Geneva, but also at Rheinmetall in Germany.

Hispano-Suiza 820 L / 85, manufactured by Rheinmetall under license, Bundeswehr designation MK 20-1

These weapons were quickly replaced by the newly introduced revolver cannons, which were based on the German MG 213 ( Note : "Revolver cannon" does not mean the Gatling cannon , but the principle analogous to the Mauser BK-27 ). The British introduced the high- penetration ADEN cannon in most post-war aircraft , the French introduced the fairly similar DEFA cannon , both with the same ammunition, and Sweden used 30mm KCA manufactured at Hispano-Oerlikon (Genève) SA for the Saab Viggen . Revolver cannons with a rate of 1400 rounds / min. ( Note : The weapons division of Hispano-Suiza (Suisse) was taken over by Oerlikon-Bührle in 1970 ). The USAF replaced the M24 with the M 39 revolver cannon in 20 mm caliber, while the US Navy combined the original Hispano design with a new, lighter cartridge to form the Colt Mk-12 cannon in order to achieve a higher muzzle velocity.

application

Argentina

HS.804

France

HS.404

Great Britain

Hispano Mk. I
Hispano Mk. II
Hispano Mk. V

Yugoslavia

HS.404

Sweden

HS.804

United States

M1
M2
M3
M24

Technical specifications

  • Type : single barrel machine gun
  • Caliber bullet : 20 mm × 110 mm
  • Type : gas pressure charger
  • Length : 2.36 m
  • Weight (complete) : 42–50 kg
  • Cadence : 600-850 rounds per minute (rpm)
  • Muzzle velocity : 840–880 m / s (depending on the pipe length)
  • Bullet weight : 130 g
  • Explosives content : ~ 6 g

Similar weapons

Surname cartridge Bullet
weight 		cadence Muzzle
velocity 		Gun
weight
(Grams) (rpm) (m / s) (kg)
France
HS.9 20 × 110RB 122 360-420 830 48
Hispano-Suiza HS.404 20 × 110 130 700 880 60
Germany
MG FF 20 × 80RB 134 520 600 28
MG FF / M 20 × 80RB 92/115 540/520 700/585 28
MG 151/20 20 × 82 92/115 750-800 800/720 42
Japanese army
Type 94 flexible 20 × 99RB 127 380 675 43
Ho-1 20 × 125 144 400 805 45
Ho-3 20 × 125 144 400 805 45
Ho-5 20 × 94 96 750-850 715 37
Japanese Navy
Type 99-1 20 × 72RB 129 520 525 26th
Type 99-2 20 × 101RB 128 490 750 34
Great Britain
Hispano Mk.II 20 × 110 130 600 880 50
Hispano Mk.V 20 × 110 130 750 840 42
Soviet Union
SchWAK 20 × 99R 95 800 750-770 42
Beresin B-20 20 × 99R 95 800 750-770 25th

Web links

Commons : Hispano-Suiza HS.404  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz J. Nowarra: The German Air Armament 1933-1945. Vol. 4, p. 129.
  2. ↑ Powder shot . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1970 ( online ).