SG 116

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The special device 116 or SG 116 was a German special weapon developed during the Second World War from mid-1944 for installation in light, single-seat fighter aircraft .

It was developed from the SG 113 special device , a downward-firing anti-tank weapon that fires itself via an electrostatic or electromagnetic sensor ( forester's probe ) . The caliber was reduced to 3 cm so that the barrel of the MK 103 automatic cannon could be used.

Because of this, the MK 103 has undergone several changes. Instead of a barrel return and a carriage mechanism, a so-called “stick” was used as a counterweight, the gun itself was open at the rear. When it was shot down, the “stick” was thrown out. This relativized the recoil to a minimum. The weapon could be turned around and instead of ground targets from above, air targets could also be fired from below. As a trigger, a photocell should react to the shadow of the target aircraft.

In fact, the “cell shower”, as the device was called, was no longer used and was only installed in eight Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft of JG 10 for test purposes . The only sense and purpose was to give day fighters and fighter bombers like the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 F-8 a possibility to carry heavy weapons and still maintain the hunting characteristics of the Focke-Wulf. A success of this weapon cannot be determined, although hunters were involved in combat operations with this weapon.

Nuclear ammunition should be used as with the MK 103 or hard core projectiles , the latter for armor-piercing purposes. Since the weapon was single-shot, the pilot was unable to reload. After flying over or under and firing the weapon, the pilot should have returned. As a substitute for the " weird music ", the weapon proved to be a failure, since the day hunters could only operate object-bound. As part of the " Wilde-Sau procedure ", flying under the bombers was unnecessary in one way or another , as the hunters would have fallen below the flak limit and thus put themselves in a very high level of danger .

Web links

  • SG116 at deutscheluftwaffe.com