Shooter, just looking at your musuem site and the MkVc you have there, have a look at where the cannon barrels finish in realtionship to the prop, then look at where the magazine bulges are compaired to the pilot and then come back to me

While try to track the k/l ratios of spits i found an interesting fact. using post war figures based on actual losses by both side the following ratios of USAF forces in europe were complied Kill ratio: P-51, 1.96 to 1; Spitfire, 1.34 to 1; P-38, 1.01 to 1. Loss rate: Spitfire 0.66%; P-51, 1.18%; P-38, 1.35%. not so hot for P38 as your figures are they

Can your provide the source of those numbers?? USAF in Europe required either guncamera film or independent witness to pilot baling out, aircraft hitting ground, aircraft exploding, or major section of aircraft (half a wing or so) coming entirely off, to confirm a kill. It's hard to see how they could be as far off as you say.

gun cameras were not used on usaf fighters until late 43 onwards, like all these figures for all sides it turns out that when you actually look at the numbers of aircraft last it seldom matches the claims, it was always rekoned that the germans had a very strick varification system yet post war analysis prove that even they were out by big margins (example one of the first wellington raids on germany had 20 wimpys involved, the original claim by the germans was for 34 wimpys shot down, this was later reduced to 24 yet this was still more than took part (actual was 12) even with gun cameras claims can be difficult the shooting down of yamamoto the claims was 3 bettteys and 3 zeros yet only two bettys were lost

from what I've read there was no film in the gun cameras on the Yamamoto mission. But I have read other bits and pieces about inflated claims. One was japanese and USAF sides claimed 14 EA shot down, but in actual fact it was three for both sides.

the over claiming was ripe on all sides, although lip service was paid to tighting up on claims it always looked good to have "aces" in the press, it often depended on individual squadrons as to how claims were credited, some were notorious in the stictness of there claims others just took pilot word for it. unfair on those that had claims denided(also would depend on the latest idicts from on high) a lot of research done post war show that suposedly high cliams were on the whole suspect. late war the ratio of bad claims to actual kills were reduced on both sides(except for some reason the russian front which tends to wards inflated kill claims right up to the end) other factors also make the kill claims difficult to compare, the USAF counted ground kills toward pilot totals whilst the RAF didnt. the Luffwaffe it depended on which front/squadrons as each seemed to have its own rules

Am aware of all that, but the P47's didn't arrive in England until April '43, and used cameras from the first. P38's came from the factory with the proper mounting, but the location was bad and early film's badly blurred by vibration from gun firing. No problem in '47's or '51's. All Europe kills by these a/c and by '38's after spring of '43 WERE camera confirmed. Still interested in the source, and possibility that poor German records due to destruction late in war effects the accuracy of the numbers.

as to source the archive at the imperial war musuem and A guy called mike haton who is doing researce into this area for a book. yes camera gun were fitted however saying that the germans didnt know how many of there aircraft were being shot down is a bit on the iffy side you have a squadron of 15 in the morning and only 10 by nightfall you tend to notice, as these figures were from official luftwaffe document they are likley to be acturate. most gun camera shots are inconclusive, there is a big grey area in interpretation that accounts for a lot of these differences, I am no way implying that pilots were falsely claiming, but in the fog of battle nothing is clear. mike reports the worse claim he found was for one of the first italian raids on malta where they claimed 42 brtish fighters destroyed, compaire this with malters defense of 4 Gladiators of which only 3 were used to defend against this attack and none were lost! a wee bit over claiming there boys

Thanks for the name. I don't argue that in many cases claims were wildly exaggerated, the Malta case (note, no gun cameras there) in point. I do believe that the USAAF and USN recognized the problem and made a major effort to avoid it. I mentioned the criteria they required earlier. The blurred, ambiguous film you mentioned (and there was a lot of that) would not have supported a confirmation under the set rules. That was why the change in gun camera location on the P38 started as a field fix. The pilots were ticked off about being denied confirmation because of bad pictures.

even then there was differences between intel officers! shooter a bit of info regarding the cannon in the nose issue the length of a merlin was 5ft 9 inches the length of the hispano cannon was 7ft 9 inches, the length of the fuewl tank was 2 ft 2inchs at the top and 1ft 8 inches at the bottom(to allow for pilot) so mounting your cannons in the nose would require the moving of the pilot back by at least 6 inches and the loss of the lower fuel tank! maybe your thinking of the later spits that had the longer nose and mor eroom between the engine and the pilot ie a mkVII then you could have been right but by that time the wing guns were functioning fine. by the way did you know that a long range spit was developed in the US preior to the P51 but was rejected by the USAF as it couldnt see a need for long range bomber escorts as the B17 could defend itself, and was rejected by the RAF as the RAF had no need for it(the spit range while short was perfectly adequate for its role) also i was taliking to one of the team that designed the venom and he pointed out that the twin boom layout that the venom shared with the P38 is the worst config for aircraft near the speed of sound, seemly the air from the nose creates terrible vortexs in the area between it and the tail causing the tail surfaces to be badly effected at lower speed than the single tail aircraft