Mixed use of Balloon guns and 303 Vickers

[No.23_Gaylion]

Go read Albert Ball's combat reports. He used Buckingham all the time.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Plenty of those fire ammo in bibliographies or diaries from that era. Lets fry some more ?.

[No.23_Gaylion]

Yeah just listened to a podcast again and it quotes Ball in a Nieuport with 1 in 3 Buckingham in combat with 12 albatri during the battle of the somme. 

[unreasonable]

I think the the point about mixing them in the load is that the phosphorus starts to burn while the bullet is still in the barrel, leaving a very hot acidic residue, which will damage your barrel lining. With a pure incendiary load, this residue will build up.  When you mix the load, the non-incendiaries blast out the residue. 

 

Did the 11mm Vickers in US service also get a mixed incendiary/ball loadout? 

 

WW2 era incendiaries that only ignite on contact did not have this kind of problem, so could be used in unmixed belts with no ill effects. (They also had better ballistics as they did not use up mass in flight). 

 

[Angry_Kitten]

On 3/31/2021 at 8:08 AM, US213_Talbot said:

So if I'm carrying balloon guns and get attacked, I'm supposed to just let you kill me? 

 

That sounds fantastically one sided.

And as fantastical as it is, the British signed the non expanding/non soft point treaties,  BUT they still used ammunition in all .303 guns that violated these rules. 

 

the tip in the .303 round was meant to expand on impact with bone. As MOST of these tips were compressed sawdust they also violated other rules

[US41_Low]

You can shoot them with bullets but not mean bullets. Gotta politely kill them 

[Angry_Kitten]

and irony of irony,  ALLL of our projectiles in this game leave a smoke trail. 

 

Doesnt that mean we have been using Buckingham ammunition??

[J2_Bidu]

On 4/11/2021 at 8:19 AM, unreasonable said:

I have not seen mention of Buckingham being particularly considered dangerous to use, let alone plenty of mentions, certainly by the time the design had matured and was in front line use in mixed loadouts. If someone has sources saying this, fine, let's see them. 

 

«Even the best-maintained synchronization gears failed from time to time and for reasons other than faulty ammunition. AP, tracer or ball would in such a failure punch a hole through or splinter the propeller or even sever it, but the soft-nosed and sensitive incendiaries could explode in front of the pilot's face. Buckingham was of course loaded into belts on such aircraft as Sopwith Camels or Spads but it was always a risky business, even when just one gun was armed with an incendiary mixture.»

 

("Early aircraft armament; the aeroplane and the gun up to 1918.", page 167, http://www.worldhistory.biz/download567/EarlyAircraftArmament.TheAeroplaneandtheGunupto1918_worldhistory.biz.pdf)