DEC. 17, 1936.

FLIGHT.

WHITHCE
The Cult of the ^Canon^ : Bigger Shells and Longer Range Installation Problems
By H. F. KING H E transitory period in the arming of our new, highperformance military aircraft might well have disturbing effects were the extent of its nebulous uncertainty more widely realised. Comment was made in a Flight leading article last week on the gravity of the position of aircraft armament in this country, a position of which detailed analysis is rendered impossible by a barrage of official regulations. But one thing is certain: the development of aerial gunnery (and by that term is meant especially the production of new weapons and their associated gear) has been reprehensibly slow in comparison with the momentous advances made in the same field abroad, and, for that matter, with the evolution of the military aeroplane and its power plant in Great Britain. It does seem, however, that, for all our lackadaisical attitude in recent years, we now have some of our finest technical brains concentrated on the improvement of aerial ordnance. The latest results of their efforts are not being publicised, but judging from such information on their work as has been released, it seems t h a t we are in a relatively strong position in the design of powerd r i v e n turrets, without which devices the most efficient free gun is so much dead weight on modern high-speed aeroplanes. In Demonstrative of the field of fire obtainable from a well-arranged multi-seater, this drawing shows the arcs covered by the guns of the French Amiot 144.

The heading picture is of a Dewoitine fighter with Hispano

Suiza moteur canon.

Below is the 37 mm. aircraft gun developed by the American Armament Corporation.

the matter of actual weapons there is, relatively, much greater room for improvement. The reticence of our own authorities to issue data on recently produced armament material has had the inevitable repercussion abroad ; information on the latest developments has become somewhat sparse. But sufficient can be gleaned to study the broad direction of foreign tendencies, and the following notes are intended as a brief survey of what '' the other fellow " is doing. The increasingly wide adoption of the canon, or shell-firing aerial gun, by European powers is, all things considered, a perfectly logical move, and not, as some of our diehards would have us believe, a phase of temporary military insanity. Supposing those worthies are right, then we may soon be stricken with t h e s a m e epidemic; the canon germ is already gaining a hold across the Atlantic.