Check out the Merch Store: teespring.com/stores/growling-sidewinder-store So I had to try out the new Hawker Hurricane in IL-2 I went on the dogfight server in IL-2 as well and had a good time killing lots of German aircraft and getting shot down several times myself lol, I'll probably make a video about that at some point. So this is just another video on our new IL-2 series we're gonna be bringing to the channel to satisfy the world war 2 crowd. Myself included in that I use to love reading about the Hurricanes fighting over Malta when I was a kid. Anyway I hope you guys enjoy the video and thank you all for watching. Have a great day.

Think RAF pilots would joke that they didn’t shoot a plane down with the 303. You weighed enemy aircraft down so much from the amount of rounds needed, that it couldn’t fly any more.

7.62, 7.7, 7.92 were all common on interwar fighters due to their usage in WW1. The first 109's (A, B, C) had only two 7.92mm guns. During the Spanish Civil War, the Condor Legion found out that the two 7.92 were inadequate for dealing with fighters. The Bf-109 D introduced two more 7.92mm MGs in the wings. This carried over to the first E variant, the E-1. The E-3 was the first mass-produced variant with the two wing-mounted MGs replaced by two MG FF 20mm cannons with 60 rounds each. This was the most common variant during the Battle of Britain. The E-4 had a new canopy and replaced the two MG FF cannons with 20mm MG FF/M cannons capable of firing the Minengeschoß shell. This had a larger explosive payload and was noted for being quite deadly. The E-7 was basically an E-4 with the ability to carry a drop tank. Different engines were used through-out the E production. The F series replaced the two wing-mounted 20mm cannons with one nose-mounted 20mm cannon with 200 rounds (early ones had a 15mm cannon). This gave the pilot a lot more trigger time and improved the accuracy of the cannon. The 30mm was first installed on the G-6U4, firing through the nose with 65 rounds. The velocity was lower and the trigger time was shorter, so it was a trade-off to increase the plane's ability to hunt bombers and IL-2s. The 30mm was very deadly when it hit, but it required more skill and patience to use effectively against agile fighters. Very good video!

as you guys have already noticed I said the german bf109 was firing 30mm its actually firing 20mm. Thank you for the correction. I've learned something new today.

Also fun fact that I thought was interesting: Famous childrens author Roald Dahl was a Gloster Gladiator and Hurricane pilot. He was a fighter pilot ace as well.

God that poor 109 "Just kill me already" "I'm trying!"

7.7mm: Death of a Thousand Cuts.

I wouldn't mind more IL-2 videos, great game.

My dad preferred his Hurricane over his Spitfire because, in general, the Hurricane was a more stable gun platform and easier to both fly and, especially, land! But you are right about the armament, even in training the pilots said that the .303 was inadequate.

That second 109 didn’t even look like he was trying to get his guns on target

1:52 "There's a whole in your left wing!"

Does anyone else miss the uber-dramatic, slow motion kill shots with the choir in the background? Easily one of the best parts of these videos that sets GS apart from other sim content creators.

It is my understanding that the ineffectiveness of the 303 rounds was largely exaggerated, in no small part due to the fact that many British pilots were frustrated with being unable to confirm their kills. what they didn't know was that a good majority of 109s that were riddled with small-caliber machine gun fire were lost on the flight home, many pilots having to ditch their birds before making it to the airfields, and even those that managed to limp home had to be completely scrapped and never flew again. Unfortunately for the British pilots, they weren't around to witness these events, and the knowledge was never made clear until after the war. Naturally if you can't confirm that the plane you were shooting at went down for good, then you're going to point out that you feel like you might as well be shooting spitballs and your planes need bigger guns.

Len Deighton wrote a book on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the opposing fighters of that time. It included an analysis of the different gun configurations. If I remember correctly, the eight gun .303 configuration came in 3rd, but if the pilot was willing to get very close, ( inside 200 yards,) the eight gun configuration was devastating.

First, The 109 E7 had two MG FF/M 20 mm canons, which a lot of people have pointed out. But I think it matters little as whether it's a Mk108 30mm or a FF/M 20mm, it's gonna shred the Hurricane with a few shots. No, my gripe is with how the 109 pilot was flying. As the Americans quickly learned with Zeros, "Never Turnfight a Turnfighter", same is true for the Bf109 and the Hurricane. The Bf109E7 had a max speed of 580kmph, and a climbrate of around 18m/s. The Hurricane had a max speed of 510kmph and a climbrate of 11 m/s. The difference is massive. Turn time (21.0 seconds for Bf109 and 15.0 seconds for the Hurricane) is where the hurricane enjoys such an advantage that it's not even worth contesting for the 109 pilot. Unless he is forced by some external factors, he will never take the bait. He would never have merged with the Hurricane at the same altitude to begin with, but considering he did, he would never turn towards the Hurricane, as he can just extend away, put his plane at a climb, gain some altitude and boom and zoom the hurricane again and again until it crashes. The 109 also has better Energy Retention than the Hurricane so it won't even take that long to retry after one BnZ attempt has failed.

You've gotta remember; the Hurricane is a very early fighter aircraft (1937) compared to say later models of the Spitfire (1941), the P-51 Mustang (1942), or the Focke-Wulf 190 (1941). Even the US, Soviet and German fighters were most often using 7.62 or 7.92mm machine guns as their main armament during this period. Meanwhile the 20mm Hispano cannons were causing huge amounts of recoil for the very light airframes, which also weren't able to carry a lot of ammunition for them. The 7.7mm was just considered a more CONSISTENT weapon overall, although by 1939 Britain was desperately trying to manufacture enough 20mm's for all their Hurricanes, Spitfires, Typhoons and Whirlwhinds

The trick with the 7.7mms was the gun convergence and relatively close range of engagement. Even though you can clip a wingtip with them at flatter angles (basically sawing it off), you shouldn't bother with wings and just aim at the engine, since at least one of those rounds is bound to hit something vital. Leaking water and fuel might not seem such a big deal, but in BoB, it most certainly was since it meant that the 109 had to disengage immediately or he would have to ditch in the channel. Fuel leaks especially, since the Emils didn't have a big enough range to loiter around Dover for more than 10-ish minutes. In fact, the British experimented with 12.7mm MGs, but found them unsatisfactory, so they skipped them. It was mainly since the 7.7s were sufficient enough, as the early German planes weren't that much armored compared to their successors. The trade-off wasn't worth it since the benefits were small compared to the increase in weight and decrease in performance, and they didn't want to have to readjust the production lines for it. The 8 x 7.7mm were thus regarded as a good-enough armament to tackle fighters with. I don't know specifically which one came first, but both Hurricane and Spitfire were experimented on regarding 20mm cannons. Hurricane was equipped with 20mm Oerlikon cannon gunpods and proved horrendous in terms of flight performance, whilst the Spitfire (Mk.IB) had the 7.7s removed and was armed with only 2x20mms Hispano cannons (2x60 rounds). It proved a lot better, and although the guns jammed frequently, the potential was recognized and the cannon installations were improved and combined with 4 x 7.7mm. This was mainly done to combat the bomber threat, and Hurricanes would primarily be sent against bombers, whilst the spitfires would tackle fighters (Worth to mention that the Beaufighter and Blenheim variants were also used for anti-bomber sorties, and often get overshadowed and underappreciated) To differentiate different armaments, wing-types were named: A wing - the original, 4 x 7.7mm B wing - 1 x 20mm (60 rpg) + 2 x 7.7mm (Spitfire); 6 x 7mm (Hurricane) C wing (also known as the universal wing) - 2 x 20mm + a hardpoint to attach a 250lbs or 500lbs bomb D wing - 1 x 47mm Vickers S + 1 x 7.7mm (For the Hurricane, most famously used in Africa for anti-tank sorties, by the No. 6 squadron. The squadron would come to be known as "The flying tin openers". The tropical variants of the hurricanes and spitfires had the dust filter mounted onto the engine section, and were given the /trop designation); No armament, used for Photo-reconnaissance (In Spitfires) E wing - 1 x 20mm (120 rpg) + 1 x 12.7mm + hardpoints (250lbs/500lbs bomb or up to 4 x RP-3 rocket) (This became the standard for spitfires); The Hurricane changes were too significant that it became classified as a separate variant - the Mk. IV. The armament consisted of a single 7.7mm for aiming purposes, and either a single 47mm Vickers S, or 500lbs bomb, or 4 x RP-3 rockets (At this point, the Hurricane was replaced by the Typhoon) Soviets asked for and were leased various Hurricane variants, ranging from A to D. When Hurricanes were delivered to the Soviet Union, the soviets looked at the A and B wings, chuckled, and replaced them with 2x12.7mm Berezin UBs + 2x20mm ShVAKs (They also used 4 x 12.7mm and 4 x 20mm combinations, as well as combining the 12.7mms and 20mms with 4 to 6 x 7.7mm), and modified the wings to carry 6 x RS-82 / RBS-82 rockets. There were even field modifications for FAB-100 bombs, as well as a tail gunner. They were mainly used in PVO (Air defence) Hope it was a fun read :)

I play a lot of Cliffs of Dover, so I’ve been on the other end of those .303’s many times. Structurally you’re alright, but trust me those little stingers are causing havoc on the inside. I’d still prefer to have .50’s or especially 20mm’s. Great video!

Love the HURRICANE. It was the plane that was there when you needed it.

Really enjoying the rate that you’re putting out quality videos lately. Keep it up man. Love the channel

Hey man, it's nice to see IL-2 Sturmovik getting some love on your channel! Don't get around much to the comment section on your videos but I definitely still watch and like them all.

After that f 14 fight, he needed a break from the jets lol

9:30 Like listening to rain hit the roof. I almost fell asleep.

"I don't know who decided on 7.7mm..." UK had millions of rounds of this left over from WW1 and couldn't get 20mm working in the rush of war in 39-40 "Americans had the .50.." Americans had the .50 when they joined the war *two years later*, at which point the RAF had the 20mm

You never fail to amaze me

Nice vid. Rifle-caliber ammo was standard in most interwar designs, with every major power using it on their aircraft.

On the documentary, "Spitfire Voices" it was said, "If you knew it was going to be a good day, and you wanted to look good, take a Spitfire. If it was a bad day, be in a Hurricane". Nice vids, you should be known as the chuckling assassin.

best Hurricane pilots used 150m range set for guns, and opened fire from 100 up to 50 meters - at this range, they are quite nice. Nice flying, pleasure to watch.

**German 30mm in intro** Enemy rekt in 1 hit. **P-39 37mm in game** Enemy not rekt in 1 hit.

Great video. Just a precision: only the first round Me-109 was an "Emil" (E-4 or E-7), the second round Me-109 was an G-6 it seems (rounden wing tips, different nose, 20 mm cannons on wing pods, etc).

He was never making it home towards the end there mate. you had atleast fairly well decimated his coolant radiator. his engine would've seized well before making the French coast I think.

Awesome to see you fly in one of my favourite all time aircraft. Very underrated. The Mk 1 came out with a fixed pitch wooden prop and 8 .303 machine guns. Later to get the 3 bladed variable pitch prop. It was pretty robust, the armament wasn't bad for the opening year of the war at least (the Spit had the same) and it was more maneuverable that the Spit or the 109. I'm sure you know all this btw. As you said it was the unsung hero of the BoB shooting down more aircraft than the Spit (there were more Hurricanes in service though). Another advantage, simpler construction than the Spit so easier to build, repair and build faster. As it was they had just enough of them just in time to fight the BoB. They were slower than their contemporaries though. TBH I think the outcome of most of the encounters they went through back then were the result of who saw who first, the respective positions of the aircraft and then the tactics used, not to mention the experience of the pilots involved. I've read that the pilot had to fly with dash and determination in the Hurricane to win against 109's whereas the Spit was more on par. Great vid btw.

Suggestion: when you have .303's, pretend you're in a WWI fighter. Get close. the .303 loses to much power at distance. You're used to cannon. They have a lot more energy, at the ranges you were shooting from.

I read a book from the library about the battle of Britain about the hurricane, also but in 1960. I wish I could find that book because it made me a life long fan! Thanks for the Video.

Up to that point, rifle calibre ammunition had perfectly servicable for the downing of aircraft. The use of a number of regular machineguns was enough until people developed much better airframes, but you could fairly quickly tear apart a '30s era aircraft with just a mass of .303 or .30-06 fire.

Great dogfights and beautiful aircraft; the Hurricane was the 1st scale model that i did and yeah, it haves a place on my heart too.

I dont know much about dogfighting, but it's always so interesting to watch! keep it up c:

Thanks for the first 2.5mins of the video. Awesome to see the hitting power of the 30mm!!

Nice. Glad to see some IL-2. Will be sticking around more for this!

Amazing damage by that 30mm round...now show this to the director of 'Red tails ' and the scene where they guy takes four of those 30mm head on in a p51 from a me262 and he can still fly and talk after that (well he crasched after a while tho)

I really loved the information on bullet sizes and the old ww2 footage at the beggining of the video!!

You are killing it with these uploads

Great vid as it is the norm with your channel GS, but a small comment about the guns. Emil's nor Friedreich's had the 30mm, they both used 20s, two in the Emil and one on the F4, since the F2 used a rather anemic 15mm later rebored to 20mm in the 20X82mm format, slightly less powerful than hispanos. The mighty 30s came with the Gustav's. Farewell matey and keep up the good work!

Just some detail as to the explosive effect of the rounds. For comparison, the US/UK pineapple type hand grenade carried something over 50 grams of explosives. The allied 20mm cannon, based on the Hispano gun, first carried between 6 and 11 grams, later versions 14 grams. The early German 20mm cannon, the MG FF type also based on the Hispano as well as the later MG 151/20 carried special minnen-geschoss cartridge with thinner walls containing some 18.6 grams of explosives. That would mean every hit by a German 20mm shell caused an explosion (if it didn't fail) comparable to one third of the power of an allied hand grenade. The 30mm German shell from the Mk 108 cannon, using the same design of thin-walled shells, carried first 85 grams, later 72 grams of explosives. So each hit had greater effect than a hand grenade explosion.

What I find interesting is that when the Spitfire Vb was introduced with 2 20 mm guns and 4 7.7 mm guns, the fighter ace Douglas Bader didn't like the cannons and insisted that he preferred the 8 brownings found on the Spitfire mk I, II, and Va

Entertaining video and very educational with that great intro. GOOD STUFF!

This is great stuff, I moved from 109s over to the mighty Wulf and haven’t looked back. Speed, firepower and a zoom climb that blows your mind. Would love to see you fight in any of the 190s.

And loving the WW2 content by the way, thanks for posting!

A lot of planes of the era of the Hurricane were wood and cloth covered so the .303 especially 12 of them was pretty effective. One thing to consider is the weight. Your plane is lighter and can out turn everything. You get them down in the weeds and you have all day long to kill them.

Love the Hurricane! One of my favorites WW2 aircraft As always, love your content. Keep it coming!!

I would love to see group tactics like you’ve done with jets in the past but using these WW2 fighters!! I love watching how you plan and fly with a squadron and I would love to see the tactics involved with flying WW2 planes in a group as well! Love the vids, keep up the great work!!

one of the most calmest dogfights i've ever seen

Enjoying this IL2 series!

More IL2 please, best ww2 sim out there hand down. Damage model is AMAZING so satisfying to watch a damaged wing slowly bend and snap off due to damage and slightly over-stressing it. The aircraft feel amazing to fly feel like im flying a plane and not a paper plane that flops around the sky. Please do P51D-15 vs K4 which will provide a good comparison to the DCS one you did not long ago, especially since you get the 150 Octane fuel that the P51 deserves

Love the Il2 content, keep it up!!

I have a friend who survived the Battle of Britain 🇬🇧 and later served in the RAF as a photographer, stationed in Iraq in the 1950s… I recall him telling me a story, of how when he was around 13yo - he and his friends saw a wounded BF-109 make a crash landing, and as young kids are - they raced to the site of the crash to find the German pilot sitting on the wing, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the old guard to arrest him, and when they eventually arrived - these old veterans very cautiously tiptoed in not realizing the nonchalant German was just sitting there & smoking. Crazy story, even crazier to imagine living throughout the bombing.

So excited for this new WWII set of videos

Emils have 20mm.

thanks for the vid love your content

Nice flying. Once I had the honour of sitting in a Hurricane that was being restored in Assiniboia Saskatchewan many years ago. A guy named Harry Werat had quite a collection of WWII aircraft and Merlin engines.

Thanks for explaining the calibers, I was just playin go this yesterday and did a fight where I was in a bf109 and killed a spitfire in one burst lol

Love the video's. The 8 .303's of the hurricane and spitfire fared fine against the 2 x7.92 and 2x20mm of the early 109's. Pilots had to be marksmen, and most still preferred the .303 Browning's even after the 20mm Hispano became more prevalent.

Love the videos. a few points to make. rifle caliber machine guns where the standard for almost all air forces in the late '30's. The armament evolved through the war as everybody added armour to the aircraft. the 109 E7 had 2 x 7.92mm machine guns in the engine cowling, and 2 more in the wings. as well as 1 20mm firing through the propeller hub. later variants had different weapons. early Hurricanes and spitfires had 8 x .303 Brownings. Then came the 12 gun Hurri and the last variant with 4 x 20mm.

The real footage at the beginning was a really nice touch, I'd like to see more. The WW2 content is much appreciated. You mentioned reading books as a kid, do you have any recommendations? Long form videos from combat box sorties with tacview would be awesome.

I haven't even gotten to the main meat yet but that test firing of the cannon on the Spit is scary. It took me 3 viewings to see the elevator sag as all the control wires had been severed. Beyond it being sheared off by the force of the cannons impact. Scary stuff

Great video!

Dang sidewinder he has some cat in him because he has 9 lives right.enjoy the hell out of the videos keep them coming.god bless and god speed brother.

The 303 was the standard round throughout all of the services. We had millions of them. When we was under siege we couldn't really get the materials to make the bigger rounds in ant amount.

Both the Spitfire and Hurricane used .303 rifle calibre ammunition because we had plenty of them. In 1940, cannons were still being developed for the Spitfire. The Hurricanes main role, was to attack the bombers leaving the Spitfire free to engage the fighters.

I find ww2 planes to be the purest form of aerial dogfighting because the planes seem so much more equally matched than modern fighter jets and missiles.

Wiki quote. “It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire's role during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60 per cent of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the engagement, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War.” I read an article that it took a while for the British to put incendiary rounds into the Hurricane... once they did, it helped a lot. Evidently it would often blow a wing off.

I think convergence of the .707 rounds was also a factor. If you set them all at specific distance, ( I believe RAF pilots later during the BOB set it around 120 or so Yards ) it had a bit power effect on German airframes .

Love to see you doing IL-2 and warbirds now. Superb flying and commentary as always. I see many corrected you on the mistake about E7 and weaponry. However, that's not an E7 you're fighting in the last round.That's Gustav, and armed in bomber destroyer config with extra cannon pods that were indeed 30mm. The Emil had completely different looks: it had squared off wingtips, huge intake for cooling in middle of the spinner, guns in wings, not mounted in those nacelles under, and distinct support stubs under horizontal stabilizers. That cammo is also late war 109, while Hurricane is strangely with D-day stripes. Battle of Britain Hurricane was mk1, and didn't have 12, but only 8 guns. Cheers.

In that footage there at the beginning, you can tell that plane was screwed the moment its control surfaces dropped. That's awesome.

I like the thought process behind the Hurricane Mk IIB. "These eight 303s are too weak to damage enemy aircraft... I've got it! Let's add four more!"

Used to play Aces High, and would love flying the Hurricane MK I with 8 .303s. Managed to surprise someone in a P-38. Think the sudden burst of hits caused such a surprise he lost control of the plane and spun to his death. Another time managed to sneak up on a low and slow P-47 and basically form up with him. Lit him up so bad managed to actually get him to explode. Love the Hurricane! :D

Nicely made video and good use of Tacview but you seem to have forgotten that the RAF were fighting in 1939 when air to air cannons were not normal. Even when the RAF got the first 20mm cannons a couple of years later, many squadrons asked them to be changed back to 303s because the cannons kept jamming. Eight reliable 303s is better than two or four jammed cannons. Most of the 109s brought down during the Battle Of Britain were brought down by coolant failure and the 303 was perfectly adequate for wrecking the exposed radiators, It was also very effective at destroying bomber engines, especially at convergence where you had 8 or 12 streams of 303s hitting a very small area. What you were doing in that fight was getting many small hits on wings and fuselage because you are used to the idea of 'fire enough shells and one might hit and that will do a lot of damage.' The RAF pilots of the early 40s flew with the idea 'No point spraying bullets and hoping to hit something vital. Get the range right and put your bullets in a vital place.' I agree, and they agreed later, that cannon is better but in the battle Of Britain they learned to fly and shoot with 303s in mind as that is what they had. I also suspect that BoX is a little too forgiving when it comes to coolant loss. In CLoD once you destroyed a 109s radiator he was pretty much done for and would lose his engine within a few minutes but here someone can keep fighting for 5 minutes then fly all the way home. Perhaps CLoD was too far the other way but it is a fact that a 109 pilot over Kent who lost his radiator would rather ditch and be captured than trust his engine to last the mere 20 mile journey back to France.

Love your videos. I've been a huge flight sim fan and War Bird aficionado since Flight Simulator on my Commodore 64 in the early 80s. The 109E-7 would have had (2) 20mm MG-FF/M cannon (60 rounds each) in the wings and (2) 7.92mm MG17 machine guns (1,000 rounds each) over the engine firing through the prop arc. The 30mm MK108 wasn't used in the 109s until the G6 model in early 1943

I dont know why the bf109 is trying to turn fight should just extend and boom n zoom

Great to see my love getting some love!

I like the historical fights!

Great video, really enjoying the WW2 content. Fin fact: The early Hurricane was fabric skinned and mostly wood struts/stringers.

Never cease to fail us bro but not gonna lie i LMAO when you said OH YEAH keep up the great work bro.Damn those 7.7mm are useless

Would personally love to see more IL-2 content!

The Hurricane was the hero of the Battle of Britain. It was fielded in larger numbers and was responsible for more downed aircraft than any other aircraft of the whole scuffle. Its fuselage and wings were based on more or less the summit of bi-plane designs. It wasn't particularly quick or fast, but it could turn decently at lower speeds. Notably, the fuselage was constructed of hollow pipe and stretched tarpaulin, as an old bi-plane might be. As such, it was common for those 20mm rounds to pass straight through it without doing anything other than visible damage to the skin of the plane. The .303s were a vestige of the bi-plane era, and they were common on the Spitfire as well. There were plenty of reports of finding downed German bombers and fighters with the airframe and powerplants largely intact, but the pilots and crew were turned into absolute jam. They absolutely had enough power to punch through any skins or even the bodies of German airframes, but they didn't carry an explosive charge and weren't very big, so they'd largely make clean holes. However, especially with the Hurricane carrying 8, and often 12, Browning .303s with a good amount of rounds per gun, doing upwards of 1000 rounds a minute, they'd absolutely decimate the crew in no time at all and then move on to the next target. Most Spitfires carried Hispano cannon as well as the Brownings, and made due in spite of the Brownings, as they usually carried 2-4 Brownings. The Hurricanes did very, very well because of their volume of fire, even if each bullet didn't do much damage to the airframe.

Love these il2 vids

I'd like to see some of the Italian Fighters like the Macchi MC.202 and 205 versus the Allied fighters, as they were great planes by all accounts, the MC.205 Veltro in particular was called the best dogfighter outside of the P-51D Mustang.

The .303 round was the same cartridge used by the infantry's Lee Enfield Rifles and the Vickers machine gun so there was a lot of it around. I guess that is why it was used in the Spitfire and Hurricane

The 7.7mm. is more lethal on IL-2 CloD because players can customise individual gun ammo belts with a wide variety of 7.7mm. ammunition types. getting the right mix makes a big difference to effectiveness. Ball (3 types): Rips off panels, control surfaces, etc. but stopped easily by armour plating. AP: Smashes engine blocks, penetrates armour plating, breaks propeller blades, kills pilots, damages airframe, etc. Incendiary: Causes fires to control surfaces, fuel tanks, etc. Observer (exploding): Sets off fuel leaks, smashes control surfaces, one shot kills air gunners on bombers, etc. Tracer (4 types): Shows where shots are going.

Great video

Would you consider having small cameras of your joystick, throttle and rudder? I also watch driving sim streamers and it really helps to see how they manage their gas/break/clutch. I'm amazed at the way you keep the 109 so steady.

Ikr Gen Boots’ Blesse said,when that 30 mm was behind you(Mig15) you could feel the vibrations in the rudder pedal, go left or right but don’t fly level, n that was in an F86 Sabre!!‼️‼️‼️

always love the hurricane such a great weapons platform

Harrumph! The .303 was devastating to The Hun in the Enfield back in the Big One in '17. Tradition, don't you know, Old Chap! 🎩

Saw IL2 and subbed.

Love your warbirds videos!

Do so much enjoy miltary air combat with this channel, especially the F14 stuff! Perhaps one day?..you have a go at being a german fighter pilot,taking on masses of B17S/B24 s

The Hurricane during the Battle of Britain, although being the highest scorer, was not generally loved by its pilots. It was pretty much a 1930s biplane with an excellent Merlin engine and without the extra wing. The cockpit was a seat mounted in an open fuselage, behind the instrument panel was a fuel tank. The plane struggled to get to altitude and perform beyond 20,000 ft (-25c) and the pilot had no heating or rudder trim, constantly manually correcting propeller torque. These young men aged 18-25, predominantly not officers, could be basking in shirtsleeves in 25c sunshine then following a scramble find themselves shivering on the half hour transit to altitude to intercept the bandits. Then when they got in firing range the.303 rifle rounds did little damage to a Heinkel or Dornier unless extremely accurate or lucky. They did the job in the end though and this was, for the Hurricane, it's finest hour. And for the brave, brave boys who perished in the defence of our Island "we will remember you".

Wasn't there a similar complaint in the Vietnam war? US ground forces were given 5.56mm rather than 7.62. The "M" in M16 was cynically called Mattel.

When militaries were adopting 30 caliber rifle rounds like 303, they were testing by literally shooting cattle and judging whether the round would bring down an entire cow with one shot. I don't blame some people for thinking they'd be fine for airplanes, especially since things were developing so quickly at that point.