Note for the Royal Armouries editor: shoot for -6db to -3db for audio normalization. Most RA videos are rather quiet, but Jonathan's bit in this video is nearly inaudible on normal setups.

I like to think that Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, carried this to the table with his tiny curator arms

As an aviation guy rather than an arms guy it’s really impressive to hear the presenter, primarily an arms guy, have such a sound appreciation of both the engineering of the aircraft and the way it is operated.

I approve of that thumbnail pun.

If my grandfather were still alive, he'd have loved this video. He purchased one at a military auction when I was a kid. I never knew what it was until he casually mentioned he had an AA cannon that he was working on (I woulda been about 16 at that time)

I have a 20mm hispano cannon shell and shell-head that was taken as a souvenir by my grandfather who was a Police Officer in rural Leicestershire during WW2. In rural areas there was no air raid warning system except for Police telephones and my father told me that, “ on one occasion a report of a lone enemy aircraft was telephoned in.” Indeed, in 1942 with the R.A.F. bombing of the historic towns of Lubeck and Rostock, there were a number of reprisal raids, which targeted places of cultural significance, known as Baedeker raids which was a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German Luftwaffe on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, including detailed maps, which were used to select targets for bombing. After one such raid, a lone, fast twin engine aircraft was spotted in the area and my grandfather went out to investigate the report. Whether he saw the plane I do not know, but two Spitfires from somewhere close-by -possibly R.A.F. Newton- were scrambled to intercept and shot at the fleeing plane, which was obviously lost. The Spitfire by this time had these 20mm Hispano cannons and my grandfatherr picked up two spent cannon shells off the road which had been ejected from one of the fighters involved in the chase. Then, a little further down the road he spotted a piece of the tailplane a field, with the unexploded head of a 20mm cannon shell still lodged in it, which he also retrieved as a souvenir! These two spent cannon shells and accompanying shell head stood on the mantelpiece at my Nan's one of which is now in my care, along with the shell-head, which, slots neatly into the shell casing. Being interested in all things wartime as a youngster, I was always fascinated by these old shells which I used to pick up and examine every chance I got, and polished faithfully every Saturday after my shopping jobs for Nan! On one occasion when granddad was still with us, he told me to look at the end of the shell-head which had the letters BMARC on it which he told me, was British Manufacturing and Research Company (Marco’s) of Springfield Road, Grantham, to which he further added, “it didn’t travel very far did it?” which of course meant from its manufacture in an arms factory in Grantham, to farmland somewhere near Tilton on the Hill! The base of the shell casing is marked K2 1942 which coincides with an early fitting of 20mm Hispano cannons to Spitfires that same year. As you say, initially these were not popular with the pilots because of the tendency of this type of cannon to jam. The fact that it had been fired from a Spitfire was confirmed for me by an ex-R.A.F. armourer that I met in 2002 in Bakewell, who told me that, “if it was fired by a Spitfire, it should have a neat dent-line, two thirds of the way up the shell casing which was made by the ejector mechanism in the Spitfire wing, which worked by clockwork”, which indeed it has!

Sweet presentation but can you do something with Jonathan's sound levels - listening on headphones I had to turn up Jonathan's spiel which left the IWM bit quite loud and the adverts bloody deafening. Other than that, pretty informative because I'd never have believed that drum mag would have fitted inside a Spitfire wing before seeing this vid.

I didn't expect to see an autocannon, but I definitely like it.

The early Beaufighter night fighters had the ammo drums and the radar operator had to change four of them which was a complete nightmare in the dark until replaced by belt feeds.

I was with the Special Constabulary in Manchester in the early seventies and heard this tale, whether it's true or not I'm not sure but I was assured so at the time. Chap came into the police station and asks if the no questions asked firearms amnesty was still in force. On being told this was so, he said I have a gun to hand in. Sergeant says "well, bring it in then". Chap says he'd need a lift. Turns out to be a 20mm aircraft cannon in the back of his van!

Props to Johnathan! His presentations are always far more interesting and packed full of -- relevant -- trivia than any other historians I've come across. Well done, Johnny-boy!

Fascinating! I have been building kits of Spitfires, Hurricanes etc for years and have always been puzzled by the apparently simple looking design of the Hispano 20mm cannon. Many mysteries now solved thanks to your superb break-down of this widely used gun, many thanks, would love to see more of these on other weapons such as the heavy cannons used by the Luftwaffe.

funnily, in Poland before WW2, a 20mm rapid-firing auto-loading gun was just called NKM (Heaviest Machine Gun), to distinguish it from a CKM (Heavy Machine Gun) which would be a 7,62mm gun like Maxim). Only after WW2 there appeared a separate term for a .50cal machine gun as WKM (large-caliber machine gun), introduced by the Soviets, while the 20mm NKMs and above were renamed to autocannons ("działko" - little cannon).

To add on to the comments about low volume, it would in no way bother me if there was a clamp-on table/clip-on shirt microphone for when less than ideal noise conditions are present. I'm here for the mechanism to tickle my 'tism. Keep up the great work, shout out that LadLuty

A vídeo about the mg 151 would also be interesting.

Finally! I’ve been waiting on a Hispano cannon video for years. There’s a WWII submarine memorial in a park where I live in Marquette, Mi and on the mockup conning tower there are a pair of anti-air autocannons. I was well familiar with the Oerlikon from Ian’s work and these cannons on the memorial were clearly not that. They almost look like someone asked a metal worker to fabricate something that looks like a period autocannon, made out of scrap, but the more times I checked these guns out, I saw features like the gas piston that meant this has to be the real gun. I knew next to nothing about the Hispano and the online pictures aren’t great, but I assumed these mystery guns must be Hispanos because what else would they be? Damn it feels good to have my suspicions validated.

That was terrific! I was born in WWII so always had a keen interest in the RAF fighters. Until a few years ago I thought the Spitfire and Hurricane were equipped only with machine guns but someone told me about the cannons. This video really showed how the latter worked. Thank you!

My grandad was in the polish Air Force during the war and flew spitfires, then mustangs. 0:00 He thought that 6x .50 cal machine guns was the better armament for the time. He also mentioned that there was a significant loss of airspeed when you fired a long burst from the cannon in the spitfire.

I have been researching the Hispano series for quite a while, they are very interesting guns and the US development in particular is a rabbithole of versions and variants. Got myself one now and gathering parts to get it running again.

This cleared up a lot of my wrongheadedness about auto cannons. Another great video.

I was always under the impression that a "cannon" in this regard meant it fired ammo with an explosive projectile as the norm. Whereas machine guns normally fire a solid projectile.

Thank you Jonathan, I've been waiting a long time to see a video on a Hispano Suiza

So it is the same Hispano Suiza as the car company

I always remember this from the Pattern Room when I worked at the RA. It was down at the bottom behind a wall of racks and I always loved the huge drum magazine. Great times

That was an excellent video although the sound was somewhat lacking. You should mentally separate g from attitude. The two are not related. You can be upside down pulling 1 g (or 3 g) or the “the right way up” at zero g. Air-to-air gunnery typically requires the hunter to turn towards and aim at a point ahead of where their target is flying. The hope is that the target flies into their projectiles’ path. The task of computing “lead” was aided by the gyroscopic gunsight. Before these it was pretty much a hit or miss affair with the preponderance towards the latter.

Thanks for the excellent showing and description of that beautiful 20mm monster.

Your microphone is not working.

Excellent description of the HS cannon system! I've always wondered what sort of mechanisms they were using to knock down Axis aircraft.

As an Aussie, Spitfire MkVc/Trop is the iconic (and my favourite) spitfire to me. I just love everything about it!

This video was definitely not long enough. I feel there was so much material hinted at but not covered. We need a part 2 for this.

Nice collaboration, I hope we see more.

great video as always! sidenote; the audio on this video was much lower than anything else just saying

I’m heading to the museum today can’t wait to see it all

0:55. I believe the French called it a canon due to the shape. I speak Portuguese, which same as French, is a Latin based language. ‘Canó’ is Portuguese for pipe. So I think ‘canon’ must be French for a pipe shaped item is some way.

Like the kink to rhe Spitfire, very interesting to see the weapon in the context of how it was used and the developent of the aircraft to accoodate it. big thubs up.

Great presentation. I learned a great deal.

The video is for the most part too quiet, which is a pity, for the topic is quite interesting, especially with such levels of detail. Speaking of which, I was expecting to see the lockwork in more detail. 1:44 Well, judging by the standard given you could say that 1 pdr Maxim guns, the so called 'Pom-poms', dating back to the end of the nineteenth century and used in both Second Anglo-Boer and First World wars, would be the first autocannons. If, however, you meant to say 'aircraft-mounted autocannon', then one has to mention Becker's Type M2, the progenitor of the Oerlikon's S and FF autocannons, which also goes back to WW1. 1:53 Wasn't its main drawback the fact that it wasn't Hispano Suiza's own design, and they had to pay for it to Oerlikon? 12:26 Certainly from the weight point of view it is, and that matters a lot for planes.

Hi Jonathan. I love the videos and heard RA in Leeds was a blast when my parents visited a few months back. I have a small suggestion for the channel. Could you possibly boost the overall audio levels ? I always need to turn up my volume manually to hear your commentary, which then leads to ads and the next video being blaringly loud. thanks !

Excellent video content and presentation wise. Got to knock a point off for the sound though.

*chuckles* reminds me of the novel 'Sharpe's Command' which I read the other day. Lieutenant Love (predictably called Cupid behind his back) was in the artillery, and said it seemed appropriate as his father was a canon. Sgt Harper thought he meant /cannon/ so decided Love was as mad as a box of frogs :)

Hell yeah! As if these episodes couldn't get any more cool.

I have read (somewhere, some decades ago) that there was a bit of blundering with the procurement, and IIRC there was a Hispano belt feed version which the RAF did not adopt, and then had to develop its own. I have certainly got this at least a bit confused, so I'd be glad if someone who knows could give the proper story, if there is one.

Would love to see another vid on the Mk V Hispano if you've got one as well.

Really low audio balance again this video. Thank goodness for auto subtitle. Even if it is a bit weird on some words

My grandfather was a design engineer with Ford's at Dagenham during the entire war... I remember him telling of working on the spitfire, Churchill tank,and other various things they did there for the war efforts. He may well have been heavily involved with the transition of the spitfires all round performance... I do know that he had several 303 rounds and a couple of old Canon shells very similar to those shown... His job was whatever came his way ,and to improve,improvise, update, create ...He wasn't allowed to volunteers for active service ,as he was told his and his colleagues efforts would be far more destructive to the enemy than as individuals getting shot as a single soldier...Apparently he always tried ,but his applications used to get put back on his desk lol.. So he went home guard instead ,and was in charge of 6 anti aircraft guns near the factory... A lot of his work became easier as well due to the Americans bringing in all their newest tools of mass production and specialist tools ...Britain needed...

Thanks for share your presentation of the armament of spitfires and also the hurricane fascinating listening to the development of the gun👍👍👍👍

Nice collaborative effort. Liked and shared.

IIRC The first autocannon installed on a fighter was the Coventry Ordnance Works 37mm at the very end of WW1. This gun saw further development between the wars and was chosen for use in the Air Ministry specification F.29/27. None of the aircraft submitted were chosen as the concept of firing up at a fixed angle wasn't practical. It was fitted to many interwar flying boats but never saw service in any during WW2. Eventually it was developed into the Vickers 40mm Class S gun that armed ground attack Hurricane variants.

4 x Hispano cannons' were used in the Bristol Beafighter night fighters. Initially the observer / radar operator had to change the drums manually in darkness in the air.

Great presentation

I really love these videos but I sincerely wish the audio levels were better - most of these videos are incredibly quiet and I always have to turn my volume way up specifically for these videos.

Excellet. Subscribed, with pleasure. Many thanks All.

I would LOVE to see a video on the Puckle Gun, the first machine gun

just a suggestion, a 'Headset' type Lav Mic may (and usually is) much easier to use consistently and reliably. not anyones' fault, Clip ons are just inherently a lot harder to get good results out of. 'Headset' style Lav Mics are available fairly inexpensively, are small and lightweight, and work the same way as any other Lav Mic, so they're compatible with any Equipment one already has. worth considering, i think. cheers. :)

[air horns of celebration] Thank you, Jonathan, for finally explaining why they are called "Hispano-Suiza".

The BB just moves back and forth and it has a tipping/tilting locking flap underneath. U can see the (replaceable) locking shoulder in the bottom/back. Now do a proper one on the Besa, and show us (what's) under the feed cover.

This video is great. Thanks for making it. I agree with the comments above tho, the audio volume is very low in places.

In the Swedish armed forces during that era something was classified as a canon if it could fire explosive projectiles. Thus the smallest canon in Swedish service was 13,2mm.

Solid BFG addition

great video, i hope some day , you present a modern jetfighter rapide fire chain gun.

My grandfather served in the War, and one of the things I inherited from him is a lighter built out of an unfired round from one of these beasts. It doesn't work anymore, but it seems like the lighter fluid would go where the cordite goes and the bullet is unaltered. (Obviously not a high-ex bullet, that would not be a good choice for a lighter body.) It's a neat little bit of history to have around.

If you one in your collection, it would be interesting to see a video with the Hispano's main contemporary, the MG 151/20.

need more Voice volume.

I've been following the videos, great series but if you could do something with the way too low sound level that would be great, now the video is just unwatchable with the massive variation. I like my hearing so I won't be turning the volume to double or triple to hear what Jonathan is saying.

The 1972 book Guns Of The Royal Air Force 1939 - 1945 by G.F. Wallace is a fascinating read, and devotes whole chapters to the Hispano 20mm, the .303" Browning and the Vickers Gas Operated. It is cheaply available online.

Had one dug up back in the day close to what was RAF Bishops Court... Had it in the armoury for a clean up for ages...always wondered what a full y restored one would look like

Cheers Sir! Bloody interesting.

39 Seconds after got posted. Last Time i arrived this early i Had to sleep on the couch

I used to work on ex Swiss A.F. Vampires and Venoms, both armed with 4 x Mark 5's, though ours had the real guns replaced with ballast guns. They were belt fed from individual ammunition lockers situated behind the cockpit, via guide chutes. If the guns had no feed pawls, how were the rounds fed to the gun ?. Was that self tensioning belt mechanism just used to feed the linked rounds, as it looks like, or did it hold any rounds itself ?.

When I saw the silhouette preview, I thought "That looks like an aircraft-mounted autocannon", and then immediately decided that "Nah, that can't be right." I guess I need to learn to better trust my first impression.

Mark Birkigt was a very accomplished engineer, the Hispano Suiza cars he built in the 20s were possibly/probably the best in the world.

Banger audio job mates !

Excellent!

Hey Jonathan, thanks for another great video! As an Aussie I predominantly use metric but because of my age I'm quite fluent in Imperial too so please forgive my confusion. When you say 7.9 feet, do you mean 7 feet 9 inches or 7 feet and 9/10ths of a foot or something I haven't even considered? I'm a little confused by this on a regular basis and suspect it's an artifact of people jumping between both systems but I'm never sure!

Can you provide any info on the aircraft shown at 17:28 Jonathan? I believe it may be my father’s aircraft from 1Sqn SAAF (AX). What is the provenance for the clip?

I recall seeing an interview with Michael Bentine of the Goons, also a WWII fighter pilot. He was reduced to tears as he discussed the disadvantage of the British pilots with their .303 armaments and the devastating 20mm canons carried by the Hun.

Brilliant vid as always! It may have been said previously but being lazy I have not checked. Re the feed mechanism; It should be pointed out that aircraft work in an alien environment, we get to use equipment at 1G (1x the force of gravity) An aircraft in a turning fight will be subject to 2,3,4-5 x the force of gravity. each 20mm round weighed c.250g @ 4G that one round would weigh the equivalent of 1kg! suddenly an ammunition belt could weigh up to (or even more) 120kg (not including link), This is why aircraft guns suffered so much from jamming and needed a decent system to pull the ammunition through.

Excellent reportage !!!

Could you do a video on auto-cannon ammunition types?

Looking at the size of the thing, I can totally understand your reasons for using this in two videos in one day

Please turn your audio up. Sound is very low from this video.

You made a reference to lubricating oil making the action difficult to operate, would incorrect specification lubricating oil at low temperatures contribute to misfires/fouling?

Early Spitfires had one cannon on each side. When one jammed the working gun would throw the plane off target.

Pleased the Hurricane got a mention (even if somewhat grudgingly), but what about the Beaufighter and the Mosquito? Their Hispanos were fitted in the fuselage, how did that affect the installation and did they have a different variant of Hispano?

Can You do a video about the Finnish L-41 Sampo machine gun? This is one of the first GPMGs after the German MG34 and MG42 and one of the rarest in the world.

Thanks for this. I always wondered how long the Spitfire used .303? What year was the cannon introduced?

I had no idea that the entire gun assembly was part of the recoil system and the ammo remained stationary, that’s crazy! I’ll bet there was a sweet spot in the life of those cannons where they were worn in just the correct amount so they would fire without jamming much like a semiautomatic pistol I have that would jam when I first got it but now that I’ve put a few hundred rounds through it, it never jams on me (knock on wood!)

Canon, the round made of steel has a copper drive band formed around the round, alternatively a machine gun, the drive band is formed into the soft bullet casing while being driven down the barrel

I find the explanations quite convoluted, the reality is quite simple: Hispano Suiza was originally a Spanish car manufacturer, but, diversifying into aviation, these new activities were entirely installed in France as a Franco-Spanish company. During the creation of the 12Y engine which will first equip the Morane 406 then the Dewoitine D520, it was decided to integrate a 20mm cannon firing through the axis of the propeller: this is the famous Canon HS404 , also known in the Soviet Union under the designation ShWAK integrated into the Klimov 105 engine which is nothing other than an evolution of the 12Y for which the Soviets had purchased the rights before the war and which equipped the Yax 1, 3 and 9. The British quickly understood the advantages of this excellent, precise, powerful and reliable canon, and quickly installed it on certain Spitfires, however, this gun being designed to operate in the heat of the engine, posed numerous jamming problems due to the icing, in addition the drum magazine was too bulky and of low capacity (60 rounds) and did not properly fit in the wings, the British branch of Hispano Suiza therefore revised the design and also adapted it to a belt feed. Naturally , the installation of such a powerful weapon posed some problems on planes not initially designed for that, but the British preferred it to the cal 50 heavy machine guns favored by the Americans. The HS404 cannon has had a very long career, as it equipped the F8FN Crusader in service until 1999 in the French navy.

A long time ago I helped baby sit a US 20 mm M2 Hispano Aircraft Autocannon for a couple of weeks. My dad although a medic was an Oerlikon gunner when traveling back and forth across the Pacific on Troopships as a US Army Hospital Ship Medic part of a 8 enlisted one Officer regimental level unit. The US copy of the 404 chambers were a tiny fraction of an inch too long due poor measurement conversion in usage at the time which caused jamming on occasion depending on ammo lots.

I thought that "canon" was the designation because it fired an exploding shell as opposed to a bullet.

Jonathan, who made the Hispano 404 in the UK. Some sources say BSA and some Martin Baker or did they both make it?

This auto cannon was used in Sweden as an aircraft armament during the 50's and 60's. Later it was reused in the full track APC called PBV 302.

Nice colab!

Sound levels very low had to max out volume just to hear what was said, every other clip I watched fine, sort your sound out.

I love JOv, and i so love the subject, and i so want to hear what he is saying......

It was a miracle they managed to shoehorned the Canons into the thin wings of the Spitfires and Huricanes then add the short development time they had miracle it worked. I read early issues were icing up of components with round ejection as it had to work at all angles positive & negative g. Pilots debated armament as Canons gave greater punch(did more damage) but you had more rounds with the Brownings meaning more fighting time, but the German BF109 with a mix proved Canons were needed as the greater punch could decide the Dog fight many 109 returned to base full of holes. When these Canons were reliable that number tumbled and debate ended. I would love to see a video showing the difference in damage done by a Browning and a Hispano Canon I would think hole would be 4-10times bigger.

Dear J. Love your work on youtube. Keep it up. Please! One thing tho, I have problems hearing you. The sound is often patchy and I have to turn up the volume a lot, which distorts your voice. In todays film it was telling how bad the sound is from your studio, compared to the sound on the clip provided by IWM Duxford (the man was standing in a hall, not even a sound studio. But the sound was loud & clear. 10/10 as they say) Can you have look (or better an ear) into the issue. Thanks!

This video is awfully quiet. At the start, before the duxford bit.

what tf is up with the audio being so quiet i literally have windows volume at 100, youtube volume at 100 and even my tv is turned all the way up to over 50