Westland Lysander

Presume arming Lysanders with 20mm canon was to improve air fighting capability? A 20mm canon, when fired from an airborne Lysander, would have so much recoil that it would enable the Lysander to do the same as the Harrier's VIFF?? The Lysander would then find itself behind the pursuing 109 (much, presumably, to the amazement of the 109 pilot!!) and could shoot it down - but with only one round because, as outlined above, every time the canon was fired the Lysander would VIFF!!
Need a big Air Firing Area to practice that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Resmoroh

II (AC) squadron changed their Lysanders for Tomahawks then to Mustangs. Doug Reich recently confirmed to me that their Mustangs hadnt got .5 cal machine guns, but 20mm cannon. Maybe this was a reference to a similar squadron seeking permission to use the range with an aircraft, not necessarily a Lysander, but an aircraft fitted with 20mm cannon prior to them changing from Lysanders to another type.

In the depths of my mind I can recall reading something in Flypast about this. There was also a plan to fit a four gun turret on the Lysander.

Found a picture of a 20mm Lysander on here www.spitfirespares.com/SpitfireSpares.com/Pages/controls.html you have to page down a fair bit..... looks a very clumbersome installation!

The image in the link (above) shows two 20mm Oerlikon with 60 round magazines installed externally; despite the slow cruise speed of the Lysander there would not have been an uncontrollable effect from recoil when firing short bursts. If it was rejected operationally in was probably to do with an awkward attack profile and sighting line or maybe that the threat of invasion passed. Clearly attacking anything other than a slow undefended target would have been suicidal. Like the pillbox, defence against invasion required that all possible resources were brought to bear.

Inline with the desparate measures during the time of threatened invasion - I found this on the net -

In 1940 at least one Lysander was trialled with a pair of 20mm cannon mounted on the undercarriage (replacing the stub wings); the intention was to use the aircraft for ground attack missions against the threatened German invasion of Britain.

It should be considered that at the time 20mm cannons were not very reliable so the effectiveness would have been in question.

There were also plans to use Tiger Moths to bomb the invasion beaches.

hydealfred;53146 wrote:

Inline with the desparate measures during the time of threatened invasion -

I think we were quite good at desperate measures! Pipes pumping fuel into the sea to be ignited, the Home Guard, Tiger Moth bombers, the GHQ lines, the British Resistance Organisation.
'I think I can hear scratching noises Captain Mainwaring!'