From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Progress report on an armament project discussing gun installations with Phillips & Powis and Commander Young.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 176\3\ img036 | |
| Date | 18th August 1940 | |
| Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}9/ML.18.8.40. 2 ARMAMENT PROJECT. 1. PHILLIPS & POWIS. We called at Phillips and Powis to have a look at the wing in which they propose to instal the Rolls Royce half inch gun. Miles was talking about eight of these guns with 250 rounds of ammunition per gun. This gives an armament weight of over 1,000 lbs, without fittings and we suggested that, as he was going to use a Merlin engine, and the machine was likely to be down in performance due to it's thick wing in any case, it would be desirable if he limited his armament to six half inch guns, or four half inch guns and four .303's. He is going to make a model of the installation bay and let us have it on the Range to see whether it will stand up to the recoil of the guns. We left with him a typical installation drawing showing how the ammunition boxes can be arranged for a maximum of eight guns per machine. 2. COMMANDER YOUNG. We saw Commander Young with a view to finalising the design of the sights, armour plate and ammunition box on the Oerlikon mounting; obtaining approval for the drain-pipe mounting and finalising the Frazer Nash power driven mounting. All these points were successfully cleared up. We also warned him that he would have some guns for test very shortly and asked him to allocate the necessary craft for their installation. - Continued - | ||