Taping wing gun openings...

Hey fotofrank,

According to what I found, the short answer is yes.

Take a look at the period picture of this restored warbird, and you can see the gun opening taped over: http://www.koreanwarhero.com/KWH/KWH.html

Here's another period shot: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/65/d6/6e65d6dcce3b0876b8c964d6898822cc.jpg

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

-O

Fabric "doped" on, or tape. There are lots of pictures of USMC F4U's with tape over the opening like an "X". I'll see if I can find one.

Here is a flight deck full of them. Personally I’m surprised to see this at sea. From a land base where dirt and such can enter the muzzles on austere forward airfields, yes. 

Because, my silky trusting friend, it proves the point.

My F-in-Law was a mechanic on night fighters, which had lots of guns of various bore.

First round, reverse lend lease Beaufighters. Dirt fields in Tunisia, Sardinia, Corsica. “Dopey” was a guy who doped the fabric patches over the 20s and .303s.

Then the Piaggio airfield in Pontederro, Widows. Paved.

Tape of some sort. 

There was one main reason for doing this.

Whether carrier, paved runway or dirt field.

At high altitude air temperature, any moisture injested into the action of the weapon could quickly freeze.

I appreciate everyone's help on this. The gun openings on the Hasegawa wing are more oval than round. I have been using a round file to correct the situation, but the holes are going to be quite large if I keep trying to round the holes. "Taping" over the openings seems the better option. Thanks, y'all. I'm also building a Monogram F4U-4, but it is has four 20 mm cannons instead of six .50s, so no issue there.

stikpusher

Personally I’m surprised to see this at sea. From a land base where dirt and such can enter the muzzles on austere forward airfields, yes.

You don't want sea spray going down the barrels..

Phil_H

 

 

stikpusher

Personally I’m surprised to see this at sea. From a land base where dirt and such can enter the muzzles on austere forward airfields, yes.

 

 

You don't want sea spray going down the barrels..

 

All true. But it was not seen, or at least commonly seen in WWII on US naval aircraft. Whereas the taping of wing guns on land based aircraft was commonly seen. 

I suppose in Korea with its’ more commonly encountered colder climes, the freezing would be more of a problem. 

In addition to Fod and moisture protection,I have heard that the RAF taped them to verify they were firing ,Any truth to that?

Yes, in the sense that once they were cleaned, adjusted and loaded, having the openings taped indicated to the ground crew that they were set to go.

I think what I'll do is fill the holes and sand them smooth. then after I paint the airplane, I'll mask the area and spray with a dark gray paint to look like tape over the guns, like the photo in stikpusher's post.

philo426

In addition to Fod and moisture protection,I have heard that the RAF taped them to verify they were firing ,Any truth to that?

 

That could easily be verified without tape by checking rounds remaining after a sortie. If one gun has a partial or full belt or drum of ammo remaining, obviously it did not function properly. Not to mention that any jams, such as a failure to extract or double feed are not going to clear. A fired thru tape would indicate that at least one round was fired. But not indicate any malfunctions for that particular gun after that single shot.

There are plenty of quotes from both that war and later ones that describe how taping up the port was the final step in the armorers job, sort of like putting the gun to bed.

And protection from FOD isn’t really a factor.