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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I guarantee you that this was not fitted with "a pair of Lewis guns firing from each side of the cockpit". The Lewis was an open bolt pan fed defensive gun, it was not used in synchronized applications. It wasn't safe to use firing through the prop, even if it made sense to have the pilot trying to swap out magazine pans to either side of him. The standard snychronized gun was the Vickers. There is zero reason for them to try to use a Lewis gun in this application. The last planes to use Lewis guns as fixed forward firing guns were the S.E.5 during WWI, which were not firing through the prop, and only included in the design as vestigial survivors of the trend l the before the synchronized the Vickers. After that it was only seen in things like the underwing pods on the Gladiator, where a full sized belt fed gun was difficult to package. Idumea47b (talk) 19:55, 13 September 2023 (UTC)Reply