AIR: Firepower

Trussed up like a shoat bound for market, a Curtiss Kittihawk fighter plane spewed bullets into a wood and earth bunker at Buffalo. In the Army’s first public demonstration of warplane firepower since Pearl Harbor, the gas-pipe-like guns threw more than 387 Ib. of lead and armor-piercing steel per minute, clattering like a dozen riveting hammers inside a caisson.

The Army was willing to show that armament—it was yesterday’s—but the number and caliber of guns on the Warhawk, successor to the Kittihawk, was as much a military secret as Republic’s P47 Thunderbolt, the giant 2,000 h.p. fighter.

Rough comparisons were available, War-hawk’s striking power will be much greater than the Kittihawk’s six 50-caliber (half-inch) guns. ME 100-F1, one of the most recent Nazi Messerschmitts, shoots 265 Ib. of metal and explosive a minute from two 311-caliber guns and a 15-mm. cannon; the new British Hurricane 2-B sprays 330 Ib. of twelve .30 or .303 caliber; the new Hurricane 2-C, 600 Ib. from four 20-mm. cannon.

Unpublished as yet in the U.S. was the full armament of the Jap’s Navy Zero, which carries at least two 20-mm. cannon and light machine guns.