Why You Don't Land Long In A B-25

[The Inspector]

It's up to the guys flying the aircraft-if the crew is more comfortable and confident and feel they are doing more effective damage with .50 Brownings chattering two feet under your butt than a 4 lb. shell going off in the confines of the Bombardiers tunnel plus all the out gassing when the breech is opened for reloading, then strap on more 50's and pass me a few more belts of mixed please-
And speaking of sliding on crabs, didn't anyone bring the drawn butter and bread and a few cold Barley sodas? Why do you think Sig and the other guys on 'Deadliest Catch' go to the Aleutians?

[Dave Fish]

...with a big recoil that almost stopped the aircraft in flight...

...Numerous cannon have had the 'stop-in-flight' statement made about them, but there's no documentary evidence or good physics (Newton's third) to support it - it's always been the kinda tale that the old hands tell the greenhorns on arrival...

You are probably correct...the personal memory below of a VMB-613 squadron member is most likely closer to the truth...

"Anytime an aircraft returned from a mission, we needed to find out if the 75mm cannon had been used. If it had, we began a lengthy process to look over the entire aircraft. This was necessary as the firing of that cannon caused hydraulic leaks, and rivets in the airframe to shear-off. We used flashlights and crawled over every inch of the aircraft to locate leaks and damaged rivets so that they could be repaired before the next mission."

[JDK]

Thanks Dave, that sounds a lot more credible.

The 'Tetse' Mosquito, as wooden airframe, was fitted with a large cannon, and it worked well enough, but they found that a salvo of eight rockets was a lot better and a lot less problematic, complex and destructive to the host aircraft!

The original discussion, starting here