ShindenKai wrote: ↑08 Jun 2022, 09:01
Luftflotte2 wrote: ↑14 Nov 2010, 17:18
I think I've already been to the fist one (I saved these pictures a while ago so I had forgotten the link), I haven't seen the second link, thanks.
So the circled area on these photos is where the port for the gun is? Then the above drawing is a bit inaccurate.
The circled ports are actually a maintenance hatch to fill the CO2 or Oxygen bottles, the fill gauge is actually just barely visible in the opening in the top photo. The hatch was secured with a flush, one-finger latch and retained via a small metal chain. Clearly, the hatches have been removed by prize-hunters.
ShindenKai is correct. The circled area on these photos was not the gun port.
The above site says;
"Ozono's idea was to use the weapon not only against bombers, but also in dog fighting. If mounted to fire up and to the left, his idea was that it would be possible to fire at the enemy fighter before you actually got to his tail during a classic dog fight where two fighters would be going around in a left hand circle.
Kozono was the inventor of the "Oblique Gun" of Irving, but the above remark was not a concrete idea, but merely a statement of "Fighter Pilot’s Spirit". Kozono was the commanding officer of 332nd Naval Air Group. It had several “Zero Night Fighters”. The bellow shows the cut model of an actual “Zero Night Fighter” used at 332nd Naval Air Group. You can see that a 20mm cannon could not be easily mounted on the left side.
(His Kanji 小園 was Kozono correctry, not Ozono.)
- 夜戦零戦.jpg (58.51 KiB) Viewed 722 times
fontessa
