French aircraft armament (guns, bombs, other...) in the interwar and WW2

[Elan Vital]

Hi everyone,

I am currently finishing to upload my early 2025 research in the French archives to my Google Drive repertories. Yesterday, I completed the upload of archive number GR 9 N 281, which contains notices of various developments between 1933 and 1938 (mid 1938 tops); including the specific topic of aircraft armament.

I felt I might as well start a thread including the link to that specific part so that it exists for others to provide other sources and expand to other weapons:

Aircraft armament - Google Drive

drive.google.com

The folder containing that part is otherwise within my Google Drive Part 2 which is in the signature.

When I get more time I will make a brief translated summary of this folder, but here are examples of the mentionned aircraft guns:

- 7.5mm MAC, Hotchkiss and Darne MGs
- 11mm MAC, Darne and Madsen HMGs
- 13.2mm Hotchkiss aircraft MG
- 20, 23 and 25mm autocannons (Hispano-Suiza and Hotchkiss)
- 30mm MAT autocannon
- APX 33mm autocannon
- Reibel 37mm autocannon

The folder includes brief notes on guns, projectiles, bombs, fuzes, paratrooper armament.

EDIT: big thanks to the moderator who moved the thread to the right place!

 

[Archibald]

This will be interesting, particularly the 20 mm guns and larger.

 

[Elan Vital]

The one I find most interesting is the 2000-2600 rpm twin-barrel "Gast"-like 7.5mm machinegun. I wonder if it yielded a notable advantage in weight and space claims compared to twin MAC 34s.

It's also one of the few rare references to the Hotchkiss 13.2mm aircraft MG, which it turns out had an already more reasonable fire rate of 700 rpm (instead of less than 450 that we originally thought) with hopes for more.

 

[raigap]

When I get more time I will make a brief translated summary of this folder, but here are examples of the mentionned aircraft guns:

- 7.5mm MAC, Hotchkiss and Darne MGs
- 11mm MAC, Darne and Madsen HMGs
- 13.2mm Hotchkiss aircraft MG
- 20, 23 and 25mm autocannons (Hispano-Suiza and Hotchkiss)
- 30mm MAT autocannon
- APX 33mm autocannon (!)
- Reibel 37mm autocannon

You might be interested ...