cannon ranges during WWII aerial combat?

[Stephan Wilkinson]

What would have been the effective range of a German aircraft cannon--I'm specifically thinking of the Mk. 108, which had a particularly high muzzle velocity--during WWII aerial combat? And I don't mean simply how far would the projectile go before dropping away, what would be the range from which a pilot could hope to hit an opposing aircraft?

[shrike]

The Mk108 had a particularly LOW muzzle velocity that was difficult to harmonize with the 15 or 20mm guns often also mounted.

[Stephan Wilkinson]

Yes, you're right. My mistake. So that would mean it had a relatively short range, right?

[shrike]

It was a large slow shell that had an arcing trajectory. Drop at 1000m was over 40m.
Ideally all of the guns would be synchronized to a single point of impact -say 100m . Galland was a proponent of getting very close indeed.
But at 90 meters, the 20mm might be off by 15cm, but the 30mm would be a meter high, and at 120m the 20mm might be off by 15cm, but the 30mm would be 2m low.

When all of the guns were the same, like the Me262, then the sight correction was less of an issue (but closing speed was) and later sights like the Askania EZ42 could deal with the drop out to 1000m.

[spartakle]

Re: trajectory drop of German 20 mm cannon... although I don't have the drop statistics for the 20 mm cannon I did come across the following for the 37 mm cannon as used in the P-39/P-63 (compared against the .50 cal machine guns):
Range: 400 yards.... .50 cal dropped 32 inches while the 37 mm dropped 54 inches
Range: 800 yards.... .50 cal dropped 130 inches while the 37 mm dropped 236 inches
Range: 1200 yards... .50 cal dropped 345 inches while the 37 mm dropped 567 inches

Source: Eglin Field P-63 Operation Suitability Tests