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Finnish Hawk 75 armament

Wm Blecky

By Wm Blecky
in Aircraft WWII

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Wm Blecky Obsessed Member

Wm Blecky

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Hoping someone here can help me out.  I have been trying to find out what armament a Finnish Air Force Hawk 75 was outfitted with.  Thanks!

Edited by Wm Blecky
typo
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JWM Completely Obsessed Member

JWM

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Here http://histaviation.com/Curtiss_Hawk_75.html is the story on delivering of Hawks 75 to Finnlad. There is nothing about change of armament from original US one. The need for change of armament could appear if there will be shortage with munition but maybe purchases in Sweden provided it/ However next fast googling reveals that in mid of operation they changed MGs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-36_Hawk

Edited by JWM
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BS_w Established Member

BS_w

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Originally, the french hawk were fitted with FN Browning  7,5 mm while US models had M2 Browning, .30 cal & one or two fuselage gun could be replaced by .50cal

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KRK4m Very Obsessed Member

KRK4m

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OK, but the Finnish Hawks were not only the ex-French ones. AFAIR (I wrote the booklet about the H75/P-36 family some 30 years ago) of 44 H75s used by Illmavoimat 24 were ex-French TwinWasp-powered A1/A2/A3s, 7 were Cyclone-powered A4s and 13 were ex-Norwegian TwinWasp-powered A6s. All they are said to be refurbished by Espenlaub Flugzeugbau at Wuppertal - there they received German instruments, Revi C12/C gunsights and FuG7a radios.

The A6 for Haerens Flyvevaben were armed with four 7.9mm MGs already from the factory, while French A1 and A2 had four (or six) 7.5mm FN Mle38 guns. Later French variants (A3 and A4) were armed with six Colt MG40s bored to French 7.5mm calibre.

IMHO all Finnish H75s standardized on 7.9mm guns overall.

Cheers

Michael   

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BS_w Established Member

BS_w

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Effectively, Colt guns could be installed instead FN guns, both models were planned for french Hawk, in H75A-4 manual, a pic shows FN guns in the fuselage, as on the gun install technical drawing. a mention was added later, "or Colt gun"

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Wm Blecky Obsessed Member

Wm Blecky

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Thanks everyone.

 

FWIW, my plan is to add a Set of Master Model gun barrels to my AZ Models kit.  by the looks of it, I'll be doing a little cross kitting of Master Model sets to do this little endeavor.

 

 

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Wm Blecky Obsessed Member

Wm Blecky

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Would anyone know where I can find back issues of IPMS Canada's Random Thoughts magazine?  Specifically, I am looking for vol. 27, issues 2 and 3.  They have some information on the P-36 / Hawk 75.  I do not necessarily require the actual issue, just a good scan of the articles pertaining to what I am after.

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out.

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Kari Lumppio Obsessed Member

Kari Lumppio

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Hallo!

 

Finnish Curtiss armament is even more complicated theme. Suomen Ilmailuhistoriallinen Lehti ( https://sites.google.com/view/ilmailuhistoriallinenlehti ) has written some articles related to this.

 

Already from 1941 Finnish Curtiss fuselage armament was being changed. One 12,7 mm machine gun on left side replaced the original smaller caliber ones. At first Colt but as there was no sufficient numbers available Soviet 12,7 Bereshina (Berezin) became the large gun. The modification can be seen for example as as a shell chute opening on left side of armament panel forward of wind shield.

 

IIRC late 1943 first Curtiss modifications with two Finnish 12,7 VKT machine guns were delivered and by 1944 that was the norm for all factory overhauled etc CUs. At lest two IL-2s were nailed with these weapons.

 

For the small caliber guns 7,5 mm French guns and 7,7 mm for the Norwegian ones, but don't quote me on the latter one.

 

 

Cheers,

Kari

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Randy Lutz Established Member

Randy Lutz

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On 6/9/2019 at 2:37 AM, Wm Blecky said:

Would anyone know where I can find back issues of IPMS Canada's Random Thoughts magazine?  Specifically, I am looking for vol. 27, issues 2 and 3.  They have some information on the P-36 / Hawk 75.  I do not necessarily require the actual issue, just a good scan of the articles pertaining to what I am after.

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out.

E-mail me at [email protected]

 

I am the author of those articles.

 

Cheers

Randy

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KRK4m Very Obsessed Member

KRK4m

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43 minutes ago, GrzeM said:

Did it have number 113 in the famous and popular series?

Dokładnie tak, drogi Sherlocku :)

Cheers

Micha(e)l

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Kari Lumppio Obsessed Member

Kari Lumppio

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On 6/12/2019 at 7:00 AM, airmanual said:

As sighting equipment is also part of armament, Finnish H-75 certainly had some interesting gunsight combination(s).

 

Here below with a Revi 3.

 

Laurent

 

Hallo!

 

I think it is rather the Vaisala copy of Revi 3D sight. Vaisala was and is a Finnish high-tech company.

 

EDIT A friend corrected me on couple of things:

  • The Vaisala copies of Revi sights were manufactured by Yrjä Väisälä's company which is not the Vaisala (which despite this was and is Finnish hi-tech company)
  • the friend says the sight in the photo is either genuine Revi (installed by Gemans) or Vaisala copy of Revi 3a

I stand corrected.

For Yrjä Väisälä there is Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yrjö_Väisälä

 

Please note the photo is colourized and the interior colour is the choice of the "artist", not a fact.

 

 

Cheers,

Kari

 

 

Edited by Kari Lumppio
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72modeler Completely Obsessed Member

72modeler

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airmanual,

 

What an awesome photo! Thank you so much for sharing it with us "Finnish" fans! Given the colorsation of the photo, as pointed out  by Kari,  I think it does show the Curtiss cockpit green used by them for the Hawks and Tomahawks fairly well. Do have any others? Welcome to BM, by the way!

Mike

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BS_w Established Member

BS_w

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seen on wreckage recently exhumed in Normandy, model H75A2 or A3(Edit),
the cockpit green color was applied directly over the shop coating,  prussian blue Lionoil,

but stringers and frames show an undercoat of yellow green primer in certain place.
This pic give a good idea of the color shade

.spacer.png

right side cockpit, frames 1-2-3

Edited by BS_w
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Fin Established Member

Fin

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On 6/13/2019 at 1:18 AM, BS_w said:

seen on wreckage recently exhumed in Normandy, model H75A1,
the cockpit green color was applied directly over the shop coating,  prussian blue Lionoil,

but stringers and frames show an undercoat of yellow green primer in certain place.
This pic give a good idea of the color shade

.spacer.png

right side cockpit, frames 1-2-3

Could anyone say what colour that green is? Is there a difference between this and the later standardized Interior Green (34151)? Does any of the hobby paint manufacturers make something suitable?

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