Oerlikon FF

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The FF were a series of 20 mm autocannon introduced by Oerlikon in the late 1920s. The name comes from the German term flügelfest, meaning wing mounted, fixed, being one of the first 20 mm guns to be small and light enough to fit into a fighter aircraft's wing. The FF series served as the inspiration for many World War II 20 mm cannon, including the French, British and US Hispano-Suiza HS.404, the German MG FF, and the Japanese Type 99 cannon.

The original design, introduced as the FF, fired a 128 gram 20 mm x 72 mm round with a muzzle velocity of 600 m/s and a cyclic rate of 520 rounds per minute. The gun weighed only 24 kg, and its belt feed was designed to allow the ammunition to be carried in flat boxes in the wings. The low muzzle velocity was of some concern, so additional developments led to the 30 kg FF L with a 20 mm x 101 mm round with 750 m/s, and the 39 kg FF S firing a 20 mm x 110 mm round at 830 m/s at a slightly slower 470 rpm. The original guns became known as the FF F from this point on.

The FF F was licensed by the Japanese and produced as the Type 99-1, along with the FF L as the Type 99-2. Hispano-Suiza built the FF S as the HS.7, and slightly improved HS.9. This design was later dramatically improved as the HS.404, which became one of the best 20 mm weapons of the war. Ikaria in Germany started production of the FF F with a slightly more powerful 20 mm x 80 mm round as the MG FF, but later introduced a new Minengeschoss round made from pressed instead of milled brass that had considerably thinner walls and therefore carried more explosive. The resulting MG FF/M was a common weapon until about 1941. Starting in late 1940 these were replaced by the excellent Mauser MG 151/20, a very different weapon.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.