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Aircraft armament question

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 4:02 pm
by georgetanksherman
Greetings, been an aircraft Crew chief for 32 years, never heard this term before, so I am hoping someone can give me a bit of O.J.T. :-) :-)

Been doing a bunch of research on Mosquito aircraft mishaps and such and I came across a term they seem to have used a lot … Example,

23-APR-1945
409 (Nighthawk) Sqn RCAF
Mosquito, MM492

T/o 22:40 hrs to patrol.
Returned with bent weapon
. Landing 23:10 hrs 23.4.1945

I have come across quite a lot of missions that were aborted due to "Bent Weapons", anyone have a clue what they are talking about ????

Cheers

Re: Aircraft armament question

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 8:56 pm
by Temujin
georgetanksherman wrote:
Mon May 13, 2019 4:02 pm
Greetings, been an aircraft Crew chief for 32 years, never heard this term before, so I am hoping someone can give me a bit of O.J.T. :-) :-)

Been doing a bunch of research on Mosquito aircraft mishaps and such and I came across a term they seem to have used a lot … Example,

23-APR-1945
409 (Nighthawk) Sqn RCAF
Mosquito, MM492

T/o 22:40 hrs to patrol.
Returned with bent weapon
. Landing 23:10 hrs 23.4.1945

I have come across quite a lot of missions that were aborted due to "Bent Weapons", anyone have a clue what they are talking about ????

Cheers
The “clue” George is the Mosquito you have quoted, was MM492, which was a Mosquito NF XIII model. A “night fighter”......so was “armed” with the airborne radar to track enemy aircraft. A “bent weapon” was the term used then to indicate that the “radar system had failed”.....which meant they couldn’t track enemy aircraft in the dark because their main “tracking weapon” was broken.

Other phrases they used at this time were:

’Flash your weapon' was the instruction given over the R/t (sometimes by a Waaf!) to use airborne radar. 'Bent weapon' indicated yet another failure!


Here’s the record on that aircraft for you
ED727B36-951F-445E-910A-BCEDAD0F1378.jpeg
ED727B36-951F-445E-910A-BCEDAD0F1378.jpeg (342.83 KiB) Viewed 10165 times
132F6E30-1A53-4864-89B6-7315B3BCF41D.jpeg
132F6E30-1A53-4864-89B6-7315B3BCF41D.jpeg (371 KiB) Viewed 10165 times

Re: Aircraft armament question

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 9:00 pm
by Temujin
Here’s an excellent link that tells you more about the radar the Mosquito NF Mk XIII carried, if your interested. Probably in the day, they had lots of “bent weapons”

https://broodyswar.wordpress.com/2014/0 ... f-mk-xiii/

Re: Aircraft armament question

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 9:49 pm
by georgetanksherman
Wow, that is not the answer I envisioned, I thought they were actually bending a weapon :-) due to G-forces. I really appreciate you heading me in the "Other" direction which is what it really means ! Especially being a "Mossie" nut, like learning about what, when and why about the Mosquito's life of flying ! Thank You Temujin for the info !

Cheers !!!!!