I don't agree with the bomb store theory either. If you look at East Fortune, the bomb stores are at the extreme SE corner of the field, at least 1/4 of a mile from the rest of the buildings.

Were planes not equipped with bombs to drop on U boats? Mind you for bombs you could read torpedoes.

Yes Fox, this is true, but if the planes were on a "hunt U-Boat " mission they would have carried depth charges rather than bombs.

Re gun calibration: There were a variety of patterns available for which the guns and sight could be harmonised. The pattern for attacking bombers for example, was much different from that for fighters which were going to be involved against other fighters. A fighter squadron often had aircraft with different harmonised patterns, so that there were aircraft available for a variety of anticipated actions.

To the best of my knowledge, actual firing was never a part of the harmonising procedure, it was all done with what the armourers called the, "shuftiscope"... a tube with a vertical 'periscope' was stuffed into each barrel in the bank of guns and harmonised according to the pattern shown on a 'pattern board' located at the desired distance from the actual aircraft.  Harmonising could be a time-consuming job and was generally only done when the aircraft was first accepted by the squadron and/or during R&I inspections. Gun-firing, turret and fighter plane, was done in the air.

Tracer rounds were included in ammo belts. I don't recall what it was but i'd guess about every 8th round was a tracer. I think there was an international law regarding the number of tracers that could be used at a time.

Have a shufty round 28dayslater as there are pics of butts as I described them.  I also remember reading a book on the early days of Hurricanes when a RCAF pilot changed the distance of convergence and got better  results.  His settings were then adopted by the RAF.

A furhter thought is that if this building was adjacent to an ammo store could it have been the Fuse Store?

This set of buildings was on the opposite side of the airfield from the main accomodation and admin buildings and probably as far away as you could get given the proximity to the town of Paisley on one side and the banks of the River Cart on the other.  The ground is no longer within the airport boundary and may not have been prior to WWII.

I know this is taking is further off track, but it's the first proper explanation of the gun sights fitted to fighters, and is interesting because it refers to Ferranti. Their Crewe Toll factory near Edinburgh was demolished in 1999, and was important because:

Ferranti, based in Manchester, built their Crewe Toll factory during World War II, to manufacture Gyro Gun Sights for the RAF.

The factory was opened in 1943, and its wartime output of more than 9,500 sights was mainly used to equip the guns of Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft. In a secret memo issued after the war, the gyro gun sight was described as "the single most important equipment" introduced during the war.

I haven't previously come across such a detailed description of the sights as given here, and it's a bit of a revelation. I didn't realise they were quite as sophisticated as this paper reveals:

http://listserv.ipc.org/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0709&L=TechNet&T=0&F=&S=&P=842

I found this while trying to track down some better online references to harmonisation, but there only seems to be one article, endlessly copied by everyone else, but not detailng the operation, although it does give the ranges concerned - and rubbishes the video gamers! Something I can confirm as valid having played proper WII fighter flight sims, which is nothing like a video shoot-em-up, and a fairly sobering experience as even the sim, if played properly, gives an insight into the problems faced by a fighter pilot with only 16 seconds of ammo, and not the infinite ammo usually provided in video games. And it's definitely not fair when the enemy is both allowed to fly evasively and attack you.

Start here: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/miltech.htm

Then try WW2 Fighter Armament Effectiveness or The Battle of Britain: Armament of the Competing Fighters.

Beware of getting too interested in some of the articles listed, you may be listed missing

Just a quick update on the roof. The building still has its roof on it, the dark patches in the picture on google are just puddles of water.

Welcome, and thanks for the confirmation.

(Now need to work out how it managed those long shadows from such a shallow recess ?? Nothing's ever simple)

I had a good read at the gun-sight article you mentioned Apollo, and I found it very interesting  regarding a number of the items mentioned. I never thought so much could be written about gun-sights! It's interesting that in the early days of 'fast' fighter aircraft, the sights were part of the armourer's job-description. The introduction of radar and its use in firing the guns, led to radar technicians becoming part of the gunsight/radar complex. Quite a change from the early days.

Another very interesting aspect of what I read is the fact that even after the Austrian Anchluss between Nazi Germany and Austria in 1939, the Air ministry continued to buy gun-sights from the Goerz Company in Austria. The article informs us that even during the war:

" These gun-sights made by the 'enemy' were invaluable, as production at Glasgow could not satisfy the needs of Fighter Command. In early 1940 the situation was eased when the Salford Electrical Co. [in England] began production under licence.".

Interesting, eh? Wonder if the license earnings were made good to Goerz after the war.

The main page is still entitled " Smalll........" with 3 ls!

I cannot agree with your descriptions of the wall thicknesses.  Bricks are generally layed lengthwise unless stretchers are added for further strength.  Hence a wall of one brick horizantal layers is 1 brick thick and not half a brick thick.  This applies scaled up so that the baffle walls here are 4 bricks thick and not 2 bricks thick.

I always forget this title until after I've saved the changes - it'll get fixed one day

I'm afraid, as with piers and jetties, our use of brick thickness values is technically correct - a wall laid as you describe, with the full brick laid lengthwise, has a thickness of only one half brick. Bricks only become stretchers when they stretch across two lengthwise layers, so the odd reinforcement is just that, and not a stretcher  

Just found a photo of an almost identical building at Drem on the Airfield Information Exchange. The one at Drem is a Small Arms store.

I gave up searching norwichpaul for something along those lines - it's great having so many pics, but the eyes start to go after a few hundred Photobucket thumbnails - but I felt sure there should be some sort of guidance in there.

He actually describes it as an Ammunition Store - I couldn't pin down the AIE ref quick enough, so the poster may have... ahem... elaborated on the original

Just in case, Drem is not East Fortune, where the Museum of Flight is now bases. These are, or were, two separate facilities.

Here is the full Drem gallery

And a sampler, which is clearly a larger building, but does share the same pattern of protective blast wall...





I haven't checked, but from my past hours spent around the airfield, I think I'm safe in saying that there's little point in looking for these building now, as much was demolished in the area. It once had a museum web site, but that's gone too.

RAF Drem started life in 1916 as a home defence landing ground and was then called West Fenton. In 1939 the airfield became home to no. 13 Flying Training School. Then in October 1939 Drem received its first fighters in the form of Spitfires with 609 squadron from Acklington, an the airfield was transferred to Fighter Command. Drem was home to 72 sqd from October 1939.

Many of buildings around the airfield survive including the Battle Command Building.

The Drem Lighting System was invented here by a Spitfire pilot who was experimenting with lights on the runway.

Wander around this area if you want to try an aerial view search.

Thank goodness - I thought every old link I had for Drem was Dead!

The following is almost dead, having been closed, but thankfully not taken down DREM (sometimes also known as Gullane or West Fenton)

Sorry-got a habit of forgetting to post links.....
http://airfieldinformationexchange.freeforums.org/raf-drem-t454.html

He makes the point that similar buildings/blast walls are known at three English airfields.

I'm sure nobody notices

I had a rummage around based on the comments there, but there was surprisingly little on the named site.

However this thread did give some more illustrative detail...

http://airfieldinformationexch.....tification-t437.html

Although none of the buildings, including the buildings referred actually has the W pattern blast wall. They all appear to be straight.

I still like the W shape as a protection for an ammunition store, even more so now that there has been time for thoughts to settle.

Small arms rounds and the like would be deflected by the W shape if accidentally discharged. Unlike larger munitions they would be unlikely to penetrate the wall, but would escape the door, hence the wall.

This would also account for the less robust construction compared to a full munitions or explosives store, which would be buried, part-buried, and be provided with a banked blast wall to deflect the force of its explosing upwards in the event of an accidental detonation.

The more we learn, even if piece by piece, the more sense it makes.

What a bewildering array of buildings! I gave up after looking at scores of buildings and reaching the conclusion that most of them have been built  according to the wishes of the bosses on the stations and not according to RAF Circular # what have you!

I know what you mean.

Have a look at the great hi-res aerial of East Fortune (Scottish National Museum of Flight).

http://www.multimap.com/s/vNw9PiPy

Although this has lost most, if not all, buildings such as the stores, it has retained in original condition many of the accommodation, workshop, and service buildings that occupied this small corners of the site, together with the original hangars - which now how the exhibits, and also serve as huge stores and workshops for the full size aircraft under restoration. You'll also see the shelters and small stores that were part buried into the ground, and protected by earth banking around their walls, and these have been restored or tidied too. According to the staff, the small ones were fuel stores - not for the aircraft, but the huts. The original huts - of the standard thin grey rendered brick wall and corrugated asbestos roof - are the buildings with the dirty roofs as seen in the view. These have all been restored too, and serve as the workshops for all the smaller restoration projects.

I've been lucky enough in the past to join some of the backstage trips laid on where you get taken on a tour of these places, and get to see the bits the public aren't usually admitted to, and it's fascinating to see that much of this has been retained in original condition, and not left to rot - or been modernised. I don't know which building it was, but we were taken into one that turned out to be virtual rabbit's warren, and we'd no idea where we were when we came out - it seemed to be much bigger inside than out. And no, on this visit at least, we didn't learn of any underground tunnels connecting the buildings and hangars, so put such thoughts away.

You know, I'm afraid I really just posted this because you get a superb view of the museum's Vulcan