Word: kittihawk
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Trussed up like a shoat bound for market, a Curtiss Kittihawk fighter plane spewed bullets into a wood and earth bunker at Buffalo. In the Army's first public demonstration of warplane firepower since Pearl Harbor, the gas-pipe-like guns threw more than 387 Ib. of lead and armor-piercing steel per minute, clattering like a dozen riveting hammers inside a caisson...
...Army was willing to show that armament-it was yesterday's-but the number and caliber of guns on the Warhawk, successor to the Kittihawk, was as much a military secret as Republic's P47 Thunderbolt, the giant 2,000 h.p. fighter...
Rough comparisons were available, War-hawk's striking power will be much greater than the Kittihawk's six 50-caliber (half-inch) guns. ME 100-F1, one of the most recent Nazi Messerschmitts, shoots 265 Ib. of metal and explosive a minute from two 311-caliber guns and a 15-mm. cannon; the new British Hurricane 2-B sprays 330 Ib. of twelve .30 or .303 caliber; the new Hurricane 2-C, 600 Ib. from four 20-mm. cannon...
Eventually it will probably be powered by a still newer 1,350-h.p. Allison. By the time it flies in battle it will almost certainly have vastly more fire power than today's Kittihawk-perhaps twice as much...
Best news of all is that when the P46 is ready for service it will call for no long wait in production. Most of its parts are like the parts that now go into the Kittihawk. To get its new 1,350-h.p. engine into production, Allison has only minor changes to make in its assembly line...