My cousin, "Eddie", Art Edwards flew a Bristol Beaufighter out of Northern England during the second war. The 'flight' was called the "Strike Wings" & hit the Northern German shipping, sinking 300,000,000 metric tons of it.

Eddie thought the Beaufighter was the best fighter in the air, with it's 4 nose mounted 20mm and the 4 (or was it 6?) .50's in the wings. This may have been only the Strike Wing's planes, out of Scotland, I don't know.

Seems to me, with only 2 .50's mounted, they could also carry 8, 60 pound rockets. He spoke of tests against ships using the noses of the rockets being solid concrete & these penetrated better than the AP or EX. heads, shooting right through some of the smaller ships.