The bomber gunnery problem evolved during World War II from simple sights, with which the gunner had to apply learned amounts of offset to assist his bullets in intercepting the fighter, to computing sights that took the guesswork out, as long as the gunner correctly input information including his aircraft’s airspeed and altitude.
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Everything from the small metallic circle in manual ring-and-bead sights to the complex computers used in gunsights for power turrets used wingspan to determine distance. First, turrets were designed to incorporate armor plating and sometimes armor glass in front of the gunner whatever he was shooting at was probably shooting back! Second, and very important to overall gunnery rationale, the fighter’s frontal aspect gave the gunner an opportunity to judge range based on the known wingspan of the attacker. This was significant for bomber gunners in two ways. Since the enemy fighter’s guns were fixed to fire forward, the fighter pilot’s aiming was accomplished by presenting the nose of his aircraft toward the bomber. A pursuit curve was deadly when well executed, but it also locked the fighter into an aerial dance that could be predicted by bomber gunners with some certainty. It was a dynamic, changing swing by a fighter pilot intended to keep the fighter’s guns aimed just ahead of the bomber at all times to cause a collision between ammunition and airplane. 50-caliber guns swung manually by the tail gunner.Īn alternative to head-on or rear fighter attacks was the classic pursuit curve. B-17s starting with the E model relied on a simple pivoting post carrying two. Most B-24s used a rotating tail turret, based on the original Consolidated design and ultimately modified and manufactured by other contractors. Both B-17s and B-24s tried remotely sighted ventral turrets, but replaced them with the ubiquitous Sperry ball turret that carried its gunner inside for a panoramic view of the bomber’s lower hemisphere. For B-17s, development of a remotely sighted Bendix turret, reminiscent of that which had been disappointing as a ventral turret in some B-24s and B-25s, emerged a winner when nested in the chin position of B-17s. Early B-24 nose turrets were simply tail turrets facing forward, with additional wind baffling around the gun ports. A counter was the use of power nose turrets in both B-17s and B-24s. To the surprise and dismay of the Americans, the enemy added head-on attacks, where closing speeds could overwhelm the best efforts of gunners using hand-held, socket-mounted weapons. German and Japanese fighter tacticians came to respect the far-reaching sting of American power turrets that could reach out beyond 1,000 yards. In the hectic weeks following the Pearl Harbor attack, the turret prototype stood watch atop the Consolidated plant in San Diego against potential Japanese attacks until more traditional antiaircraft batteries were set up. The power tail turret first seen on the B-24C was a 1941 in-house design by Consolidated’s B-24 armament group. Companies including Sperry, Bendix, Emerson, General Electric, Martin, and Consolidated designed power turrets for American bombers. World War II bomber turret swung a pair of. He believed that American bombers should incorporate British power turrets, or if they were denied to the Americans, then an indigenous turret industry needed to blossom in the U.S. Grandison Gardner, was an armament expert. One of those American observers, then-Lt. Their bombers initially led early B-17s and B-24s when it came to power turrets, and some in the UK guarded that technology from American observers in 1940, fearing the still-neutral U.S. The British were keen on turret improvements leading up to World War II. Of the armstrong variety - it took strong arms to manually move them - the devices nonetheless pointed the way toward more capable gun turrets. Bungee cord offset the weight and provided some balance, making the mount a functional way for backseaters to discourage attackers from many angles.īy the 1930s, bomber defensive armament had evolved to include rotating turrets. The Scarff ring, a Royal Flying Corps contribution to bomber longevity during the Great War, was a mechanical mount for. Bombers, often single-engine biplanes with an observation capability during World War I, were targeted, prompting defensive armament intended purely for destroying attacking aircraft. Once airplanes became viable weapons, they became tempting targets.