Front guns on a bomber.

[CAP1]

more than anything, it probably had to do with space. in the tail, the gunner had to lay on his belly(in the b17). even in the lanc where he didn't, there's still a lot less room back there, than there is in the front of the aircraft.

 i had read a book called "combat crew". it was pretty good actually. it seemed that quite often, the gunners would sneak extra ammo on board if they found out that they were going to a particularily heavily defended target, or if they were going deep into enemy territory.


 separate note.....i think i've never been ho'd in bombers. mostly from my 6. sometimes six low, where they just park there, and let me shoot at a stationary target.
 when i see a guy up above me, taking his time to set up for a nice pass, then i worry a bit more.

[oTRALFZo]

Lancaster has 2000 nose and top and 670 tail. Interestingly the b26 has 270 nose and 1600 tail. Not sure if it was the speed difference.

Lancaster has 303s all around..no 50s. that I know for sure.

The reason they have more in the front (From what I heard,, please dont quote me on this) has somthing to do with the night missions the brits used to fly. Also the head on tactics the Luftwaffe imployed.

[FTJR]

Lancaster has 303s all around..no 50s. that I know for sure.

Not really, many Lanc's were modified with the 50 cals in the back, which is modeled in AH. Some even had a belly gun, not sure of the calibre though.

[E25280]

Lancaster has 303s all around..no 50s. that I know for sure.

Everything you know is wrong.

[SmokinLoon]

Something that boggles me is the effective range of the 50's. Was chatting with a gunnery guy once (working with 50's on LVT's) and he claimed the 50's were used to sweep areas about a mile away.
Yet, the Germans could lob their shells from a distance out of the 50's effective range, - a lesson learned with a lot of blood.
Were the aerial guns lower on the range?

A mile really isnt all that far away when "firing for effect" was the goal.  The British used their old water cooled .303 British Vickers MG at longer-than-human-eye can-see ranges with quite impressive results.  The tripod system had a "ratchet turn table" so to speak so the gunner would fire a string of 30-50 rounds (or more), then the assistant gunner would ratcher over 4 clicks and up 1 click (or whatever the designated forumala was), that would move the area of impact by X yards to the left/right and X yards up/down.  When firing from 1200, 1500, or 2000 yards away, the result is ample of amounts of constant supression fire.  The US did the same thing with their .30 cal MG's and M2 .30 cal HMG.  That tactic was used more so in WWI, vs WWII.  The combat in WWII was much more mobile and less static.   

[oTRALFZo]

Everything you know is wrong.

OMG..Ill shut up now.
I could swear those were BBs in the tailgunner.

[frank3]

more than anything, it probably had to do with space. in the tail, the gunner had to lay on his belly(in the b17). even in the lanc where he didn't, there's still a lot less room back there, than there is in the front of the aircraft.

The B-17 reargunner actually had a bench to sit on.
But perhaps they had to lay down in the earlier models?

[Die Hard]

[frank3]

Doesn't look too comfortable! Then again, he at least HAD a seat 

[Charge]

"Yet, the Germans could lob their shells from a distance out of the 50's effective range, - a lesson learned with a lot of blood.
Were the aerial guns lower on the range?"

Angus, are you sure about that first claim? I find it a bit hard to believe that a standard 151/20 armament could reach bombers out of the range of their defensive fire.

I'd say that penetration of a .50 from mile away is probably as good as that of 20mm AP even if the heavier bullet retains energy better since the 20mms would be fired "uphill" but the .50s would be fired "downhill" in 6oc attacks. Even if the HE effect of the 20mm would make up much of the energy loss the dispersion and accuracy would be horrible to get good results but with a lot of luck.

I think that the high velocity 30mms and 50mm cannon were the only ones that could be effectively used to attack bombers out of range of their defensive fire but even with those weapons the accuracy was rather poor and the presence of the escorts made those heavy weapons quite obsolete.

-C+

[BroncoSquid]

This is all true, but I believe you omitted a major, if the not the primary reason: The Germans quickly determined that the B-17's cockpit (I don't believe it was armored) was extremely vulnerable and was the "Achille's Heel" of the aircraft. Survivability of their fighters was definitely an issue, but the point was still to shoot down the bombers in spite of the risk. Head-on attacks targeting the flight deck were the most effective way to do this.

If it were just a matter of "beer cans vs bombers", then 110's & 410's" could simply follow the formations out of effective .50 range and lob 30mm's in from the rear. But that wouldn't take advantage of the weak frontal aspect of the buffs. 

Actually, the head on attacks were done because if a single round hit the leading edge of the wing on a large bomber, it would rip the wing off from that point out. Source of info, b-17 pilot.

[Die Hard]

Angus, are you sure about that first claim? I find it a bit hard to believe that a standard 151/20 armament could reach bombers out of the range of their defensive fire.

The .50 cal has slightly greater range than the MG 151/20, but a fighter with fixed-forward armament is a much more stable gunnery platform than a turret or single-gun mount on a bomber. The fighter is also a much smaller target.

Before the USAAF started escorting their bombers all the way into Germany the standard German tactic was to slowly creep up the bomber's 6 o'clock, killing the rear gunner and ball turret before going for the engines/wings.

[Die Hard]

Actually, the head on attacks were done because if a single round hit the leading edge of the wing on a large bomber, it would rip the wing off from that point out. Source of info, b-17 pilot.

Well according to Luftwaffe pilots, they were going for the cockpit. Maybe that's not what the B-17 pilots were told for reasons of morale.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqjs5NzKSxg

[Charge]

"The .50 cal has slightly greater range than the MG 151/20, but a fighter with fixed-forward armament is a much more stable gunnery platform than a turret or single-gun mount on a bomber. The fighter is also a much smaller target."

The 6oc attack is problematic for a fighter because if you want to present the smallest target you need to come pretty much in level, which means that you may run into wingtip vortices which will certainly throw off your aim. Any amount of being off the flight line would make hitting the enemy almost impossible except at closer range.

I ofter wondered why it was beneficial to put powered turrets in bombers in the first place due to their weight but seeing a few scatter patterns explained that one. A powered turret has considerably smaller scatter than those of hand operated guns and hitting anything coming at you from mile away can be considered sheer luck with a had operated gun and, e.g. considering the side guns in B17 they were practically useless and those two guys operating them were probably more useful in other duties along the flight. 

Maybe somebody still has the .50 scatter patterns for different firing platforms? IIRC they were available for P38 and B17 to show the effect of different positions on scatter pattern. Would shed a bit of light to this matter because I do not remember too well how they looked in comparison.

I'm not at all sure which one had bigger range, or bigger effective range, 151/20 (AP) or .50Cal. I don't recall seeing any data of those.

-C+