110 question

[AWwrgwy]

What does that have to do with what I said?

Where would the radio operator sit?  In the pilot's lap?  The gunner's?

 


wrongway
 

[Mace2004]

Yes i could search this out but it will be much more easy and decisive to ask here ,and i'm sure there are some 110 guys that know this already.Was there ever modified 110's with no rear gun at all ,to save weight and become more of a fighter?

No mod required, it's not like the gun's welded to the airframe, it just sits in a mount.  Just leave the gun and ammo on deck and send the gunner out to get a couple of liters of Hefe Weizen for when you return.  Of course it wouldn't save much weight, it's just a light machine gun with a very high rate of fire similar (if not identical) to the light MG the grunts carried around.  Now, if you really wanted to save weight you'd eliminate the remainder of the gunmount, the aft canopy, skin over the opening, glass in the rear end of the remaining canopy and maybe take out part of the interior deck.  That and eliminating the weight of the ammo and the now-redundant gunner might save 300-350 pounds.  Never seen any pictures of this extensive of a mod being done and, in proportion to the weight of the rest of the plane, it would probably some measureable performance improvement but probably not enough to be tactically significant.

[Charge]

IRL an MG81 or MG81z (3200rpm) shooting at your face could really ruin your day. In virtual skies we do not need to consider how deep we are on enemy territory when an oil line or a fuel line has been cut by a single lucky bullet. I don't recall e.g. Rudel ever to consider his tail gunner as unnecessary weight. He was a valuable extra pair of eyes and if he was skilled he could direct the pilot to dodge the aircraft away from attacks and with his gun he could prevent the enemy fighters from getting into easy kill angles.

So even if you could get the impression in AH that the tail gunner had a very insignificant role IRL they were an asset, enough that to be included in newer zerstörers, too, i.e. ME410.

I'm not sure if they were useful in nightfighters, though. Mossies and Beaus having four cannons and because of darkness the intercepting nightfighters were hard to see to begin defense in time -maybe enough time just to scream to pilot that we are going to die in a second...

-C+

[jolly22]

Because the 37mm in below the cockpit, it has to be VERY inaccurate!

[oakranger]

Because the 37mm in below the cockpit, it has to be VERY inaccurate!

Most likely but was used a lot.

[morfiend]

Because the 37mm in below the cockpit, it has to be VERY inaccurate!

 Could you possibly explain why this would be?

[FLS]

Because the 37mm in below the cockpit, it has to be VERY inaccurate!

It's the opposite. It's very accurate because we're so used to aiming and shooting from that location.