I'd love to see the 17F as it was a big player and would be more appropriate for the PTO stuff as it could sub for the E as well. As for nose and cheek guns. They did introduce the bulged cheek guns on the F and it kind of depends on what was decided on the nose gun as it was often two 50s. Since folks all know the Belle, she had two 50s in the nose. The preferable option apparently was the single 50. but it all depends on who did the mod in the field.The F was apparently the fastest of the 17s too.
Can't think of any good reason to say no & should be able to transfer a lot of the code from the G model I think .
The sport of understanding women.
all i know about the structure of both the F and G models is that the skin was so thin that the mechanics could punch holes through them w/ their screwdrivers. what made it so rugged was the frame of the plane, it just wouldnt come apart.
Main armament changes would be:Reduced cone of fire in the rear tail turret (it would have the original tail, not the Cheyenne tail our -G has), open side windows, equally spaced left/right (nonstaggered), a single gun in the radio room hatch, no "cheek blister" guns that can aim forward (most were angled outward and had narrow windows of fire), only 1 gun in the nose on a flex mount, and a bit of a different performance envelope.Would still be a problem for A6M2s, I have no doubt. Better than a -G, though! Also, in WW2 the Luftwaffe learned to make head-on passes on bombers to minimize time inside the defensive gun range. Usually bombers had less guns in the nose because of the bombadier. Later models of B-17s and B-24s carried powered turrets in response to this LW tactic (which proved effective). For scenarios in that time frame before the chin turrets showed up it would be nice to see them over Europe, as well!
