B-17

[Tank-Ace]

I think the lack of a belly turret is less of an issue than you seem to think. Assuming he does something simmilar to a low yo you, where he trades alt for speed, he will be at his fastest when below you, and therfore you will have the briefest amount of time to damage him. Not to mention that when he passes above you, he can be left hanging there at 0 relative airspeed sometimes as close as D600 while you cut loose with the top turret.

And as to the 30mm issue you brought up, if it can easily kill a B-26 before the B-26 can deal it significant damage with the guns, then the B-24 will be down even faster, and with only 1-2 more .50's firing. Yeah, those .50's can make a difference given a little bit of time, but this is assuming that he is in gun range for a rather brief amount of time (30mm's have a short effective range, about D600 at most against something like a bomber for an average gunner). So if you can't hurt him bad enough to deter him with 4 guns, you probably won't kill him with 5.

[B-17]

And concider this: fully half of your firepower in the B-24 is unusable. effectively, you only have about 5 guns covering any one direction in the B-24.

5 guns, or 5 turrets?

[Tank-Ace]

5 guns. 2 .50's in the tail/nose which can cover most of the front or back of the plane, 2 in the ball or top, and maybe 1 from the side guns if he's not coming on you dead 6.

[B-17]

But depending on the angle/distance from the attacker thought, you could potentially have both the ball and the dorsal turret, plus whatever other ones could be firing, firing at the same time. I think...? I can't check--- in Quebec, away from my AH computer.

[Tank-Ace]

potentially, you could, but a lot of that area of fire is restricted by your drones (bullets that pass through drones have no effect. And it would be at long range, when you're drone's convergence is off (gunfire from the drones converges] at D600 or so), so really you'd do better to wait till he's closer.

[Tupac]

Everytime I'm with a group of B17s this song comes to mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwaygKjs2fI

[cut67]

 This is what plays in my head on a bomb run
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JCY0Eh1s4&feature=related

[Becinhu]

The B-26s lack of a ball turret is only a weakness against a competent attacker.  For example, no matter what bomber you fly the snail will chew you apart with you barely landing a round on him.  The B-26s tail gun has a very high depression angle.  You can almost fire straight down with it.  When I get an attacker who approaches dead on low 6 I am confident he will fall for the following trick. I let him get around d1000 and then hit alt-x putting me in a steep autoclimb.  Even though the attacker thinks he is underneath my gun coverage I can shred him with the tailgun before he even pulls his nose up for the attack run.  I will slow my 26 down for a dead 6 pursuer for just this reason.  Its the guy pursuing from high 4-8 oclock that worries me.

[B-17]

This is what plays in my head on a bomb run
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JCY0Eh1s4&feature=related

Why is that the same for me, too? I feel like I've seen it played on a raid before....