110 G TAIL GUN

[wiskyfog]

does emptying the magazine in the rear gun significently affect speed/performance?

[4Prop]

good question. I've always wondered the same thing

[W7LPNRICK]

No. They should remove the gun & ammo, and give you a bucket of rocks to throw at the chasing plane.  

[Lusche]

does emptying the magazine in the rear gun significently affect speed/performance?

Significantly? No.

For the records, the rear gun ammo makes up 0.6% of a 110G's weight with small gun pack, 50% fuel and no bombs.

[SmokinLoon]

No.  You look like a fool when you empty it.

I have 2 points regarding said topic:

First, if the 150 lbs of reduced weight is going to make or break your survival you probably should not have been in that specific predicament to begin with.  Any "benefit" a player may think
being lighter by 150 lbs gives them can be made up by a more seasoned player by using a wee bit of throttle control.  In short... do not dot it, you'll simply look retarded.

Secondly, many times I've maneuvered fast and hard and hung in there defensively vs far more agile planes while in an aircraft with a rear gunner, the 110 included.  Eventually, they will just park on your 6 O'clock and just hang out waiting for you to blow as much E as you can.  When that happens hop in to the rear gun and give them a face full of lead.  At minimum you'll damage the engine (oil/radiator), give them a pilot wound, or spook them enough to make them break off the attack for a minute or 2 and that allows you go gain your E back and better yet get your front guns turned on to him.  More than once I've been able to accomplish giving them a face full of lead, then break away, and get a kill because of a PW. 

Do not discount having those rear guns.  The "added wight" fable is hogwash and the being able to blood the nose of a Spit16 or other such crutch plane is quite fun.   

[LCADolby]

I empty the tail gun purely for psycological reasons.

[shppr01]

It has a tail gun ??!!?? 

[icepac]

It depends entirely on where the rear gunner weight is assigned along the arm of the fuselage as to whether it has any effect.

[Karnak]

The ammo, no.  If one were able to eliminate the entire position and all supporting structure for the position it might have a useful effect, but that would have needed to have been done when it was designed.

[PR3D4TOR]

If you throw our the gunner and all his gear you'd loose about 200 lbs right there. Throw out the gun, ammo, gun mount, seat, gunner's oxygen bottle and anything else that's just bolted to the structure back there and you might get a couple of bombs worth of total weight reduction. Would it be worth it? Not in real life. Those extra pair of eyes far outweighs (no pun intended) the marginal loss in performance.

[bozon]

If you throw our the gunner and all his gear you'd loose about 200 lbs right there. Throw out the gun, ammo, gun mount, seat, gunner's oxygen bottle and anything else that's just bolted to the structure back there and you might get a couple of bombs worth of total weight reduction. Would it be worth it? Not in real life. Those extra pair of eyes far outweighs (no pun intended) the marginal loss in performance.

If the gunner is eliminated entirely, then the change in canopy and not needing to have gund sticking out of it can gain quite a few extra MPH due to lower drag. De-Havilland insisted on no turrets for the Mosquito due to the drag cost, even though a second man was carried aboard as a navigator/bomber/radar-operator.

Mine is probably a highly biased impression, but the one I got from reading allied pilots stories is that the 110 gunner was useless. In many of the accounts the report is that the allied was able to fly right up to the 110 6 without it noticing. I don't remember any case where the allied pilot reported effective returned fire from the rear gunner, not to mention taking hits.

[Tank-Ace]

I empty my guns, but not for the weight benefits. I empty my guns to remove any temptation; no matter what the situation is, you're better off manuvering than hopping in the guns.

[Devonai]

I don't think I've ever had more than my paint scratched by the tail gun of a 110.  It's the tail guns of a Ju-88 that you can't underestimate.

[Karnak]

If the gunner is eliminated entirely, then the change in canopy and not needing to have gund sticking out of it can gain quite a few extra MPH due to lower drag. De-Havilland insisted on no turrets for the Mosquito due to the drag cost, even though a second man was carried aboard as a navigator/bomber/radar-operator.

He won the argument by putting a dummy turret on a Mosquito which was then 20-30mph slower.  That said, it was a turret and not just a manual operated gun.

Mine is probably a highly biased impression, but the one I got from reading allied pilots stories is that the 110 gunner was useless. In many of the accounts the report is that the allied was able to fly right up to the 110 6 without it noticing. I don't remember any case where the allied pilot reported effective returned fire from the rear gunner, not to mention taking hits.

I recall one Spitfire pilot's description of running down a fleeing Me410 on the deck in Italy where the Me410's tail gunner blazed away at the slowly gaining Spitfire, emptying his guns, without ever obtaining a hit.

[PR3D4TOR]

Bad shooting isn't the fault of the gun or the aircraft. The western allies' experience with the 110 is largely limited to the Battle of Britain, Africa, night interception and bomber interception. The 110C and E had a poorly designed gun position, and while the MG 15 had a good rate of fire with 1000 rpm it was fed by a 75 rnd drum magazine. After a short burst the gunner had to manually reload the gun. The MG 15 was eventually replaced by the belt fed MG 81Z in later models, a twin barreled derivative of the MG 34 that had a rate of fire of 3200 rpm, about the same as a modern "minigun" or a Spitfire I wing of .303s. Many Soviet pilots fell prey to this gun over the eastern front including 65 kills ace Lev Shestakov, shot down by the rear gunner of a stuka.