Bomber gunners

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by Shadowsim
To many nme pilots approach at a dead six oclock position, head ons and slashing attacks take practice. Any buff driver worth his metal should never lose one on one to a fighter(of course im refering to the flying fortress) I say this but have died countless times, usualy to more than one fighter, and usualy to temps,,,,god knows i hate them cannons.

I spoke to Stanley today, the B-17 pilot at the museum.

He said he did not know the effective range of the defensive guns of the plane, but said she would shutter like hell when they were firing.

He said he would ask a friend of his who was a gunner, and get back to me.

[bfreek]

U GOTTA B JOKING SAKAI. thats by far the dumbest statement i've ever seen on this bb.

Its ez to kill at 1.5k and ez to get hits firing at 1.7k the right angle fighter at 1.0K is dead meat  because the # of guns trained on him is greater also. a buff formation at 25k is immune to any single fighter attack PERIOD.

as far as how far out in RL gunners fired , the ones i've talked to said they fired as soon as they knew it was a german plane on the attack. How far was that ? none of them really could put a firm # on it, most aswers were 300-1000yds out depending on how scared the gunner was. Most said as far as getting kills , they were not very common untill the electric compensating gunsights came out then it was ALOT easier to get hits.

[Batz]

A comment on the accuracy of guns in WW2:

Most aircraft guns were not very accurate, especially recoil-operated ones. This was because the priorities were a high rate of fire and good reliability, both of which were aided by loose tolerances. Loose tolerances are not compatible with accuracy.

The .303 Brownings as used in RAF fighters achieved 75% of shots within 5 mils accuracy (that is, within an 18" circle at 100 yards). They needed a circle a yard wide to cover all of the bullets fired. This was fairly typical.

Ground tests of the .50 MGs in a B-24 showed accuracies varying between 10 and 20 mils at 600 yards for the turret guns, and no less than 35 mils for the waist guns - that is, ten feet at 100 yards!

This illustrates the fact that hand-aimed, flexibly-mounted guns were highly inaccurate, even when fired on the ground at a stationary target. Factor in aircraft movement, target movement and the battering of the slipstream against the gun barrel, and it's easy to see why such guns rarely shot down anything.

If the B-24's waist guns are typical (and I have no reason to suspect otherwise) than at the 300 yards range you're talking about a burst of fire which would have been spread across a circle of thirty feet diameter even under ideal conditions. I'll leave you to work out how many shots you'd have to fire to have a significant number hit the same spot on a wing which is edge-on to you.....

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

B-17:

ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
upper turret > dia. 21' - 11.7mils
chin turret > dia. 23' - 12.6 mils
waist(closed) dia. 26' - 14.3mils
side nose > dia. 34' - 18.7mils
tail turret > dia 45' - 25mils


B-24:

ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
upper turret > dia. 20' - 11.2mils
nose turret > dia. 23' - 12.9mils (Emerson)
nose turret > dia. 35' - 19.3mils (Motor Prod.)
waist(closed) dia. 23' - 12.9mils
waist(open) dia. 63' - 35.6mils
tail turret > dia 35' - 19.3mils

OK guys, try an experiment. Draw a circle to a convenient scale to represent 30 feet diameter.Superimpose onto this a head-on view of your favourite fighter to the same scale. Calculate the percentage of the area occupied by said fighter. I would expect this to be no more than 10%.

So, even under ideal conditions (both targets stationary, on the ground) the vast majority of your shots are going to miss. Those which do hit will be scattered all over the aircraft. To stand a reasonable chance of several hits impacting on the same spot you would have to be firing for minutes, not seconds.

Sure, sim gunners get better practice than WW2 gunnners did in RL. But, you don't have to cope with the vibration, the bucking around of the aircraft, the slipstream battering the gun barrels, and above all the gut-wrenching fear of combat. Yes, fighters were shot down by bombers (put enough lead in the air and you will eventually get lucky), but (in the case of the USAAF) at a rate of about one-tenth of the claimed figures. And even taking the claimed figures, USAAF bombers still fired 12,000 rounds for every claim, which means the actual figure was around 100,000 rounds per bird, which works out as TWO HOURS continuous firing.

I'd be interested to see evidence for the claim that most planes were shot down due to structural damage. The RAF estimated that 90% of their bombers were lost due to fire.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

Ah bomber gun "effectiveness" is a gameplay concession based on many gameplay deficiencies. Atleast for AH2:ToD I hope their are improvements so that we dont have to rely on bomber "super snipers" as the most convenient method to encourage usage. Not that we see many bombers or that they are hard to kill now. But in AH tod there will be large formations and survivability will be much higher for the bomber pilot in there then 1 lone buffer at 11k in the main.