# Most dangerous position in a B-17



## KraziKanuK (Apr 14, 2005)

I know there was a thread on this but I had trouble finding it.

Scroll down to see the numbers for the B-17 casualties of the 95th BG(H).

http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8aflosses.shtml


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## BombTaxi (Apr 14, 2005)

Waost Gunner was the most exposed, and would therefore have the highest casualties, but Id hate to be in the front. Id be *insert adjective here* myself when the fighters came in head-on!


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 14, 2005)

Think about being a wounded waist gunner, exposed to 50 degree below zero temps in a shot apart B-17! [-o<


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## Wildcat (Apr 14, 2005)

I'd have though every position was dangerous!


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 14, 2005)

Like one guy said on the old thread - What's the most dangerous position in a B-17? *INSIDE*

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## cheddar cheese (Apr 14, 2005)

Yes but did the figures for the waist gunner take into account for the fact there was two waist gunners, on on each side, thus making the chance of one being KIA effectivly doubled?


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## Anonymous (Apr 15, 2005)

I think most KIA's involve the loss of the entire crew.

There are approx. twice as many waste gunners lost because there were two waiste gunners, no other catagory has two crewmen.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Maestro (Apr 15, 2005)

Personnally, if I had to choose a position in a B-17, it would definately be the upper turret or the tail gunner.

I think the ventral turret is the worst position. (Because if your plane got shot down, you were trapped in there !)


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## KraziKanuK (Apr 15, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> I think most KIA's involve the loss of the entire crew.
> 
> There are approx. twice as many waste gunners lost because there were two waiste gunners, no other catagory has two crewmen.
> 
> ...



What about the cockpit?


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2005)

Maestro said:


> Personnally, if I had to choose a position in a B-17, it would definately be the upper turret or the tail gunner.
> 
> I think the ventral turret is the worst position. (Because if your plane got shot down, you were trapped in there !)



In 1978 I worked for a company called Aviation Warehouse outside of Los Angeles - a salvage company that also did a lot of movie stuff. We got a hold of several Sperry ball turrets and even set one up on improvised scaffolding. If you crashed with one of these extended, you would probably break the bomber it was in in 2 and I even think you might survive. The plexi on this thing was several inches thick and the actual structure was a big forging, again several inches thick. We got the thing running and it was like a carnival ride until we burnt the motor out (boy was the boss pissed!). Anyway, from what you may read about the ball turret:

1. You had to be small. I'm 5'9" and could not fully fit in it.
2. You could egress from it, the lower half would fall away.
3. You had to be nuts to want to go in that thing!


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 15, 2005)

my word that's one hell of an aviatar..........


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> my word that's one hell of an aviatar..........



Got it fixed, it scared the hell out of me when I realized what I did


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 15, 2005)

me too............


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> me too............



Sorry


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 15, 2005)

i mean, what if a young child came on here and saw that..............


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2005)

YEP, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!


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## Nonskimmer (Apr 15, 2005)

Crap! I missed it!


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## CharlesBronson (Apr 15, 2005)

Related pictures.




































http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/contents.htm

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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2005)

YEP - SEEN THOSE AND THE GUYS IN THE BALL SURVIVED!

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## DAVIDICUS (Apr 15, 2005)

Bomb Taxi said, "_Waost Gunner was the most exposed, and would therefore have the highest casualties, but Id hate to be in the front. Id be *insert adjective here* myself when the fighters came in head-on!
_"

To make matters worse, the closing rate between the fighter and bomber is added onto the velocity of the projectiles from the fighter's guns. If a head on attacking fighter is doing 340mph and your bomber is doing 230mph, that's an additional *830* feet per second. (About the velocity of a .45 ACP at the muzzle)


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## Erich (Apr 15, 2005)

again as I said previously in this long thread,.....

the tail position


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 15, 2005)

i'm with Mr. E on this one............


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## GT (Jun 28, 2005)

Update.


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## P38 Pilot (Jun 28, 2005)

Guys the worst position in the bomber would have to be the ball gunner.

If the bomber were to crash land without its wills the poor guy would be crusshed!!!

Besides, he is exposed to flak at the bottom. He wouldnt know what hit

him! Or if he didnt have his safety strap on he would fall out of the turret!

At least the waist gunners would have a chance. In the movie _ Memphis Bell,
The guy in the ball turret almost falls out of the bomber. Oh and ig the hatch
were too jam, and you had to bail put, he would go down with the plane. _

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## GT (Jun 28, 2005)

Update.


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## P38 Pilot (Jun 28, 2005)

Wow, that guy was pretty lucky!


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## poprune (Jun 28, 2005)

I had a friend (now dead) who served as a tail gunner in Lancs. He told me that he once sat in the same position in a B17 and found that he couldn't reach the controls properly because he had to spread his arms round a chunk of armour plate that prevented almost all moevent, too. He did not, he told me, want to be in there when being attacked by a fighter, because in his opinion just about all the gunner could do was pray or scream.

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## Beni (Jun 28, 2005)

If i can choose a position in a b17 crew, i would choose to be the guy who refuel the plane...becouse I think all the position inside the plane were very dangerous. But must to be fantastic to shoot some fighters from the turrets....I dont know what to do....

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## wmaxt (Jun 28, 2005)

According to the 8th Air Force web page the best position was the Bombardier then the top turret/Waist gunner. The worst was the Radio/Pilot. The Waist gunner position was twice as bad accounting for the fact there were two. Ball turret,Navigator, Co-Pilot were about the same. It must be noted that this is for the 95th BG and go as follows

Pilot 58kia 11wia
Co- Pilot 56kia 7 wia
Nav 56kia 15wia
Top T 47kia 29wia
Radio 58 kia 14wia
Ball 56kia 21wia
waist 102kia 45wia
tail 57kia 14wia

As you can see it doesn't matter much where you are if your inside the plane.

This site has the stats http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8aflosses.shtml

wmaxt

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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 28, 2005)

P38 Pilot said:


> Guys the worst position in the bomber would have to be the ball gunner.
> 
> If the bomber were to crash land without its wills the poor guy would be crusshed!!!:



WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! The Emerson Ball turret was a solid piece of heat treated aluminum forging that could probably be used as a boat anchor. By it's construction, it was naturally armored. On a B-17 the ball was located in the aft fuselage (Stations 6 7) just aft of a major bulkhead. The assembly was supported by a trapeze assembly inside the fuselage. During a crash, the fuselage would either break at that bulkhead or the turret would be pushed into the trapeze assembly. I've seen photos where the -17 made it down resting on the turret! Now does that mean a gunner would survive a crash in a ball turret? Probably not! If the armored glass shattered inward, well, I think I rather be shot with a 20mm.

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## P38 Pilot (Jun 29, 2005)

If I were too choose a positon in the B17, it would be the top gunner. 

If he was being shot at by a german fighter he could easily duck down.

Then if a fighter flew above the bomber he would have a nice clean shot!


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## evangilder (Jun 29, 2005)

P38 Pilot said:


> If I were too choose a positon in the B17, it would be the top gunner.
> 
> If he was being shot at by a german fighter he could easily duck down.



That still wouldn't offer him much protection. The aluminum top skin doesn't offer much more protection that the plexiglas in the turret.


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## P38 Pilot (Jun 29, 2005)

Ok lets sum this up!!!!!! All positions in a B-17 were deadly!!! No matter what the position you would still get killed! German fighter tactics they were training with after the B-17 bombers became a wide threat to the germans was that they would fly in fornt of the planes and shoot the pilots.
Nobody was safe once the pilots were dead!


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## plan_D (Jun 29, 2005)

You'd probably find going head on was a bit silly, especially when the jets came into play. The closing speed was just too fast to get a decent shot. The tactic was to knock out the tail gunner, then the plane would be easy pickings. 

Plus, in a B-17 there's three people that can fly the plane - the pilot, co-pilot and bombardier, and I reckon maybe even the engineer could do enough to get it down on the ground.

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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 29, 2005)

plan_D said:


> I reckon maybe even the engineer could do enough to get it down on the ground.



Many times the FE was trained to land the aircraft. Early in the war a sergent got the Medal of Honor for doing this.

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## plan_D (Jun 29, 2005)

Well, there you go then; there's four people who can fly a B-17 in one B-17 crew. Knocking out the pilot would be a pointless exercise.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 29, 2005)

did some research, actually I was wrong about the FE getting the medal of honor for landing the plane, but I know FEs did land crippled -17s on occasions.


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## trackend (Jun 29, 2005)

I think the arse end position on any bomber has to be the worst nearly all the combat videos showing bombers under attack the arse is what the fighter go's for and didnt they pump some shit into them once the tail gunners had it the bomber is a real sitting duck.

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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 29, 2005)

Especially if you were "Tail End Charlie."


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jun 29, 2005)

p-38 said:


> Wow, that guy was pretty lucky



i know this is a late reply, but it'd be even luckier if he hadn't been hit at all


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## trackend (Jun 29, 2005)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Especially if you were "Tail End Charlie."


Very true FB some of those clips on this site are real tear jerkers those poor young sods didnt have a chance i think some people tend to look at a machine being shot down and forget the unlucky bastards inside. A tank exploding into flames looks spectacular but inside its boiled flesh and screaming .

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## plan_D (Jun 29, 2005)

You knock out the tail-gunner then go for the vital parts of the wing e.g fuel lines, engines, control surfaces etc.

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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 29, 2005)

He might have help from the Ball if the attack came from the bottom  

Another thing to think about in the tail - when making adverse maneuvers or flying in turbulence, it has the most movement. Basically a "puke pit"

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## CBBEhr (Aug 30, 2018)

As a docent at Evergreen in Mcminville I worked on the B-17
Turret lower casing was forged or cast aluminum pieces about 1/4" thick
Glass panels were perspex about 3/16" thick
Chest chutes were not initially available and gunner could not bail out

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## Zipper730 (Aug 30, 2018)

wmaxt said:


> According to the 8th Air Force web page the best position was the Bombardier then the top turret/Waist gunner. The worst was the Radio/Pilot. The Waist gunner position was twice as bad accounting for the fact there were two. Ball turret,Navigator, Co-Pilot were about the same. It must be noted that this is for the 95th BG and go as follows
> 
> Pilot 58kia 11wia
> Co- Pilot 56kia 7 wia
> ...


The highest is however, the waist gunner.

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## T Bolt (Aug 30, 2018)

Very good old thread.
One other unpleasant although not really hermful thing that B-24 tail gunners had to put up with was the after effect of the crew members using the aircrafts relef tubes during the mission. My father told me the tail gunners would bitch at the rest of the crew for using them becouse it would freeze on the outside of the fuselage, then when the aircraft came down for the landing in the warmer air it would thaw and stream into the tail turret all over the tail gunner.

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## Milosh (Sep 1, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> The highest is however, the waist gunner.



Pilots are higher if counted together like the waist position.


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## Gleasonfan (Nov 23, 2021)

I just found this site today. My father's rating during The War was tail gunner. Why someone who was 5'10" was rated for the tail is beyond me. Fortunately he was such a good shot he became an instructor at Harlingen AFB Texas. Any way, he and my mom both said the running joke at any B-17 base was, "What does a B-17 pilot first ask for after a mission? Give me 2,000 gallons of fuel and a new tail gunner." He also said every B-17 belly landing he saw at Harlingen with the belly turret stuck down ended up with one less crew member. B-24's were supposedly worse.

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## Milosh (Nov 23, 2021)

Gleasonfan said:


> I just found this site today. My father's rating during The War was tail gunner. Why someone who was 5'10" was rated for the tail is beyond me. Fortunately he was such a good shot he became an instructor at Harlingen AFB Texas. Any way, he and my mom both said the running joke at any B-17 base was, "What does a B-17 pilot first ask for after a mission? Give me 2,000 gallons of fuel and a new tail gunner." He also said every B-17 belly landing he saw at Harlingen with the belly turret stuck down ended up with one less crew member. B-24's were supposedly worse.


Dad was a WAG and was the tail gunner in Coastal Command Wellingtons. He was 5'11". He said he would rotate the turret as far right or left and hang out of the turret more or less scanning the sea.

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## pbehn (Nov 24, 2021)

There has to be a lot of survivor bias in this. If the two pilots are hit the plane doesnt get home and frequently no one else gets out. While in planes where the crew jumped out at least one pilot couldnt get out.

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## Gleasonfan (Nov 24, 2021)

Another bit of trivia courtesy the "Ol Sergeant" - Total casualties in training were almost the same as casualties in combat during The War.

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## pbehn (Nov 24, 2021)

Gleasonfan said:


> Another bit of trivia courtesy the "Ol Sergeant" - Total casualties in training were almost the same as casualties in combat during The War.


I believe that was a matter that reached up as far as the USA congress as an issue? 10% of pilots were lost in training.



G
 Gleasonfan
The reason why it reached congress is the same reason there are comprehensive statistics on it, it doesnt imply that the USA was any worse than anyone else, they werent.

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## wuzak (Nov 24, 2021)

While the tail gunner was probably the most vulnerable, I would think he was the most effective. So the risk is justified by the reward.

What of other positions?

Were the waist gunners, for example, justified, or would a B-17 be better off without them?

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2021)

wuzak said:


> While the tail gunner was probably the most vulnerable, I would think he was the most effective. So the risk is justified by the reward.
> 
> What of other positions?
> 
> *Were the waist gunners, for example, justified, or would a B-17 be better off without them?*


Justified because of the slower speeds of the B-17 and B-24

Some food for thought about the tail gunner's position

When LeMay firebombed Japan, the tail gunner's position was the only gunner's position kept on the participating B-29s

Silverplate B-29s (the ones that carried nukes) kept the tail gunner's position.

Tail gunners remained a standard position well into the jet age.

The Soviets felt the position was important enough to have on transport aircraft.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 25, 2021)

The dismissal of frontal attacks as a deadly tactic doesn't comport with what I've read, which says that the high closing speed combined with weak frontal armament on the bombers made this a preferred approach by LW fighter pilots.

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## Snautzer01 (Nov 25, 2021)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> The dismissal of frontal attacks as a deadly tactic doesn't comport with what I've read, which says that the high closing speed combined with weak frontal armament on the bombers made this a preferred approach by LW fighter pilots.


Quite richt, In fact the luftwaffe build special FW190 for this purpose.

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 25, 2021)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> The dismissal of frontal attacks as a deadly tactic doesn't comport with what I've read, which says that the high closing speed combined with weak frontal armament on the bombers made this a preferred approach by LW fighter pilots.


True, but the frontal attack was the tactic of the day for the Luftwaffe based on their ability to track and intercept large bomber formations. I think in the greater picture planners would assume that future operations would involve bombers being chased rather than confronted head on as this was evident when gunner positions started going away in the post war years and the last position maintained was the tail gunner. 

Someone posted some statistics about Luftwaffe frontal attacks and their effectiveness and IIRC they weren't as effective in bringing down bombers as first thought.

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## Milosh (Nov 25, 2021)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Someone posted some statistics about Luftwaffe frontal attacks and their effectiveness and IIRC they weren't as effective in bringing down bombers as first thought.


Testing done by the USAAF found that the bullet pattern from a B-17 during ground testing had the following results for 12 rounds to 600yds:

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

For the B-24 it was:

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

Can you imagine what the results would be while shooting at a real a/c traveling at high speed?

taken from: "Gunner" ISBN 1-55046-332-2 

**************************

Attacks and hits on B-17s and B-24s, Jan - May 1944

Distribution according to direction of origin in azimuth

B-17 % distribution of 3585 attacks and 441 hits whose direction could be determined

12 - 20.2/15.6
1 - 12.5/9.3
2 - 5.9/6.7
3 - 4.5/3.9
4 - 5.7/4.0
5 - 9.1-9.2
6 - 20.7/15.6
7 - 5.9/6.6
8 - 3.8/2.7
9 - 3.9/2.9
10 - 3.7/3.9
11 - 10.4/10.3

B-24 % distribution of 10425 attacks and 102 hits whose direction could be determined

12 - 21.6/17.6
1 - 12.7/8.4
2 - 3.9/5.2
3 - 2.9/5.4
4 - 3.0/3.6
5 - 7.7/7.8
6 - 20.7/15.6
7 - 19.6/20.6
8 - 11.0/6.9
9 - 3.1/2.0
10 - 6.9/3.4
11 - 11.9/7.8

Note: might not total 100% as the graphic was hard to read.

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 25, 2021)

Milosh said:


> Testing done by the USAAF found that the bullet pattern from a B-17 during ground testing had the following results for 12 rounds to 600yds:
> 
> ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
> upper turret > dia. 21' - 11.7mils
> ...


Great info - now in the 2nd part, numbers 1 - 12, which one is from head on or the nose?


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## Snautzer01 (Nov 25, 2021)

Frontal attacks could also brake up formation. I think a good reason.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 25, 2021)

FLYBOYJ said:


> True, but the frontal attack was the tactic of the day for the Luftwaffe based on their ability to track and intercept large bomber formations. I think in the greater picture planners would assume that future operations would involve bombers being chased rather than confronted head on as this was evident when gunner positions started going away in the post war years and the last position maintained was the tail gunner.
> 
> Someone posted some statistics about Luftwaffe frontal attacks and their effectiveness and IIRC they weren't as effective in bringing down bombers as first thought.


Up through the "F" variant of the B-17, the front was lightly armed.
Due to the frontal attacks, the Chin turret was introduced on late "F" types and became standard on the "G".

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## Milosh (Nov 25, 2021)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Great info - now in the 2nd part, numbers 1 - 12, which one is from head on or the nose?


clock positions so 12 would be the front, 6 the rear.

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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 25, 2021)

So, based on those numbers, bomber formations were primarily being attacked from the front or rear.


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## fubar57 (Nov 25, 2021)

But these days, fewer would seem to know that





​I'm trying to teach my 8yr old grandson the time on our standard clock in the living room but he just points to the digital one on the stove

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## Milosh (Nov 25, 2021)

FLYBOYJ said:


> So, based on those numbers, bomber formations were primarily being attacked from the front or rear.


Yes, no need for deflection shots.

One thing is they say azimuth but don't break it down whether the attack was high or low or in-between.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 25, 2021)

On most bombers, a head-on attack (attacking from the 12 O'clock) offered less exposure to defensive fire as well as the possibility of taking out the pilot/co-pilot.
Lancasters, B-17s, B-24s, Stirlings, etc. only had a few forward Mgs as well as the upper turret to challenge the attack.

Coming in from the rear, the the defensive fire would be stronger (depending on bomber type) with tail-guns, upper/lower turrets and waist gunners as the attacker approached and over-took the bomber, plus the time of exposure to defensive fire was greater, too.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 25, 2021)

IIRC, frontal attacks were why the B-24 had the nose turret installed from the later -G and all -H models going forward as well. From appearances, it seems that the -24's Emerson would have a much better arc of fire than the B-17's chin turret.


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## pbehn (Nov 25, 2021)

The LW noticed straight away that the B-17 (Fortress 1) was vulnerable to frontal attack and the British noted it too. This was quite normal in the era, some RAF pilots favoured a head on attack in the BoB and Winkle Brown identified the Condor being weak in that area, so that is how he attacked them.


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## special ed (Nov 25, 2021)

I have read, and on this forum as well, that when attacked from the front, the gunners, top and/or bombardier, would call for the pilot to nose up so the chin turret could fire as well. I have always assumed this was not in box formation but as a straggler.

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## special ed (Nov 25, 2021)

Another bit of trivia slightly off topic was those who intercepted Bear bombers on patrol could tell by the tail gun barrels how close they could come. If the barrels pointed up, it was ok to come close enough to take pictures, theirs and ours. If the barrels pointed straight to the rear, keep your distance. When I heard this, I asked some who had been there and it was confirmed.

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## Tinn (Nov 27, 2021)

If I had to choose a position on a B-17 (or B-24) I would opt for Maintenance Crew Chief

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## Geoffrey Sinclair (Nov 28, 2021)

wmaxt said:


> According to the 8th Air Force web page the best position was the Bombardier then the top turret/Waist gunner. The worst was the Radio/Pilot. The Waist gunner position was twice as bad accounting for the fact there were two. Ball turret,Navigator, Co-Pilot were about the same. It must be noted that this is for the 95th BG and go as follows
> 
> Pilot 58kia 11wia
> Co- Pilot 56kia 7 wia
> ...


Possibly check out the Mediterranean Air War Series by Chris Shores et. al. Frank Olynyk expressed a possible interest in doing a by position casualty count for the heavy bombers as part of the research, using the relevant MACR. I do not know if it has been done or published. The cause of loss would affect crew survival chances, both total and by position

The data I have is simply total casualties for the entire war, the 8th AF B-17 listed as lost to fighters had an average crew size of 9.74, of which an average of 3.6 were killed. For flak losses 9.16 and 2.93. Reflecting the changes in crew sizes in 1944. From 1,429 B-17 losses to fighters and 1,379 to flak.

Early losses had higher casualty rates, to end May 1943, 112 B-17 lost to fighters, average crew size 10.05, of which an average of 5.54 killed. For the 38 B-17 listed as lost to flak the numbers were 10.03 and 4.18.

From a slightly later set of data, which has 4,508 B-17 losses of which 1,440 to fighter, 1,405 to flak. Collisions saw an average of 6.5 men killed per aircraft, crashes 3.6, fighters 3.57, take off accidents 3.04, flak 2.93, flak and fighter 2.85, friendly fire (usually bomb) 2.67, mechanical failure 1.7. Fatalities on aircraft considered to have been lost to fighter attack were 5,143 men, flak 4,123, collisions 1,607 then crashes with 519, out of 12,815 fatalities.

An incomplete list of 8th Air Force B-24 losses indicates close to half of the men on board were killed when the aircraft was shot down by fighters, while losses to flak had a slightly higher fatality rate than the B-17.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 28, 2021)

Geoffrey Sinclair said:


> Possibly check out the Mediterranean Air War Series by Chris Shores et. al. Frank Olynyk expressed a possible interest in doing a by position casualty count for the heavy bombers as part of the research, using the relevant MACR. I do not know if it has been done or published. The cause of loss would affect crew survival chances, both total and by position
> 
> The data I have is simply total casualties for the entire war, the 8th AF B-17 listed as lost to fighters had an average crew size of 9.74, of which an average of 3.6 were killed. For flak losses 9.16 and 2.93. Reflecting the changes in crew sizes in 1944. From 1,429 B-17 losses to fighters and 1,379 to flak.
> 
> ...


What does this dissertation have to do with the most dangerous position for a crewmember aboard a bomber?

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## Simon Thomas (Nov 28, 2021)

It was obvious to me.


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## Thumpalumpacus (Nov 29, 2021)

GrauGeist said:


> What does this dissertation have to do with the most dangerous position for a crewmember aboard a bomber?



Perhaps not directly germane to the topic, but it's interesting info to me nonetheless.


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## bwiechman (Nov 29, 2021)

Various books by German pilots indicated they didn’t like attacking from the rear. The slow closing speed made them more vulnerable to return fire. This was mentioned in A Higher Call, and several others.

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## Acheron (Dec 4, 2021)

AFAIK, normally, a fighter would like to come up to a bomber from behind, match airspeeds and shoot the big plane up at its leisure.

I suspect against US bomber formations though, Luftwaffe pilots wanted to keep the engagement times short, because the bombers shot back a lot. So, attack from the front, the combined airspeeds of the crafts would shorten the time each side could shoot at the other.


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## Zipper730 (Dec 4, 2021)

I was thinking about something for a second regarding the waist gunners, there were two waist gunners on a B-17, but only one of every other position (the exception being pilots, but they were divided into pilot/co-pilot). With a total casualty figure being 147 for the waist gunners (22.76%), and 102 killed (20.82%), that comes out to 73.5 & 51 for each one, making for 11.38% / 10.41%.

Looking at these figures, you end up with

Crew-Position...................Casualties..............  
.........................-Total.........Killed........Wounded
Pilot..................-10.68%....11.84%....-7.05%
Co-Pilot..............9.75%....-11.43%.../-4.49%
Navigator...........10.99%....11.43%.../..9.62%
Radioman..........11.15%..._.9.59%.../..8.97%
Top-Turret..........11.76%.../11.43%....18.59%
Left Waist..........11.73%...-10.41%....14.42%
Right Waist........11.73%...-10.41%....14.42%
Bottom Turret....10.99%.....11.63%....-8.97%
Tail Turret...........100.-%......100.-%....100.-%


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## fubar57 (Dec 5, 2021)



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## wuzak (Dec 5, 2021)

"Considered one of the *most important defensive positions* aboard the bombers, the two waist gunners were supplied with maximum ammunition, but being back-to-back, they often got in each other's way. Even as *infrequency of beam attacks* and the *limited field of fire* of the guns *mitigated the effectiveness* of the station, its exposed nature made it *one of the most dangerous to occupy*."

Seems odd that "one of the most important positions" was subject to infrequent attacks and was also of limited effectiveness. And one of the most dangerous positions at the same time.

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## WARSPITER (Dec 5, 2021)

Most dangerous position ? Probably just behind the weak nose armour working the pedals to turn the prop. Ahh, 
wrong plane, wrong thread. Carry on....

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## Geoffrey Sinclair (Dec 5, 2021)

fubar57 said:


> ​


That diagram is a nice find.

Trouble with it is at the start of June 1944 the 8th had 21 B-17 and 18 B-14 groups operational with a final B-24 group becoming operational on 6 June. On 22 July two B-24 groups went non operational to convert to B-17, another two on 7 August, then another two on 25 August, meaning at the end of the month it was 24 B-17 and 13 B-24 groups operational and 2 B-17 groups non operational.

The USAAF Statistical Digest says the June to August 1944 heavy bomber losses on combat missions was 1,003.

The still incomplete loss list I am using has 450 B-24 and 622 B-17 lost June to August inclusive, of which 39 B-24 and 40 B-17 losses were on non combat sorties. 303 B-24 and 415 B-17 were missing on operations, another 108 B-24 and 167 B-17 made it to friendly territory before their loss. The missing aircraft had 2,569 men killed, the other 275 non missing aircraft report 365 men killed. So the wartime study may be in returning damaged aircraft.

From Courage and the Air War by Mark Wells.

The airmen saw plenty of death, 8th air force bombers came home with 1,175 dead and 4,689 wounded crewmen on board in the first half of 1944. One story has a bomber exploding in front of another and the pilots of the second bomber watching the body of a man falling into one of their propellers, splattering the results all over the windscreen where it quickly froze. The pilot had to borrow a knife to lean out and scrape the windscreen. While on a later mission the pilot suffered the psychological impact of this experience.

As for what was feared the most Mark Wells notes in passing, speaking of the USAAF, "Formation leaders and pilots enjoyed only very limited ability to avoid flak and were obviously restricted in manoeuvring against fighters. Gunners, on the other hand, might occupy themselves by shooting at the Germans, but could only watch flak as it arced toward their aircraft. Bomber pilots more often feared fighters, while their gunners feared flak. If there was an identifiable tendency, it was to fear things more that one felt helpless to act against.

This partly explains the fact that fighter pilots often tended to show less anxiety than did their bomber crew counterparts. Fighter pilots were more in a position to "control their own destinies" in a given situation."

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