B-25 weapons thread (4 Viewers)

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CATCH 22 said:
Thanks Paul! Check all your 3rd BG photos and the 38th BG as well. There are many photos, where one can find something. I think you said once you have the book "The Grim Reapers at work...". I don't have it. There might be some info there as well.
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Will do and thanks for the info, hoping to get out of work early tomorrow and wife gone for bible study. I will let you know what I find
 
Afternoon Yves,

I been going through the book Harvest of the Grim Reapers by Hickey and Rogers. Found two photos that you may find interesting. Very few pictures showing all the 30 caliber machine guns installed on sides and one facing down by bomb sight. One is of course the camera though I didn't see any more info. Second one I think you will find more intersting. A ball joint used for a waist gunner and this one also looks to have a stinger in the tail shown with red arrows

 
Paul thanks for the addition! Both pictures are great: I haven't seen one of those with 3x0.30 in the nose at the same time. They usually have one fixed 0.50 on the right side. The camera is there, mounted in the absolutely same manner as in the other photos. These are probably the earliest modifications done in Australia, before the strafers.
As for the second photo, I've seen a ball joint in the photographer's window but in the CBI - I'm sure the photo is somewhere in this huge (and amazing) thread. And you are right about the tail stinger - it's a 0.30 coming through the observer's blister. AFAIK we were discussing a crashed a/c (I think it was "El Diablo") with you, having the same tail gun and I believe you said that the pilot was shooting with it - there was no tail gunner.

I think the serial of this plane is 41-12888 or sim. which makes it a B-25C, no block number. After 41-12817 the planes got the navigator's blisters and dome, as we can see. The two elliptical windows on the left fuselage side changed to one elliptical and one round, same as on the right side. In your photo above we still see the 2 elliptical ones (as on a B-25B) and the navigator's window is flat, so it's an earlier a/c. Those Mitchells still had the belly turret in place and probably made use of it.
I think I already posted the next photo but this is the best one, I could find from the same period - this is "Mortimer" before becoming a strafer with a 4-guns nose. The tail gun is evident, maybe the ball socket in the photographer's window is there as well. This is one of the very first Mitchells delivered to the Dutch in Australia, used during the "Royce mission" on April 12, 1942, still with the red disk in the white star, here overpainted.

Cheers!
 
Micdrow said:
Found this on an old hard drive I had, Not sure where I got it from but some of you may find it interesting. Probably some of the first Soviet air to air refueling methods.
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Hi Paul! It's an interesting idea you've shown here. But it IS NOT a refueling system. B-25 was probably too small for a tanker, I don't know. This is a fighter tow system with a "parasite fighter". But the idea was used for the development of air refueling later. It is quite possible that what we see in the photos is in fact a simulation of air-refueling with the characteristic cone.
Here is a translation from an article in Russian from the www:
 
Afternoon Yves,

Yep your right, been digging on this most of the morning, Its called the Burlak system.

B-25J was a tug experiment with towed jet fighters. It was designed to tow a fighter to combat area, disengage the jet fighter so it could conduct air combat and the hook back up to the bomber for the return flight to base. The fighter used in the experiment was Yak-25 single engine, straight wing jet figher prototype built in 1947. ( Not to be confused with the later Yak-25 swept wing twin jet interceptoer.) Experiments where conducted in June 1949. The B-25 had the tail turrent deleted and the installing of a drum with a 150m (490-ft) cable which was stablized by a drogue with gave rise to the miss belief it was a tanker. The fighter approached the drogue and fired a telescopic harpoon locking into it were upon the towing began. 6 different methods of towing with different types of recepticles and harpoons where successfully tested.

At night a red signal lamp which could be seen at distance of up to 7,000m (22,960 ft) helped the fighter pilot to establish visual conact with the bomber at night.

I wonder how thick of cable was used and how they adjusted for the weight of the cable and reel?

Sources: Lend Lease and Soviet aviation in the Second World War by Vladimir Kotelnikov
US aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia by Yefim Gordan and Sergey Komissarov with Dmitriy Komissarov.
 
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Micdrow said:
I wonder how thick of cable was used and how they adjusted for the weight of the cable and reel?
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HI Paul! I too checked my copy of Kotelnikov's book about B-25 (in English), but you got the details. Here's a photo of the cone in the nose of a Yak-25 fighter. One can see the cable as well. It's not too thick but we can't judge about the exact diameter by this photo only.
 
You can estimate the cable diameter by referencing known dimensions in the photo. The hard line running under the boom is the metric version of either -4 or -6 tubing, the fasteners on the inlet are less than 26 mm in diameter and the flush rivets are probably either M4's or M5's. That would put the cable in the range of 14-20 mm in diameter. 14 and 16 mm are stock wire rope sizes and the next current size would be 26 mm.
 
Micdrow said:
Afternoon Yves,
Very few pictures showing all the 30 caliber machine guns installed on sides and one facing down by bomb sight.

View attachment 830323
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Looking for information for Don's B-25 model, I came across a photo, which I downloaded years ago, but never tried to analyze. This one:

The description of the photo is: "Gunner aboard B-25 bomber aiming at secondary targets on the way home from a bombing run over the New Guinean port of Madang."
At a first glance it shows a waist-gunner in a real or staged situation, some B-25 modified (late D) or not (J) etc. Yep, but this is wrong.
Firstly: why is the gunner sitting in a "cage" of some sort?
Secondly: is this a real 0.50 Browning or what? (compare below with a B-25H waist gunner).

The answer is simple: this is not the "normal" B-25 waist gunner we know. This one is using a 0.30 Browning, aiming trough the photographer's windows in the back of the fuselage and sitting on the camera-support, the latter being standard on B-25C/D models.

Or with other words this is the strafer-modification from the Pacific, known as B-25C1/D1:

So far this is the ONLY photo I know, showing the gunner and his position in the photography station from the inside.
Cheers!
 
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I know they pulled the ventral gun turret on the C/D and installed a local fabrication for a disposable fuel tank, it was supposed to be ejected upon empty or emergency. It didn't work so well, leaking and not ejecting so it was discontinued. Not sure if that would be the rack. This would only be on the C/D as the lower gun were deleted from later models
 
No, this is the camera station far back - the belly turret is before it. The camera had its own round hatch and that rack is above it.

The additional tank had to be dropped trough the turret opening.

Compare in the schemes below the position of the belly turret and the photographer's windows resp. "riding seat" (toilet) far back.


Cheers!
 
Donivanp said:
Learn more every day.
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Don, I believe we had those details before, in threads like B-25 weapons and B-25 with cameras. Photos above are from those thread, contributed by many of the knowledgeable gentlemen here. I added some from my archive as well. The LIFE-photo I started with, was really one of those gems, we see many times but kinda miss the detail.
And it's good to refresh from time to time the memories. Reading my own posts from years ago, makes me wonder, how much did I know....earlier.
 
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I once had more useless knowledge in my head, now i think it had jumbled up and comes out garbled and combines four different aircraft in to one conglomerate. Be careful I'll have j79 engines in a b-25 with HARM missiles.
 
Yep, you are the pro here about those things.
I saw the plate on the side of the window, bolted with 4 bolts and the plywood siding under the gun - both non-factory details. BTW this is the right side (starboard) gun - the photo was made from the tail facing the front - photographer probably sitting on the toilet/riding seat. The armor bulkhead with door is visible behind the gunner. The wind deflector (front side of the photographer's window) is visible as well.
That's one of the Pappy Gunn's-type strafers but a late one - may not modified by himself and Co. I believe it's from the 345th BG. (as shown in the other photo).
 
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