B-25 weapons thread

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I just finished reading the book The Grim Reapers At Work in the Pacific Theater by John P Henebry and came across an interesting configuration. I was wondering if anyone had seen or found any pictures of B-25's showing this configuration as followed.

Pappy's mechanics fabricated square 300 gallon tanks from locally produced flat rolled steel. They added hooks on top similar to those on the bombs we carried. They then cut a square hole in the bottom of each B-25. On either side they fastened doors, spring loaded with steel springs-the kind I remember from my grandmothers screen door. Guide rails where used to keep the tank from moving in flight so that the tanks four corners fit into the guide rails. Above the area and centered they mounted a bomb shackle to hold the inserted tank by hooks. They installed pumps and lines to bring the new store of auxiliary fuel to the main integral wing self sealing fuel tanks. The auxiliary tank would be the first to be emptied and once emptied, discarded before combat as it was not self sealing. This added roughly another 2 hours of flying time.
 
Check out the nose of this B-25, looks to be four 50 caliber machine guns and possibly 20mm cannon. Looking at barrel size I would say the 5th barrel is bigger then the 50's but to small from the looks of it to be a 37mm cannon.

 
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Yep, looks like a Hispano.
 
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Found these pictures on the WWII radio website on face book. I got the say they are the clearest I have seen on the 75mm storage rack. I am guessing you can figure out the rest of them


 
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Found these on Facebook, Inside and outside picture of tail of a B-25A. Also picture of inside B-25 with staggered 50 Caliber side windows.

 
Micdrow said:
View attachment 284225 View attachment 284226 View attachment 284227 View attachment 284228 Installation of the 75mm cannon into a B-25 into the nose.
Click to expand...
I knew the top turret gunner on this bird. John Ferry flew 75 missions in the CBI and won a boatload of medals. John was in his early 90's so his memory wasn't always that good for remembering specifics but he clearly recalls that the crew could only get off about three rounds max of the 75 before everyone in the a/c was sick from the cordite smoke. Unfortunately he passed recently so we lost another of the "greatest generation".
 
Short 8 minute video showing the different positions of machine guns and weapons on the Mitchell and firing
 

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The B-25C in post #144 had a 20mm

They did trial a 37mm cannon setup on a B-25C (41-12800) with two 37mm cannon mounted in a tray slung from the bomb bay, but the recoil did extensive damage to the airframe. It was repaired and I believe it ended up in RAF service!

Regarding "Johnny Pom Pom" (41-12906), it was with 13th BS, 3rd BG, 5th AF and lost on 28 July 1943 after being damaged on a raid at Cape Glouchester. 4 crew members successfully bailed out, the pilot, Lt. Nichols was KIA hen it crashed near Soputa. I suspect it may have been a field mod, as combinations of 20mm cannon were tested/used, but a single off-set 20mm is really unusual.
 
Great find, Paul!

Boy, what a "draggy" layout, though. And why would they install two fifties at the hatch and two fifties in the nose instead of setting up the more effective nose-mounted four fifties?

And I also noticed that there's an indication of a "port" offset on the nose in the diagram. Wonder if this was in anticipation for the later 75mm trials?
 
My guess is that this drawing was when they proposed the G model. The H model went to the four 50's in the nose. I believe the hatch gun could only hold about 200 rounds. I believe they though about using the hatch gun on the J model with the solid nose 8 fifty's in the nose but decided that it was over kill. Put the side blisters on that drawing and add the two 50's and look out when that fired plus the 75mm cannon and 37mm cannon. Lot of lead flying LOL
 
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