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They did that with the B29s over Japan on the night bombing missions where they were fire bombing. But Japan had no night defenses to speak of. Pretty well thought out before they tried it.
According to the B29 web site, many of the B29 crews have sworn that they did NOT remove the guns or crew members, regardless of orders.
And the British generally retained them all though were in the habit of closely analyzing operations so must have realized they rarely accomplished much, especially fwd or top guns. I guess morale, and value of the gunners as observers to avoid night fighters, which gets back to morale, the idea of having some warning and chance to try to evade an attack, even if in reality the bomber spotting the small night fighter first, and evading it, wasn't likely.
In many cases night bombing units adopted the doctrine of not firing on night fighters until fired on, in case they saw the night fighter but it didn't see them, so again gunners as lookouts as much as anything else.
Joe
The problem with deleting the guns on the gun carrying bombers is that it simply opens up other avenues for the NFs to attack.
There is really only two options in my opinion....all or nothing. Either you build a bomber bristling with guns and armour, and screww the performance, or you go down the Mosquito path, build lots of small light, fast, expendable bombers that hopefully can
a) outrun the defensders and/or
b) overwhelm the defenders with numbers
True for daylight, but as mentioned WWII night fighters rarely attacked from other than behind. WWII nightfighters didn't have fire control systems per se included in their radar functionality, they had to acquire the target visually to actually shoot. Assuming the visual conditions were obscure enough to require ground control or AI radar or searchlights it was extremely difficult for the night fighter to track the target visually well enough to execute a head on or pursuit curve gunnery pass: it basically had to approach from behind. In bright moonlight and clear weather it might be possible to conduct passes from multiple angles, but those were the conditions night bombers would try to avoid.The problem with deleting the guns on the gun carrying bombers is that it simply opens up other avenues for the NFs to attack.
There is really only two options in my opinion....all or nothing.
A tail warning radar might help cue evasive action, but the potential problem with tail warning radars on bombers was similar to shooting first. For example the Germans eventually fitted night fighters with the 'Flensburg' radar detector that could be used to home in on the 'Monica' tail warning radars on RAF bombers, and like any radar detector could detect the Monica signal farther away than the radar could detect the night fighter.
Heres the B29 web site. There's plenty of B29 airmen that frequent the site and can answer questions.
http://b-29.org/
In an account I was reading the other day a pilot flying a Beaufighter didn't realise he was being attacked until tracer rounds flew past his window!