How effective were gunners in planes?

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airminded88 said:
Bill,
During the those final days of the air war over Europe when the Me-262 entered the fray, did you and your peers receive sufficient information from intelligence officers about it?

Cheers
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Sufficient information to be concerned. The ME-262 was the fighter aircraft of the future in 1945. We considered it to be a deadly strike force.
 
There are plenty of accounts from Luftwaffe pilots that acknowledge the effectiveness of the combined fire from an American bomber box.

However, whereas they became increasingly wary of attacking the heavily escorted formations that were commonplace late in the war they would always avail themselves of an opportunity to attack an isolated or unescorted bomber formation. It's not that this was necessarily easy, but it was a lot easier than fighting through a well positioned and handled escort group.

The most deadly enemy of a Luftwaffe day fighter in the last two years of the war was not the American bombers, but their escorts.

The RAF, operating at night, had rather different priorities. Some Bomber Command Groups had an aggressive policy on engaging night fighters, 5 Group being a case in point. This was proven to lead to more 'friendly' fire incidents in the bomber stream and gradually abandoned. Defensive fire definitively revealed the bomber's position, and the bombers friend was stealth in the darkness. Bomber Command gunners generally acted as look outs and would only engage a night fighter if they were certain an attack was developing. Often a burst of fire would persuade the fighter to break away find a less alert target. Any gunner seeing an attack develop would call for an evasive manoeuvre, a corkscrew to port or starboard depending on the position of the fighter. This was a violent manoeuvre, an attempt to lose the fighter and get lost in the darkness. Accurate gunnery from a cork screwing bomber was impossible, men were injured in cork screwing bombers, thrown about and hitting various hard or pointy bits inside the fuselage.

I have read accounts from bomber crews who saw a nightfighter, sometimes at very close range, but felt the fighter had not seen them. They let it go on its way rather than reveal their position to it, or any others lurking in the bomber stream.

Cheers

Steve
 
I have always been fascinated by how sharply different was the daylight bomber war from its nocturnal counterpart when it comes to bombers vs interceptors.
How the presence and the absence of light dictated the rules and mechanics of combat.

Cheers
 
airminded88 said:
I have always been fascinated by how sharply different was the daylight bomber war from its nocturnal counterpart when it comes to bombers vs interceptors.
How the presence and the absence of light dictated the rules and mechanics of combat.

Cheers
Click to expand...
In the month of March, 1945 the RAF Mosquito Bombers dropped incendiary bombs on Berlin some 28 to 30 nights in a row. On a couple of occasions I saw them going in at a lower altitude as we were letting down following our mission. They were all over the sky. I marvel at how they managed to avoid running into each other in the darkness. It was a sight to behold.
 
Night fighting was indeed a different world to day fighting and early electronic technology played an increasing part.
By late 1944 some RAF bombers were equipped with rear AGLT Automatic Gun Laying Turrets, (Rose Richards 2x 0.5" guns & FN121 4x0.303") with Village Inn radar gun laying.

Rather than explain their use I leave it to an actual WW2 gunner to tell his tale: The Village Inn – 460 Squadron

In more technical detail: Automatic Gun-Laying Turret - Wikipedia
 
billrunnels said:
You are correct our guns were for defensive protection. The same was true with our fighter escort.
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It wasn't always the case.

In early 1944 Doolittle took over from Eaker and the role of the escorts changed. Instead of simply protecting the bombers, the fighters were tasked with destroying the Luftwaffe. To some degree, the bombers were the bait.

This was the lead up to d-day.
 
Very informative. Thanks for sharing
 
yulzari said:
By late 1944 some RAF bombers were equipped with rear AGLT Automatic Gun Laying Turrets, (Rose Richards 2x 0.5" guns & FN121 4x0.303") with Village Inn radar gun laying.
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'Some' was not very many. Only two squadrons, Nos. 460 and 49 were initially selected to receive the equipment. From Harris' 'Despatch'.

"The equipment was first used operationally by No. 460 Squadron on the 20/21st July 1944. Whilst the equipment worked well generally, it was obvious from the first that negative identification required care and great restraint by gunners. To make matters worse, trouble was experienced with I.R. filters fitted to the transmitting lamps, and I therefore decided to operate A.G.L. (T) aircraft only under certain conditions and when other aircraft were not likely to be encountered...When the equipment was working well, numerous contacts, chiefly friendly, were made. It was apparent, however, that gunners mistrusted the Type 'Z' identification and were loath to fire blind at what they thought might be friendly aircraft..."

It was far from an outstanding success, and when a third squadron (No. 635 from 8 Group) was selected for trials with the equipment it received No. 460 Squadron's aircraft.

At the end of the war there were just four squadrons fitted with the A.G.L. system. No. 49 Squadron from No. 1 Group amd Nos. 635, 582 and 35 from No. 8 Group.

Harris summed up thus.

"To sum up, A.G.L. (T) gave promise to becoming one of the greatest assets to the defence of heavy bombers at night, but unfortunately, no completely successful identification system was found and there was no practical scheme for one before the end of the war. Moreover, it has been found that the present Mark of A.G.L. (T) is most difficult to keep in seviceable condition, and when unserviceable puts a gunner at a distinct disadvantage owing to the restrictions in view which the extra equipment imposes. A.G.L. (T) Mark III, or, as is likely to be, Mark IV, should offer very distinct advantages over Mark I as the necessity for continuous search with the Mark I is most tiring to the air gunner."

It's also worth noting the parlous state of the Luftwaffe Nachtjagd by late 1944. In December 1944 it flew 1,070 sorties and shot down just 66 bombers, representing only 0.6% of enemy sorties over Germany.

Cheers

Steve
 
Dimlee said:
Corkscrew evasion.
Nice picture explaining this maneuver.
CorkScrew
Click to expand...
Not mentioned in the text is that as the war progressed the length of bomber streams became shorter I believe towards the end it was down to around 600 bombers crossing the target in 20 minutes (Stona posted some info). Each bomber was much closer to the rest than most liked to think about so evasive action was limited. Starting turning and diving massively increased the chances of a collision. One pilot was decorated for completing his mission after his aircraft was damaged and he was wounded, his matter of fact point of view was that he was safer in the bomber stream than trying to get out of it and heading home alone.
 
In 1943 when concentrations of at least 1000 aircraft per hour were recommended, two evasive manoeuvres were also recommended.

First, to evade flak, a deliberate and level turn away from the threat.

Second as a defence against fighters and described as a 'combat manoeuvre' was the extended corkscrew. The gunners were supposed to lay down defensive fire in conjunction with the pilot's manoeuvring, but on the evidence of written accounts, and a personal discussion with an ex-gunner, I'm sure that this would have been difficult to say the least.
A long winded report described the manoeuvre.

"The extended corkscrew commences with a straight dive which is converted into a turn of about 60 degrees, losing height by about 1,800 ft. This is followed by pulling out of the dive and climbing as sharply as possible in the opposite direction with full power, gaining as much height as possible. The whole manoeuvre is then repeated exactly as before."

The report further states that this tactic made deflection shooting by the fighter difficult and it was also likely that the fighter would overtake the bomber as it slowed down in the climb. It did allow that a bomber might instead make a steep diving turn towards the darkest part of the sky, but weaving was not recommended as it did little to throw off the interception.

Cheers

Steve
 
I suspect that the least effective gunners on USAAF bombers were the waist gunners, partly because they seemed to have the least effective sighting systems, the greatest likelihood of attacks with high crossing velocity and, possibly, the highest level of physical discomfort.

I think there was an optimal amount of armament for a WW2 heavy day bomber. None probably wouldn't work, even with escorts, but too much definitely wouldn't work, as demonstrated by the YB-40, which could not carry a bomb load. Adding defensive weapons increases the crew and decreases bomb load, so the combination increases the number of aircraft required for a given effect on target and increases the number of casualties for each aircraft lost. Luftwaffe fighters were between 50 and 100 percent faster than B-17s or B-24s, so they weren't that restricted in their attack trajectories, and the tight formations used by heavy day bombers made evasive maneuvers difficult, easing conditions for the interceptors.
 
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Every mission I was on we carried the maximum bomb load bonbay space on the B-17 would accomodate. The pay load had top priority. Not always were the gas and oil tanks filled to capacity to lower gross weight. Also removable of the nose cheek guns, the radio room gun and operating with one waist gunner helped. On my last mission we were in the air 11 hours 30 minutes and carried a maximum load of 12 500lb bombs to the target.
 
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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

taken from: "Gunner" ISBN 1-55046-332-2
 
Does anyone have any information as to why the tail gun would be so pitiful in its spread, especially compared to the ball or nose/chin turrets?
 
The tail armament was essentially hand-held guns mounted on a central pillar and not attached firmly to a powered turret.
 
Some interesting information on the effectiveness of the RAF automatic Gun Laying Turret often known as the Village Inn which was starting to be used in limited numbers in the last six months of the war.
The radar had a range of 20 miles and helped the gunner train and open fire on unseen attacking fighters.

To test this on the 11/12th September nine bombers equipped with this were placed at the rear of the bomber stream to encourage attacks. All nine returned and two of them were attacked by fighters.
One bomber (PB355) piloted by F/O Burns was attacked once and fought the fighter off without damage, the other had a much harder time. PB354 piloted by F/O Hay was attacked by three nightfighters a total of ten times over a period of twenty nine minutes. Such was the ferocity of the attacks the rear turret had to be resupplied by ammunition taken from the front turret and when you consider the rear turret carried 2,500 rpg, that's a lot of action.

I have just found a link to the action mentioned above, worth a read
Wayback Machine
 
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