Nobody was 'picking on' Comer until you put the narrative on display.. In other words we were more likely to be giving you a hard time for believing it? From my perspective I am Not apologetic for doubting the facts/claims made in his story.
I read to learn and frequently question dubious claims - book or internet or post. You may choose to embrace whatever narrative that floats your boat..
With respect, you have not read the extract
properly - for a start not all of the extra ammunition was stored aft of the bomb bay - Comer wrote he placed
as much as he could forward, against the radio-room/bomb bay bulkhead and as close as possible to the B-17's cg,
with the rest in the cockpit and nose. At no time does he specify how much extra ammunition was in the radio room or in the front, nor does he say how heavy each load was.
Instead you make assumptions, based on what?
64 boxes of 50 cal stored in Radio cabin...aft of the CG by several feet, conversely shoving the 200 pounds per crew by 4 (ball, waist, waist, radio) by several more feet aft of CG, then by another 30 feet x 200 for tail gunner, then by 26 feetx1100 for stacked boxes at tail bulkhead..
There were not necessarily 64 boxes stowed in the radio room - that is your assumption. You are assuming he compounded things by ensuring the 4 rear crew members had to stay out of the radio room during take off with no evidence to back up that assumption. 1,100 lbs by the tail bulkhead? Assumption, No evidence.
Further 13,500 rounds = 4500 pounds, or about 2000 pounds over the calculated gross weight Takeoff, including mission load of fuel and bombs. You think the engineer (Comer) didn't understand the implications?
So, what was the specified loading and weight for the mission? You don't know because it isn't described: the only clue is that it is a long range mission to Anklam requiring Tokyo Tanks. You are assuming 13,500 rounds was the actual loading.
You also claimed:
He said "1300 pounds were stored at the tail". 200 (max) for tail gunner, 1100 for ammo. 50 pounds+ per box. 22 boxes at tail gun/tail wheel bulkhead.
no he did not: he said that
some, not all, of the boxes had been re-stacked
in the waist with
some stacked against the tail gunner's position. So how many boxes were re-stacked in the waist? How many by the tail wheel bulkhead? Not specified ie; you are assuming 22 boxes at tail gun/tail wheel bulkhead with no evidence to back that up. Assumption, no evidence, that Comer didn't understand what he was doing.
Comer explained to the pilots that the re-stacked ammunition
plus the tail gunner stupidly sitting in his post rather than in his proper take-off position, had made the aircraft "
too heavy at the tail" by 1,300 lbs. Pop quiz - how much weight positioned well behind the c.g of a B-17 would make it tail heavy by 1,300 lbs, enough to make for an extremely risky take-off?
Of course, this is very different from stating there was 1,300 lbs loaded around the tail gunner's position, which is what you are reading into this account - such a loading, that far behind the cg, would have made take-off impossible.
It is also very likely that Comer (or his editor or publisher) was mistaken about the ammunition load: here is part of a load diagram from the B-17F Flight manual
3,500 rounds standard, early B-17G probably not much different, in which case twice the normal load would be 7,000 rounds ie; about 2,200 pounds?
Note that Comer says he
almost doubled the
normal load of 7,000 rounds to thirteen thousand five hundred? What are the chances that in writing about events some 30 years later he, or an editor, or the publisher, transposed two lots of figures and came up with a slightly garbled account? 3,500 with a mark in front of it can look a lot like 13,500 and it seems all too coincidental that 13,500 rounds was what Comer claimed to have loaded - why not fourteen thousand rounds? So I'm going to assume that figures were transposed, because I know it can happen, and assume that what Comer meant to say is that he doubled the load from 3,500 rounds to 7,000. In fact earlier in the narrative Comer asked the armorer for
4,000 extra rounds, not 7,000. It also changes any calculations about how much extra weight was loaded in the rear of the B-17, and the effects of shifting
some of that weight.
Or you can just read into the narrative whatever floats your boat...