Unknown turret

[drgondog]

To me, they're arranged in a straight line. The article (maybe I should have mentioned this earlier) discusses "Forced Feeding" of ammunition belts using an electric booster, developed by the Hughes Aircraft Company Culver City California. I'm thinking the correct orientation of the photo should be thus...



Just a thought.

Is it possible that all the photos supplied to Popular Mechanics were from Hughes? Therefore is it possible that we're looking at a VERY rare photo of the "proposed" rear nacelle armament for Hughes' D-2...?

The vertical alignment seems to be the only alternative as clearly there is no turret ring. As to the actual a/c?

If the mount swivels 'laterally' only (for a vertical mount) - it would not be a very interesting deterrent to a trailing fighter. On the other hand - if it was set to be 'fixed' for forward battery, why provide what seems to be a rotating mount on either side of the battery except for perhaps access to load and feed?

 

[EAIAnalog]

Here are three pictures of the B-29 upper forward four gun turret, next to T Square 54, a B-29 being restored at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. You can see that the middle two guns are raised enough to allow the ammunition belts to easily feed into each breech. And you can see the separate sprockets driving each belt. The sprockets are driven by single motor through gears.

 

[Flyboy2]

I think it is the D-2 turret

And if anybody was wondering someone is actually trying to sell the patent for the D-2 on Ebay.. Found that out when I was searching for pictures of the tail