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Front Turrets on Bombers

C

Cromwell

Charter Member
My Father is an ex-member of the Pathfinder force. The other day we were discussing aerial gunnery and he said from his experience he never knew of the front turret being fired at an enemy aircraft let alone shooting one down! In fact he had never known anyone who had found it useful!! He did say they were occasionally fired at search lights but that was more to be annoying than effective.
He qualified his comments by saying the lack of use of the front turret may have been because they flew night missions and it was very hard for a night fighter to mount a frontal attack. He said he expected the Americans on the daylight raids probably did use them to fend off head on attacks.
I would really like to hear what others think on this.
By the way I have shown my Father CFS3 ETO and even with failing eyesight he was very impressed! He watched me take off in a Lanc and made another interesting comment, he stated he would never deploy any flaps on take off until 65mph was reached as other wise the take off run could get very long due to the early drag and that usually resulted in the rear gun being able to count the number of eggs in the blackbird nest in the airfield boundary hedge!!
 
In his experiences prolly, correct. However there are times when it was used against air targets at night. Esp on bad moon nights when the crew could pick out a night fighter in time.

Remember also that the Lancs also operated in the day towards the end of the war and I'm sure it will have been handy then.

Re: flaps,
That would have been different station to station and mission to mission depending on the load, although a max load tended to be carried on most missions at the insistance of Harris. Each crew/squadron/field would have come up with there own niggles there were outside of the standard operating procedures.
 
Coastal Command front gunners were well used indeed to make those U-boat gunners run for cover. They were also used to discourage frontal attacks by KG40's Ju88's. I can see your grandfathers point though. For front gunners who had to usually deal with higher closing vectors than thier mid-upper and rear turret counterparts and at night too. By the end of the war many BC bombers had their turrets removed, I believe.
 
I believe your father's experience was unique to night missions. Here is why:

The USAAF experimented with a very heavily armed version of the B-17 Fortress called the B-40. It had massively increased ammunition loads and twin gun mounts at most of the stations. The waist guns were twins instead of singles, the radio position had an additional turret, a chin turret was added. These guns had many thousands of rounds per gun. The aircraft were heavier than the unmodified B-17Fs even with a bomb load. They could not maintain altitude and speed with even ONE engine out.

They were found to be a bit more effectively defensively than the standard B-17F of the time. Most of the difference was found to be due to the chin turret. The other positions didn't add much. As a result, a chin turret was added to the next model, the B-17G as were the staggered waist gun positions.

Seems like a nose gun position was deemed to be useful in the experience of the USAAF.

- Ivan.
 
Interesting point Cromwell, from the accounts I've read of the RAF bombers at night it does seem to be the case.

Ref the B40, wasn't that used as a defensive aircraft only, ie without the bombs? My memory is failing these days.
 
Pat Pattle said:
Ref the B40, wasn't that used as a defensive aircraft only, ie without the bombs? My memory is failing these days.
Click to expand...
Yes and they stopped the experience because they were too slow on the way back home because they were to heavy while the other bombers were faster after the bombs were released.
 
Front turrets

Clearly the front turrets were needed by the AAF as the 17 was an easy target when attacked from the front hence the addition of the front turret on later models as and as well as the front turret being added to the 24 since the hand controlled guns were useless on the D series.

Many night bombers did have the front turret either removed or gutted. Many special versions of the Lancaster used for daylight missions had the turret removed! The jamming planes of 100 squadron removed the guns and kept the glass, backed out the turret too (b24). This was also done on the b17 jammers.

I have read 20 or so books on nightfighters and not once did I read of a frontal attack being conducted. "Unter hinden" was the approach used and taught to all nightfighter pilots and that is one reason why they were poor pilots during the day sorties of 1943 and early 44.
 
In large formations i always use the frontal attack..
It seems to keep me safer then side or rear attacks.
Our beloved sims have a way of focusing on the player aircraft during attacks, so I tend to let my wingmen go in first and any freindly fighters do thier thing..
I tend to hang back after a few frontal passes, and pick off the damaged bombers that fall out of formation..
And my purple Hobbit special, it a killer.. LOL..
 
My Father said he was worried by the night fighters that had (Excuse my spelling if it's wrong) Shreaker Musik as the Lancaster was very exposed from underneath!
 
The later versions of the Halibag (MkIII and later designs) didn't have a front turret - only the early ones. That must prove something, since losses dropped off significantly once the MkIII entered service. Until then the Halibag had had a noticeably higher loss rate than the Lanc.

I think the point about tactics is valid; RAF night bombers did not fly in formation, for obvious reasons, and therefore the need to attack from head-on was obviated. If you read Jimmy Rawnsley's book about night fighting, you realise that the tactics are totally different - stalking individual targets, usually from behind and below so as to see them against the sky, rather than the balls-out, full-speed pass used by the day fighters.

So while it was intelligent to reinforce the frontal armament on the Fortress and Liberator for day use, it was pointless doing so on the RAF's night bombers. Seems reasonable to me, in any case.
 
Cromwell said:
My Father said he was worried by the night fighters that had (Excuse my spelling if it's wrong) Shreaker Musik as the Lancaster was very exposed from underneath!
Click to expand...

Schraege Musik. You can understand his point...
 
Yes you are prefectly correct, in Night missions it is all but impossible to do head ons..
those are a different animial to say the least..
in nite missions I tend to attack from below, again less guns shooting back..LOL..
The haifax's and lancasters do seem to have a blind spot low and off to one side or the other side..
But from below I often attack straight up to see the bomber..
and moon lite nite really do help..
it is fun watching a Lancaster fall apart above you..LOL..
 
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