Bomber machine guns

Whenever i try to do a search, it seems i get almost no results, or i get So Many that i cannot sift through it all.

Anyway..............to protect the plane from fighters, it seems that, on bombers, The British went with 30 caliber and the USA with 50.
1. Is that correct.?
2. If it is, what was the reasoning behind that. It is a pretty big difference.

Thank You

 

1) Almost, with the exception of some No. 1 Group Lancasters who, from the summer of 1944 onwards, had twin .50s in the rear turrets.

2) Weight. A Lancaster could carry almost 7 tons (more, if we include the Tall Boy and the Grand Slam) vs. 2-4 tons on a Fortress.

Regards,

Dave

 

Are you saying they... The British... were worried about the weight of the 50 Cal Guns/Ammo.?
Was it really all that much.?
Especially if you went from 2 or 4 30 Cal to 1 or 2 50 Cal.?

I realize it always "Depends" on a few things, but.............well i guess The British figured they could and DID do whatever they needed to do with 30 Cal.
I was not in WW2 and never in the military, it just seems like the 303 would have been barely adequate for the job.

 

Yeah, pretty well. That and the fact that after a while it was noticed that they (US made Colt M2s) froze up.

RAF Machine guns of WW2

British .303 vs 50 Cal M2

Why didn't the RAF up gun their WW2 heavy bombers .303 gun turrets to cannon or even .5 machine guns? Their fighter opponents were armed with cannons. - Quora

Comparison of .50 cal Colts with .303 Brownings

And then there was the case of an air bomber awarded the DFC for shooting down an German jet fighter. With his front .303s.



Regards,

Dave

 

10-4....some great info in there.
Thanks Again

 

Apart from logistical and weight considerations, there was another factor;
In nighttime operations, the combat distances are much shorter than during the day, so the .50 would hardly have been able to exploit its range advantage. What the .303 lacked in ballistic performance, the MG made up for with twice the RoF.

The tail turret of a Lancaster could fire up to 76rds/s, this RoF comes close to a modern M 134 Gatling gun:
There were a whole lot of Luftwaffe night fighters who found this performance more than adequate

Here is an exhaustive treatise on British gun turrets:
British Power-Operated Gun Turrets - Axis History Forum

 

IIRC It was due to a study done by the RAF in the 1930's in to aircraft armament which concluded that the .50" did not confer significant advantage over .303" and that 20mm cannon were the future, specifically the 20mm Hispano and until then the Browning in .303" was it. In order to do significant damage several guns would be needed however, hence the eight guns in the Hurricane and Spitfire and the four gun tail turrets which has been pointed out by the previous post.

Work was done towards 20mm turrets for the bombers including massive mushroom like affairs holding four Hispanos to be mounted in the dorsal and ventral positions. There were also two gun turrets developed and the only one that made it in to Lincolns and Shackletons was the two gun Bristol B17 dorsal turret Bristol B.17 mid-upper turret with twin 20 mm Hispano cannon | World War Photos

There were a whole host of other factors involved, Beaverbrook and the needs of production, the fact that .50" Brownings would have to be imported (the .303" was made here) and some I can't recall. If you are really interested try and ge a copy of The Guns of the Royal Air Force 1939 - 1945 by G F Wallace who was there at the time.

BTW Specifically regarding the tail turret there were centre of gravity consideration to a lot of weight back there. So much so that even with .303" guns the ammunition was stored further up the fuselage and fed back to the tail turret along tracks with feed assisters. This shows the setup in the Lancaster http://jproc.ca/rrp/rrp3/lanc_ammo_ducts.jpg

 

That appears to come directly from British Aircraft Armament Vol 1: RAF Gun Turrets from 1914 to the Present Day by R Wallace Clarke, an excellent volume I would recommend if interested in the subject.

Also note the comment at the end by another poster:

"Please stop posting so extensive quotes from book sources! Respect the copyright!"

 

BTW Regarding the centre of gravity issue, when some Lancaster’s were fitted with the Martin mid upper turret with
.50” Brownings it had to be moved forwards somewhat for that reason. See here
https://www.bombercommandmuseumarchives.ca/photos/p_lancasterturret1.jpg

 

Yeah, i had just been contemplating.....honestly i had ..... the fact that a B-17 and a Lancaster typically flew at day and night respectively.
I can definitely see where the 50 would be the better choice for a B-17 trying to fend off a 109 or 190.

Not sure what types of formations the Brits flew, but i suppose...at night... a bigger and longer range weapon (50Cal) might have posed as much danger to fellow Lancasters as German Fighters.
At the risk of repeating myself.........Thanks Again for the info.

On a side note..............in MIGHT be a world wide phrase, but in the USA there is a term "The Whole Nine Yards" that is used to denote giving something ... your best effort... or .... giving something all you got...that sort of a thing.
I was told that 9 Yards was a typical length of the ammo belt for a B-17 waste gunner.
Anybody know if that is true.?
Thank You

 

I've always worked on the assumption that the RAF and the USAAF used what were the best aircraft for the job. Imagine reversing the roles. I cannot imagine being the mid upper gunner or the front gunner on a Lancaster, in daytime, and just having .303s. Facing you are 100 FW190s.

As they flew with no lights there was no formation other than the "gaggle". Daylight RAF raids near war's end had squadrons flying in the "Vic" formation.

And here's an example of when the RAF used the best machine for the job. Crew of 9.

 

If twelve.50s are good, sixteen should be better

Brilliant Mistakes: The YB-40 | Defense Media Network

 

You might find this website of interest

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-whole-whole-nine-yards-enchilida.html

Also, this is from a 1908 newspaper

 

If only life were that simple. Don't forget the RAF's two .303" Brownings were in a power operated turret while the B-17's .50" Browning's were single guns hand operated until the chin turret arrived in some late model F's then in the G model from the start. As for your "And here's an example of when the RAF used the best machine for the job. Crew of 9", it doesn't have a chin turret, in fact it doesn't appear to have a nose armament at all as it's an electronics countermeasures aircraft operated by the RAF's 100 Group.

 

Not sure what your point is. I am saying that the B17, as used by No. 100 Group, was the best aircraft for the job.

 

Powered upper and ball turrets were standard on the B-17 from the E model onwards, each with 2x0.5” guns.

The RAF acquired a number of B-17 and B-24 from local theatre transfers from the 8th Air Force for 100 Group due to the size and shape of their bomb bay. They were better able to carry some of the very large electronic jammers like “Jostle” fitted to the B-17.

 

I was talking about nose armament and the fact that the only nose defence until the chin turret arrived in the G was hand operated guns.

 

I've always worked on the assumption that the RAF and the USAAF used what were the best aircraft for the job. Imagine reversing the roles. I cannot imagine being the mid upper gunner or the front gunner on a Lancaster, in daytime, and just having .303s. Facing you are 100 FW190s.

As they flew with no lights there was no formation other than the "gaggle". Daylight RAF raids near war's end had squadrons flying in the "Vic" formation.

And here's an example of when the RAF used the best machine for the job. Crew of 9.

You spoke about being a front gunner in a Lancaster facing 190's having just .303" guns and posted a picture of a B-17 in use by the RAF as an example of when the RAF used the best machine for the job except that that particular aircraft had no guns in the nose at all. So your example was clearly not the best machine for the job.

 

The U.S. bomber formations operated by day: they flew in closed formations, had good long-range visibility and many, agile, small targets: Since such attacks came from practically all sides, a correspondingly large number of on-board weapons were also necessary
So as many gunners as possible laid an impressive curtain of bullets, through which the attackers first had to pass. Therefore, the .50 with long range and good terminal ballistics was ideally suited, especially since the volume of fire was given by the sheer number of guns

The RAF bombers operated at night, were effectively on their own, had poor visibility, and fought a few relatively slow opponents who stalked them fairly closely from behind under cover of darkness. Here, because of the short combat distances, the .303s were adequate, and this was especially true of the quad turret with its concentrated hail of bullets
The Lancs' greatest weakness was their lack of an under-hull gun turret, which made the upward-firing weapons of the German night fighters so effective in the first place. The bow and mid-upper gunners were therefore much less challenged.

I know from many reports that RAF bombers were mostly only described as "targets" - the rear gunners, on the other hand, were regarded as really serious opponents:
I particularly remember one night fighter's report that a tail gunner had turned his starboard wing into a sieve when the entire bomber was already ablaze....

 

Was that problem...attack from below...ever addressed or improved somehow.?