"B-17 Nose guns." Topic

Now I was aware of the twin .50s in the B-17G model and the single .50 in the nose in the E/F models. I have come across some photos of twin .50s mounted in the plexiglas nose.Does anyone know when these were installed?Was it a field modification? Were aicraft with the twin .%0s mixed with the others? I have also noticed some of the G models with both side nose and without. Robert

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I believe it was a field modification, at least initially.

As German attacks from the front of the bomber formations increased, the armament of the bombers was upgraded to try to deal with that.

There are lots of combos of forward nose armament, especially before the chin turret was made standard.

If they could find the guns, field modifications were standard for US troops, ground and in the air (smile). My father's M4 has several .30 welded onto the turret he claimed just so they could empty their magazines if needed (aimed with the main gun).

One .50 is good, two are better. Especially firing to the front as the Germans tried to kill the pilot/co-pilot with frontal attacks.

Dan

Could also be a YB-40, which was a gunship version of the B-17. It was meant to escort regular bombers and protect them from fighter attack. It had twin dorsal turrets, dual .50cal waist guns, and dual .50cal nose guns. They were largely unsuccessful, because while it was easy to keep pace with laden bombers, once they dropped their loads, the YB-40 was still laden with the extra machine guns and ammo, and could not keep up. Also fighters proved to be a better defense against fighters anyway…

Damon.

I don't think they are YB-40s. There weren't many of them and I also don't think that the bomber squadrons the photos I posted had them. Robert

No, this was a pretty standard field modification done by the 8th AF in 1943.

Plus, I was under the impression all the YB-40s had chin turrets.

I suspect, before the chin turrets were made standard, that this "field modification" might have been reported back to the assembly line(s), so they might have produced some in the factory as well, with this conversion.

As you can see, from the lower left-hand portions of your photos, they date back to as early as November of 1943 (great to see the pics dated that way, since most I've seen aren't).

Given the treatment during the 1st Schweinfurt/Regensburg Raid, I imagine they might have tried to get some of these in place for the 2nd Schweinfurt Raid, in Oct. '43. Certainly, if not before that, then right after, given the very high loss and damaged rates from that mission, weapons permitting.

I do also recall reading in some accounts that the bombers with better forward armament were placed towards the front of the formations, so clearly, not all aircraft in the squadrons would be so equipped during that time.

I imagine by the Spring to Summer of 1944, heavier forward armament would be easier to come by, as the weapons plants really got into the swing of things, just around the time of the D-Day Invasion.

Prior to that, various forces, including even the RN's Coastal Forces were hurting for better machine guns, light cannons, torpedoes, etc.

Around the May – June/July 1944 timeframe, the situation seemed to have improved markedly for the various forces, e.g. army, navy, air force, and marines, etc.

Remember also that the last production model of the "F" came out of the factory with chin turrets.

"Duckie", in the last photo, is a late-production F model.

Heres another variation I found,

Robert

The first add-on B-17 nose guns were installed in 1941/1942 in the Southwest Pacific – Philippines and New Guinea – to ward off nose-on attacks by Japanese fighter aircraft, primarily the Zero. Some good photos of these can be found in "Flying Fortress, the Boeing B-17" by Ernest R. McDowell (Squadron-Signal Publications). It illustrates B-17E-models with added .50 caliber nose guns, including Spook! and D'Icer of the 11th Bomb Group (guns were fitted prior to their first combat missions) and Galloping Gus, which at the time of the photo was credited with six air-to-air kills.

The first reported added-nose-gun kill that I've been able to find was scored by a Java-based 11th bomb squadron B-17, piloted by US Army Air Corps Major C. F. Necrason, on a mission flown on January 16, 1942 against shipping in Manado Bay in the Dutch East Indies near Sulawesi. This mission was flown almost seven months to the day before the first European B-17 bomber mission flown by US forces. The nose gunner was the Bombardier, 2nd Lt. E. J. Magee

One B-17 flying a recon mission over Rabaul from Seven Mile Drome at Port Moresby, New Guinea won for its crew two Medals of Honor – that plane had two fixed nose-mounted guns (mounted above the heads of the Navigator and Bombardier) that were fired by the pilot. During that mission, he was credited with at least one kill with those two fixed guns, when he dove on a Zero pulling out ahead of the plane after a run from below and behind.

While the German Luftwaffe "Defense of the Reich" pilots eventually glommed onto the Fortress's weaknesses from dead ahead, triggering a defensive response from 8th Air Force mechanics and flight crews (installing a variety of flexible mounts for .50 caliber machine guns), the American-flown B-17 didn't make it's debut in the skies over Europe until August of 1942. However, the Japanese were fighting B-17s from December 7/8 on, and quickly noted the vulnerability of the nose – which prompted American crew defensive-weapon responses months before the first American B-17s were sent to the UK.

BTW – I make the distinction "American B-17s" because the RAF flew a squadron or two of early-model B-17s briefly, before the US entered the war – but they only flew a couple of missions because the Brits never quite "got it" when it came to using daylight-mission heavy bombers. As far as I know, the few Brit B-17 missions didn't encounter head-on fighter attacks, so their brief combat appearance didn't cause crews to want to beef up their over-the-nose firepower.

FWIW, this information is based on some research I've been doing for inclusion in my in-process novel on air combat in the first year of the Pacific War (Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal), which I'm publishing in a series of eBooks at Amazon.com

The first five eBooks taken from this in-progress novel can be found at: link

The RAF thinking in 1941 was that the Flying Fortress could be used in small groups to bomb targets from very high altitude. You can't really get the advantages of mutual defence with a formation of just three aircraft. Despite this, it seems that only two had been actually shot down before the Fortress was transferred to Coastal Command.

A condition of the deal under which the RAF received the Fortress was that detailed performance feedback would be provided to the Americans so maybe the British experience led to some of the modifications that were made to aircraft by the time the US entered the war.

Interesting propaganda film here:

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