| Korvessa | 17 Jul 2020 10:04 a.m. PST |
While watching a youtube video or three on B17, it occurred to me that with all those planes and all those machineguns, was friendly fire a thing?
Seems like it would be hard to avoid. |
| Legionarius | 17 Jul 2020 10:36 a.m. PST |
Lots of unstable platforms shooting automatic weapons while avoiding enemy fighters and flack seems to me like pure die rolls against death. |
| 14Bore | 17 Jul 2020 12:04 p.m. PST |
Can't see how they avoided it, following a Messerschmitt coming at you and it crosses paths with another B-17 it would have to be some hard discipline not to spray it with lead. |
 Editor in Chief Bill   | 17 Jul 2020 12:14 p.m. PST |
That's why attacking fighters liked to get within the formation. |
| JMcCarroll | 17 Jul 2020 3:19 p.m. PST |
Box formation reduced it a bit. Germans liked head on passes, reduced bomber fire. That is why B-17's added a chine turret. |
| Legionarius | 17 Jul 2020 5:41 p.m. PST |
No wonder that if you survived 20 missions you were taken out of the game. By that time most people would be non-functional nervous wrecks alla "Twelve o'clock High." |
| Thresher01 | 17 Jul 2020 8:39 p.m. PST |
It's a pretty dangerous, and real thing. Hard to tell friends from foes when closing at 500 MPH (frontally), or even lesser speeds from other angles. P-47s painted the front of their cowlings white, and/or other colors to try to help with identification. Smart money was for the escorts to stay well away from the bomber formations (outside effective gunnery range), just to be sure. I've read descriptions and have seen paintings of US escort fighters pursuing the German ones through the bomber formations. Not sure how frequently that was done, but it would indeed be dangerous. My guess is there's probably a 50% chance of friendly fire from the bombers, if not more, especially given so many gunners with itchy trigger fingers able to draw a bead on "enemy" aircraft. |
| Skarper | 18 Jul 2020 1:17 a.m. PST |
You can get a lot of AARs on the internet. Some of these include damage to bombers from .50cal fire from other aircraft. So it was definitely a thing. |
Ed Mohrmann  | 18 Jul 2020 5:01 a.m. PST |
An uncle served as tail gunner Oct '44 'til war's end. He did say it was dangerous and cited two friends
wounded by 'friendly fire' but also said it could
have been from escorts – no way to tell. |
| Thresher01 | 18 Jul 2020 10:00 a.m. PST |
Next door neighbor was a B-17 tailgunner. He was wounded in action, but survived. A pity I never got to talk to him about his war stories. |
