ORIGINAL: roy_n

Roman

the gun that you have ringed looks like a Hispano HS404 20mm cannon. see picture.
the two guns behind it pointing to the sky are .50. MG

Roy

[image]local://upfiles/5038/8719FDA3632C4A248ED31DE8D2E7A588.gif[/image]

Is it possible to identify where the twin 0.50 caliber MG´s in the background (pionting to the sky) come from? According to end pieces of the MG´s I would except ball and top turret. So they left only tail and chip turret. If they are from tail turret, where was 20 mm cannon mounted?

Roman

P.S. this picture shows tail turret (even though Cheynne)...

[image]local://upfiles/10844/249CE8BC5E854CA5B513E21E9A95D3AF.jpg[/image]

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...here is the chin turret...
 
Roman

[image]local://upfiles/10844/518594AA8F464419B582EDA66493746F.jpg[/image]

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...and here is that mentioned picture with these twins in background...
 
Roman

[image]local://upfiles/10844/1083B7F0775E4D49ABD9B953F6FE97BD.jpg[/image]

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Roman....Shooshoobaby (Mike) told you about cannon in the nose....on page 44 of Roger Freeman and David Osborne's The Flying Fortress Story...on the same page are two photos of the tail mounted 20mm cannon...
one is a closeup of the installation in 42-38090 and the other is an inflight photo of the same aircraft.

Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

Roman,
 
The Freeman book and page referenced in ShooshooBaby's responce also has photos of the tail installation.
 
Marty

Thank you friends for all your answers.
I´m still wondering where come the twin MG´s in background (yellow circled) from. Is there some B-17 expert who´s able to identify if they come from chin or tail?

Roman


[image]local://upfiles/10844/C3B32968837242E7BE6154278EA7312C.jpg[/image]

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ORIGINAL: seesul

Thank you friends for all your answers.
I´m still wondering where come the twin MG´s in background (yellow circled) from. Is there some B-17 expert who´s able to identify if they come from chin or tail?

Roman



[image]local://upfiles/10844/C3B32968837242E7BE6154278EA7312C.jpg[/image]

We have compared this picture with a B-17G Spare parts catalog today and the twin machine gun in the background seems to be from tail. In this case, where was the 20 mm cannon onboard? In the radio room instead of M2?

Roman

Hey guys,

I finally toke a pictures of the shells from the crash place today...here they are...
No doubt the come from Hispano-Suiza 20 mm cannon that was onboard of this B-17G!!!


[image]local://upfiles/10844/E5C1A0CDC9144732B7A6A7F6B3786231.jpg[/image]

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detail # 2

Roman


[image]local://upfiles/10844/B6B0B52DEB94415E93DCDA32A525C1F4.jpg[/image]

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detail # 3

Roman


[image]local://upfiles/10844/9DD8639D8E36465BB4B381023DBF84D0.jpg[/image]

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Roman -  one of the 5 B - 17s from 97th BG equipped with 20MM Gun in tail
would be a Candidate. They all flew Tail End Charlie Position in Formation.
Mike

Mike- do you know where could I get an Aircraft maintenance log book?

Roman

ORIGINAL: shooshoobaby

Roman -  one of the 5 B - 17s from 97th BG equipped with 20MM Gun in tail
would be a Candidate. They all flew Tail End Charlie Position in Formation.
Mike

Mike,
we know the machine, that had this 20 mm onboard. These shells were found at the crash place of one of B-17´s crashed on August 29th.  1944,2ndBG,20thSQN,serial # 42-31885,MACR8099. And the picture of the rests with that cannon show the crash site of the same machine.
So my question is- where are these twin M2´s on the picture in background (not that circled cannon) from? Chin turret or tail? On my opinion from tail. If so, it would mean, that this machine had that cannon in the radio room, right?
Anyway, this machine flew ''tail end charlie' position on that day...see attached picture, Prentice´s machine...


[image]local://upfiles/10844/C25ED4AF07974352A1BDB09F06F39941.gif[/image]

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Roman Susil
Zlin, Czech Republic

...a friend of Joe Owsianik, a former left waist gunner from B-17G ''Tail End Charlie" from 2ndBG,20th Sqdn, that was forced to bail out on Aug. 29th, 1944 over my country.

seesul :
 
Roger Freeman and David Oxborne's The Flying  Fortress Story has a photo of  the installation of the 20mm cannon in aircraft 42-38090 97th BG, on page 44.
 
Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

ORIGINAL: jpeters140

seesul :

Roger Freeman and David Oxborne's The Flying  Fortress Story has a photo of  the installation of the 20mm cannon in aircraft 42-38090 97th BG, on page 44.

Jim :-)

Thank you Jim, will check it out.

Nice weekend

Roman Susil
Zlin, Czech Republic

...a friend of Joe Owsianik, a former left waist gunner from B-17G ''Tail End Charlie" from 2ndBG,20th Sqdn, that was forced to bail out on Aug. 29th, 1944 over my country.

Hi Roman,
 
From what I have read and been told, the few planes with the 20-mm guns flew the tail end charlie positions in their formations because the planes in this position were often attacked by fighters with guns of greater range than the 50's normally installed in the tail position.  The fighters could lag behind the bombers and shoot at them, but the bombers lacked guns of effective range to shoot back.
 
If installed in the waste or radio compartment positions, the 20-mm cannons would be almost useless to defend the plane from attacks from directly behind, which is what they were hoping to accomplish with these bigger guns.  In Freeman's book, there are also photos on the same page of an experimental 20-mm installation in the nose of a B-17, but it indicates it was was just an experiment in a loan 385th BG plane.
 
I would bet the twin 50's visible in the background are from the chin turret.  From the angle of the photo it is hard to tell how far apart the guns are actually spaced.  The photo is also not clear enough to tell if the twin guns are resting on part of their turret assembly, or if they have been carried from where they were found and propped up on some other wreckage.
 
Do you have the original photo, or a high definition scan of the original photo?  If you could e-mail me a high definition copy of the photo, I could print it off at a fairly large size and show it to some B-17 experts and get their opinions.  It is amazing the detail that you can see in such photos, even if the original photo was very small.  I took a high definition digital photo (not even a scan) of a photo of the wreckage of one of my uncle's B-17s.  Although the original photo was only about 2"x3", I printed a 6"x9" copy of the photo I took, and the clarity of detail is amazing.  In the photo of my uncle's plane, you can see that someone has removed two of the 50-cal guns from the wreckage and laid them on the ground in front of the wreckage.  I assume this was common practice by the military officials who inspected such wrecks so they could keep the guns from falling into the wrong hands.
 
Let me know if I can be of more help.  My direct e-mail address is my screen name (martyjhawk) at aol.com.
 
Marty

My father flew a couple missions on a 20mm acft,said the tailgunner straddled the breech fired it with a foot pedal.

ORIGINAL: gonville

My father flew a couple missions on a 20mm acft,said the tailgunner straddled the breech fired it with a foot pedal.

Pretty interesting as we still don´t know where there was the 20 mm cannon positioned...I think in tail, friend of mine thinks in the radio room...
Which kind of A/C did you father fly? B-17?
But how could he control it by pedal when the tail gunner was kneeling (in B-17)?

Roman Susil
Zlin, Czech Republic

...a friend of Joe Owsianik, a former left waist gunner from B-17G ''Tail End Charlie" from 2ndBG,20th Sqdn, that was forced to bail out on Aug. 29th, 1944 over my country.

By chance I´ve found out this cannon does still exist!
http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&s1=diskuse&start=0&mm=3&vd=2&i=16512#diskuse

Unfortunately don´t have a Roger Freeman´s book so I got one question:
if installed in tail, was the 20mm cannon separately there or together with the 0,50 M2 Browning?

Thanks in advance!


[image]local://10844/B915E2883C4A4C0F9601CA9307FBAA0F.jpg[/image]

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Roman Susil
Zlin, Czech Republic

...a friend of Joe Owsianik, a former left waist gunner from B-17G ''Tail End Charlie" from 2ndBG,20th Sqdn, that was forced to bail out on Aug. 29th, 1944 over my country.

...one pic more...

[image]local://10844/489B1C14F24D43D58FE5559A9B2D4D9D.jpg[/image]

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Roman Susil
Zlin, Czech Republic

...a friend of Joe Owsianik, a former left waist gunner from B-17G ''Tail End Charlie" from 2ndBG,20th Sqdn, that was forced to bail out on Aug. 29th, 1944 over my country.