Modern Marvels S09E15 Ball Turret Gunners

[celticbobb]

mad to fly in daylight...sad loss of life...and told so by bomber command.

[Weedus2]

They dropped out heavy wounded on parachutes in hope the germans would help them??

51 Million Germans was wounded from Bombing Raids,they destroyed nearly every house,bombed women and children... and then they expect the germans would help the same people who dropped bombs on them 5 min Ago?? They must think that the germans are very nice people when they expect they would take care off wounded bomb-crews

[britgary]

@Weedus2 The British cared for the German airmen that flew and were shot down.

[vzq93]

@britgary

cared, not really.

just followed the geneva conventions

[britgary]

@vzq93 My point exactly.

[luxb0x]

@Weedus2 There's a difference between expecting, And hoping.

[SafeSocks]

@Weedus2 I suspect it was the indiscriminate British night-time carpet bombing that resulted in most of the civilian casualties (payback for the fire bombing of London). Another way of looking at it would be that the Germans should actually have been appreciative of the yanks putting themselves in maximum peril by flying in the day-time in order to at least make some effort to accurately bomb only military targets.

[LtBartram]

What about the B24 Bomber airplane?

[lso5027]

@LtBartram Don't believe that had a ball turret, they had a different system

[danocinci]

@lso5027 B-24s did have ball turrets, my grandfather was a B-24 ball turret gunner.

[lso5027]

@danocinci TIL, Thanks. =)

[roaklin]

@lso5027 They had a ball turret it just was retracted when the aircraft was not in combat.

[lso5027]

@roaklin TIL, Thanks =)

[agwhitaker]

Statistically, the most dangerous crew position on the B17 was the pilot.

[gideon5656]

i have the gratest respect for the Bomberpilots that flew and died for our country

[TheSRalston]

I guess this should be a stupid question, but were these guns on the airplane limited up to a certain point in their movement? I am refering to the fact that maybe if they turned a gun way too far they could had hit their own plane, their engines or their wings...but I assume the designers had it all figured out.

[motorsportman265]

@TheSRalston The only person who could have shot the plane was the top turret gunner shooting the tail. I assume they had a limiter to stop firing as it swung past the tail. The big question is, how many times did they accidently shoot another B-17 in the heat of combat?

[roaklin]

@TheSRalston Yes and no, they where fitted with stops to prevent accidents BUT they where also trained to make sure and this didn't stop bullets from one B-17 or B-24 hitting their own aircraft by accdient despite formation.

[TheSRalston]

Damn, my respect to all the people who were in this war. Brave as hell. It should be fascinating to talk with these guys, it will be a sad day when no person who participated in WWII remains...

[shaider1982]

Reminds me of the World According to Garp.