Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Hey, if one 50 caliber machine gun is good, six are better, amright?


B-25 Mitchell medium bomber with 6 .50 cal machine guns added to the nose section.

12 comments:

  1. With all six roaring, it would be hot and smoky in that cockpit.

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    1. Someone should have turned that smell into an aftershave.

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  2. All six pointed in different directions: that's quite the field of fire.

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  3. Was there an opening/exit for all the spent brass while in flight? (Serious question)

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    1. Not while in action. The crew could shovel the empties out by hand or by using a scoop or shovel out one of the side windows.

      Or they could just leave the mess and let the ground crew clean it up.

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  4. Variants of the Douglas A-26 had Eight .50 cals

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    1. One variant of the B-25 had a hard (non-glass) nose with 8 .50s, with 4 .50s in pods on the front side of the fuselage. Including the top turret and bottom turret, that would be 16 .50s pointing forward for a strafing run.

      Not bad for a medium bomber.

      Very useful for sinking Jap ships. Especially the wooden and shallow draft powered barges they used for inter-island transports.

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    2. B 25 H had a quick firing 75mm coming out the chin....

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  5. Wonder how much ammo he could carry? Pilot probly shit when he hadta do the weght/bal calcs for it w/ full fuel and bomb load. Extra nose wt is good to a point from a spin perspective i guess.
    John h.

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  6. Great for strafing. Used extensively in the Pacific Island campaign. And then they added a 75mm cannon to the right side where the co-pilot could fire it.

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  7. this looks a lot like a Pappy Gunn field modification. he was a hell of a undocumented field engineer. also, they had hung four M2's out in the outer wing dry bays where the wing panel production joint is. North American screamed bloody murder about that one as it was-while combat effective-an structurally unsound practice. as Pappy Gunn was quoted "It's war. you do what ya gotta do"

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