With the B-25/PBY/ect forward firing strafers, were there ever any attempts or tactics for using the side or ventral guns for offensive use? Or were they reserved for defensive use only?
It seems that with some kind of paired .50 mount in those huge side blisters, the Cat could have made a pretty good orbiting strafer :confused:
Matt
By: QldSpitty - 25th September 2007 at 09:13
One place comes to mind..
Fortress Rabual was renown for it,s high AAA content.Most bombers on low level flight had the nose and tail gunners trained on taking out targets of chance on the ground.IIRC Guy Gibson did that same thing,supressing the AAA while another Lanc went in for the attack.
By: Malcolm McKay - 25th September 2007 at 06:37
With the B-25/PBY/ect forward firing strafers, were there ever any attempts or tactics for using the side or ventral guns for offensive use? Or were they reserved for defensive use only?
It seems that with some kind of paired .50 mount in those huge side blisters, the Cat could have made a pretty good orbiting strafer :confused:
Matt
AFAIK no, and the poor old Cat would have made a bit of a big slow orbiting target. They weren’t all that agile.
The gunship concept in Vietnam for instance really only worked in areas free of large amounts of serious AA. In the Pacific in WW2 for instance the Japanese did manage to field quite a lot of AA
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September 25, 2007 at 4:16 am