Hi,
I’ve recently acquired a WW2 era aircraft gun turret which I believe
came from an RNZAF Airspeed Oxford or Avro Anson.
I think they were used as the nose turrets on Armstrong-Whitworth
Whitley bombers but I’m not sure of this?
It has a sliding canopy for a single mount gun – the original
ball bearings still work. Some of the plexiglass is broken and
you can just make out it was once painted yellow – a sign
it was used as a trainer?
The turret was at one point in the ownership of someone
who used it as a “glass-house” for growing cabbages, it has
never been restored but I now have it safely out of the
weather.
Can anyone tell me for sure about who manufactured this
type of turret, where and when, a general history of their
use and how rare they are today?
Cheers
Simon Beck
http://www.uswarplanes.net
By: Simon Beck - 2nd August 2007 at 00:33
What a lovely artefact.
Do you intend to preserve it as it stands or restore it?
Moggy
The current plan is to leave it as is and put it
on display in a “home theatre” I’m building in the back
of the garage.
I’ve been told to be very careful about sanding the metal or
attempting to restore it myself as the paint and
primers used back then contained a lot of lead and could be
toxic if I start stripping it down with sandpaper etc.
If anyone else has any thoughts to that I’d be keen to hear.
Cheers
Simon Beck
By: turretboy - 1st August 2007 at 14:55
Very nice find!
By: JDK - 1st August 2007 at 14:04
Congratulations – rare, historically valuable, but don’t expect e-bay to be your friend unless you can claim it’s a Spitfire part. :rolleyes:
Get hold of ‘British Aircraft Armament Vol.1’ for chapter and verse. There are a few Ansons with the turret now fitted – the IWM Duxford example, and the one under restoration to fly in New Zealand, IIRC.
There was a good article in Scale Aviation Modeller International recently (May 07) that discussed the turret in the review of the 1/48th Classic Airframes kit. No photos of the real thing, but interesting about it’s construction.
As the reviewer says, it’s not what we regard as a turret in that it’s not powered, but more like a rotating windshield over an advanced Scarf type mounting, with only a flexibly-mounted single drum-fed Vickers K or VGO. Not a great thing to be facing cannon armed Mersserschmitt 109 and 110s with.
By: Moggy C - 1st August 2007 at 13:09
What a lovely artefact.
Do you intend to preserve it as it stands or restore it?
Moggy
By: mark_pilkington - 1st August 2007 at 12:41
Simon
you are the proud owner of an Armstrong-Whitworth manually operated “Dorsal” Turret, as fitted to early Ansons and many Oxfords, commonly referred to as a “birdcage” turret.
This turret was manually rotated by the gunner through use of his feet, and carried a single lewis gun.
It may also be identifical to the Armstrong-whitworth manually operated turret used in the nose and rear positions of the Whitley mark I and mark II.
Later models of the Anson were fitted with various Bristol Electrically operated turrets.
congratulations
regards
Mark Pilkington
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August 1, 2007 at 11:55 am