Lockheed Hudson upper turrets WWII

Looks to be a Douglas B18 Bolo (AKA Digby in RCAF service) at the back of the line of Hudsons

Interesting photo. Dogsbody…were they non-rotating gun transparencies then? …And what’s the odd man out on rear, L.H.?

Whatever the merits or otherwise of the installation, this is a fascinating training film on the Hudson turret

https://youtu.be/25U8TJX9PVQ

Interesting discussions about the BP turret, a few things. All of BP’s turrets got their principle design features from the French de Boysson turret manufactured and refined under licence by BP. This basic turret was that which was fitted to the Defiant, the Type A. The BP turrets had a few key advantages over the FN turrets. While they were heavier and more complex to build and maintain than the FN turrets, they were easier to operate, comprising a single handle, like a modern joystick for actuation, leaving one hand free to clear stoppages. They were electro-hydraulic, operating through slip rings in the turret base for electrical power and having a self contained hydraulic system, which meant that if the aircraft’s hydraulics were damaged in combat and lost pressure, the turret could still operate.

The prototype of the Type C.II fitted to the Hudson was built in around 9 weeks after it was suggested that the Halifax Type C.I nose turret would make a good mid-upper turret. The Air Staff wanted a turret in a hurry for the Hudson. Perhaps the worst mid-upper turret was the FN.7, it was cramped and upset the aerodynamics of the aeroplanes it was fitted to. Gunners didn’t like it. Fitted to Manchesters, Stirlings, Sunderlands, Bothas. This cupola is at RAF Wyton Heritage facility.

FN.7

The RCAF also operated some Hudsons without turrets.

Chris

Thanks for doing those videos!

I doubt if the main drag from rotation came from the asymmetry, though that probably didn’t help. Most of it will have come from the barrels of the guns – there’s a lot of separation behind any circular object and gun barrels have quite a length of just that. Really that’s why powered turrets were so valuable – much less strain on the gunner! Particularly as speed increased. The Italians fixed a long rod as counter-balance to some of their “turrets”, which wouldn’t have reduced the total drag but did make the turret/gun easier to move. The Russian Pe 2 had a vane on the turret doing a similar job but looking rather neater.

You are now going to tell me that you were flying over New Zealand without any kind of barrels sticking out of the turret… but it is still true.

Yes, the aerodynamic counter balances! Details that are forgotten or omitted in nearly all books!
Also being hand operated, powered (hydraulic or electrical), or a compensating gun sight.
Reading how simply turning the turret changes aircraft trim, makes you wonder if those turrest ever hit an

I made a series of films on the He 111P mounts, unique incite on the German way. 😉

Miles Falcon at ca.5.13

John

Lockheed Hudson pper Turrets WW.II

Off thread however those Empire Boats are brilliant. The Hudson is only a couple of flash flypasts but to see these colour shots in such an obscure reel of road construction is amazing

By coincidence a Hudson (no turret) flashes through at about 5.30 this 1940 colour film of NSW Road crews and vehicles being shipped to Darwin to build strategic roads….also a nice Miles type at ca.5.13 and best of all 3 Empire flying boats at Darwin from about 7.15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieX9UvzVORQ&t=0s&index=30&list=PL1380E9A415E76681 (Spotted via Darwin History and ”Short C-Class Empire Flying Boats-an appreciation” Facebook page and Wings of Peace Yahoo Group)…new thread opened for the Empires/Horseshoe route

It was fitted to the Halifax well after it was fitted to the Hudson – as the well known photo shows the Hudson with the turret was in service at the time of Dunkirk. The Mk.II Halifax didn’t enter service until December 1941 – and the first few of these didn’t have the BP turret. I can’t agree that its position on the Hudson would have been significantly worse than on the Halifax, other than it being a smaller airframe. Clearly nearly two years of service on the Hudson hadn’t produced outcries of pain over its drag.

Where we disagree in principle is that at the time they did not have the equipment and data to accurately predict the performance and handling of the aircraft. The performance was perhaps more predictable than the handling, but I don’t think that it was the performance as such that presented the key problems with either the Botha or the Lerwick – certainly not the Lerwick. Accurate prediction of stability, control and handling were beyond the technology of the day, and indeed for some time afterwards. Things were only demonstrable after they had been demonstrated.

As far as the culpability of the government, and I think you actually mean more the Service hierarchies here who defined the demand for each type; needs must when the devil drives. The planning of factory space and the correct distribution of airframes, engines and equipment, has to proceed well in advance of flight trials. The prewar habit of ordering a couple of prototypes, testing them thoroughly and only then ordering into production, had to go out of the window. The need to massively increase the output from the industry meant that aircraft had to be ordered off the drawing board, and to be in service before any problems discovered early on could be determined as fatal rather than as curable. Both the Botha and the Lerwick were only tried on a single squadron before being withdrawn: the Roc saw less front-line use in even fewer numbers. I think that was Pretty Damned Quick. As for building proven types in those roles – in these cases that meant Ansons, Londons and Ospreys?

Remember that we are not talking about a centrally-controlled state able to issue orders without knowledge nor care of the implications. Every contract had to be negotiated. Every one of these companies (from the largest to the least) had their own agendas and preferences, and like the proverbial ocean liner needed a long time and space to turn around. In 1938 the main worries of the industry was not the forthcoming war but what would happen if it didn’t come – they were responsible for massive expansions of capacity and workforce yet the end of the initial expansion was in sight with no confirmation of orders to follow. With hindsight this worry appears silly… What we know now we didn’t know then.

Well its drag inducing qualities were bad enough in the Halifax, so what could they have been thinking fitting it to the Hudson in a position where its position would only exacerbate the problem. There are such things as really bad engineering decisions made by people who should have known better because they had the equipment and data at the time to avoid doing it so hind sight doesn’t get a look in. It’s sort of like what Ralph Nader wrote about in Unsafe at any Speed when he took the US automobile industry to task. Isn’t war dangerous enough without governments deliberately sanctioning the use of demonstrable equipment duds – like the Hudson as a bomber or the Lerwick, Battle, Roc, Botha etc. If they wanted those factories producing aircraft then why didn’t they turn them over to the production of proven performers.

Every nation built aircraft that were not up to the job that they were intended for. In those days there was much more work done relying upon engineering judgement rather than the detailed preliminary work and analysis that became normal later – which given the constraints of the times is just as well! Whilst I agree that the Skua was superior to the Roc, had Blackburn managed to get them out of the door to schedule then there’d have been time to consider improvements, although anything worthwhile would have required significant structural strengthening which would have slowed things down even more. The value of the Roc was that it allowed Boulton Paul to maintain the trained staff (and train the untrained ones) in their new Wolverhampton factory until the delayed Defiant was ready for production, plus it made a good target tug when such things were much more vital than they are ever given credit for. Otherwise the workforce would have dispersed to all the other engineering firms in the area crying out for suitable staff. If you don’t like the Defiant you may feel that would have been no bad thing, but that’s yet another example of hindsight.

There was no suitable engine available for any Skua development timescale other than the Taurus, which as we know wasn’t ready for everything it was being called on to do. This was foreseen and is why the Botha was fortunate enough to avoid it. The Perseus wasn’t that bad an engine, in a good airframe.

The Lerwick was probably an attempt to do too much on too small an airframe – which was common enough at the time (and since). In more peaceful days it would have been knocked on the head before production. And the Botha likewise.

However I’m not sure why the Hudson receives quite so much scorn. It was a thoroughly suitable aircraft for the role it was given – and it did see rather more service as a straight bomber than mentioned. It was superior to the only possible alternatives – Anson or Blenheim – in its prime role. A good honest working aeroplane. If you compare it to the Blenheim it was only slightly slower (partly due to the larger turret, perhaps?) with similar or slightly larger payload, better visibility, better armament and a superior range. What’s not to like? Especially in 1940’s Britain. However I don’t believe that 800 A-29s (which just means Hudson production in this case) were allocated as transports – certainly nowhere near that many were initially employed in that role. There’s a fuller list of orders and destinations in Putnam’s Lockheed Aircraft.

As for the C-type turret – I think that you’ve had it described, what they were thinking. We can now see that other factors mattered more, but that’s hindsight again. Just because some ideas don’t work out for the best doesn’t mean it was silly to try them.

I still say that wherever the horrible thing was designed to fit it still was an example of failure to properly test its built in drag problems. It was bad enough on the Halifax – what were they thinking.

The Boulton Paul Type C turret was designed as a nose turret. The electrical switches and equipment were fitted to a large curved structural member, which gave its domed appearance, also useful for maintaining the gunner’s line of sight as the guns could be depressed by 30 degrees. This was why it was chosen for the Hudson, because the Company’s standard dorsal turret, the Type A Defiant turret, only allowed 10 degrees of depression on the guns, so the Hudson, and early marks of Halifax would have a measure of underside defence. Retractable ventral turrets were ordered from both BP and Frazer-Nash but none ever proved satisfactory. Boulton Paul turrets were preferred for installation on American aircraft (Hudson, Liberator, Baltimore etc) because they were self contained, requiring only an electrical supply from the parent aircraft. Frazer-Nash turrets were all hydraulic, requiring pumps attached to the engines and long hydraulic lines running to the turret position.

If you click on that image you get the IWM’s excellent scroll/zoom photo software, full marks to them for that,…I can live with Hawker Hudson!…:-)

Oh dear, Hawker Hudsons. (On the IWM caption). IWM really need some people to advise and spot these mistakes. Interesting photo never the less. 800 Lockheed A29’s and A29A’s were initially allocated to the RAF for transport duties, according to USA Military Aircraft (Putnams).

John

I suspect the unturretted Hudson was an air transport godsend in the Desert War which was over by the time C-47s and Dakotas became plentiful ROYAL AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, 1939-1943. © IWM (CM 5014)

One difference between the Lockheed 14 and some of the other examples mooted here is that it was a successful and useful aeroplane before it was militarized and the others were designed from the outset as “fighting machines” all of which splendidly failed to achieve that goal.

John

Ah, the Botha:

“This aeroplane is complete junk and the only chance of it killing Germans is if we let them fly it! They’re unfit for service and we’ve got over 500 of the blasted things. What should we do?”

“I heard the training units could do woth a few planes.”

“Capital idea! That’ll sort the wheat from the chaff.”