Ball Turret Gunner Firing

A ball turret was a plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a b 17 or b 24 and inhabited by two 50 caliber machine guns and one man a short small man when this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below he revolved with the turret.

Ball turret gunner firing. A ball turret was a spherical shaped altazimuth mount gun turret fitted to some american built aircraft during world war ii the name arose from the turret s spherical housing. The turret held the gunner two heavy machine guns ammunition and sights. Access was severely restricted by the guns location in the small turret. It was a manned turret as distinct from remote controlled turrets also in use.

To remedy that the front end of the cover was slotted. Jarrell who served in the army air forces provided the following explanatory note. Normally the gunner accessed the firing chamber by releasing a latch and raising the cover to a position perpendicular to the gun but this was not possible in the ball turret. We know two things right away about the death of the ball turret gunner first we aren t going to miss the new episode of glee because it was assigned for homework reading seriously this thing is only 5 lines long.

A ball turret was a spherical shaped altazimuth mount gun turret fitted to some american built aircraft during world war ii the name arose from the turret s spherical housing. It was a manned turret as distinct from remote controlled turrets also in use. Hunched upside down in his little. Nasm si 80 20353 aerial gunnery training had a make do try anything quality resulting in the design of 16 types of outdoor ranges.

The ball turret like this one on a b 17 in england in 1943 was designed small to reduce drag so its gunner usually was the shortest man in the crew. A ball turret was a particular form of spherical form altazimuth mount movement manned aircraft gun turret accommodating the gunner with nearly all the needed equipment for defensive firepower except for the ammunition storage mounted either within or onto the spherical shell of the turret structure mounted on aircraft during world war ii the most common one was manufactured by the sperry. The ball turret from the stockton field aviation museum gets fired up for a pbs documentary called warplanes. The turret held the gunner two heavy machine guns ammunition and sights.