"Yama" wrote in message ...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
Given that the RAF had a number of B-17's complete
with ball turrets I rather think the idea was not completely
unknown.

Would it really have helped anyway? AIUI ventral ball turrets were very
uncomfortable and in day bombers, gunners moved to them only when fighters
were detected. Besides ventral gunner is still in enormous disadvantage
against a night fighter, he doesn't have a radar and night fighter can see
the bomber easier against the sky.

Quite so. The idea of upward-firing guns for use against bombers
originated in WW1 (mainly to attack airships) and there were British
experiments with upward-firing cannon interwar. Although the
difficulty in defending this area was probably a factor in the German
use of Schräge Musik, I think that more important issues we

1. The bombers were generally much easier to spot from below.

2. The fighters were harder to spot from above.

3. The fighters had a nice, big, steady target to aim at in the
bomber's planform, instead of aiming at a much smaller end-on target
while being bounced around in the slipstream.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Military gun and ammunition discussion forum:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/