(Tony Williams) wrote in message om...
"William Anderson" wrote in message ...
How exactly did they work? Could the turrets be fired independently at
multiple targets? What crew members controlled them? etc? etc?

From 'Flying Guns: World War 2 - Development of Aircraft Guns,
Ammunition and Installations 1933-45' by Emmanuel Gustin and myself:

"The B 29 finally appeared with five turrets: Front upper, front
lower, aft upper, aft lower, and tail turret; as initially foreseen
the tail also had a 20 mm cannon in addition to the twin .50"s. The
tail guns were exclusively controlled by the tail gunners in his own
compartment, but the other guns were operated from four sighting
stations, one in the nose and three in a compartment aft of the wing.
Each gunner could simultaneously operate two turrets, as the situation
of the moment demanded. The "master gunner" was the upper gunner in
the aft compartment, and he assigned turrets to gunners with his
control panel.

Tony, while this is by and large true, I have to disagree
on a couple of points.
From the B-29 Crew Training Manual, paraphrased:
Yes, the Upper Gunner was the Master Gunner, responsible for
coordinating the fire of the other gunners. There were two control
circuits for the turrets, however. The Primary Control circuits
were hard wired, and, as long as teh appropriate deadman switches
were held down, had control of their turrets as described in my
other post in this thread. The Secondary Channels were controlled
from a switch box that was on the pedestal of the Upper Gunner's
"Barber Chair", and was more accessible by the Side Gunners
"Downstairs". (Not a big point, really - it would be foolish to
have the controls only accessible by one crewman.)

If you examine the Turret COntrol switchbox, you'll see that there
is a channel for control of the tail turet by either of the
Side Gunners. (As it happens, there's an image of the Turret
Control channels, and the switch box, in the "Neat B-29 stuff"
section of Zeno's Warbirds:

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Im...pics/TCS44.gif

--
Pete Stickney