Apart from the B-29, these weren't very sophisticated. The Boeing B-17
tail gunner aimed with a little stick; the guns tracked the movement
of the stick. The gunner at the rear of the Mitsubishi Ki-21 "Sally"
bomber had a manually aimed gun that was tracked by a stinger in the
tail. When his own rudder was in his sight, he could fire the stinger
by pulling on a lanyard. (Well, he could fire it at any time, but it
was most useful on those occasions.)

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:57:21 GMT, Charles Gray wrote:

Numerous bombers and heavy fighters, especially thowse that entered
service post 1943 have reference to remote controlled weapons.

Now, the remote control part should be fairly easy, but how were
they aimed? I'm assuming that you linked the gunners controls in such
a way thatthe gun always fired at the point where he was aiming,
making allowences for the location of the gun-- but how effective were
they? How hard was it to keep them in repair, as that sounds like a
fairly complex and advanced system for the 1940's.

all the best -- Dan Ford
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