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Emmanuel Gustin wrote:
There was a 'Preston-Green' ventral gun mount for a .50 in gun, which was widespread until the installation of H2S radar required its removal. Many units improvised other ventral gun mounts. A simple clear-vision panel, with or without gun, was a much better solution than the available turrets. I am reading R. Wallace Clarke's book "British Aircraft Armamant", and he says that the Preston Green under defence mounting was fitted to all Halifax Mk III's. Aircraft production was outstripping radar set production, so it was gun or nothing, not gun or H2S. When H2S production ramped up, the turrets were replaced by radar scanners. Some Halifaxes and Lancasters had ventral turrets, but the Boulton Paul 'R' and the Frazer-Nash FN.64 were of the retractable periscope-sighted kind and therefore rather useless even by day. (Coastal Command nevertheless had the FN.64 turret installed on its Halifaxes.) Can you say what your source is for this, please? According to Clarke, HP aircraft never seem to have had FN turrets (save for the Harrow). Coastal Command made use of the FN77 Leigh Light, a modified FN25 under turret, in its Wellingtons. The 'low-drag' FN.21A apparently fitted to some early Manchesters and Lancasters was a retractable dustbin turret with extending 'shoes' to accomodate the feet and legs of the gunner, which must have resulted in a truly enormous amount of drag when lowered. According to Clarke, the FN21a was only fitted to Manchesters. The FN64 (derived from the FN60 fitted to Blenheims) was fitted to early Lancasters, and refitted to four of 5 Group's squadrons in June 1944 for daylight raids (replacing the H2S scanner). Lowering the dustbin under-turret apparantly produced a marked change in trim, and a gunner described the experience of manning one as like getting into a refrigerator with the lights out. All accounts seem to agree that the only successful ventral defence mounting was the Sperry ball turret. |
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