The Rose turret (sometimes known as the Rose-Rice turret) was a gun turret fit to the rear position of some British Avro Lancaster heavy bombers in 1944–45. It was armed with two American light-barrel Browning .
| Rose turret | |
|---|---|
| Designed | 1943–1944 |
| Manufacturer | Rose Brothers |
| Produced | 1944–1945 |
| No. built | 400 |
What weapons did the Lancaster bomber have?
Almost all Lancasters were equipped with three Frazer-Nash (FN) hydraulically operated turrets, each with . 303 calibre machine guns. The FN-5 nose turret had two guns, the FN-50 mid-upper turret had two, and the FN20 tail turret had four. The FN64 mid-under turret saw only limited use in the aircraft’s early months.
What planes had ball turrets?
The design was mainly deployed on the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator, as well as the United States Navy’s Liberator, the PB4Y-1. The ventral turret was used in tandem in the Convair B-32, successor to the B-24. Ball turrets appeared in the nose and tail as well as the nose of the final series B-24.
Did the Lancaster bomber have a toilet?
During World War 2, large bomber aircraft, such as the American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and the British Avro Lancaster, carried chemical toilets (basically a bucket with seat and cover, see bucket toilet); in British use, they were called “Elsans” after the company that manufactured them.
What was the life expectancy of a ball turret gunner?
37 seconds
The job nobody wanted. The death rate for a lower ball gunner was astonishing. “I later learned that the life expectancy of a ball turret gunner was just a mere 37 seconds. I didn’t know that going in,” he said.
What was the better bomber b17 or Lancaster?
Lancaster had far better payload, far better range and smaller crew. B-17 had better ceiling, better defensive armament and more rugged construction.
What was the life expectancy of a Lancaster bomber crew?
The Lancaster was one of the most dangerous places to be in the entire war – the life expectancy of a new recruit was just two weeks.
Did the B 29 have a ball turret?
Unlike the B-17 and other bombers before, gunners in the B-29 were no longer required to physically operate the heavy machine guns that sat in openings in the fuselage or dangling from precarious turret balls at the bottom or tail of the plane.
Could ball turret gunners get out?
No. They were able to turn and move in many directions but were fixed to the aircraft. Andy Rooney wrote a story about a man stuck in a jammed ball turret on a B 17 with shot up landing gear that would not go down. That young man lost his life when the plane bellied in.
Did the B 25 have a ball turret?
The B-25B introduced the notoriously unsuccessful Bendix ventral turret. Harold Maul, a B-25 crewman, described the ball turret in Eric Bergerud’s Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific: “The worst thing ever designed was the bottom turret of the B-25. It was the stupidest bit of equipment.
Midway Sailor In October 1965, Commander Clarence W. Stoddard, Jr. of the USS Midway carried a special bomb to North Vietnam to celebrate the six millionth pound of ordnance dropped on the Communist country: a ceramic toilet.
What was the fuel consumption of a Lancaster bomber?
All the tanks were self-sealing. 150 gallons of lubricating oil were carried, 37½ gallons to each engine. The oil consumption was one to two gallons per hour per engine, depending on its condition. An engine exceeding a usage of more than two gallons per hour needed changing.
Did the Lancaster have a belly turret?
Most Lancasters were armed with a powered tail turret mounting four 0.303-inch (7.7-mm) machine guns, a powered twin-0.303 turret on the upper rear fuselage, and a pair of 0.303s in the nose; a few had twin-0.303 belly turrets.
Did the B-24 have a ball turret gunner?
Kush, who lives in Key Largo, Fla., was a ball turret gunner on a B-24 that flew bombing missions over Austria, France and Germany.
Was the ball turret gunner effective?
While the pilots were given the best position on the aircraft, the gunners had to hold some precarious positions in order to effectively defend the aircraft. The worst position by far was held by the ball turret gunners. Many of the US planes were equipped with an invention of the 1930s: the ball turret.
What was the life expectancy of a B-17 crew?
Nothing in the peacetime lives of thousands of young Americans had prepared them for the violence that lay ahead. Although such statistics were not circulated among Army Air Forces crews, the average life expectancy of an Eighth Air Force B-17 in late 1943 was 11 missions.
What was the toughest bomber in ww2?
The heaviest bomber of World War II was the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which entered service in 1944 with a fully pressurized crew compartment (previously used only on experimental aircraft) and as many as 12 . 50-inch machine guns mounted in pairs in remotely-controlled turrets.
What is the most feared bomber?
The Boeing B-29 was the biggest American bomber of the Second World War, but perhaps what made it the most deadly was that it was the aircraft that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which in a way makes the aircraft infamous.
What is the best bomber ever built?
The 10 Best Strategic Bomber Aircraft In The World
- 8/10 Tupolev TU-16 Badger.
- 7/10 General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark.
- 6/10 Tupolev TU-22M Backfire.
- 5/10 Tupolev TU-160 Blackjack.
- 4/10 Avro Vulcan B2.
- 3/10 Xian H-6.
- 2/10 Rockwell B1 Lancer.
- 1/10 Northrop Grumman B2 Spirit.
What plane shot down the most planes in WW2?
Which plane shot down the most planes in WW2? As others have said, it pretty much has to be the Messerschmitt Bf-109. The Bf-109 was a fine, modern fighter – though it was getting a bit old by the end of the war.
How did rear gunners not shoot the tail?
There was a feeler arm (that looked as if it might have been borrowed from a Dalek) below each gun and when these came in contact with the fairing they inhibited depression of the gun barrels to prevent the gunner shooting at the airframe; there were also interrupter cut outs to stop him shooting at the fins as the