How Effective was the WWII B-29 Tail Gunner?

The intent of this video is to describe the WWII B-29’s tail gunner’s station external features, walk through the interior station, and discuss the stations combat effectiveness.

Takeaways from the video:
- Tail Gunner in Pressurized heated compartment
- Armored gun station
- Twin Browning M2 Machine guns
- 100% Armor Piercing Incendiaries
- No Tracers in ammo mix
- Optical illuminated Reticle Gun sight
- Computer accounted for ballistics
- Japanese attacked bombers tail during Night
- Japanese attacked bombers nose during Day
- Ratio of enemy losses to bomber losses was 70:1 for tail attacks

[jimrogers]

father-in-law sgt. Archie Hamrik was a tail gunner on the Ramp Queen, a B-29 from Saipan. loved his 20 mm cannon and kept it operational throughout the war. won the distinguished flying cross. pinned on by gen. Curtis Lemay. JDR

[twentypdrparrott]

The actor Charles Bronson was a veteran B-29 tail gunner.

[MrB]

Your videos are well presented with no pointless fluff. A large amount of these types of videos are just a long list of numbers and meaningless statistics to fill air time. 👍👍👍

[Munrubenmuz]

As an engineer I love the level of detail in this video. Well done.

[donalddodson]

Very well supported report. Thank you. I have witnessed ground-to-ground quad-50 caliber M-2 fire, so I can imagine the swarm of armor piercing rounds flung at an attacking aircraft by the twin 50's. A sign of the times: complete with ash tray.

[bluecordterrainmanagement]

Great video! My maternal grandfather was a Waist Gunner on the B29 with the 20th Air Force. I have manuals, classified at the time, that were used for reference on the computers, gun systems, etc. Pretty neat stuff

[KO-pkdf]

Thanks for another great video. These videos are very well done with well thought out verbal descriptions, visuals and documentation. Very informative w/o hype and over the top excesses.

[kaidanielson]

Love your content! Extremely useful and informative stuff. Keep up the great work 🤙

[jonathansteadman]

The all important ash tray with 20 camels (or your preferred brand). Essential for the nerves at a few thousand feet with the Japanese airforce intent on bringing you down at all costs. Reminds me of Galland fixing an ashtray in his Messerschmit.

[jimfinlaw]

Very informative video. Thankyou for sharing. My father was a B-29 pilot-in-command in July 1945 with his own assigned B-29 crew. He and his crew missed the war in the Pacific by only two weeks because the war with Japan had ended. He later joined the newly formed USAF in 1947 where he flew WB-29's for the Air Weather Service. He would hunt hurricanes and track their position. He would also fly through clouds to check for radiation to see if the Soviets had detonated any atomic weapons. The gunnery system in the B-29 Superfortress was very unique. Its central fire control system eliminated recoil and its computer system calculated wind speed and allowed for bullet drop. The only other aircraft to have a similar gunnery system was the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter in which the top gun turret was controlled by the gunner and by the radar officer in the tail of the fuselage. The top gun turret on the Black Widow was later removed because the muzzle flashes from the guns had a tendancy to blind the pilot. They were later reintroduced on the P-61C models when flash arrestors were installed on the guns.

[edwardpate]

What is amazing is how B-52 tail gunners were able to down MiG's in Vietnam with their 4 50 calibers!

[corey]

Your videos are fantastic! Thank you for all the hard work.

[briggsquantum]

Very well presented, good pacing, fascinating information, great photography! Thanks for the video!

[watchthetriple]

Ashtray just cracks me up. They thought of everything!

[rhinehardt]

A susual, a very thorough and well-done report on the B-29 Tail Gunner's position. I always enjoy your videos.

[DM-wo]

Thanks for this. My dad was a B-29 tail gunner. I still have his oxygen mask. When I was stationed at Ft Knox, I gave dad a tour of our tank, conduct of fire trainer. The gun controls were made by Cadillac Gauge and not unfamiliar to Dad’s hands. He was nailing targets out to 3, 000 meters.

[voin]

It’s actually fascinating how quickly the tail gunner goes from eyeballing and crude sights to take out enemy fighters to upgrading quickly to computer aided, projected crosshairs to easily take out hostile craft. All with a complimentary ash tray in your gunners seat, thank you for a very interesting and informative video, I hope there’s more videos with their same informative standard for the rest of the B-29 and other craft.

[stevedemarest]

I learn so much from this channel. Great content!

[dwmzmm]

One of my late uncle (on dad's side) was a tail gunner of a B-29 during the Pacific Theater.

[RubyBandUSA]

This was an amazing video! Thank you! And you did it all within 10 minutes! It points up what I think Mark Twain said something like this: "Sorry for the long speech. I wanted to do a 3-minute speech but only had time for the 20-minute one."