Warbird Information Exchange

Big No here
I don't think you can truly say the G was a hasty mod and the H was a completely different a/c.
I have a friend here locally who flew Gs, Hs and Js in combat and hated all but the Js. What he
hated was not the cannon but the single pilot set-up. They lost a number of a/c in combat where a
second pilot could have made the difference. When Glenn was hit it took both him and his co to get
their 25 home!

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Don't touch my junk!!

Didn't say 'the aft turret', I was referring to the original upper turret that was mounted in the fuselage behind the wing, not the rear fuselage tail turret installation that was used to offset the now forward mounted upper turret fitted to J models, If I wasn't clear enough,Im sorry. Since the cannon setup was done via the expedient of sticking the cannon in the former bombardiers access tunnel and making the former copilots job now being used as a cannoneer, it may not have been hastily done, but it was most assuredly done as quickly and cheaply and easily as was possible in order to get an airplane with some serious punch into combat and possibly the inspiration came from a message from the front requesting the setup like theatre requests for 4 gun nose mounts and pack gun installations driven by the need for more stopping power.
How fortunate the original design was sound enough and thought out well enough so that the mod could be done quickly and without a bunch of engineering hoorah. Remember the factory told outfits to remove the .50's they had mounted in the wing landing light openings because it would cause the spars to fail.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

There were B-25's with 50's mounted in their wings?

COOL!!!!

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S.

It was tried until the factory heard and sent an emergency notice to stop using them and remove them as the wing spars could be prone to failure, making your revised approach speed shoot way up due to serious loss of wing area.
The later A-26's had provisions for 3 .50's in each leading edge from the factory

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I remember building a model of an A-26 Invader many many years ago that had multiple twin .50 cal gun packs under the wings. My brother and I were awed when we figured out that with an 8 gun hard nose, the top turret pointed forward, and the more common "cheek" gun packs on either side of the nose as well, it would be possible (not that it ever necessarily actually happened) to have something like 22 .50 caliber machine guns spraying lead out in front of that A-26.

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“To invent the airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything!” - Otto Lilienthal

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Photos of RAAF B-25C/D's with waist guns and tail turrets on the web under RAAF 2 Sqn

Neat thread.

The first photo is of G-models (note the Nav's astrodome). The list of H serials is handy, but might not help determine which aircraft are pictured. Does the original photo have enough resolution to possibly enlarge the serial stencil? The indoor factory shots are of C or D models, they're tough to distinguish externally so I will defer to someone smarter on B-25s. On second glance, the outdoor airplanes have faired tailskids and exhaust collectors (no Clayton stacks) so I'll venture early C's based on that.

The E/F didn't see production. The G series came to be after NAA incorporated mods and ideas tried out on C/D models at an Australian depot for the Pacific. The names most associated with this are NAA rep Jack Fox and the Army's Paul "Pappy" Gunn. There are many photos of C/D airplanes with up to four .50's mounted in a glass nose; the glass painted over. Fox and Gunn later mounted a 75mm cannon in the bombardier's crawlway, plus two .50's in a redesigned clamshell nose. The cannon was loaded by the navigator in the area above the (closed) forward crew entrance hatch. As mentioned, they also tried other external guns, both on the fuselage and wings. To look at period photos of Fox by the prototype and subsequent G's produced by NAA, there appears to be very little outward difference from the field to the factory. As Jack Cook mentions, the G, H, and J sported the pilot's armored windshield and the external cockpit armor plates as well. I'm not aware of four 20mm ever being put in a B-25 nose.

It's neat to see the development of the tail and waist areas too. There are photos showing modded PBJ-1C and PBJ-1D and Army C/D airplanes with field-created tail gun positions and waist openings. Some of these mods that I always associated with first appearing on production H-models actually snuck into some of the last D's (not certain about the G) with YAM B-25D "Yankee Warrior" being a really unique surviving example of this "blend" of model features in the production sequence. (Does anyone know - were D's and G's produced simultaneously or did the production run switch solely to the G?)

The H was quite a redesign. The top turret was moved forward. Late style side blister guns were standard. Big waist gun windows were also standard and the tail gunner position was formalized. Although there may be wiring or systems differences beneath the skin (plus one vs. two pilot yokes), one could make a blanket statement that the H and J are the same airframe with different noses. The H also had the 75mm in the crawlway, plus four .50's in a clamshell that appears to be little changed from the G.

Speaking with vets who flew the cannon airplanes - yes, there were targets that suited the 75mm cannon, but, over time, the slow rate of fire and difficulty in aiming made the idea of more .50's more appealing. There are several reports of cannons being removed in the field to save weight and our Jack posted the recent thread showing a G modified with four extra .50's and no cannon. Also, IIRC, the 75mm cannon on the H was a slightly different (and lighter) model than installed on the G.

The J was produced in both traditional glass or in an all-new hard nose version. As mentioned, field kits also permitted swaps in theatre. The hard nose, as most of you know, had eight .50's. The hard nose also appears to have been popular post-war on unit airplanes for baggage/avionics/whatever. One of the famous Tallmantz camera ships was an H and, IIRC, the EAA museum airplane is an H as well, despite wearing a J-nose. Cover the nose and it's tough to tell an H from a J unless you can see the serial.

Thanks for posting these cool shots of one of my favorite airplanes.

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

Would someone please add "B-25G" to the thread title?

I read a book about Pappy Gunn a long time ago, and read where they put .30 cal guns in the light bays, I don't recall the installation of a 50 cal in the wings. That concept didn't last long when cracks were found in the wings.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.