While on the subject of WW II bombers, I was watching "Battle of Britain" for the umpteenth time last night, and it reminded me of something that's long puzzled me.
The German bombers carried their bombs vertically - not horizontally like the American and British bombers. Now, I can appreciate there may be some packaging advantages to vertically loaded bombs that influenced the German designers. But, there are several scenes where it is obvious that the bombs exiting are fins down - i.e. backwards. This causes the bombs to initially tumble unpredictably and scatter before they 'straighten out and fly right' - which would have a very detrimental effect on accuracy.
Why would they do that? Was it intentional done to increase scatter when bombing London (it's not like they're going to miss the city)? If so, did they load the bombs fins up when precision targeting mattered?
Or is an inaccuracy in the movie (seems unlikely - aside from some dated special effects, the movie is rather well done)? Anyone out there know?
BTW:
With loads of ammunition and a teeny weeny bomb."
The B-17 normally carried about sixty seconds worth of ammo for each gun. I doubt many of the crew considered that to be 'loads' of ammo when they were spending hours over enemy territory...