Rear Guns
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Rear Guns
During WWII dogfights the words 'He's on your tail' were often heard. Why then did the Spitfire and Hurricane not have tail guns? CG restraints?; not broad enough field of fire?
I think it was Jeffrey Quill - in his book "Spitfire" - who described how the CoG moved slowly rearwards as more & more equipment found its way on board.. Adding a couple of cannon might well have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Perhaps the pilots felt that they had enough on their hands dealing with the threat in front of them and that they relied on the Spitfire to out-turn anything in their '6'.
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Also, even with the best technology available at the time, the accuracy of the forward firing guns on all WWII-era fighters was pretty woeful in modern terms - on a one crew ship, I suspect a tail gun would have simply been a waste of rounds.
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"...not broad enough field of fire?"
When you say that, it sounds like you're assuming a gunner would be there to traverse the gun, which would of course have been impossible in a Spitfire or a Hurricane. And a true unmanned tailgun would assumedly be aimed down the centerline of the airplane, and its "field" of fire would be zero. It would be able to shoot only at an attacker literally and exactly in the airplane's six o'clock, and it would have taken the Luftwaffe maybe three minutes to learn that one never attacks a fixed-tailgun-equipped airplane from absolutely directly behind.
If you're imagining a manned "tailgun," it would for weight-and-balance reasons have to be from a position aft of the pilot, and that was tried. They were was called the Fairey Battle and the Boulton-Paul Defiant and were dreadful failures.
When you say that, it sounds like you're assuming a gunner would be there to traverse the gun, which would of course have been impossible in a Spitfire or a Hurricane. And a true unmanned tailgun would assumedly be aimed down the centerline of the airplane, and its "field" of fire would be zero. It would be able to shoot only at an attacker literally and exactly in the airplane's six o'clock, and it would have taken the Luftwaffe maybe three minutes to learn that one never attacks a fixed-tailgun-equipped airplane from absolutely directly behind.
If you're imagining a manned "tailgun," it would for weight-and-balance reasons have to be from a position aft of the pilot, and that was tried. They were was called the Fairey Battle and the Boulton-Paul Defiant and were dreadful failures.
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Schrage Musik
Although not rearward firing - the Luftwaffe introduced fixed firing guns with devestating results during WW2 - These were Upward firing canons mounted at an angle in the roof of the fuselage of night fighters - wherby they would infilterate RAF bomber streams at night usually unnoticed in the Lancs blindspot - getting into position just aft and below of the port wing of a Lancaster and aim to fire between the engines into the wing tank - Amazingly this highly successful action was never realised by RAF intelligence untill near the wars end.
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The only single-seater WW II aircraft with rearward-facing guns that I can think of was the Arado Ar 234B (a jet bomber), which had two 20 mm cannon, aimed with a periscope. Not much use, apparently.
Many attack / bomber aircraft had rear firing defensive guns manned by an additional crew member (whose job may not have only been to man the gun; navigator, observer, radio operator etc). But not many fighters had them.
If you think about the difficulties for a fighter aircraft piloted by one person already with a heavy and stressful work load in a combat situation how on earth would he have had time to aim a rear firing gun? First he's have to know he was under attack & I understand many fighters shot down never actually saw their attacker. Then they've got in a split second to make a decision how to fight or run. Once the decision to fight rather than run has been made they have to use the advantages their aircraft has to get into a firing position whilst the other aircraft is attacking them. So aiming some rear firing gun is going to be an additional ball ache. Never mind the negative effect on a fighter design of having a heavy rear firing gun(s) capable of having an effect on an attacking adversary and the complex aiming system to use it.
I could imagine a rear firing gun might for a while induce some caution in an attacker but it wouldn't be worth the weight or inconvenience. You might as well fire fireworks out th' back.
The fact that throughout the war no single engined fighter that I can recall fitted any rear firing gun for the single pilot to use seems to indicate the people that actually had to fly and fight never considered such a thing the remotest possible benefit.
If you think about the difficulties for a fighter aircraft piloted by one person already with a heavy and stressful work load in a combat situation how on earth would he have had time to aim a rear firing gun? First he's have to know he was under attack & I understand many fighters shot down never actually saw their attacker. Then they've got in a split second to make a decision how to fight or run. Once the decision to fight rather than run has been made they have to use the advantages their aircraft has to get into a firing position whilst the other aircraft is attacking them. So aiming some rear firing gun is going to be an additional ball ache. Never mind the negative effect on a fighter design of having a heavy rear firing gun(s) capable of having an effect on an attacking adversary and the complex aiming system to use it.
I could imagine a rear firing gun might for a while induce some caution in an attacker but it wouldn't be worth the weight or inconvenience. You might as well fire fireworks out th' back.
The fact that throughout the war no single engined fighter that I can recall fitted any rear firing gun for the single pilot to use seems to indicate the people that actually had to fly and fight never considered such a thing the remotest possible benefit.
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How about the Russian Stormovik?
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The only single-seater WW II aircraft with rearward-facing guns that I can think of was the Arado Ar 234B
Weren't some FW190s fitted with rear-firing 21cm rockets?
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Many attack / bomber aircraft had rear firing defensive guns manned by an additional crew member (whose job may not have only been to man the gun; navigator, observer, radio operator etc). But not many fighters had them.
A pilot-operated rearward-facing gun would be practically useless in a dogfight. If you could somehow make it moveable you'd need a complex sighting/aiming mechanism to be operated while flying - far too much of a workload. The alternative (as on the Arado bomber) was a fixed gun with a simpler sight, but this can only sensibly be aimed dead astern, where your opponent is in the best possible position to shoot you down. Trying to manoeuvre for a deflection shot would be impossible as your opponent only needs to turn slightly off your sight line to force you into doing a high G turn, or giving up on the shot.
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Quote:
The only single-seater WW II aircraft with rearward-facing guns that I can think of was the Arado Ar 234B
Only if one of the crew bailed out...
Weren't some FW190s fitted with rear-firing 21cm rockets?
I/C
The only single-seater WW II aircraft with rearward-facing guns that I can think of was the Arado Ar 234B
Only if one of the crew bailed out...
Weren't some FW190s fitted with rear-firing 21cm rockets?
I/C
As for rearward-firing rockets on FW 190s, have you got a link? It sounds unlikely.
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Mia culpa - I was thinking of the AR240.
Don't have a reference for the rearward-firing AAR-equipped FW190, but seem to recall having read about it years ago.
I/C
Don't have a reference for the rearward-firing AAR-equipped FW190, but seem to recall having read about it years ago.
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Actually, it seems that some Ar 234s squeezed in a second crew member - but as a radar operator for night-fighting. I doubt these versions had the rear-firing cannon.
The Luftwaffe certainly used forward-firing A-to-A rockets against bombers, but I can't see much merit in rearward-firing ones. Having said that, they tried some bizarre ideas out (as did the Allies on occasion), so why not...
As pasir wrote, Schrage Musik seems to have been effective - I believe the Japanese experimented with something similar. Of course, this wasn't new. The Lewis guns on WW I SE5As could be fired from an upward-tilted angle too, and I believe were sometimes used like this.
The Luftwaffe certainly used forward-firing A-to-A rockets against bombers, but I can't see much merit in rearward-firing ones. Having said that, they tried some bizarre ideas out (as did the Allies on occasion), so why not...
As pasir wrote, Schrage Musik seems to have been effective - I believe the Japanese experimented with something similar. Of course, this wasn't new. The Lewis guns on WW I SE5As could be fired from an upward-tilted angle too, and I believe were sometimes used like this.
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Think the nearest thing for 'check six' on Allied aircraft would be the Monica tail-warning radar on Mosquitoes.
BTW the Japanese Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko "Irving" at Udvar Hazy has the schrage musik cannon.
BTW the Japanese Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko "Irving" at Udvar Hazy has the schrage musik cannon.
The Schrage Musik was very successful. Although I know some RAF bomber squadrons tried ventral turrets in their heavy night bombers and such I'm surprised more wasn't done to protect the vulnerable bellies of the bombers. I also understand the reasons why adding extra weight and complexity to the bombers met resistance too.
I'm also surprised the allies didn't use a similar installation as schrage musik but I assume that perhaps as the Axis had very little in the way of strategic bombing that the allies felt it an unnecessary weapon as they were more often hunting down tactical bombers, fighter bombers and enemy night fighters.
I'm also surprised the allies didn't use a similar installation as schrage musik but I assume that perhaps as the Axis had very little in the way of strategic bombing that the allies felt it an unnecessary weapon as they were more often hunting down tactical bombers, fighter bombers and enemy night fighters.
