B-24 Liberator bomber with a twin .50 caliber nose-mounted turret
Item
-
Title (Dublin Core)
-
B-24 Liberator bomber with a twin .50 caliber nose-mounted turret
-
Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
-
Fangs for the liberator
-
extracted text (Extract Text)
-
A JAPANESE manual on aircraft recognition, recently cap-
tured, lists the B-24 Consolidated Liberator as a “four-
engined fighter.” Considering the number of Zeros that these
far-ranging bombers have knocked down in the last few
months, this classification is not so far from the truth. The
- new deadliness is largely due to the elimination of the last
weak link in the Liberator’s armor of fire, the nose armament.
Consolidated engineers have modified the nose and installed
the newly designed Emerson twin .50 caliber turret in place
of the free, swivel-mounted guns formerly used. Placed far
out, the new turret can cover an arc of over 200 degrees in
the horizontal plane and over 90 degrees in the vertical.
The new Liberator has the greatest variety of armament
emplacement of any bomber in service today. Besides the
twin .50 caliber Emerson nose-mounted turret, it carries a
twin unit built by Martin on top, a two-gun Sperry ball turret
(the same as on the Flying Fortress) in the belly, and Con-
solidated’s own twin .50 turret in the tail. These are aug-
mented by two single pedestal-mounted .50's in the waist.
While it is true that other heavy bombers carry a greater
number of .50 guns than the Liberator, this is a decided asset
to the B-24. If, through the proper emplacement of fewer
guns, it can completely cover itself with a protective curtain
of fire, it can invest the weight thus saved in more rounds of
defensive ammunition, or more bombs to drop on the enemy.
-
Language (Dublin Core)
-
eng
-
Date Issued (Dublin Core)
-
1944-04
-
pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
-
108-109
-
Rights (Dublin Core)
-
Public Domain (Google digitized)
-
Archived by (Dublin Core)
-
Lorenzo Chinellato
-
Marco Bortolami (editor)
Popular Science Monthly, v. 144, n. 4, 1944
