B-17 Bomber's Browning Machine Guns.

The intent of this video is to provide an overview introduction of the WWII B-17 Bomber’s Browning M2 .50 cal. Machine Guns.
Couple corrections to presentation. The paper copy version available for download was updated to:
1. Correct the image on page 7. The machine gun burst, which yielded a 5.0 foot grouping, was derived from a 1.0 seconds in duration, not 2.0 seconds as expressed in the video. The data was corrected to indicate the burst was from a 1.0 second fire duration.
2. The image of the water cooled .30 caliber machine gun, on page 2, was updated to reflect a .50 caliber M2 machine gun.

[@jeffduquette588]

My Dad was a tail gunner on B-17. He told me at gunnery school they put you standing in the back of a truck with a shotgun. As you went down a bumpy road, clay pigeons popped up to fire at. Dad thought this helped him greatly during combat!

[@dukecraig2402]

Yep. I've been collecting military shotguns for over 30 years, most everyone knows about what's called "Trench Guns" which are short barrel police riot shotguns outfitted with barrel shrouds bayonet lugs and sling swivels that were produced from just about every different model of shotgun made as of when the war broke out, but what most people don't know is that the various manufacturers of them continued making shotguns with hunting length barrels throughout the war for the military, these shotguns bear the same acceptance markings stamped into them, U.S. property and the "flaming" ordnance bomb, as the combat shotguns. These hunting style shotguns were procured for two purposes, aerial gunnery training and for high ranking officers for "recreational" purposes, aka hunting and skeet/trap shooting. There was even a training aid made for gunnery practice that had a semi automatic shotgun action mounted in a faux .50 cal action complete with butterfly handles on the back like the waist gunners guns had and the same 30° iron sight for shooting at clay pigeons flung from a launcher. The regular hunting style shotguns used for aerial gunnery training weren't just used in the states, they were also in the arms room inventory of bomber units in the forward area's and were used to keep up on the aerial gunners practice and training on days that the units didn't fly. One of my best friends dad's was on a B29 crew stationed on Guam, when he showed me his photo album full of pictures from the war I turned one of the pages and my eye immediately caught a picture of him standing on what was obviously a tropical island complete with palm trees in the background holding a Remington Model 30 semi automatic shotgun with a long full choke length barrel on it, this was not long before I started collecting and reading about military shotguns and didn't know about shotguns being used for training and practice for aerial gunnery, I ask him how he managed to get a personal weapon like that shipped or smuggled to a tropical island and he explained to me that it was one of his units shotguns that they used to practice gunnery with on days they didn't fly missions while stationed on Guam, he passed away about 15 or 20 years ago and I've always regretted not getting him to get me a copy of that picture to go along with my collection of military shotguns and accessories since his photo album went to a son that doesn't get along with the one I knew, there was a unique opportunity for someone like me that collects military shotguns that spun off into the universe forever. Aside from the picture of the shotgun that guy had some serious stories about being on a B29 crew, sometimes you hear the stories about the problems they had with the Wright R3350 engine's on the B29, well let me tell you from the stories I heard from this guy they were true, he said that if one of the engine's was going to screw up chances are it would happen during take off since that's when it was at it's heaviest being loaded with bombs and fully tanked up with fuel and that they were taking off with the engine's in War Emergency Power with the water injection engaged because the runway at Guam was shorter than the minimum listed length from Boeing for a fully loaded B29, he said that at a certain distance going down the runway on each side was a flag, this was the "point of no return" distance while taking off and should a problem arise once you got to them or were past them they were ordered not to attempt to stop because there wasn't enough runway left to get a loaded B29 stopped in that amount of distance or less, all that would happen should they try to stop is they'd wind up wrecking and jam up the runway making it impossible for the rest of the the group to take off, so should they have a problem they'd just have to suck it up and continue with the take off, the end of the runway was a 40 foot cliff that dropped straight down to the ocean, just past it in the water which wasn't very deep was 3 or 4 B29's that didn't make it, he said as soon as their wheels got off the ground everyone breathed a sigh of relief and just when you were about to cheer and was feeling good for yourself you'd look down and see those B29's in the water and then you'd feel bad about being so happy for yourself because those planes in the water had friends of theirs that were still in them because the Navy was too busy to send divers during the war to get the crews remains out. How'd you like to start each mission out like that?

[@tihspidtherekciltilc5469]

I can only imagine changing your footing tracking a target with a pile of brass at your feet. Obviously decades late but having a grate for footing with a collection area underneath for brass to collect would have been my suggestion.

[@michaelgibson4705]

This video is very interesting to me,as my late father was an RAF gun armourer he maintained guns on the P47 Thunderbolt.He told me that the armourer’s could strip and reassemble the point 5 browning blindfolded.I was not sure about that.This video confirms that test.Sorry Dad shouldn’t have doubted you 😄

[@alanstevens1296]

A new US Army Private could go to aerial gunnery school and if they passed it, got a promotion to Staff Sergeant and a station on a bomber. Many saw that a very good deal!

[@lafeeshmeister]

At 4:20 there's an image of Clark Gable! I couldn't be happier

[@billyponsonby]

4:16 actor and air gunner Clark Gable

[@MonstroLab]

I don’t give a damn;) :)

[@waterheaterservices]

Mustache America Great Again

[@alanstevens1296]

Bullet velocity is normally stated in feet per second (fps). The Frankford Arsenal had a 50 BMG standard ball cartridge with a 709-grain projectile that had 2880 fps muzzle velocity.

[@vladimirtugin8533]

Great job as usual. It is a real pleasure to watch your videos for every wwll aviation amateur. Thank you greatly

[@skipcool5317]

Excellent videos. I have been B17 obsessed for a long time since childhood holidays to East Anglia in the 1980s and always being fascinated by the old 8th AF airfields (mainly gone now!). One video I would love to see (and it’s super specific I know!) would be on any stories of successful kills by navigator/bombardier cheek guns. These stations always fascinated me because the field of vision was so limited. Did anyone ever succeed in taking down a fighter from these positions? There don’t appear to be any statistics on the this!

[@DrewMacGregor]

Your image of the water cooled machine gun at the bottom of the screen around 1:30 is a .30 caliber Browning not a .50

[@WWIIUSBombers]

Thanks for the clarification. Page 2 of the paper copy available for download (see video description for link) was updated to up to change the image of the water cooled .30 caliber machine gun, to reflect a .50 caliber M2 water cooled machine gun.

[@xx1352]

Outstanding video/info.Thank you

[@ypaulbrown]

wonderful content, well done video....Bravo from Florida, Paul

[@S2Sturges]

Really enjoying your series of videos, they are clear, concise and extremely informative, ... Excellent work, thank you !

[@WWIIUSBombers]

Thanks!

[@johnned4848]

@@WWIIUSBombers gotta say I love your channel. Your videos are so well produced and researched. How do you do this? Are you a professional historian or museum curator? You keep the standards high 💯

[@ricardoprambs3951]

Great video!!!

[@WWIIUSBombers]

Glad you liked it!

[@scottdunkirk8198]

We want to do a gunnery school immersion training course.

[@marvinacklin792]

Excellent

[@WWIIUSBombers]

Thank you so much 😀

[@davidscott9572]

My dad was a waist gunner flying out of England never talked about it

[@stimpy1715]

Same here my brother.

[@rickblackwell6435]

First time I have ever heard of a water cooled 50 cal. Cool.

[@Perfusionist01]

the water-cooled .50 was the original version fielded. the M2HB came later (1930's). The water-cooled gun was used for AA defense by the US Navy as well as the Army and Marines. The water-cooled gun was replaced in the Navy by the 20mm, and in the Army by the multiple mounted M2HBs. The .50 cal fell out of favor for AA use due to limited range against faster aircraft and its heavy weight. By the way, the weights shown are only for the guns and don't include the weight of the substantial mounting required for the .50 cal weapons.

[@dicktobiason335]

What do you know about ground training at triangular flexible gunnery ranges? We have one in Central Oregon and can find no records of it being used. It is located between 2 WWII B-17F training bases. We have found similar facilities in Kingman, AZ.

[@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont]

It is my understanding that the Bendix chin turret appeared sometime late in the B-17F production. It may have been the Cheyenne plant that gave it a try.

[@speculawyer]

I think you are correct and I learned that in another one of his videos.

[@cboetigphone]

Rate of fire for the Light barrel and water cooled M2 was significantly higher than for the HB. HB was about 450 RPM with the light barrel about 800 RPM. Done with a different buffer with some parts built to higher standards. In 1987 the US Army armed the OH-58D with a M2 light barrel machine gun. We could not use standard Army M2 Heavy barrel parts but had to order them using an old parts manual for the tail guns of early model B-52s. In the late 90s the M2 light barrel was replaced in the OH-58 fleet by a more modern lighter version of the M2 .50 cal MG.

[@emmgeevideo]

LOL The same thought came to my mind. After every mission they spent a lot of time debriefing. I have to imagine that if shell casings were a huge problem that hundreds/thousands of waist gunner would have complained and someone would have tackled the problem. Maybe they did and our host just didn't refer to it.

[@blurglide]

Wouldn't the barrel jacket keep the barrel warmer than if it were just uncovered? I thought they were to prevent people from burning their hands.

[@markbecht1420]

The barrel in a Browning MG reciprocates with each shot. The barrel in the ground version is made very heavy to be stiff enough to be self-supporting and to absorb the heat of firing. The far end of the jacket on the aircraft gun has a bearing that supports a much lighter and thinner barrel. The problem with aircraft guns is often over cooling from the blast of -30 air at altitude, so heaters were often fitted to ensure proper function

[@speculawyer]

Seems like the tracers wouldn't be much use with just 2 second bursts. Not enough time to correct.

[@markbecht1420]

Tracers are largely psychological. They don't follow the same trajectory due to different, and decreasing (as the tracer compound burns) weight. They let the gunner see and feel that he is shooting, and just as importantly they let the pilot of the target aircraft know that he is being shot at. If that is enough to make him break off the attack then the defensive fire is successful, even if the airplane is never hit. Gunners were taught to fire a short burst even if the target was out of range just as "I see you, I'm watching you, I'm waiting'

[@isbastardbunny]

This is good stuff. Did the tail gun's go to 20 mm late in WW2 ?

[@nicklappos]

Not on the B-17

[@MrSteve280]

20mm was originally planned for the tail gunner on a B29 only but dropped for several reasons.

[@davidcovarubias4729]

The 50's in aircraft were not M2's. They were XM-218's. It was the same receiver but the lighter, air cooled barrel. The M2 was the ground version of the 50. I was a crewchief and gunner on CH-46 helicopters and used the same exact gun that was used on all american aircraft during WW2. Still had the experimental designation which was designed in 1918. The gun never needed improvement so the gov't just left the experimental XM-218 designation on the gun.

[@WWIIUSBombers]

Please see the 1945 B-17 illustrated Parts Catalog (document AN 01-20EG-4) page 237 or the B-17 field service manual page 307. They both call out the B-17 machine guns specifically as M2's.

[@davidcovarubias4729]

@@WWIIUSBombers They are wrong. The nomenclature tags on the guns say XM-218. I remember having a conversation with my instructor when l went to gun school (50 cal) many years ago. He said they guns were pretty much perfect, which was why Browning never removed the experimental designation on the aircraft version of the 50 cal. Like l stated earlier, the receivers on both guns are the same. The aircraft version has the lighter, air cooled barrel which doesn't have the range of the heavier M2 barrel.

[@WWIIUSBombers]

@@davidcovarubias4729 Please see the WWII 1944, 337 page Aircrewmans Gunnary Manual (document OPNAV 33-40), Pages G-1 and G-2. They also call out the Bomber's .50 machine guns as Browning M2's. I have referenced 3 period documents that are consistent in the B-17 machine guns defined as the Browning M2.

[@davidcovarubias4729]

@@WWIIUSBombers I have looked at the guns on B-17's ("Texas Raiders to name one), and a B-24 "Witchcraft" and personally looked at the nomenclature tags on the guns and they all have XM-218 stamped on the tags. These guns from WW2 are the exact same guns that l fired as a crewchief in a Marine Corps CH-46E squadron in the 80's and they also had XM-218 stamped on the nomenclature tags on the receivers of the guns. "Happiness is a belt fed weapon!"

[@davidcovarubias4729]

@@WWIIUSBombers Have you ever looked at a gun on a B-17 or a B-24? You will see the XM-218 number stamped on the nomenclature tag on the gun.

[@johncox2865]

Hint: bullet velocity is properly given as feet per second. Reason: no bullet is going to be in flight for more than a few seconds. Mph is totally irrelevant. Also, a ‘single shot group’ from a .50 caliber gun will always equal .5 inch. One shot produces one hole.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

Group is the test shoot’s average dispersion not the bullet hole size. Mach is dependent on air temperature and to a very small extent on the density of the local air composition, the Mach 2.5 value quoted is the 1,885mph equivalent at a standard atmosphere sea level temperature!

[@jamess5154]

"Flying Fortess" was actually because the original intent was the heavy bomber was developed to defend the coastline of the US by sinking any enemy fleet as proven possible by Billy Mitchell rather than depend on coastal fortresses.