Avro Lancaster - FN.5 Forward Gun Turret

[@Flingwing24]

Hi Bryan. Appreciated. Getting back into modelling and having an aviation background these are very useful/appreciated. Great work. CBA

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Awesome, thank you!

[@jmp.t28b99]

Another good video . I will be looking at all of them concerning this great aircraft. Much more capable than our B-17. I have to say that the Lancaster would have benefited from .50 caliber guns. You Brits seemed married to the .303 caliber for the longest time. I suppose during the early stages of the war , Britain had to make do with what she had available. My questions about the Lanc have been answered by your great videos. I have retired (2015) from professional flying after 47 years having made the transition from radials to jets, steam gauges to glass cockpits.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for sharing and for watching!

[@simongleaden2864]

Some Lancasters were adapted to carry 2 .50 calibre machine guns, which gave greater hitting power than 4 x .303. A few Lancasters were fitted with 2 x.50 guns in the mid-upper turret instead of the normal 2 x .303. So the RAF came to realise the advantages of the heavier machine gun.

[@russellherbert9670]

Great info about a great plane

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching!

[@michaelguerin56]

Thank you. Another excellent video.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Our pleasure!

[@davegoldsmith4020]

Great Video Bryan, was looking forward to the turrets, My dad was an air gunner on Wellingtons. Used to love looking in the turrets of PA 474, although they had no power they were able too move with the manual handle.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks 👍

[@NiceCuppa]

Another fascinating video Bryan, I look forward to these each week.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching. It's the Mid-Upper Turret next week!

[@flyingfortressrc1794]

That some great info. I always wondered how the turret worked. Thanks

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Glad to help

[@patfontaine5917]

Just a few minutes in to this and I’m already learning something - I had no idea how the turret pivoted side to side as it seems more oval shaped than circular. LOL - liked the closed ends that protected the gunner. Who knew? Thanks for posting - you’ve answered a half-century old question!

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching! It's the Mid-Upper Turret next week.

[@patfontaine5917]

@@ukaircraftexplored6556 looking forward to it!

[@bobcharles9009]

Very useful to get a better idea of the structure as its a can of worms to get ones head around. What adjusts the height of the gun sight to suit the gunner as he might be 6ft or 5ft so the sight needs to go up and down and be set for the gunner, or was the seat height adjustable ? Also what attaches, and where, to the brownings so as to make them fire ? Spitfires had a two point attachment to side and underside, but what does a turret have ?

[@davidcottam7967]

Cool

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thank you

[@whale_singer]

Were there versions of the Lancaster which omitted the front turret and just had a glass canopy instead? What was the top speed of the Lancaster without its defensive turrets?

[@DaveGIS123]

I had a good look at an FN.5 on display at the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum in Brandon, Canada and was surprised at how small it was. I was also surprised at how thin and flimsy the plexiglass panels were --- they were practically like cellophane!

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Yes, they were very thin. Thanks for sharing!

[@concise707]

12 Jan 45, 617 Sqn (The Dambusters) were detailed to attack various targets at Bergan. During the attack, FW 190s intercepted them. Ian Ross's Lancaster flew across the path of that flown by Freddy Watts; it was trailing smoke and pursued by 2 FW 190s. Watts immediately engaged the 2 FWs with the bomb-aimer manning the front turret, closed to 250 yds at 350 mph, causing the 2 FWs to break off, allowing Ross to manage a controlled ditching from which the whole crew successfully escaped but didn't survive. Can you imagine: "OK Chaps, we're going to take on 2 FW 190s with 2 x .303" Brownings in a Lancaster - it ought to be a close-run thing! TALLY-HO!"

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching !

[@skipcool5317]

Very interesting. I have heard little to nothing about the Lancaster nose turret in action - other than the Dambusters Raid where they used them to shoot at the flak towers as they made their approaches - does anyone know of a nose gunner shooting down an enemy aircraft?

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching!

[@judebrad]

Very rare, if any. Most attacks were from the rear or below, especially later on in the war when the Germans introduced the Schräge Musik installations.

[@wbertie2604]

There are arguments that the nose guns on the Dambusters raids were sadly counterproductive as the tracer made it easier to see the bombers. Although those aircraft lacked mid-upper turrets they had a Vickers K in a ventral hatch although given how low they were flying I'm not sure there would have been much to shoot at

[@bluesrocker91]

I don't know about kills. But in the book 'Lancaster' by Garbett and Goulding there's an archive photo of a Lancaster on the ground, post-raid, with the bomb-aimer's blister absolutely full of spent .303 casings and links... The caption doesn't explain the story behind the photo, but it says the nose turret saw the most action during daylight raids towards the end of the war. It also says that there were very rare occasions where Lancasters were used to make low-level strafing attacks on trains, in which the nose and tail turrets were employed. I suppose it must have been employed often enough to retain it for the duration of the war, otherwise I would expect it to have been removed to save weight and improve performance fairly early on, as happened with the Halifax. Plus the early Lincolns came with a Boulton Paul nose turret, right at the very end of the war.

[@skipcool5317]

@@bluesrocker91excellent point re: they must have kept it for some reason. They were pretty ruthless in getting rid of redundant weight as we saw with the ventral turret.

[@pontymike56]

great video, one question, was the front gun turrent manned by a gunner or did the air bomber fill the role as needed

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching, the front turret did not have a dedicated gunner, it was often manned by the Air Bomber or maybe by other crew members depending on the situation.

[@MarsFKA]

@@ukaircraftexplored6556 During the Dam Busters mission, the modified Lancasters' mid-upper turrets were removed, so each gunner simply shifted to the front turret. Stirrups were fitted to keep the gunners' feet out of the way of the bomb aimers. The aircraft later modified to carry the ten-ton Grand Slam bombs had both front and mid-upper turrets removed - as well as two of the guns in the tail turret and two crew members. All this was to strip as much unwanted weight as possible - I never heard if they removed the Elsan as well, but I would not have been surprised...

[@davehall44]

My late dad once mentioned he never fired them in anger although the mid upper and tail gunners did enough shooting. I think the traverse was fairly limited. He also mentioned that approaching the UK coast he would selected single shot to clear the loaded rounds. One time he forgot and sent tracer spraying across the sky which created pandemonium on board.

[@CHORDMARTIN]

@@ukaircraftexplored6556. The other two big RAF bombers - stirling and halifax - had front turrets as well. Did they have a dedicated gunner crewman or was the position manned by whoever was available?

[@wbertie2604]

​​@@davehall44n theory, the traverse was nearly pretty good (135 degrees from memory) In practice, it could affect trim at the extremes. Certainly, the early Halifaxes, which had slightly dubious stability with the original tail, there had to be spoilers fitted to the turret to deal with the trim changes. I'm not sure how bad it was on the Lancaster.

[@mandolinic]

Interesting that the front gunner had much less ammo than the rear gunner. Obviously, the powers that be expected that most enemy fighters would attack from behind. It's also interesting that the front gunner was also the bomb aimer. With no ball turret, I imagine this would give enemy fighters the opportunity to attack the bomber stream from the front and below as they're lining up to the target.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks

[@1joshjosh1]

I always wondered if the Brownings were more reliable/less reliable or about the same versus 30.06. 🤔? Edit: .vs .303. Taking into account the differences in the bottom of the cartridge.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

I'm not sure on that one. From conversations with gunners years ago, there were hang ups sometimes, also problems with icing.

[@wbertie2604]

The 30-06 versions fired from a closed bolt, but the 303 ones, because of different propellant, used a two stage process which is technically closed bolt, but with it held open most of the time. I'm amazed it worked, but it did

[@judebrad]

I didn't realise that the front-gunner/bomb aimer had the luxury of a seat. I thought he stood in the the position.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for watching

[@4shink]

very curious why the British insisted on using .303 caliber machine guns for defensive armament when the well known and fully tested Browning .50 were available. Using a rifle caliber defensive gun when attacking fighters would be using 20mm canons and/or 13mm machine guns seems to be similar to taking a knife to a gun fight. Understand the logistical advantages of commonality with army machine guns but seems a terrible disadvantage for the Brit gunners.

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Thanks for your feedback.

[@kellywright540]

That was my question also - why did the Brits go with the .303's in both their fighters and bombers. Lord knows us Yanks were turning out the fifty caliber guns by the tens of thousands. I'm sure were could have spared some through the Lend Lease program or better yet, you guys could have produced them yourselves. Been wondering about that for like the last 45 years myself. My Dad told me stories about the prowess of the Browning fifties used in the ground war and the mess they made on German vehicles when they were attacked by the P47's, P38's and P51's. My Dad was a scout in Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division, 66th Armored Field Artillery Battalion from late July of 1944 until the end of the war.

[@peterhammond1186]

I read that one argument against using .50 calibre was the heavier weight of guns & ammo would mean less weight of bombs on target. The fact that when they eventually fitted them the survivability rose bears out the folly of this. The same mentality that stopped first war pilots from using parachutes. For some reason we never took the .50 to our hearts the way the US did.

[@wbertie2604]

​​​@@kellywright540 the late 1930s the UK was working on both 50 calibre and 20mm turrets. However, when war started Lend Lease was not an option, and the USA would not grant a manufacturing licence for the 50 like it had for the 303. The UK thus had no supply of 50 calibre guns but needed turrets so Beaverbrook suspended all work on 50 calibre and heavier turrets so as to expedite the work of ensuring all UK bombers had powered turrets. It's certainly not related to any WW1 mentality, just a shrewd if tough decision taken in 1939 in the face of the absence of a supply of 50s. About the only other available choice might have been using 15mm BESAs. But the requirement in 1939 was still SOME turrets - not all UK types had POWERED turrets, and some had as little as a single Vickers K, or maybe just two Brownings for rear defence. The UK generally made reasonable decisions about production necessities, if you ignore some questionable tank development.

[@wbertie2604]

​@@peterhammond1186as noted in my response, there was a solid reason to go with 303 in 39-41 when 50s were not available under Lend Lease nor local production. Another factor was needing to manufacture ammunition. The ban on development was lifted in 1942. UK turret data was supplied to the USA, and US turrets were used on some Lancasters, and I'm surprised it wasn't done more. The RAF actually wanted to skip 50 entirely in the late 1930s and move to 20mm cannon. Boulton-Paul created a prototype single mounting just prior to WW2 and both BP and Bristol had paper designs for quad 20mm designs. This was predicated normally on heavier bombers of a generation on from the Lancaster (which was born as a medium) which would have been the size of a B-29, but didn't happen. Bristol did create the B-17 for the Lancaster IV, aka Lincoln with 2 20mm cannon

[@lynnmorton7544]

So, the front turret was powered by the inner starboard engine. Therefore, I assume, should that engine get knocked out, the power would be a complete power loss for that turret

[@Rzymek85]

I read somewhere that it was forbidden to use the guns at night because the bomber could be located with less effort by nightfighter?

[@ukaircraftexplored6556]

Not correct, but thanks for watching

[@Rzymek85]

@@ukaircraftexplored6556 I think i read it in Leo McKinstry's book, somewere arond page 166/165?