Most heavily armed 4 engined bomber?

Once read Condor was.

 

What?

With 4 x 13mm MG either another 13mm Mg or a 20mm Cannon!!!

B29A had 11 x 12.7mm MG and 1 x 20mm cannon, and some B24 had 4 x 20mm Fixed Forward Firing cannon (RAF Coastal Command)

B17 & B24 had around 12-13 x 12.7mm MG

Even the heinkel He177 had 3 x 7.92mm MG, 3 x 13mm MG and 2 x 20mm Cannon (He177A-5/R2)

 

I would say the Ju 290A-7 is a contender. It had 4 dorsal turrets with 1 20mm each, a 20mm in the nose, another in the front of a ventral gondola, and a 20mm in the tail. In addition, it had a 13mm machinegun on each side in the waist and one in the rear of the ventral gondola. That's alot of firepower in a standard issue aircraft.

 

Condor. Dunno if this was added to in later versions or not. & we weren't discussing for what.


Armament:
Forward Dorsal Turret:
One 15mm MG 151/15, One 20mm MG 151/20 Or One 7.92mm MG 15 with 1,000 rnds mounted in hydralically operated FW 19 turret
Ventral Gondola:
One 20mm MG 151/20 with 500 rnds. manually aimed at front
One 7.92mm MG 15 with 1,000 rnds. manually aimed at rear

Beam:
Two 7.92mm MG 15 Or Two 13mm MG 131 with 300 rnds.

Aft Dorsal Position:
One 13mm MG 131 with 500 rnds.

 

Soon a number of variations in armament appeared, as the MG FF and MG 15 were replaced by far more powerful 15mm and 20mm MG 151 cannon, or the 13mm MG 131. With these changes, the later Condors were very well armed.

Upgrades, but does not appear that increases in number of guns occurred. 290 still beats it.

 

I will offer two contenders; Piaggio P.108A with a nose mounted 102mm cannon for anti-shipping. Italy surrendered before it could be put into production with the cannon. 163 bombers were built.

Kawanishi H8K "Emily" flying boat. It carried bombs and torpedos and had five 20mm cannon and four 7.7mm machine guns. Only 167 of these were built.

 

I suppose here´s a drawing of one with the 102 mm cannon.

http://www.modelforum.cz/web/view.php?nazevclanku=&cisloclanku=2005123001

 

Wow, interesting. I wonder how it might've done against supply ships.

 

Fliegende Stachsweine (flying porcupine)
Sunderland
in the IV version 8/50 cals, and 2/20mm

 

Where are the fleets of fighters shot down by these behemoths?

Re T.A.Gardner's Ju290A-7, on my William Green's "Warplanes of the Third Reich" (wot? a book, not an online source? ) it says:

"Production of the Ju290A-7 began during the early summer of 1944 and a series of 25 (count'em) reconnaissance-bombers of this type was laid down, but only a small number of these had been completed when the Bernburg assembly line came to a standstill, and the Ju290A-7 failed to attain service status. One example of the Ju290A-7 was later flow by its crew to the USA for evaluation."

Impact = zero, another twinkle in the eye that came to nothing.

 

We get it Za, the german war machine is garbage. Thanks for bringing this up yet again.

Back to your regularly scheduled thread about the "Most heavily armed 4 engined bomber?"...

 

Za, I knew that the Ju 290 was built in miniscule numbers, so was the P 108 for that matter, but a four engined bomber with as many as 8 20mm and 4 13mm cannon on board is definitely in the running.

 

Yes the Sunderland is a good plane. One shot down several Ju-88's that attacked it. It also captured a U-boat by straffing down the U-boats gun crews.

 

No, Blaz, some German war machines were garbage or if not garbage then irrelevant for the general picture, and there is no call to make a hoopla about them just because they look pretty in the pic. It's all about having a sense of proportion.

If you want to talk about total garbage you have my leave to talk at will about the Soviet air force bar a few rare exceptions.

But Luft46 will keep everyone happy as it's all phantasy and in a phantasy world you can say all you please.

 

Well, the 290A-8 was the one with 4 (four!) turrets on top of the fuselage, but with one 13mm rearward firing gun on the chin gondola. If you were attacking it would you do the same as I would and attack from below? 10 laid down and 2-3 completed, where's rationality in that, by the way?

 

Again, that's not the essence of the thread. But to answer the question as best as I can, the Germans perhaps did not forsee the material resources situation that developed & building fighters in large numbers became higher priority, & 4 engined bombers use up enormous resources. I hope that answers you query.

 

Very reasonable, Chrome. To bring things back on track, what about the YB-40?



http://home.att.net/~jbaugher2/b17_12.html

"This aircraft was produced in an attempt to provide better defenses for B-17 daylight bomber forces which were suffering appalling losses in their raids against German targets on the European continent. The YB-40 was produced by converting existing B-17Fs in an attempt to provide additional firepower for the defense of bomber formations when they ventured into areas beyond the range of contemporary fighters...

...They converted a standard Boeing-built B-17F (serial number 41-24341) to escort configuration by adding a dorsal turret in the radio compartment position carring a pair of 0.50-cal machine guns, a chin turret underneath the nose equipped with a pair of 0.50 cal machine guns, and twin gun mounts instead of the usual single gun mounts at each waist position. The regular top, belly, and tail turrets were retained, bringing total defensive armament to fourteen 0.50-inch machine guns. Additional protective armor was fitted for better crew protection. The bomb bays were replaced by storage areas which carried additional ammunition for the guns. The normal ammunition load was 11,135 rounds, which could be increased to 17,265 rounds if the fuel load was reduced.

...Very early on, it was found that the net effect of the additional drag of the turrets and the extra weight of the guns, armor, and additional ammunition was to reduce the speed of the YB-40 to a point where it could not maintain formation with the standard B-17s on the way home from the target once they had released their bombs. The YB-40 could protect itself fairly well, but not the bombers it was supposed to defend. Consequently, it was recognized that the YB-40 project was an operational failure, and the surviving YB-40s were converted back to standard B-17F configuration or used as gunnery trainers back in the States. However, the YB-40 was to have one lasting impact--the chin turret originally introduced on the YB-40 was later adopted as standard for the B-17G series."

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/usplanes/aircraft/yb-40.htm

http://www.vectorsite.net/avb17_2.html

Oh, Blaz, for the record, IMHO the best overall tank in WWII was the Panther

[ 14. October 2006, 06:38 AM: Message edited by: Za Rodinu ]