Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Memphis Belle + 25 Mission Crunch
Message-ID: <1990Nov7.034811.11662@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 7 Nov 90 03:48:11 GMT
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From: p0.f7.n391.z1.fidonet.org!Scott.Johnson (Scott Johnson)

 NI> shells coming head-on would set off the bombs and one
 NI> burst was often enough. 
     
        Nope, not quite. The B-17 had weak forward armament for most of
its life. There were only 2 machine guns that could point directly
forward, and they were manually aimed and were very inaccurate. The
reason why it worked so well was that the 17s armor was quite weak in
the front. The bombadier only had 1/4" of plexiglass between him and the
outside world, and the pilots had armored windscreens and nothing else.
A well-aimed head on pass would almost certainly kill _somebody_, and
enough of them would kill the pilots.