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Armaments page 5

On this page are parts belonging to a B17 Flying fortress Ball and mid upper turret's purchased by us on one of  one of our trips to Arnhem.

The ball turret was a tiny space anyone over 5’4” would not physically fit into the bubble shaped turret. The turret machine guns stuck into the cramped bubble and the knees of the unfortunate gunner had to brought up almost touching the gunners chest! This tortuous position had to maintained perhaps for five hours or more of flight!  The life expectancy of a B17 ball turret gunner was less than that of the other aircrew for several reasons. Enemy fighters would still prefer to attack the American bomber from below in an attempt to hit the wing fuel tanks or hit the bombs in the bomb bay. This form of attack often resulted in the ball gunner being shot to pieces by cannon shell from a German fighter.
The “Sperry” turret's were operated electrically and by hydraulic pressure. The turret was extremely susceptible to the loss of either of the operating systems. If a engine was hit and had to shut down sometimes this meant the turret could not be moved through lack of electrical supply.
The unlucky ball gunner did not have room in his turret for a parachute! If his turret was hit badly he would often fall out into the freezing skies over Germany and fall 21,000ft to his death. The worst fear for the ball gunner was the turret being jammed through loss of electrics or hydraulics. The turret couldn’t be moved to extricate the gunner.
There are many reported cases of a badly shot up B17 having to land with its undercarriage up! In other words a belly landing, the full weight of the B17 would squash the poor gunner to death.

We do our best to describe the parts accurately. The following parts are not in working order unless otherwise stated some have repairs, expand the pictures and look carefully what you see is what you get.  

Click on the pictures to enlarge them. £95	B 17 flying Fortress Ball Turret manual (pg5 Armaments ) Here is a copy of the original comprehensive manual for the B17 Ball turret. Hard copies (not CD ) will be supplied. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.
Click on the pictures to enlarge them. .	B 17 flying Fortress Ball Turret Part 1 (pg5 Armaments ) Ball Turret elevation drive unit. Out of stock more wanted please contact me if you have one for sale
Click on the pictures to enlarge them	B 17 flying Fortress Ball Turret Part 2 (pg5 Armaments )   Elevation to sight gearing assembly   Click on the pictures to enlarge them   Out of stock more wanted please contact me if you have one for sale
Click on the pictures to enlarge them	B 17 flying Fortress Ball Turret Part 3 (pg5 Armaments ) Azimuth Power Gearing Assembly Out of stock more wanted please contact me if you have one for sale
Click on the pictures to enlarge them	Martin 250ce mid upper gun turret emergency hand crank (Pg5 Arm) Here is a Martin 250ce mid upper gun turret emergency hand crank for use if the turrets hydraulics failed, in good original condition fully functioning.   £475
Click on the pictures to enlarge them Other parts of this aircraft available in the controls section link here	Sea Fury TF 956 20mm ammo feeder (pg5 Armaments ) Here we have a 20 mm ammunition feeder from Sea Fury TF 956. Sea Fury TF 956 First flight 05Sep 1947 and delivered to the Royal Navy in Oct47. In 1950 it was operating from HMS Theseus off the Korean coast coded 123-T during the Korean War.  From 1963 to 1970 it was in store with Hawker Siddeley at Langley.  In 1970 it was transferred to the FAAHF based at Yeovilton. On 10Jun89 after several attempts to get the undercarriage to lower fully including bouncing along the runaway on one undercarriage leg the pilot was forced to bale out and the aircraft crashed into the sea off Prestwick and was destroyed. £375 Reserved

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