Tail gunner
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A tail gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who functions as a gunner defending against attacks from the rear, or "tail", of the plane. The tail gunner position on an aircraft operates a fixed machine gun emplacement on the top or bottom of the aircraft with a generally unobstructed view toward the tail of the aircraft. While the term tail gunner is usually associated with a crewman operating a manned gun turret, possibly in a glass enclosure, tail gunnery armaments may also be operated by remote control from another part of the aircraft.
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The tail gun armament and arrangement varied with users. US heavy bomber designs like the Flying Fortress and Superfortress favoured a fixed gunner seat with the guns themselves rotating about a point covering an arc of some 90 degrees or more. Two heavy machine guns of 0.50 inch was typical; some carried a third heavier calibre weapon. By comparison British heavy bombers designs standardized on a powered turret capable of 180 degree rotation armed with four 0.303 inch guns. For German aircraft the gun position covering the tail was often in the dorsal position at the rear of the crew comparment or part way along the back of the fuselage. This gave a reasonable coverage above the line of the fuselage but might be supplemented by a ventral position that covered to the rear below the fuselage.
The tail gunner fulfilled a second role as a lookout for enemy aircraft attacking. This was a major role for British tail gunners when their aircraft were bombing by night. Operating as individuals instead of a box formation the bombers first reaction to an attacking fighter was to engage in manoeuvres such as a corkscrew roll; firing guns in defence was of lesser importance. The British slang term for the tail gunner was "Tail-end charlie". In Germany they were called Heckschwein (tail-end pig) and doubled as radio operator on planes with small crews, like the Stuka.
The tail gunner found heaviest use during the World War II and early Cold War years on large bombers, but the position has become largely obsolete due to advancements in ranged air combat armaments such as air-to-air missiles as well as modern detection and countermeasures against such armaments.
[edit] Partial List of aircraft with tail gun positions
This is a list of aircraft to show the different approach to tailgun positions
[edit] Germany
- Focke-Wulf Fw 189 - reconnaissance
- Junkers Ju 290 - long range patrol/transport
- Heinkel He 177 - heavy bomber
[edit] United Kingdom
In World War II the rear 4-gun rotating turret was virtually a standard across British designed bombers
- Armstrong Whitworth Whitley - bomber
- Avro Lancaster - heavy bomber
- Short Sunderland - maritime patrol and anti-submarine
- Vickers Warwick - prototype heavy bomber, differed in tail gun position directed guns mounted in wing positions.
[edit] USA
- TBD Devastator - Carrier-borne torpedo bomber, rear of cockpit flexible gun mount
- TBF Avenger - Carrier-borne torpedo bomber, featured both a dorsal turret and a ventral tail gunner
- B-17 Flying Fortress - heavy bomber, fixed tailgun position
- B-23 Dragon - heavy bomber
- B-24 Liberator - heavy bomber, rotating tail gun turret
- B-25 Mitchell - medium bomber
- Convair B-36 - post WW2 strategic bomber
- B-52 Stratofortress - post WW2 strategic bomber, no other gun positions
[edit] USSR/Russia
- Antonov An-12
- Ilyushin Il-28
- Myasishchev M-4
- Petlyakov Pe-8
- Tupolev Tu-4
- Tupolev Tu-14
- Tupolev Tu-16
- Tupolev Tu-22/Tu-22M
- Tupolev Tu-95/Tu-142
