Turning The B-17 Into A Gunship - The History Of The YB-40
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2021
- The YB-40 was born out of a desperate attempt by the US Army Air Corps to protect their bombers from attack from vicious German fighters. While the results were mixed at best, the YB-40's legacy was huge, as it served as an experimental platform from which many upgrades to the B-17 were created. Though it may have failed as a gunship, it's success came well after it was grounded. This is the story of the YB-40 - the US's attempt at turning a B-17 into a gunship.
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Sources:
www.defensemedianetwork.com/s...
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www.britannica.com/technology...
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#yb40 #b17 #ww2history
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I worked for an old guy in the '70s that was a B-17 pilot flying out of England for a goodly part of the war. He mentioned to me one time about the term "flying porcupines". I know this term has been applied elsewhere but he was talking about B-17's that the crews added weapons to. Mostly additional .50 cal's but he said they would strap anything in there they could get the plane off the ground with. They commonly carried more ammunition and extra barrels than the regular load out too. I wish I had paid more attention. That generation is all but gone and I'm very thankful he took enough interest in me to tell me some of his stories, since I can no longer ask him.
I read an interview of a ME 109 pilot. He said he never returned to base without a few holes in his plane. So all that shooting from the B 17s did hit something
My father’s uncle was a gunner on a YB-40. When the program ended he was assigned as a waist gunner with the 407th Bomb Squadron. Thanks for the video!
Good show. Thank you. My stepfather was a pilot of a B-17. He was 23 years old on the 23rd mission. His aircraft was hit with flack over Austria and it caught on fire and exploded. He was the only one who made it. He was a pow. He’s gone now. RIP to all who dared to go up and didn’t make it back.
In the early part of the war, my dad taught dive bombing at Pensacola, they flew Corsairs. Later, he flew a converted B-17 in the Pacific theatre. The plane had been converted into a flying hospital and he would fly out of Oakland, stop at Pearl, and go to Guam to evacuate wounded soldiers. Years later, I was hired to boss a natural gas container oversize load crossing Guam from the naval base to the north shore. I knew body lice were a problem in Guam and I shaved all the hair off my body. Then John McCain proposed a 30 million dollar cut to the budget for the naval base and Guam pulled the permits for the natural gas development and I found myself with no hair and no job.
war thunder take notes
As a retired military man, I've long held that if politicos and top military brass were put on the front lines, things might be viewed a bit differently...
1 B-17 vs 17 A6M5 Zeros | Most heavily armed B17 of WW2 - UA-cam
I never heard the XP-61 was to be used for escort duty. I thought it was designed solely as a night fighter. The P-38 could have done full escort duty if they'd learned to lean out the fuel earlier in the war. Lindbergh did a lot of experiments with this and I believe almost doubled their range.
The problem wuth the 40s was that after bombs away, they could not keep up with the lighter bombers due to their extra guns & ammo...they carried no bombs...
A member of a congregation I served in Charleston WV, was "Kemp" McLaughlin, who was a pilot in the 92nd which flew these YB-40's. He told me about this story and also includes it in his book, "The Mighty Eighth in WWII."
Looking at the state of the tail planes of some of those returning B17's it's only the skills of the pilots that they made it home in (relatively) one piece. Looks like they were one pretty tough airplane.
My father worked on bombers during the war. He said they did one simple mod to increase the rate of fire of the 50 Cals - they replaced the felt recoil pads with nickels. The barrels burned out a lot quicker but they were going to be replaced anyway.
My father was a waist gunner on a YB-40, so thanks for this. The air crews were switched to regular B-17s after the YB-40s were proved problematic.
If you watch closely, the movie The Best Years of Our Lives shows the carcass of one of those YB-40s' in the scene in the airplane salvage yard, near the end of the movie. Just a glimpse of the modified radio compartment area, but there it is.
I liked that you pointed out that though the YB-40 itself wasn't successful some of the lessons learned from it were beneficial. Few books mention that.
An interesting topic coupled with a brilliant video, well done! The mix of historical and video game footage turned out quite nice, good examples.
Very interesting, as I never knew this variant even existed. WWII has always fascinated me with the fast development and tech churned out in such a short amount of time, and yet this YB40 hadn't ever crossed my radar. Thanks for placing yet another wonder of the time into my own arsenal of knowledge!
Great video! Very informative. Up until now I have never heard of a YB-40. Thanks! you now have a new subscriber.