• Thumbnail for Ball turret
    A ball turret is a spherical-shaped, altazimuth mount gun turret, fitted to some American-built aircraft during World War II. The name arose from the turret's...
    7 KB (905 words) - 06:25, 24 August 2024
  • the Ball Turret Gunner" is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. The poem is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a...
    4 KB (445 words) - 00:43, 11 July 2024
  • Thumbnail for Consolidated B-24 Liberator
    retractable lower ball turret gun, and a tail gun turret matching the nose turret. The waist gun hatches were provided with doors. The ball turret was required...
    110 KB (15,412 words) - 21:48, 20 August 2024
  • a mostly derisive welcome, and she is quartered in the empty Sperry ball turret for the takeoff. With no room left for her document valise, she reluctantly...
    20 KB (1,856 words) - 16:38, 26 July 2024
  • Thumbnail for Sperry Corporation
    automated take-off and landing systems. Sperry also was the creator of the Ball Turret Gun mounted under the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and the Consolidated...
    25 KB (2,255 words) - 03:39, 19 June 2024
  • Thumbnail for Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
    positions (2 in the Bendix chin turret, 2 on nose cheeks, 2 staggered waist guns, 2 in upper Sperry turret, 2 in Sperry ball turret in belly, 2 in the tail and...
    145 KB (16,691 words) - 22:52, 19 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident
    Sgt. Samuel W. "Blackie" Blackford (26 October 1923 – 16 June 2001): ball turret gunner Brown's B-17 began its ten-minute bomb run at 8,320 m (27,300 ft)...
    18 KB (2,201 words) - 02:26, 24 August 2024
  • Magee joined the United States Army Air Forces and was assigned as a ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber. On January 3, 1943, his Flying Fortress—B-17F-27-BO...
    5 KB (560 words) - 11:44, 15 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress
    manned dorsal turret was installed in the former radio compartment, just behind the bomb bay and forward of the ventral ball turret's location. The single...
    17 KB (2,256 words) - 19:43, 21 May 2024
  • Thumbnail for Gun turret
    A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim...
    53 KB (6,931 words) - 16:58, 16 June 2024
  • Thumbnail for H2X
    H2X on later B-24 Liberators also replaced the ball turret, being made retractable as the ball turret was for landing on the Liberator. The operators...
    10 KB (1,291 words) - 01:25, 18 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Consolidated PB2Y Coronado
    There were two main configurations, one with several turrets including a prominent ball turret in the nose with two 50-cal machine guns, and one unarmed...
    21 KB (2,326 words) - 13:26, 13 August 2024
  • not a husband. A nurse during World War II, she encountered a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp ("Garp" being all he is...
    17 KB (1,680 words) - 23:56, 24 July 2024
  • Thumbnail for Maynard Harrison Smith
    mission, on May 1, 1943, Staff Sergeant Smith, who was assigned to the ball gun turret, helped save the lives of six of his wounded comrades and put out a...
    15 KB (1,698 words) - 11:24, 3 June 2024
  • Thumbnail for List of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress variants
    machine gun turret used in the Y1B-17's upper nose blister was replaced with a .30 in (7.62 mm) machine gun, its barrel run through a ball-socket in the...
    46 KB (6,153 words) - 00:25, 9 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Heavy bomber
    Simon & Schuster, 2001. p. 299 [ISBN missing] Johnsen, Frederick A. "Ball Turret: Shattering the Myths." Air Power History 1996 43(2): pp. 14–21. ISSN 1044-016X...
    30 KB (4,280 words) - 02:44, 26 May 2024
  • strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp, who was severely brain...
    10 KB (980 words) - 17:11, 12 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Bell AH-1 Cobra
    and a two-seat, tandem cockpit. It featured a grenade launcher in a ball turret on the nose, a 20 mm belly-mounted gun pod, and stub wings for mounting...
    73 KB (7,920 words) - 02:42, 25 July 2024
  • Thumbnail for United Shoe Machinery Corporation
    devices Weapon systems aircraft gun turrets B-17 Flying Fortress ball turret YA-14 Shrike and XP-71 pressurized turret waist gun mounts XB-40 Flying Fortress...
    18 KB (1,731 words) - 12:42, 5 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Schräge Musik
    (the Avro Lancaster and Handley Page Halifax), which lacked ventral ball turrets in order to save weight, making them vulnerable to covert approaches...
    42 KB (5,863 words) - 20:13, 12 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Rocco Morabito (photographer)
    Jacksonville Journal. He served in World War II in the Army Air Forces as a ball-turret gunner on a B-17. After the war, he returned to the Jacksonville Journal...
    5 KB (277 words) - 13:56, 6 April 2023
  • Thumbnail for Shaanxi Y-8
    acquisition achieved by gyro-stabilised optoelectronic sighting system in a ball turret under the nose. A steerable searchlight would be installed in a pod under...
    30 KB (3,115 words) - 16:10, 16 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Nose gunner
    enlisted men (engineer/top turret gunner, radio operator/waist gunner, a second waist gunner, ball turret gunner and tail turret gunner). It had twin .50...
    7 KB (904 words) - 20:39, 8 May 2023
  • Thumbnail for Oscillating turret
    An oscillating turret is a form of turret for armoured fighting vehicles, both tanks and armoured cars. The turret is unusual in being made of two hinged...
    11 KB (1,500 words) - 04:00, 25 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer
    guns in six power-operated turrets (two dorsal, two waist, nose and tail); the B-24's ventral, retractable Sperry ball turret was omitted. Turbosuperchargers...
    18 KB (1,901 words) - 11:30, 23 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Grumman TBF Avenger
    electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment, and sonobuoys, and the upper ball turret was replaced with a sloping glass canopy that was better suited for observation...
    47 KB (5,402 words) - 02:32, 23 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Flight suit
    flight jacket, due to the enclosed and heated cabin; but the tail- and ball turret gunners were more exposed, as were waist gunners who fired their guns...
    13 KB (1,751 words) - 08:08, 25 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Sabu (actor)
    Sabu joined the U.S. Army Air Forces and served as a tail gunner and ball-turret gunner on B-24 Liberators. He flew several dozen missions with the 370th...
    17 KB (1,495 words) - 06:42, 26 August 2024
  • Thumbnail for Consolidated XB-41 Liberator
    to the standard twin gun tail turret and twin gun retractable ventral ball turret, plus twin mount guns at each waist window. The port waist mount was...
    5 KB (567 words) - 03:02, 18 December 2023
  • Thumbnail for Bell 207 Sioux Scout
    airframe and a two-seat, tandem cockpit, featuring a grenade launcher in a ball turret on the nose, a 20 mm belly-mounted gun pod, and stub wings for mounting...
    6 KB (705 words) - 06:42, 19 June 2023