Here is a picture of a gunner

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	me32303fs8.jpg (95.4 KB, 6 views)

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"I was born in '49, A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th Parallel,Blast those yellow reds to hell, And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill,Haven't they heard we won the war, What do they keep on fighting for?"

Good info. THanks for sharing

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"I was born in '49, A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th Parallel,Blast those yellow reds to hell, And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill,Haven't they heard we won the war, What do they keep on fighting for?"

Nice ! the profile answers all my questions, great pic of the gunner too!

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Thanks glad it helped

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"I was born in '49, A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th Parallel,Blast those yellow reds to hell, And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill,Haven't they heard we won the war, What do they keep on fighting for?"

The earlier 323s had more 7.9s than crew but they simply changed stations to fire as needed. When troops were carried loopholes in the sides allowed MG 34 gunners to add their weapons' fire.

The 323Ds added 2 13mm gun positions in the front loading doors. The Me 323E-1 and E-2 got rid of the 7.9s as they were too light. A turret atop each wing housed an MG 151 20mm cannon and 13mms replaced the aforementioned 7.9mms. One plane designated the Me 323E-2/WT (Waffentrarger or Weapons Carrier) was heavily armored witha crew of 17 mounting a total of 11- 20mm cannon and 4- 13mm MGs. Of course it was too slow for escorting anything......

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Thanks for these additions Twitch. Do you know whether the 323E-2/WT was actually built or was this a project or a prototype? 17 men seems amazing. No wonder this idea was abandonned . It would have meant 17 casualties every time a 323 was lost...

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THat was some nice info twitch thanks for sharing.

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"I was born in '49, A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th Parallel,Blast those yellow reds to hell, And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill,Haven't they heard we won the war, What do they keep on fighting for?"

Says there was one Me 323E-2/WT built.

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So we can consider this an abandonned prototype, probably too expensive for men and material. I suppose that considering the prize it was converted to a regular Gigant or used with less men. While I was looking for info in Lerche's book "Testpilot", I came accross several Me323 pictures, one attracted my attention : it was built was two propeler blades instead of three blades per propeller!

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Nice picture skipper. Could you scan the picture into the Computer. THats interesting

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"I was born in '49, A cold war kid in McCarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th Parallel,Blast those yellow reds to hell, And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill,Haven't they heard we won the war, What do they keep on fighting for?"

Sorry I´m a little late to post on the thread, but they say that late is better than never...

Are we talking here about the Cape Bon Massacre, also called Palm Sunday Massacre?
In those hectic days when the end in Africa was finally at hand, there were several instances in which Commonwealth and USAAF planes just hacked the Axis transports out of the sky, including their fighter escorts.

Seems like Ultra provided lots of info on the last ditch efforts Jerry was doing to send sorely needed stuff to Africa, and Allied air just capitalized on it, over and over for a period of several weeks.

it's done. I intend to download more in the coming weeks. By clicking on it it should enlarge.


Battleaxe, yes this is the Cape Bon Massacre and welcome.

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The Me 323E-2/WT was TOO SLOW to act as escort or defend anything
The 2 blade prop is an earlier model.

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I'm actually surprised it could fly at all with two blades, it must have flown even slower.

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Do you mean a Gigant acting as an escort for other Gigants??!!!! Come on! The thing was nothing more that an almost untowable glider (fabric cover and all) with engines.

Wow, this thread has been a real learning experience. Thanks for posting it B-17!

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Jeff C.

Actually, the 'gunship' escort concept is not unique to the Gigant - they tried 'gunning up' some B-17's and called them YB-40's - they had an extra dorsal turret, the waist guns were double -50's (instead of single -50's), and I beleve it was the first model with the 'chin' turret at the bombradier's station (which was removed in the YB-40's - the bomb bay was converted into a magazine to carry the extra ammo). They also added extra armor.


It turned out that with the extra weight of the additional guns, armor and ammo, they could barely keep up with the bomber stream on the way in - and, after dropping their loads, the outbound bombers had to slow down so the 'escort' gunships could keep up!

Needless to say, they weren't deemed a success, and only 25 or so were made.

-whatever

-Lou

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5 out of 4 people have difficulty with fractions.

Look at some of the B-25s and A-26s that were HEAVILY gunned. Some of those 10-12 forward firing fifties might have surprised and unwary attacker.

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o, that's for sure - some of the videos that are out there of the South Pacific B-25 gunships attacking Japanese surface vessels are truly amazing - they put out a serious punch that could really ruin your day.

However, as far as I am aware, the B-25 and A-20 gunships were designed, and primarily employed as, offensive weapons. The Gigant Waffentragers and the YB-40's were exclusively utilized in a defensive, escort capacity, and, as such, were insufficient to the task.

But I certainly would have hated to be in a Japanese coastal barge and look up and see one of Pappy Gunn's litttle offspring bearing down on me.

-whatever

-Lou

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5 out of 4 people have difficulty with fractions.

The concept of a heavy air gunship to supplement escorting fighters by providing the innermost layer of defense for a bomber or transport formation sounds very interesting for those days, but the glider-with-engines just wasn´t exactly the best craft to develop as such.

Surely good ol´Herman came up with the idea the same day he said that the Luftwaffe alone could keep the 6th Army supplied at Stalingrad.

If you could have all those guns to fire backwards, yes.

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There is an ass in my avatar.

I really picture more of a surprised enemy who might make a pass at a formation of those gunships more than their effectiveness as true escorts. I'd say they'd be in the Bf 110 class where they would be ineffective against fighters. While they'd be in the class of bomber destroyer that is a dubious area at best.

Anyone remeber the Bell FM-1 Airacuda? http://www.highgallery.com/USmilitaryAircraft/Bell/military-aircraft-fm-1.html

It was one of those "lost prototypes" that never made it.

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