B-25H "Barbie III"

[BigDog]

Originally Posted by Achtung Baby

I'd be double checking that claim... smells more like a tall tales passed on over the years. IIRC, the B-25 isn't very good at low speeds, plus what do you think would happen to the crew inside and the integrity of the airframe should a B-25H abruptly stop midair while going full speed to shoot at a target?.

That quote comes from a crew-member of a B-26 and it describes the feel of what happened when the cannon fired, not what actually happened.

The B-25 was alright at low speeds the B-26 was the nasty one.

[boomer400]

The only 2 bad things I recall from conversations with my 5th AF B-25 flying teacher was the slow rate of fire due to the painful reloading process and the damage to the airframe upon repeated firing. Also, there was apparently a lot of residual smoke too, so I suppose that makes 3 negatives. The stopping in mid-air thing, nope, and doesn't make sense either (aerodynamically speaking).

[johnbryan]

Originally Posted by triggerjockey

Jeez! 8 forward firing .50's plus the 75, that's a whole lotta hurt come'n down.

Other B-25 models had as many as 12-.50 caliber machine guns mounted in the nose and "cheek pods" on each side of the cockpit. The bomber's upper turret could also be locked in a forward firing position, making 14 forward firing machineguns. Such aircraft were used in anti-ship, flak-suppression missions. Any Japanese sailors above deck, manning their ship's flak guns would soon be raw meat after being hosed down by such devastatingly effective firepower.

[johnbryan]

I remember reading of one account by the pilot of a "gunship" where they were making a low level para-frag bombing and strafing run on a Japanese airfield. As they cleared the trees, the pilot saw a Japanese fighterplane on the runway in the process of taking off. The B-25 pilot jiinked his plane slightly, to line up the fighterplane in his sight and squeezed the trigger. The Japanese fighter instantly vaporised in a flashing ball of flame, leaving nothing recognizeable behind.

[johnbryan]

Read about the Battle of the Bismarck Sea if you want to see what the heavier armed B-25's, A-20's and Beaufighters were capable of. They sank an entire convoy of Japanese troops meant for their garrison on New Guinea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bismarck_Sea