Hi guys. Not much progress has been done on "Old 666" lately. By the time I get home I'm just to darn tired to do much of anything. That being said last night I was able to sit and install all the small fiddly windows (8 in all) throughout both fuselage halves. Next its time to modify and install some of the weapons. For some odd reason I decided I'm going to try and scratch build the 50 cals that Sgt George Kendrick the waist gunner had hanging on the fuselage walls near the Ball Turret as spares in case any of his waist guns jammed. He also had an additional 50 cal mounted through the floor just aft of the ball turret.
Some history of the B-17E
By the summer of 1940, the threat of war between the Axis powers and America was becoming too obvious to be ignored, and by the fall of that year the Air Corps had ordered 277 new Fortresses, to be designated "B-17E". Bigger orders were expected to follow.
The B-17E was a major redesign. The lack of a tail turret in the B-17D and its predecessors was a significant flaw, because the easiest way for a fast fighter to destroy a bomber was to get on its tail and hammer away at it. Attacks from other quarters meant a quick pass and tricky deflection shooting. Contemporary RAF bombers had a tail turret to discourage this tactic, but the Fortress was highly vulnerable to attack from the rear.
The B-17E was given a new rear fuselage from the radio operator's position back to the tail, where a new gun position was added. Fitting a full turret was impossible given the narrow real fuselage, so the gun position was in the form of a "stinger" with twin 12.7 millimeter guns with a limited traverse.
The new rear fuselage was about 1.8 meters (6 feet) longer. The tail gunner knelt behind glass windows and manually aimed the guns. The tailplane assembly was entirely new and bigger, featuring in particular a tall vertical tailplane. For this reason, the B-17E and its descendants were referred to as "big-assed" Fortresses, while the B-17D and its ancestors were called "shark-finned Fortresses".
The changes didn't stop there. As the rear fuselage had to be redesigned anyway, the teardrop-shaped windows for the pedestal-mounted waist guns were changed to rectangular windows. A remote-controlled Bendix power turret was installed in the belly, with twin 12.7 millimeter guns controlled by a gunner lying prone and peering through a periscopic sight.
The radioman retained the upward-firing 12.7 millimeter gun, but a new Sperry power turret with twin 12.7 millimeter guns was installed just behind the cockpit. The nose was made longer, and provisions were made for mounting one or two 7.62 millimeter machine guns in the front Plexiglas. The nose gun fit was not very effective, but for the moment nobody could figure out a better way to put defensive armament into the cramped nose.
Although the B-17E was heavier than the B-17D while being powered by the same engines, it was not much slower due to aerodynamic improvements in its design, with a maximum speed of 512 KPH (318 MPH).
The first B-17E rolled off the production line at the end of September 1941. Flight experience quickly showed that the remote-controlled belly turret was impractical. Trying to track an attacking fighter through a periscope was all but impossible, and much worse caused severe nausea and motion sickness.
The answer was to replace the remote-control turret with a Sperry "ball" turret with the 113th B-17E. The gunner crawled into the ball turret after takeoff and sat straddled by the two guns while aiming down between his legs. The ball turret could cover almost the entire lower hemisphere below the Fortress and could be directed accurately. However, it generally required a gunner of relatively small stature, and the gunner could not wear a parachute while he occupied it. Another disadvantage was that there was no room to store spent cartridges inside the turret, and the rain of cartridges from the ball turret could pose a hazard in formation flying.
The new B-17E was dramatically different from its predecessors. The THRILLING WONDER STORIES look of the early Fortresses was gone. The B-17E was a serious weapon and looked like one.
Back to the model
Here are the nose windows have been put in place along with other shots of the interior.
Nose Glass, Top Turret and the Ball Turret
Wings put together
For the next phase I had to crack open my Academy B-17F and harvest its stash of weapons.
Painting the engines
Hopefully the next time I'll have something of more substance to share.
Thanks for taking the time to look at my work.