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Originally Posted by Jon
The role of the Airgunner has always fascinated me and i find it a shame that no "ace" lists are complied for gunners ??
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Kill claims for air gunners are very hard to confirm, especially if they were operating in formations which means that several gunners were probably firing at each plane which went down, so they would all claim it. IOs tried to allow for this, but overclaiming was still rife.
One of the outcomes of the 1940 fighting is that the value of increased protection in the form of armour and self-sealing fuel tanks was rapidly appreciated, so the planes toughened up during the course of the BoB, with (AIUI) extra armour even being added in the field. This made rifle-calibre guns like the 7.92mm and .303 much less effective than they had been, although liquid-cooled engines remained vulnerable to a bullet through the cooling system.
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum