Details on He111 Beam positions

[KennyK404]

Hello all I'm building an He111H for the 75th commemoration of the BoB and i'm struggling a bit with (what I believe to be) field-modified beam gun positions.

Were some of the window positions partly open? I've seen some pictures that show (what looks like) an unglazed section, with spars or bars edging it off from the rest of the opening, which is glazed. Most of the pictures i've seen that jump to mind are of crashed planes with the guns removed. I'm not sure if they were removed crudely, hence the resulting gap.

If the window section IS open, how was the MG mounted? Slanted triangular arms on either side of the opening? Suspended on a bar from the roof? Mounted on a bar from the floor? (a la B-17F) Were the ammo racks relocated to give more space, seeing as they appear to frequently be on a shelf above the windows?

I've also seen the more forward window used for the gun, which surprised me.... wouldn't that REALLY interfere with/be interfered with by the dorsal gunner?

I've not posted or linked to pictures, still getting my head around the posting rules.

Any input/insight would be appreciated, I want to make my builds as accurate as my abilities allow I am *pretty* sure that i'm going to be building a machine of KG26 (1H+IH) which was forced down on Sep 15th. It appears to have a white formation block on the vertical tail, starboard side.

Thankyou!

[Tim O.]

Hi Kenny

The standard crew of an He111H was initially four. The pilot did not normally have a gun (although there are images of aircraft adapted to carry an MG for the pilot). The observer manned the forward gun, the radio operator the dorsal gun and either a flight engineer or gunner manned the ventral gun. Often the ventral gondola had guns facing front and rear - the rear gun was standard and for defence and the forward gun was either an MG or 20mm cannon field modification for hitting ships or ground targets. The same crew member had to choose one or the other of these ventral guns. Combat experience showed vulnerability to side-on attacks and field modifications added an MG15 each side and an additional crew member to man them (sometimes a member of ground crew). As with the ventral guns, one man had to operate both guns. The maximum crew was therefore most often 5 as opposed to the 10 in a B17.

The Germans used ball mounts for a lot of the guns placed in windows. These allowed a wide arc of fire and bars were sometimes added to restrict movement and avoid shooting bits off the gunner's own aircraft. As the beam guns were typically field modifications the means of fixing them will have varied but ball mounts would be one option. You can find images on line or in the decent books on the He111 and they will vary but rather than an open window you may find a ball mount within a glazed window.

Good luck with your project.

Best wishes
Tim O

[Clint Mitchell]

For the most part the MGs in the standard positions were mounted using an Ikaria ball mount.

Attachment 11776 Attachment 11781Attachment 11777 Attachment 11778 Attachment 11779 Attachment 11780
Source: As indicated, Vladimir Kuligin (via eBay), or various handbuchs.

If any other positions were field modified to carry extra guns then these were generally more makeshift swivel/bracket type devices. As you can see the MGs were mounted in many different ways.

[Modeldad]

Other arrangements.

[KennyK404]

Wait.... that worked. Taking out the image links doesn't work, so what if I take out all external references....

*sigh* my post wiped itself out because of the server maintenance.

_____________________



Thankyou very much for the pics! I've not seen any of those before

Here are two of the pics i'm familiar with...neither appear to show the same mounting style as the pics posted so far, unless that's down to the method of weapon removal. If I quote the source, that should be safe enough

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p34ax8ch-J...%2BHeinkel.jpg

via: http://southendpatriot.blogspot.co.u...kel-crash.html

and

http://www.asisbiz.com/il2/He-111/KG...n-1940-01.html



This *appears* to show some window framing, but no gun:

http://www.asisbiz.com/il2/He-111/KG...e-1940-01.html




My thinking being that planes of the same unit at around the same would have the same ground crews, so a similar method of modification

If anyone has other pictures of 1H+IH 1940, that would be amazing! I know the code was re-issued... axisbiz has a damage report from an incident in Finland, 1942.

Another thought for +IH.... the beam gun on the port side can't have been mounted in the forward window as that would interfere with the radio racks, so, a staggered gun arrangement

[KennyK404]

After looking and looking and looking..... I now realise that He111 beam windows came in more than one size :/ I have a range of ratios from ~1.2 to ~1.76 (length/height)

[Clint Mitchell]

Yes, I have noticed this too.

[KennyK404]

Wish you'd said, I was beginning to think it was time for an opticians appointment! Well, better late in figuring it out, than never

[Clint Mitchell]

It's working out when they changed them. They early E, F, J from what I can tell had the smaller beam windows. Likely because they didn't have the beam gun positions. It makes sense for them to have been made slightly larger on the P-2 and early Hs when beam armament was installed at the factory so as give the gunners a larger view around the aircraft. Whether all aircraft of the same variant all had the larger windows or if it was a gradual adoption with different factories incorporating them at different stages I have not had enough time to investigate yet, but I can confirm that your not going blind.