Super-Control

WEAPONS

Far beyond the range of fighter escorts, U.S. Superfortresses bombed Japan with small loss. Last week the Army Air Forces revealed more details of the remote fire-control system which has made the B-29 well able to take care of itself, even against heavy attacks by enemy planes.

"Relatively few"--ten or twelve--.50-caliber machine guns and a 20-mm. cannon are the armament the B-29 carries to fight its way in & out. But the big airplane's remote-control firing system enables the few to do the work of many. It can throw a multi-gunned punch instantly in any direction.

Gunners sitting inside plexiglass blisters sight the target through a small square of glass, track it to get speed, range and angle. A computer of complex and secret design sets electronic and mechanical elements in motion. The computer also makes corrections for such errors as might be caused by wind, the pull of gravity, parallax (i.e., the distance between the gunner's sighting position and the turret he is operating), and the speed of both target and firing planes. All-electric, from sight to firing pin, the guns respond to the most delicate adjustment. All a gunner has to do is press a switch to start them spitting at a rate of 800 rounds a minute.

Control of the B-29's guns can be interchanged, passed around from gunner to gunner like a basketball and with split-second speed. Thirty different combinations of guns can be aimed and fired from different sighting stations. A gunner lets go control of his guns by simply dropping the firing switch. Another gunner can instantly pick up secondary control and bring his own and his colleague's guns to bear on a target.

Other advantages of the remote-control system, developed by General Electric and Air Forces experts: turrets need be only large enough to house gun mounts, thus reducing the speed-killing drag which would be set up by turrets big enough to accommodate both guns and gunner; the job of aiming by hand in a rushing slipstream is taken over by powerful machinery ; the gunner can be warm and comfortable at his work inside the B-29's cabin, insulated from the shock and noise of his rattling armament.

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