NEW GUN TURRET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 May 1940, Page 6

NEW GUN TURRET

SECRET OF BRITAIN'S AIR SUPERIORITY.

REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE.

What is the secret of Britain's air superiority in the present war? According to Captain Archibald FrazerNash, it is the development of the power-operated gun turret which he invented and constructed.- Thousands of the turrets are now being made for British warplanes. Germany, he says, has nothing like it. Goering, who has built a force of thousands of bombers, has discovered too late that most of them are useless for a “Blitz.” They could not, in daytime raids, stand up to British eightgun fighters, with their hail of nearly 10.000 bullets a minute.

Another invention just perfected in Britain, will take away much peril from the job of the R.A.F. reargunners, who, in this war have been the first object of attack by Nazi fighter aeroplanes. Their job has been recognised as one of the most dangerous in the service.

The new invention will make them, in one sense, no longer rear gunners. They will now sit in a well-protected position in the centre of the aeroplane and fire their guns situated a few feet away in a turret. Others gunners will also'benefit by this remote controlled device.

Three British aircraft companies have taken out patents on the invention. and the details have only just been released. Each patent differs slightly in method. But in each case the broad idea is that the gunner sits in a rotatable turret. with the gun-sights fixed in front of his eyes. When the gunner manipulates a lever which rotates his own turret, the turret containing the guns moves in perfect symphony bj r means of mechanical or electrically controlled interconnecting systems. The sights through which the gunner keeps his target in view are interconnected with the guns, so that the line of fire is cither parallel with, or converging on, the gunner’s view.