Emerson Aero X17A turret on F9F-3 Panther

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Demolition_Mike@reddit

Other jets to feature movable nose mounted turrets are the F87, F89 Scorpion and MiG-17SN.

Man, I'm still pissed that no pictures exist of the Ye-151...

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CrouchingToaster@reddit

“Hey we know the Defiant was a hilariously terrible failure, but what if we beefed up the turret and then made a jet pilot add it to his already busy workload?”

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Candid_Duck9386@reddit

The turret was radar controlled; the pilot didn't have to manually aim it, but 1950s electronics weren't up to the task.

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adrian23138@reddit

If that’s the case why hasn’t there been a modern implantation of radar aimed swivel guns on fighters?

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Candid_Duck9386@reddit

The idea was to allow interceptors to attack bomber formations from angles that avoid return fire, guided missiles do the job better now.

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Ancient_Narwhal_9524@reddit

1950’s logic: Who needs guns, let’s just put a nuclear warhead on an air to air missle

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Why put that much weight and complexity into what is effectively a tertiary weapons system. Long range radar guided missiles come first. If both planes survive then they'll likely get close enough to fire ir guided missiles. If somehow both planes are still alive after both of the above is expended, then they go for a gunfight.

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History_Buff_07@reddit

Because radar guided missiles barely even started their infancy at this point in time

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ers379@reddit

The guy you replied to is responding to someone asking why this wasn’t done with more modern technology. Radar guided missile are not in their infancy anymore and haven’t been for quite a while.

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History_Buff_07@reddit

Well yeah obviously, I was simply saying why this may have been done at the time lol

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ers379@reddit

You made no indication of this and replied directly to someone saying why it isn’t done today.

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History_Buff_07@reddit

My apologies I misread it, didn’t mean to offend you

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ers379@reddit

No apologies are necessary, you did nothing offensive.

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Dharcronus@reddit

And?

I gave the reasons why these haven't been made with modern technology not why they weren't on planes that were built in the 40s/50s.

The fact they were being developed kinda spelled doom for this kind of system anyway. As they got better and smaller and it became clearer missiles were the way forward, motivation to develop systems like this grew smaller and smaller. Why put money into trying to make something that didn't work that well be viable when there was already something becoming viable that would out match it.

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GlockAF@reddit

Because using early 1950’s electronics a missile that could track, intercept and destroy a bomber (let alone another fighter) would be about the size, complexity and cost of…an F9F Panther

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Dharcronus@reddit

1950s electronics aren't modern technology.

Re-read the question.

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istealpixels@reddit

So what you are saying is we should increase gun range? Hear me out, 16 inch rotary cannons, it could work right?

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GlockAF@reddit

Ridiculous. A quad mount of 40mm Bofors would be entirely sufficient

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xrelaht@reddit

This is r/weirdwings. You want r/noncredibledefense, or maybe r/shittytechnicals

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Dharcronus@reddit

Yes.

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GuyWhoLikesPlants_@reddit

the gunnery was designed for attacking bomber formations. during this time, the AIM, Sidewinder and Falcon missiles were in development and tests showed they were more effective, lighter on pilot workload and had much greater range than turrets.

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JakeEaton@reddit

Because it was a shit idea that added weight and complexity.

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Dharcronus@reddit

And guns are a tertiary weapon. Radar guided missiles first. Then ir missiles if the aircraft has both. Then guns.

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aw_shux@reddit

Because guided missiles.

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joe9teas@reddit

My thoughts exactly, the Defiant put the whole concept of turret fighters to bed you'd have assumed.

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Cthell@reddit

Being able to shoot forwards addressed the biggest weakness of the Defiant (vulnerability to head-on attacks)

Not saying is was a good idea, but it did at least address the known deficiency

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joe9teas@reddit

Shooting forwards while pointing your aircraft at a target was the only workable concept with guns, for fighters. Missiles changed things of course.

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mig1nc@reddit

The last Gunstar?

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joe9teas@reddit

I was actually thinking about my great uncle who was a Halifax rear gunner and died in February '43 on a Cologne raid.

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mig1nc@reddit

It’s honorable that you still reflect on him. What was his story, if you don’t mind sharing? We don’t get a lot of Lancaster lore over on this side of the pond.

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joe9teas@reddit

He was from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.

102 Squadron, Pocklington.

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GlockAF@reddit

Probably a cabal of crusty old surface-warfare types on the armaments board pushing the idea…”gun turrets are just how we do things in the Navy”

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SuffnBuildV1A@reddit

Man the I have to say the F9F is the most beautiful jet, even more than the raptor or spitfire. Straight wings and the intakes are shaped into the wing root. Fuel tanks on the side.

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zincboymc@reddit

This would be extremely fun in warthunder.

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angelfishgod@reddit

I think it would probably be pretty ass actually, but I still want it haha

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Merry-Leopard_1A5@reddit

let's be real here, this is a baller idea...

...it's just that there is no world in which is it both practical and also not completely obsolete because of missiles

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BlacksmithNZ@reddit

I wonder if some military might be looking at using cheap gun platforms for knocking down long range drones.

Economics of using something like a AIM missile to kill a Shahad drone, probably drives research into smaller cheaper air-to-air missiles, (and or anti-drone drones), but machine guns in an automated turret on a larger manned aircraft might be viable again.

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Merry-Leopard_1A5@reddit

good idea, but you might be better off bringing back the Myasishchev M-17 concept for that purpose, or go even simpler and put a computerised gun-turret on the back of a Cessna, Pilatus or Embraer prop.

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Unusual-Pumpkin-7470@reddit

Wonder how well that worked

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falcopilot@reddit

Notice how often you see them now? That well.

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System0verlord@reddit

Missiles ruined airplane design and I will die on this hill.

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Pinky_Boy@reddit

same with carrier ruining battleships

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necrotic_jelly@reddit

Let us draw swords together! Technology made aircraft into flying computers that are inhibitly expensive. Too expensive to really do fun shit with. IMHO aircraft design freedom and general coolness peaked in the 1930's to WW2. It flattened out with a few cool ideas like this post until the Vietnam war era after wich it is just meh.

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VinniTheP00h@reddit

You still get occasional weird things like Sh-90 or Nord 500, but they are few, far between, and usually don't move past prototype if that.

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necrotic_jelly@reddit

Too few and too far inbetween.

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Dharcronus@reddit

Aircraft carriers and guided missiles ruined warships.

I say this as a fan of modern warships I love old battleships.

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mig1nc@reddit

It’s a shame nobody has made a good movie about the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last battleship on battleship action.

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vukasin123king@reddit

Good and modern guided missiles ruined airplane design.

Early jets were some of the most beautiful and overall cool planes ever. Sabre, EEL, Banshee, Phantom II and the likes are all some of the most iconic planes ever and while they were capable of carrying missiles, they were still designed as dogfighters (yes, the Phantom wasn't meant to have a gun but really quickly got one after it proved how necessary they were). Tomcat, the coolest plane of all times was meant to use missiles, but was still extremely capable in dogfights too.

Back then you couldn't rely on the missile working 100% of the time and were expected to go into a gunfight and the planes were designed to do so. Modern planes are designed to take off, get to about 300 km away from the target, launch the missile and go home and the missile is almost certainly hitting the target, so you don't really have to design the planes the "old" way.

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pumpkinfarts23@reddit

Note the third image; it could shoot any direction except within 10 degrees of forward. So if a pilot could see something, they couldn't shoot it. Great job.

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Shaun_Jones@reddit

No, it just can’t track in that 10 degree cone, the pilot can still shoot.

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CyberSoldat21@reddit

Take a wild guess

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NullNeptune0@reddit

Without looking into it, I assume not well

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Competitive_Cheek607@reddit

Hell yrah

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grad1939@reddit

Kind of reminds me of the B-57 with the turret 20mm Vulcan cannon in the belly

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EvanMcc18@reddit

Schrage musik on steroids

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jackie_daytona-@reddit

Wow! What a dumb idea lol

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AssRobots@reddit

Damn while you're at it throw a prone nose gunner in there :D

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well_shoothed@reddit

What a great idea, Johnson! That's the spirit!

You're promoted to nose gunner!

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AssRobots@reddit

"I'm too lazy to dogfight; I'm switching to Emerson Aero X17A turret."

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Crankyshaft@reddit

I swear I thought I was on /r/NonCredibleDefense for a second.

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liberty4now@reddit

Great post. I'm astounded that I'd never heard of this before.

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1rustyoldman@reddit

Interesting idea.

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AIGenerated-Username@reddit

Bring this back for shooting down drones

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rocket_randall@reddit

Hell yeah, high off boresight guns baby!

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codesnik@reddit

mig-17sn with side airscoops looks weeird

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Pyrhan@reddit

How do you even aim?

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SporesM0ldsandFungus@reddit

It was radar controlled (hence the radome callout on the tip of the nose on pic #2). It was supposed to lock onto targets and track them. 1950s electronics weren't up to the task. Clever concept though.

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gardendong@reddit

Waiting on lasers.

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joe9teas@reddit

Wow, never seen this before. Incredibly....silly?

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SnooPineapples1325@reddit

Im curious to if this project helped contribute to the B-52's rear turret as while the idea of a radar guided turret doesn't work well with fighters it appeared they worked well enough on bombers to be integrated

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sexraX_muiretsyM@reddit

non fixed turreted guns are a gamechanger in dogfights idk why no one ever uses them

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tokyojjjdevdgxd@reddit

it might be a game changer, but do you want to watch not only how do you pilot, but what's up with the turret?

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sexraX_muiretsyM@reddit

I believe the turret in the f9f were to be automatic and controlled by the radar no?

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tokyojjjdevdgxd@reddit

not entirely sure you can dedicate such task to machine, it's quite heavy on calculations and not very reliable. for example, there are lead computing optical sight, which is much better for experienced pilots

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sexraX_muiretsyM@reddit

but you still need to move the hole plane for a shot

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tokyojjjdevdgxd@reddit

well, this is where the experienced pilot part comes up. you're fucked if you bet on your electronics and it failed in the middle of the dogfight and only service crew hours ago could prevent this. you're fucked when you miss the pass and now enemy is on your six, but it probably happened because of your poor decisions couple of minutes ago. i'm not an expert, i know about air combat only from war thunder, so i might be wrong.

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dirty_hooker@reddit

The A-10 is a plane built around a gun. There’s no possibility of making the GAU-8 move around in anything smaller than a C-130.

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sexraX_muiretsyM@reddit

I learned that afterwards

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thud_mantooth@reddit

Workload, weight, and packaging are the more-obvious issues with making a fixed gun turreted, but some other problems that are hard to manage are recoil and firing gas getting injested by the engines and causing a flameout. The gas issue has come up with fixed mounts, too, and would be vastly harder to manage on a turret.

It's an idea that seems like it could be useful, but actually building it leads you into all kinds of intractable engineering problems that far outweigh the usefulness of a turret itself.

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