USAAF equivalent of "Gunnery leaders"?

[j***@cix.compulink.co.uk]

I've been reading _Air Gunner_ by Mike Henry, a chap who managed to
survive the entire war as an RAF Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, mostly on
Blenheims. Yes, he was damn lucky about not getting sent on the wrong
raids.

Since he because fairly senior for an air gunner, he got trained as a
"Gunnery Leader." This included use and care of a large range of
aircraft guns, extra training on sighting, collimation of guns,
deflection shooting and aircraft recognition, and basic teaching. This
qualified him to take charge of gunnery training for a squadron, which
makes sense.

There was another aspect, which was to act as a tactical coordinator for
a formation of bombers defending itself against fighters. A gunnery
leader - who was usually a senior NCO - would call whole-formation
manuvers, to create crossfire, give the fighters maximum deflection
shots and so on. The RAF pilots were actually quite happy about this,
provided the gunnery leader knew his work, because they didn't have much
vision to the rear, and needed to concentrate on staying in formation.

Now, the RAF probably never made very much use of this style of fighting
during the war, because after initial heavy losses they switched to
night bombing, where it would be impossible because formation flying
wasn't attempted. They did do daylight raiding with light bombers, but
those usually had fighter escorts.

So I was wondering if the USAAF used tactical coordinators in their
daylight raids, or if the idea was more "stay in box formation and fire
at whatever you have the best shot at." The latter would be simpler, and
the USAAF formations were pretty big - larger than I get the impression
that RAF had planned to use - and thus presumably hard to manuver.

[Michael Emrys]

Post by j***@cix.compulink.co.uk
So I was wondering if the USAAF used tactical coordinators in their
daylight raids, or if the idea was more "stay in box formation and fire
at whatever you have the best shot at." The latter would be simpler, and
the USAAF formations were pretty big - larger than I get the impression
that RAF had planned to use - and thus presumably hard to manuver.

I think so. For one thing, it was not that easy or fuel economical to
form up a large formation of heavy bombers. So once you got it, you
needed to hold to it as well as you could. And that did not allow a
whole lot of maneuvering, either of the formation as a whole or of
individual planes within the formation.

Secondly, the precise location of every plane within the formation had
been worked out to take maximum advantage of the coverage by the
defensive armament. Any significant movement within that arrangement
either risked friendly fire incidents or firing blocked due to the risk.

Michael

[j***@cix.compulink.co.uk]

... did not allow a whole lot of maneuvering, either of the formation
as a whole or of individual planes within the formation.

Makes sense. Did gunners attempt to coordinate attacks or manage the
allocation of guns to attackers, or was it "shoot at what you can best
see?" That seems far simpler.

[Michael Emrys]

Did gunners attempt to coordinate attacks or manage the allocation of
guns to attackers, or was it "shoot at what you can best see?" That
seems far simpler.

I believe gunners were expected to watch and guard a particular sector
around the plane depending on what they could see and engage from their
locations. There must have been some considerable overlap of these
assignments though with more than one set of guns firing at the same
target from time to time. When one crewman spotted incoming bandits he
would report their location so that whichever gunners could bear on them
would be alerted.

Michael