“ GUNNERY IN THE B-29 “ ANIMATED B-29 SUPERFORTRESS CREW TURRET COMPUTER TRAINING FILM 19584

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Browse our products on Amazon: Dating to 1945, this restricted WWII training film was produced by the War Department. It features animation that was likely done by the Warner Bros. studios with voices by Mel Blanc. The film looks at the sophisticated remote control turret system and firing computer used on board the aircraft. The analog computers in the B-29 central fire control system made corrections in three main areas to accurately aim the aircraft’s guns: ballistics, lead, and parallax. The B-29 was the first production aircraft to use them to remotely aim and fire aircraft gun turrets. The system in the B-29 employed analog electromechanical computers that used small, electrically-driven mechanical switches, called relays, instead of levers and gears. These devices were significantly faster than strictly mechanical computers. The cartoon opens as an animated man shoots a ma