u/Pootis_1

During WW2 basically every power decided at some point that nose guns, dorsal guns and a tail gun were ideal for large bombers with some variation.

But for ventral guns it seems that "bathtub" mounts with flexible guns only able to fire in a forward or rearward arc were preferred by the Luftwaffe, a ventral ball turret was preferred by the USAAF and no ventral armament whatsoever preferred by the RAF.

How did these different arrangements affect bomber survivability if much at all?

Note: I know the B-50 used AN/M2s but that was effectively just an upgraded B-29, not a new post WW2 airframe, and the B-35 entered service right in 1945

But for aircraft that entered service after 1945, the B-36 Peacemaker, B-47 Stratojet and A-3 Skywarrior/B66 Destroyer (Even the XA-2J Super Savage!) all used paired Hs.404 derived autocannons for their defensive armament. The B-52H and B-58 Hustler used a 20mm Vulcan.. But then the B-52A through G used a quad AN/M2 mount for it's rear gun.

Why did only those variants of the B-52 in particular use quad mounted AN/M2s when every other post WW2 US bomber with defensive armament used 20mm cannons?

Edit: further digging has revealed that apparently it was an even narrower range. 34 of 50 B-52Bs also used twin 20mm hispanos for their tail gun. Meaning only the B-52, 16 B-52Bs, and the B-52C through G used the quad 50. cals.

As i understand it the combination of swept wing and supercritical aerofoil produces the best results for transonic drag reduction. Swept wings came earlier than supercritical aerofoils so while there's a lot of swept wing aircraft without supercritical airfoils there's not really the other way around. But if for whatever reason a supercritical airfoil was used on a straight wing would it be any sort of useful?

The Tu-16, Tu-95, and M-4 bison were introduced 1954-1956. All of these had tail guns and 2-4 dorsal and ventral turrets, with the Tu-16 also having a nose gun. Meanwhile, the UK's V-bombers had no defensive armament, the B-52 and B-47 had only tail guns, and the B-36 had been stripped back to just the tail gun.

There's also a similar but less extreme trend with light bombers. The IL-28 had both a pair of tail guns and nose guns, while the contemporary US B-45 and AJ Savage only had tail guns and the Canberra no defensive armament.

Why did the Soviets continue fitting defensive gun turrets beyond the tail gun to their new bombers well after the west had given up on them?

I can find every other edition as a pdf but, not the first edition.

I know in (almost ?) all other militaries and service branch world wide pilots are all commissioned. They have a fairly obvious career track moving up to command positions. But for US army warrant aviators what do they do.

Like from an out of universe perspective why did they choose the activity specifically? It doesn't even really align with their real life role that well (unit gathering information for JSOC for Delta and Devgru to then act on).