How Did The Flying Fortress Defend Itself?

Early in the war the B-17’s like the other bombers had to rely on their own defenses before the times when they had longer range escorts. Initially these had only 5 guns for defense but as time went by they eventually had 13 total guns on board including a turret in the chin. The best defense they could use was to stay in a tight formation so they could best cover each other from enemy attacks. The ones most vulnerable were those that drifted out of formation battle damage or mechanical problems.

While the flying fortresses flew in these formations called box formation they had to fly straight and level, there was no room for maneuvering. If they encountered flak they had to endure it and stay in formation. This formation did not give the best cover but that’s all they had to work with. The German pilots did change tactics somewhat in that they did not single out individual bombers as much. They would instead make a high speed strafing run across a group of planes.

Regardless of how they tried to defend there was still a high percentage of aircraft and crew lost. This aircraft also proved it was able to take some serious damage and still get its crew home. It took the addition of fighter escorts to really help the bombers get to and from their missions with more safety. Later as the Luftwaffe was getting less effective was the B-17 flying fortress really able to do its best.

For more information on the B-17 Flying fortress go to “The B-17 Flying Fortress.”