Did the US Navy ever use Gyro gunsights in WWII

airmanual · **Joined:** Thu Nov 04, 2004 6:32 am **Posts:** 240

Good day,

Widespread use (at least by the 8th AF) of the K-14A and Mark 21 ("hijacked" from the Navy) gyro gunsights from early 1945 by the AAF is well known and documented. But what about its use by the US Navy on its own fighters and bombers?

Facts are that the Navy was initially ahead of the Air force on the subject (the Navy had already set up production facilities for the Mark 18 sight when the AF started to show interest in the Gyro gunsight) and that period litterature and documentation say these were actively being used in the last few months of the war. However, i have not yet been able to locate a single photo of a Navy operational plane equipped with such a gyro gunsight!

Have you? your thoughts please.

Laurent

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:26 pm

The Mark 18 was used in many WWII Navy turrets. The Martin 250CE upper turret with a MK18 was pretty easy to spot. The Martin 250Ce's had either a low or high profile turret dome. The Mk 18's were typically the ones with the high profile dome. This higher profile enabled a flat optical panel for the Mk 18 to eliminate any distortion or parallax issues that were more critical for the computing sight. The sight was taller in the yoke and needed the extra clearance.

Our PV-2 certainly had one as did the Martin 250's in the later PB4Y-2's. I think the Erco tear drops in the Privateer also carried them as did the nose and tail turrets but don't quote me so far from my tech manuals.

I have a hard time picturing gyro sights in Navy fighters in WWII but there must have been some. Just can't bring one to mind.

Warbird Information Exchange

Did the US Navy ever use Gyro gunsights in WWII

Who is online