Mi Tasol

Congratulations Roger. A great piece of workmanship. You obviously take pride in your work and it shows. I took some photos recently of the turret spent brass container (first time I have seen an intact one) and will post them and other turret photos taken the same day to the turret thread as soon as I can get at them - my Win10 computer crashed so I cannot access the Icloud at present and the nearest computer tech is over a 100km trip on "average" roads.

For those interested in the upper defence gun on the Aus Beauforts here are a couple of photos I took in the 70s. If I find more shots I will add them later. The gimbal is the same as used on the two nose guns

Re the Under Defense Gun. There is only one part that differs between the US and UK gun installations and that is a mounting bolt. The UK gun uses a Bristol Standard bolt and the US gun uses part number 131994 which is a Bristol part number. Re the "Blenheim Mk V" turret in the Aus Beauforts. From the RAF Beaufort II manual. This totally supports Walters conclusion a couple of posts above as both the UK and Au Beauforts use the same turret from all I have seen. The other turret in the RAF manual is shown below And the other gun installations from the RAF manual. Again the RAAF install appears identical. The safety cam that is referenced shows up nicely in one of the RAAF external photos posted earlier by someone

I forgot to add that the RAAF under defense gun pod has provision for both the 303 and the US 30 cal Brownings. If I get time I will see if the parts are Bristol or DAP designed (from the part numbers). First priority is to finish scanning the 1800 odd pages before the weekend.

Good one Walter I would totally agree with that For those interested here is the Aus Beaufort under defense gun which is basically the RAF one with minor modifications.

All factories had, and still have, a Change Order system though not all call it that. Given the Air Ministry wanted the change ASAP the paint shop and Drawing Office were probably issued with a Change Order from management as soon as the AM letter was received at Supermarine. That way the change would be introduced immediately in production and the Drawing Office can make the change at leisure after higher priority work has been completed.

Some may find this of interest.

I have just finished scanning some pages from a second copy of the Beaufort Descriptive manual and, inserted in front of the manual just before the title page, there is a two page document titled STI 86 (Misc) Rescue markings that applies to the RAAF Beauforts. STAGE II MARKINGS BEAUFORT (External) 1. Rear Turret Starboard side - a notice "RELEASE OTHER SIDE" in 1" letters marked. Port side - a notice ''RELEASE GUNNER AT DOOR" in 1 in. letters with a 2" arrow pointing. from the notice to the door. 2. Rear Entrance: . The periphary of the doors to the marked with the broken band ( 1" x 1/2" spaced 12" apart ). A notice "PULL DOWN YELLOW" (or "RED" if applicable ) "HANDLE FOR EMERGENCY RESCUE AND FIRE EXTINGUISHER". ' The release handle is to be painted in the appropriate colour. Does anyone want me to post it? If so as scans or text like above (or both)?

Very nice jobs - especially with the lack of info available on the Mk IX Beaufreighter. Hopefully no-one will want to kill me for this but below are some photos from the Mk IX supplement to the RAAF Beaufort manual that I just got my hands on. Unfortunately I was working from a roughly a5 photocopy so the quality leaves a lot to be desired. Figure 5 is internal details of an antenna mounting under the nose so I have left it out.

My apologies for the slow correction of the photos. Mother Natures daughter Health has been difficult🤒

No they are not. I don't know what went wrong but I will repost them in a couple of days - I am currently unwell and posted those when I felt like I was recovering. Obviously I was wrong and today I am not in any shape to intelligently correct them. When I am better recovered I will insert the credit details in each photo and repost - hopefully correctly.

Restored Blenheim/Beaufort turret photos for those interested. These turrets, with minor variations, were used in Beauforts, Blenheims, Bolingbrokes, Ansons and Battles. Images courtesy of the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Vic. Australia. Photographer Vlad Bunyevich https://www.shrine.org.au/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Remembrance If you download these please retain the above credits with the photos

If anyone knows of a free site where I can post the complete above file please advise and I will. I will post to http://archive.org/ as soon as I work out how. The file will be titled Rearward defensive armament - Australian Beaufort Part 1.

I have scanned and PDF'd the NAA file 9/18/65 Part 1 Rearward defensive armament - Beaufort. Despite the title it also covers wing and nose guns. It is not available from the NAA site. If anyone wants a copy please PM me and I will send you a copy by email or dropbox. Unfortunately there was originally a part one and part two of this file but the NAA now only admit to having one part - see below. If anyone is in Canberra it would be nice to know if the part they hold is part two which will only have files dated after 31 Dec 43 in it. Note the NAA's date range above of 1940-44 is meaningless. I have 11 pages of Wirraway files (WITH the correct dates on the covers of those I have checked) that the NAA date as 1800, 1896, 1903, etc. Also my scans are far more legible than NAA scans. All these files are out of copyright so everyone is free to redistribute them at their leisure.

Well I have just returned from visiting the Caboolture workshop where they are restoring an Australian Beaufort (A9-141) to fly and looked at their multiple turrets and sole turret publication, until I gave them the RAAF Mk 1 Turret manual. I will post photos later, and some pages from the manual they have, and the latter is most interesting. Like me, the person there who I spoke to has never seen a Mk VE/3 Turret identification tab on any turret he has worked on and he has seen plenty of Mk VI turrets BUT the manual he is working from is, you guessed it, for the Mk VE/3. He says the Mk IV, V and VI turrets are all very similar with relatively minor variations. The manual shows the Mk VE/3 has the Beaufort Mk I rotation system though which is very different to the Blenheim rotation system on the Mk IV, V and VI. Interestingly one turret he has has a Mk V1 plate which would suggest it was a Mk V modified to Mk VI standard. I emailed him a B1 manual a few minutes back but I do not know which submodel it is (some pages, including the title page, are missing). Now the question became - what was the Mk VI turret used in? All the Mk VI turrets he has collected came from a major Beaufort recycle yard in Melbourne so that probably means it was used on the Beaufort. Although that yard did not scrap Ansons, Anson was another possibility so I checked my AP 1525A,D,E,F Anson vol 1 (Maintenance) Manual and sure enough that turret was used on Ansons. I know of another Beaufort turret collector in Victoria and will ask him to photograph the ID plates on those he has to see if he has a Mk VE/3 plated turret. He definitely has Mk V and VI. The manager at Caboolture also provided me with a photocopy of another Aus Archives file (NAA: A705, 9/18/65) on Beaufort turrets which I will scan over the next few days and courier back. Although titled Rearward defensive armament - Beaufort it also covers nose and wing guns on RAF and RAAF aircraft and is clearly marked as Part 1 of a larger file and includes pages in two locations saying all further pages must be filed in Part 2. A check of Archives of the file control code says they have no Part 2. Figures.... (mumble, mumble) Processing the scans will be later but I did read much of the file on my way home. It also has a very small number of photos which I can post. Apparently the first Blenheim turret sent to Aus for the Beaufort program was a B1 Mk III with mod kit to make it a Mk IV.

On 28 March I wrote The Australian Mk I/IE turret blind remains I have seen were tan, fabric like used for covering the aircraft control surfaces, and reinforced with steel strips about 3/8 wide spaced on about 5/8 centres. I do not think the colour had changed from new as they were inside the box that held the roller that they retracted around but there may very well have been discolouration from the box and reinforcing strips rusting with age. It is about 30 years since I saw them so the memory is not guaranteed perfect. Thanks to Geoffrey Sinclair I am able to correct that statement regarding the fabric. It was a light canvas on the Australian ones and I doubt that the Australians changed anything on their Aus built Mk I turrets in this area. NOTE if I find any more material on the various Beaufort turrets I will post it on the thread below (I cannot seem to get it to link to the first post in the thread) And from the same source

The Australian Mk I/IE turret blind remains I have seen were tan, fabric like used for covering the aircraft control surfaces, and reinforced with steel strips about 3/8 wide spaced on about 5/8 centres. I do not think the colour had changed from new as they were inside the box that held the roller that they retracted around but there may very well have been discolouration from the box and reinforcing strips rusting with age. It is about 30 years since I saw them so the memory is not guaranteed perfect.

It looks like Mike and Dave nailed it - it is almost certainly a reinforcing plate for a field mod that became a factory fit on later aircraft. The gun installation on the RH side may have started as a field mod also as it was not fitted to the early Australian aircraft anyway, as you can see from the illustrations below. The key is the group of hydraulic lines arrowed in the upper drawing. The sea markers were re-located on later aircraft. The entry hatch lower half is held at its base by two tongues (in top right illustration) that fit in the lower door frame. When not in use I believe it was stowed beside the elsan closet. Unfortunately I have no photos or illustrations of the LH gun mounting.

Thanks Geoffrey I will pass that to my IP. Your four other mails got through okay so it has me beat. I will PM a Yahoo email address in the morning - I have not used it for some time so I will need to send it a couple of test messages (small and large) to see if it still works

Thank you sir, that clarifies things considerably When you explore further you will find the NAA catalogers have a "she'll be right mate" attitude to accuracy in cataloging and some of those items are Beaufighter such as Air Board Agenda 3742 (RAAF) - Supply of 20 millimetre shell for cannon fitted to Beaufort aircraft Item 24398123 and you will find the original document clearly says Beaufighter. The earliest files on the Beaufort go back to 1938. Peter Dunn at ozatwar.com has several files he sells for a small fee that correct the NAA's entries for specific groups of files. He earns every cent that he gets from those sales as I know how much work it takes. Over two years ago I sent the NAA a list of some 200 files with incorrect dates (because searching by date separates out a lot of irrelevant files) and they are yet to be corrected. For example open File 165806 which they date as from 1800 to 1800 whereas the cover of the file cover clearly says 8 October 1955. Three of the Beaufort files in the list are MP450/1 52 manufacture of Beaufort Aircraft Taurus engines in Australia Location: Melbourne 1800 - 1800 File 458326 MP450/1 82 Beaufort Torpedo Bomber Production in Australia 1943 Location: Melbourne 1800 - 1800 File 458291 MP450/1 164 RAAF contract-specification No. for Beaufort Aircraft Location: Melbourne 1800 - 1800 File 458085 Checking File 458326 today just now I find that it is still dated 01 Jan 1800. There none so blind as those who will not see and none so lazy as those who cannot be dismissed for incompetence.

Thanks Peter, that sounds most interesting - Geoffrey Sinclair has provided more detail on the items and item Series MP407/11 Control 28 ID 456686 Notes Beaufort 1 - Gun Turret Mark 1 - descriptive notes [not dated] Report is copy of MP407/24 32, but includes specification page and 3 extra diagrams would be of great interest to solving some of the questions in this discussion. The item Directorate of Armament - Beaufort aircraft - Gunnery Equipment, Series no. A705, Control Symbol 9/18/114, Item ID 164127 is discussed further back in this discussion and unfortunately stops right where the new turret(s) (Mk VE/3 and/or Mk VI) would have started to be discussed. I suspect that VE/3 was the experimental or prototype designation for the Mk VI but then again the RAAF liked to call the Spitfire the Capstan and the Beaufighter the BD43 and record US serial numbers with the - changed to a / (eg 41-2345 would be recorded as 41/2345), supposedly to confuse the enemy, so maybe the Mk VE/3 was something totally different.

It may be a repair but the gun mount is a fork that fits into a hole in a wooden beam joining the frames in front of and behind the door so that is unlikely though not impossible. This diagram is from the Descriptive Manual and shows the RH installation. The LH only differs in being longer and to allow for the lower door panel.

Interestingly the photo showing the rail in the porthole to stop gunner shooting own wing. Also what looks like armour under the door. A bit strange seeing the door with the porthole is made of 1/8 ply. Also I have never seen any photos or documents showing the "tube" ??? on the top of the transparent side panel on a Mk I or IE turret. It is not a Mk IE as there is no slot in the blind for the second (vertical) gun. As you can see in the photos and diagrams above the Aus built turrets did not have this tube. I do not know if the British Mk IE turrets had the additional internal structure and saddles joining the transperancies but if so those are another indication that it it a Mk I. I just found this photo of the Mk IV VI or later turret in the RAAF Museum

Just added anther book to my library, A bird's eye view of the Beaufort, 2nd Ed 1944, and attached is the turrets page - pretty bare.

Not shown is that the Mk IE turret cupola has saddles which hold the transparencies in place. Somewhere I have photos of this but I cannot find them. Note the little saddles joining the panels - these are both internal and external Note also the additional rib each side as well which must have made this very cramped for the gunner.