For one of the scenarios I’m working on I need the ratings for the B-24D Liberator, as the lists in the rulebook only cover the later, up-armed B-24J. Stripping the numbers back, the only significant difference are the fire factors, so the movement, climb rate, robustness, size and so forth, can just be copied over. The fire factors are a bit more complicated, however, so it’s a question of working them out then adjusting them by comparison with similar aircraft.

The B-24D was typically armed with a forward firing .50 cal  machine gun, with two rather ineffective .50 cal cheek machine guns, which when added to the twin .50 cal top turret, give a modified frontal fire factor of 8. To the side there were .50 cal machine guns on each beam, again with the top turret factored in, to give a left or right fire factor of 6. Finally, the rear gunner had twin .50 cal machine guns, combined with the top turret to give a rear fire factor of 8. These are all maximum ratings and will probably need to be tweaked downwards, once I’ve had a closer look at comparable aircraft in the lists.

This raises the thorny issue of the top turret being able to fire in more than one arc in a turn, as the rules abstract the turret fire as an addition to each firing arc. In reality, the dorsal gunner might be able to sweep through two arcs, as he traversed his mounting, but not all four directions in one go. There are two possible ways to fix this, if you are bothered by it.

The first is two reduce the fire factors to the base numbers, then have the top turret as a once per turn addition of +4 to the front, side or rear. The second, more radical solution, is to have a separate turret fire factor, which covers all four arcs but can only fire into one per turn. However, both of these methods would mean changing the rules and potentially unbalancing the ratings, so it’s probably best to just stick with the system as it is, even though it’s not that realistic.