Tail gunner

A tail gunner or rear gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who functions as a gunner defending against enemy fighter attacks from the rear, or "tail", of the plane. The tail gunner operates a flexible machine gun emplacement on either the top or tail end of the aircraft with a generally unobstructed view toward the rear of the aircraft. While the term tail gunner is usually associated with a crewman inside a gun turret, tail gun armaments may also be operated by remote control from another part of the aircraft.

General description

The tail gun armament and arrangement varied between countries. During World War II, most United States Army Air Forces heavy bomber designs such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-29 Superfortress used a fixed gunner position with the guns themselves in a separate turret covering an approximately 90-degree rear arc. Typical armament was two 0.50 inch M2 Browning machine guns.

In contrast, Royal Air Force heavy bombers such as the Avro Lancaster and Handley Page Halifax used a powered turret capable of 180 degree rotation containing the tail gunner and four 0.303 inch Browning machine guns. A similar arrangement was used in the American B-24 Liberator heavy bomber (but with two 0.50 inch heavy machine guns.) British turrets were manufactured by two companies Nash & Thomson and Boulton & Paul Ltd and the same turret model could be fitted to a number of different aircraft.

Tail Gunner

Tail Gunner is a monochrome vector arcade game created by Vectorbeam in 1979. The premise of the game is that the player is the tailgunner of a large space ship. Enemy spacecraft attack the vessel in groups of three, and the player must aim a set of crosshairs and shoot the enemies before they slip past the player's cannons. Because of the game's depicted viewpoint, instead of appearing to fly into the starfield, the stars move toward the center of the screen.

In addition to shooting down the enemy ships, the player is also given limited use of a shield that can block ships from passing. The game ends when ten ships slip past the player's cannon. The game was sold as Tail Gunner II in a sit down cabinet and its controls consisted of a single metal joystick with fire button integrated to the tip.

Tail Gunner's sound card was more complicated than any Cinemaware/Vectorbeam game before it. The cabinet uses the monitor's DAC to translate input from the joystick, so other games cannot necessarily be mounted in a Tail Gunner cabinet.