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I NOTED THE 'HUMPED' UPPER FUSILAGE SLOPEAGE MYSELF AND ASSUMED IT WAS MY EYESIGHT AS WELL; 'TILL I RE-EXAMINED THE MODEL PHOTO AND REALIZED; IT LOOKS THAT WAY FROM ABOVE. I STILL HAVE AN UNCLE-IN-LAW WHO MANNED THE UPPER TURRET OF ONE OF THESE BABIES. HE WAS A RAGING PTSS ALCOHOLIC FOR YEARS AND IS NOW , AT 95, THE ONLY SURVIVOR OF FIVE SIBLINGS! FOR YEARS I HAD BEEN TOLD HE WAS THE TAIL GUNNER UNTIL I CRAWED BACK ON A B-17 MYSELF AND COULD'NT POSSIBLY FIT: NEITHER COULD MY UNCLE; HE READILY CORRECTED THE FAMILY LORE AND SAID HE WAS THE TOP TURRET GUNNER-AN UNENVIABLE POSITION AS GERMAN FIGHTERS WOULD ATTACK INVERTED HEAD-ON AGAINST A BOMBER FORMATION-HENCE THE CHIN GUN , SPLIT-'S'ING OR PRE-INVERTED TO DIVE DOWN SWIFTLY FROM ANY FIGHTER COVER AFTER THE INITIAL ATTCK AND ALSO AVOID RETRIBUTION FROM THE BELLY AND WAIST GUNNERS.

While it may sound as if German fighter pilots had the advantage in their freedom to form up at a distance, then hit fast and hard from the most advantageous angle, leaving their opposition little time to react, in reality there was plenty of fear to go around-for the attackers, their intended victims, and the shepherding escort pilots. The combat box formation bristled with heavy machine guns, and in the course of the war gunners aboard the bombers shot down far more enemy fighters than their fighter escort did. As Luftwaffe pilot Hans Philipp noted, " ...curve in toward 40 Fortresses and all your past sins flash before your eyes."

The frontal attack promised the best chance of survival. The German fighters would fly alongside the bomber formation, out of range of the gunners tracking them. About three miles ahead of the formation they would turn 180 degrees and attack from out of the sun at 12 o'clock high, aiming for the big bombers' cockpits. Sometimes they flew so close to their target that they had to zoom at the last instant to avoid the towering tail of the B-17. A two-gun chin turret was added to the B-17G model specifically to counter this head-on attack.

When attacking bombers from behind, the idea was to concentrate the attack by hurling one four-plane Schwarm after another at the target aircraft, quickly firing and then flying over the formation. Whether attacking from in front or behind, the German fighters often finished their attack with a split-S, while taking fire from the bombers' dorsal, tail, and belly guns, to open up as much distance from those guns as quickly as possible.

Other Luftwaffe tricks made life difficult for the American escorts. For example, as Mike Spick notes in Luftwaffe Fighter Aces, " ...one flight of ...FW 190s was sent down through the formation as a decoy; the remainder stayed above to fall on the Americans when they dove after the sacrificial flight." In the sudden, violent and confusing world of aerial combat, it was hard to resist the urge to follow any fighter that flew through the formation.

The escape technique was utilized by the M262 jet pilots as well

The appearance of the Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter allowed circumvention of the defending escorts altogether. In a technique pioneered by Luftwaffe pilots of the Kommando Nowotny, a Me-262 would approach the rear of an American formation at top speed (nearly 600 mph), bypassing the fighter screen. The German jet would then dive to a position roughly a mile behind and a quarter mile below the bombers, pull up into a high-g climb to scrub off airspeed and level off when even with the enemy formation. Now inside the screen of escorts and with a relatively slow closing speed with the bombers, the interceptor pilot could select a target, trigger a short burst from his four 30 mm cannon, roll inverted and dive away.