Bombers as Interceptors?

[marathag]

What about Schräge Musik they seemed to had worked in limited use during WWII for the Germans.

The US looked into using something like it looks like on a few early jet fighters so why not load it into a B-29 or something?

Like this?

P-80A-1-LO 44-85044 was tested with a modified rotating nose housing four machine guns which could be elevated up to an angle of 90 degrees. The idea was for the P-80 to be able to approach an enemy bomber from below and be able to fire on it without being in danger of return fire. However, when these guns were fired, the P-80A bucked and trembled and the accuracy of fire left much to be desired, and the idea was abandoned.

 

[pdf27]

Here's something I've been wondering about for a while. As part of the Vulcan development programme, Avro were originally going to build a 1/3rd scale prototype to test the low speed/low altitude performance of the Delta wing (the Avro 707), and a 1/2 scale version to test the high speed/high altitude performance (the Avro 710). The Avro 710 was so far as I can tell intended to match the Vulcan's maximum altitude and Mach number limits.

That gives us roughly Mach 0.92 and 55,000 feet (along with quite a lot of range and internal volume) at some time between 1949 (Type 707) and 1952 (Type 698 Vulcan). The Javelin first flew in 1951 with pretty much exactly the same performance - and a long and massively painful development process in front of it. If they Type 710 had been adopted instead (in OTL it was cancelled because the full-scale Vulcan was progressing nicely) the RAF would have saved themselves a lot of future pain.