It would need an almost complete redevelopment really, if only to fit a rear turret.
Finicky to maintain, hard to aim, limited ammo, and no way to repair or rearm during flight.
Those turrets were on the body, not inaccessible over the engines.which was similar to the P-61 and B-29 turrets, and they had 1000 per gun,
which would not last long with the M3 .50 that fired at 1200 rpm
Those turrets were on the body, not inaccessible over the engines.
I'll bet the B-29 had more rpg than the P.108's wing turrets, and they were easier to aim too, and probably more reliable (the wing turrets on the P.108 were fairly notorious for jamming, icing or failing). Oh, and at least some of the B-29s turrets could fire forward too. Overall the P.108 probably wasn't a bad aircraft, but those wing turrets were inexcusably stupid.still not a lot you could do in flight when they misbehaved. B-36 had the same problem, really tough to diagnose in air. They did have a lot more ammo capacity than the B-29, that couldn't be reloaded in flight.
To be fair the Germans did build over 1000 He177s.One of the alternatives to building the P.108 was to build under license the B-17C. This wasn't nationalistic enough, so Giovanni Casiraghi, who was familiar with the Boeing, designed the Piaggio version. He seems to have built the wrong version, but neither the Boeing nor the Piaggio had a tail turret when originally designed. Of course, the Piaggio never got turbo-charged engines either. In one day, the USAAF lost 60 Fortresses, even though they had tail guns. In one day, one factory produced 16 Fortresses. It took 3 days for one Boeing factory to out-produce the war's P.108 bomber production. As for the Germans, there's Tooze.
To be fair .
I'm trying to stick within the OP. Clearly the He177B designed that way from the beginning is the superior choice.Can you picture the Germans building 1,000 Piaggios with 4,000 DB605 engines while not being willing to give the He-177B a shot? The British dabbled with the B-17C and gave it a sneer, and a pass.