page_title: Rose turret
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Rose turret / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: English: Rear view of the Rose turret at RAF Museum London
context_page_description: The Rose turret was a gun turret fit to the rear position of some British Avro Lancaster heavy bombers in 1944–45. It was armed with two American light-barrel Browning .50-calibre AN/M2 heavy machine guns — the standard American defensive weapon used in turreted and flexible mounts in the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator.
  Development of the turret began in 1943 as part of a program to improve the Lancaster's defensive armament but it did not enter production until late 1944. The Royal Air Force ordered 600 Rose turrets in June 1944 and 400 were completed by the end of the Second World War in Europe. The turret was generally regarded as an improvement over previous designs, although its guns had a high rate of stoppage during combat.
context_section_description: The Rose turret was a roomy design equipped with two M2 Browning heavy machine guns. The turret was driven by hydraulics, and the hydraulic system was easier to use than that in previous designs. The considerable internal space meant that the turret could be fitted with two seats: a layout in which one man operated the guns and the other fed targeting data into the gunsight computer was developed, but not used in practice.
  An unusual feature of the Rose design was that the turret was not fully enclosed. Previous designs had perspex around the gun position, but in the Rose turret there was no protective shielding immediately in front of the gunner. This feature reflected operational experience: many Lancaster gunners had cut away parts of their turret perspex in order to obtain a better view, a practice that had originated at RAF Gransden Lodge, and which was subsequently known as the "Gransden Lodge modification". Testing of the Rose turret found that the open design reduced the temperature in the turret – which was typically very low – by only four degrees Celsius compared with a closed design. As well as improving the gunner's view, this feature also made it easier for him to bail out of the aircraft in an emergency.
caption: Rear view of the Rose turret at RAF Museum London showing the design's two M2 Browning heavy machine guns
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