Can the dome gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress shoot the plane's tail off? I was at the California Capital Airshow on Mather AFB over the weekend, and came across a beautifully maintained B-17 Flying Fortress. The crew were kind enough to allow people to go inside and take a look - what a magnificent machine!



While inside, I noticed the dome gunner seems to be in a position to accidentally shoot the tail off the plane!



Are there any confirmed instances of this happening? Was there some way to prevent it - either be it training or some mechanism that stopped the guns while in this position? I can imagine, in the heat of battle, sweeping an enemy fighter and nicking your own tail in the process!
There's a profile cam in the turret track ring that operates a mechanism that interrupts the guns when the barrels are pointed at parts of the aircraft.  Waist gunners were the only ones who had to worry about hitting their own plane.

The bigger problem was gunners hitting adjacent aircraft.  The "box" formation design attempted to provide as much of an open field as possible to each gunner.