Beaufort July 1941
Some Beauforts were equipped with a manually operated Browning gun that fired rearward, enclosed within a Perspex molded fairing to cover the blind zone beneath the tail. The bomb aimer controlled the gun using a handle fixed to the rear of its body. The gun was secured in a mounting that allowed limited movement in both elevation and traverse. A mirror aligned with a ring-and-bead sight was used to aim the gun. A 200-round box supplied ammunition to the gun, with the belt directed into the receiver through a swan-neck duct. Empty cases and links were ejected into the slipstream through an opening in the bottom of the fairing. However, the mounting saw very little use as most operations were conducted at low altitude, and it proved highly challenging to locate attacking fighters using the mirror.