High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Schrage Musik, derived from the German colloquialism for "Jazz Music" (the German word "schrag" literally means "slanted" or "oblique") was the name given to installations of upward-firing autocannon mounted in night fighters by the Luftwaffe and Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during World War II, with the first victories for each occurring in May 1943. This innovation allowed the night fighters to approach and attack British bombers from below, where they would be outside the bomber crew's field of view. Few bombers of that era carried defensive guns in the ventral position. The ventral turret fitted to some early Avro Lancasters was sighted by periscope from within the fuselage, and proved of little use. An attack by a Schrage Musik-equipped fighter was typically a complete surprise to the bomber crew, who would only realize that a fighter was close by when they came under fire. Particularly in the initial stage of operational use...