With the B-17 Flying Fortress as his adversary, the German fighter pilots had his hands full.
They knew they were up against a lot of fire power and a tight formation and they tried to find the best way to get in close to make a shot.
They later found that approaching the bombers head on was about the best way they could attack until the chin turret was added on a later model flying fortress which helped increase the forward defense.
The guns on the Germans FW fighter had an effective range of about 400 meters.
The B-17 could reach out 1000 meters, so by the time the Germans planes were within range for their guns, they had already been under fire from the bombers.
When they found that they would have better luck approaching from the front they had less firepower to deal with, and they found they needed less hits on the bombers to cause significant damage.
The Germans were able to get their hands on about 40 B-17's that had been forced down or crash landed and they were able to study it.
They also refurbished some with maybe 12 being put back into service in the Luftwaffe.
They put Luftwaffe markings on most and designated them Dornier Do 200.
These aircraft were used for spy type missions, and some were left with original markings.
With these they tried to move into approaching formations to mix in and pass on info such as positions of the bomber formations.