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MOSQUITO !

Discussion in 'Weapons & Technology in WWII' started by Martin Bull, Sep 17, 2002.

  1. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    OK, so I'm a little biased, but for anyone interested, the ultimate Mosquito website can be found at ; -

    http://www.mossie.org/

    It includes a forum which has input from veterans. :cool:
     
  2. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    Thanks, I'll use it for my reseach. I can imagine getting some odd responses from the night war vets when I post about night flying Me 262's...... :eek:

    E
     
  3. PzJgr

    PzJgr Drill Instructor

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    Beautiful aircraft they were and still are. Good information there. Thanks Martin
     
  4. CrazyD

    CrazyD Ace

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    Nice, Martin. Not directly realted, but I'm actually working on a project for work on the 8th Air Force in ww2 and the combined bomber offensive. Unfortunately, the piece is for middle-grades Social Studies, so we can't get into too much depth.
    But this is an area I've not studied too much, so I'm learning a ton...

    Not that I'd be able to use any comments here at work (As much as you gents are knowledgeable, I don't think you would qualify as an appropriate source for textbooks!!!), but...
    What about the different heavy bombers? There's the B-17s and B-24s, the Lancaster and Mosquitos, the Ju88s, and probably more that I'm missing. Best? Worst? Performance comparisons?
     
  5. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    What time period are looking for Crazy ? Do you have the dual works by Roger Freeman on the 8th AF for starts ? You could probably get quite a bit of info here whether truth or to confuse your mind.... ;) Go ahead and ask.

    E
     
  6. CrazyD

    CrazyD Ace

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    Ahhh... great! In between the last post and now, one of the project managers stopped by and asked me to devote MORE of my time to the 8th A.F Piece.
    Nice!

    Erich, at this point I'm inetersted mainly in the airplane comparisons. Our piece is going to be centered on the US, and probably pretty biased in that direction as well. (It has to be accepted in Texas for us to make money off it). But I'm curious about the planes, and the tactics used by the Americans and the British. General comparisons at this point!
     
  7. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    Crazy :

    I have run out of time but here is a site you need to bookmark for your 8th AF heavy bomber needs.

    www.heavybombers.com

    it will change over I think to armyairforces.com but not sure.

    check it out as the site has some wonderful material for background on the B-17 and B-24.

    E
     
  8. Friedrich

    Friedrich Expert

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    Really nice sites, Erich and Martin!!! ;) Thanks a lot! In this way I will be able to learn more about aeroplanes and air battles... I certainly like that bloody "wooden wonder". :D
     
  9. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    They do look pretty. I'm spending most of my weekends lying underneath one..... ;)
     
  10. Tony Williams

    Tony Williams Member

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    OK, a very brief potted history of the bomber war:

    At the start of WW2, the RAF believed that their bombers could fight their way through in daylight. They were mostly armed with sophisticated multi-gun turrets, much better than anything the Luftwaffe bombers had. However, they soon discovered that fighters were much more effective (and defensive armament less effective) than they expected, and after taking some heavy losses they switched to night bomber raids. (RAF fighters were designed as short-range interceptors only, and could not accompany their bombers very far.)

    This was a problem, as the RAF had not properly trained for night bombing, and did not for some time have the sophisticated radio navigation aids employed by the Luftwaffe. The result was that they usually missed their targets by miles. They gradually improved with practice, but for much of the war the RAF night bombers were not accurate enough to hit specific targets like factories, so they had to resort to area-bombing cities. This is a controversial issue (and was then, too) but UK cities had already suffered the Blitz, so had a score to settle.

    As the war developed, the RAF night bombers adopted radio navigation aids, ground mapping radar, and techniques like Master Bombers who dropped flares on the targets then circled round telling the bombers where to drop their loads. By the end of the war, the RAF could bomb virtually as accurately by night as the USAAF could by day. However, the head of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Harris, was wedded to city bombing by then as the best way of ending the war and dismissed precision attacks on fuel plants etc as "panacea targets". Despite this, by the end of the war the RAF was dropping about one-third of its tonnage on precision targets.

    The night bombers flew alone. Luftwaffe night fighters stalked them one by one, preferring to attack from below because they were less easily seen, and from late 1943 were fitted with upward-firing cannon ("Schräge Musik") to help with this. There was a constantly developing battle between the night bombers and fighters, with electronics playing a large part; radar, radar jammers and radar homers kept on evolving. The Luftwaffe nightfighters (usually Messerschmitt Bf 110, or converted bombers like the Ju 88) became very good, and RAF losses were around 5% per mission.

    Once a bomber was located by a night-fighter it stood less than a 50% chance of escaping, the best method being to take violent evasive action to "lose" the attacker. The defensive guns weren't much use (not helped by the fact that the rifle-calibre .303" didn't have much range or punch anyway), the main value of the gunners being to keep a watch for fighters and shout a warning to the pilot. A standard RAF technique was to "swamp" the defences by sending through a solid stream of bombers, too many for the night-fighters to cope with. Later, Mosquito night-fighters accompanied the bomber streams to pick off the Luftwaffe night-fighters. It remained a dangerous activity throughout the war.

    The Mosquito bombers only formed a small minority of the RAF's force, and were not so popular with Bomber Command because they couldn't carry such a big bombload. They also had no defensive armament. However, their small size and high speed made them extremely difficult to intercept (the usual Luftwaffe night fighters couldn't catch them) so they suffered very low loss rates (about one-twentieth of the Lancaster's). Only right at the end of the war did the Luftwaffe have night-fighters able to deal them them - most famously, the Me 262 jet - but there were never many of those.

    The USAAF bombers came into the war several years after the RAF, first appearing in 1942 but not really going full-out until 1943. However, they were convinced (despite RAF experience) that their B-17s and B-24s would be able to battle their way through by day, as they were equipped with large numbers of .50" heavy machine guns, much more powerful than the RAF's .303. But the Luftwaffe fighters were armed with cannon, which were far more destructive still.

    Unlike the RAF, the USAAF bombers flew in very large, carefully coordinated defensive "boxes", designed so that bombers could provide defensive fire for each other. This had its disadvantages, as forming the boxes took some time and burned fuel. Also, the heavy defensive armour and armament meant yet more weight, which meant that the bombload of the USAAF planes was much less than that of the RAF bombers; the B-17 could only carry about half the load of a Lancaster (and usually carried not a lot more than the Mosquito, which by the end of the war could haul a 4,000 lb bomb).

    The USAAF discovered the hard way that unescorted bombers could not survive fighter attacks, and there were some appalling losses suffered (famously against the Schweinfurt ball-bearing plants). Despite the claims of USAAF gunners, few Luftwaffe fighters were shot down by them, although most of those attacking were damaged. Only with the introduction of escort fighters with the range to accompany the bombers all the way to the target did the losses become supportable. The P-38, P-47 and (most famously) P-51 turned the tables and effectively defeated the Luftwaffe fighter defences. Of course, the Luftwaffe were handicapped by the fact that they needed to get at the bombers so presented relatively easy targets for the escort fighters.

    The Luftwaffe fighters became specialised into "Sturmbock" units, heavily armoured and armed with destructive 30mm cannon (usually Fw 190s) who drove through the defences to get at the bombers, and lighter fighters who tried to hold off the escorts. Despite these efforts, by this time the USAAF daylight bombers were suffering lower losses than the RAF night bombers.

    The USAAF was also wedded to striking precision targets rather than cities, and had much faith in their sophisticated Norden bombsight. However, it wasn't as good as they thought and the skies over Europe were frequently cloudy anyway, so they often couldn't see the target. Later, they were fitted with radar bombsights like the RAF ones so they could bomb through cloud, but accuracy was not good. By the end of the war, the USAAF was running out of precision targets and dropped about one third of their bombs on cities. However, they never really acknowledged this in the way that "Bomber Harris" did.

    How did the RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns compare? I think that the key point was that by working together - the USAAF by day, the RAF by night - they gave the Luftwaffe no rest at all. It was a continuous, combined assault that wore the Germans down.

    However, it is also worth remembering that the pre-war ambitions of both the RAF and USAAF were not achieved. They believed that bombers could win the war by themselves, by driving the enemy to surrender. This did not happen. The bombers wreaked great destruction and caused great production inconveniences (and pulled most of the Luftwaffe and the AA artillery back to defend Germany), but despite the attacks German industry produced more weapons in 1944 than in any previous year. The war was won on the ground, principally by the army of the USSR (a fact which Hollywood never seems to have grasped - but doubtless that wouldn't play well in Texas ;) ). The bombers, together with the Allied armies landing after D-Day, played important supporting roles, but were really sideshows compared with the Germany v Russia match.

    Tony Williams
    Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
    Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
     
  11. Jumbo_Wilson

    Jumbo_Wilson Member

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    Crazy

    You need to start with Hugh Trenchard, the father of Strategic Bombing. Both the RAF and the USAAF were believers in the bomber as a decisive instrument rather than the Luftwaffe's experiences of Spain leading it down the tactical route.

    As martin says the RAf started with Daylight bombing with the Hampdens, Whitleys and Wellingtons then available. However fighter technology had outpaced bombing doctrine and the RAF switched to inaccurate night bombing. This was Area bombing, designed to destroy morale and targeting civilian centres of population - it was the only option.

    Then 8th Air Force turns up, with their heavily armed and rugged Boeings, determined to apply the Pointblank directive through daylight bombing. They were strategic bombing purists, targeting only industrial facilities as best they could, bombing by radar in later years if cloud cover was low. Fred Anderson was pretty young, and was very much a junior to Harris: but Anderson went up with the RAF twice - once over Hamburg, to see what the RAF were doing.

    Martin Middlebrook's Hamburg, Nuremberg and Berlin books are very good on specific operations and lots of first-hand accounts.

    Jumbo
     
  12. redcoat

    redcoat Ace

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    CrazyD88,
    Seeing you are studying the 8th Air force, you might like to know that the 8th used the Mosquito in the Photo-reconnaissance role with over 70 PR.XVIs being used for that purpose.
     
  13. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    Crazy :

    Isn't it fun to post a question and see what type of repsonse you may get ? Yeah man ! and if you want anything on the 2nd scouting force I can help you here though this P-51 outfit maybe too specific for your needs....

    Redcoat, do you have more info's on the blue/grey and red tailed 25 (R) BG Mossies in the 8th AF ?

    E thumbs up !
     
  14. redcoat

    redcoat Ace

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  15. CrazyD

    CrazyD Ace

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    Nice stuff, gents... but anything else on the 8th should go over to the thread Martin started. Believe me, I'll be putting more stuff up there...

    (Sorry, Martin... over-excitement here... I was waiting to get put on that project! Was going to start my own thread monday, yours just prompted my outburst :rolleyes: No hijacking intended!)

    Can't say I know much about the Mosquito... but why name it that? A medium bomber named after a bothersome blood-sucker? I though I was the crazy one!

    [ 19 September 2002, 01:23 AM: Message edited by: CrazyD88 ]
     
  16. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    Not entirely sure - but 4 x .303 Brownings and 4 x 20mm cannon in the nose gave it a formidable 'sting'. ;)
     
  17. Tony Williams

    Tony Williams Member

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    That was only in the fighter-bomber version, which came after the unarmed bomber.

    I presume the name was chosen because, compared with a conventional bomber, it was small, light, but extremely annoying...

    Tony Williams
    Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
    Military gun and ammunition discussion forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
     
  18. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    The fighter went into production after the recce / bomber versions, but the design from the outset allowed for the guns.

    'R.E. Bishop, the Chief Designer, with an eye on basic versatility, all the time made sure that there would be space beneath the cockpit floor for four 20mm cannon...'
    ( Sharp&Bowyer, 'Mosquito', 1971 p.34 ).
     
  19. mp38

    mp38 Member

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    What about the German Mosquito??!!!! Does anyone know a web site about this extrodinary aircraft?!

    Such a shame it never met its' British counterpart in battle!

    Matt :cool:
     
  20. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    MP 38

    The Ta 154 was a piece of junk ! NJGr 10 techs said it was weak along the wing spars. The fueslage would crack on landing, almost in half. Underpowered engines and the a/c was tail heavy so when it landed the undercarriage was destroyed.
    3 prototypes went to NJG 3 for trials and they laughed at it and all three a/c were broken up. The crews stuck with their Bf 110G-4's and Ju 88's. and no I do not think there is a web-site dedicated to this a/c

    E
     

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