Another planequiz

Or replacing US designs with British ones...

 

Maybe we should see what the guys here think of that...

 

Better you than me... :kill:

 

No - I remember what happened last time around!

 

Wise choice although I think you'll have to explain to the Forum here what we're talking about, it's not fair just to leave them in the dark.

 

For explanation:

http://www.tgplanes.com/Public/snitz/to ... PIC_ID=307

I had previously posed the question that American Heavy Bombers in the European Theatre of Operations should have been replaced by the British Halifax/Lancaster duo.

When that 'controversial topic' ran out - I went for the big one...
follow the link...
:smok:

 

Okay, I'll take the bait. B-17, B-24 and B-29 generaly had greater speed, service cieling and range than the Lancaster or Halifax. Defensive arament and survivability are more difficlut to assess, but I think these areas favored the American designs as well, but consider it even to avoid an endless debate. The American designs were cheaper and easier to produce, but introducing American produciton techniques to the British designs made have evened this out as well. All in all American designs were at least as good as the British designs, what was to be gained by replacing them with British designs?

 

Well, ruling out the B-29 (ETO planes only) the British designs could carry a greater bombload.
In all other respects roughly equal, so surely it makes sense to go with a greater bombload?

Or, potentially, replace the B-17 with the Mosquito!
Much faster (therefore harder to intercept, so less losses), only 2 crew members (less training, less loss of personnel) less resources per plane (they're wooden!) and it still carries 3/4 of the bombload!

Plus, some bomber versions carried cannon, so you could potentially have a bomber that escorts itself!
Ok, the last bit was only semi-serious...

 

Not my suggestion, follow Ricky's link.

No, the B-17 did not have better range than either the Lancaster or Halifax, most sources quote the B-17's range unladen and the Lancaster and Halifax with full bomb load, find comparable data for the B-17 and it does not compare that favourably believe me. Added to that the B-17 only enjoyed a marginal speed advantage over the Lancaster and Halifax.

B-29 is great, the best heavy of the war without a doubt, and also not available till summer 1944 either...

Survivability of the Lancasters and Halifaxes was very good too, however they flew at night and Bomber Command's PR machine wasn't as good as the 8th AAFs, so it wasn't as well reported in contemporary propaganda.

I will repeat what I've said elsewhere. The Lancaster could not operate unescorted by daylight without suffering huge casualties. The B-17 could not operate unescorted by daylight without suffering huge casualties. The Lancaster could and did operate by daylight, under heavy fighter escort. The B-17 could and did operate by daylight, under heavy fighter escort.

For all it's extra guns was the B-17 greatly better off?

Like I said, I don't want a re-run of what's been said on another forum, since it usually devolves into UK vs US unpleasantness. Read the link, and if you have anything additional to add, please feel free...

 

Yeah, sorry, I should stop stirring!

Enjoy the link - TGPlanes is a very good forum.

BTW, I have a cracking good plane pic for you all to guess at - I just need to scan it in...

 

I read the link and I don't want to see it devolve into US-UK unpleasantness either. I agree with virtually everything you've said, except why not use the B-24 instaed of the Lanc or Halifax. BTW, I love the Mosquito, a really great all purpose plane, and the value of the defensive arament on big bombers (Lanc and Halifax included) is highly questionable. I'm just curious as to why you think the U.S. should have used British planes.

 

Just trying to save you a savaging here as well!

 

The big thing in favour of using the Lancaster and Halifax is that both were in service in their Combat Ready versions and conducting bombing raids before the B-17E/F and especially the B-24. Plus whilst either the Lancaster or Halifax could have been quite readily modified for a US production line, the same cannot be said in reverse.

However you're right, why not? As I say on the other forum why are we (The British) still using the Tornado when the F-15 is just as capable if not more? Because it's ours. We made it (Wellllll.... OK a European consortium designed it, but... ). And we'll use it in spite of its faults!

 

Nice discussion you had going on there! The only problem with that forum, as i see it, is that like many other internet forums about WW2 they only cover a small part of it (i.e. aircraft). This one here covers everything, which is great!

Don't mind if this sounds stupid, but I'd say the Mosquito could have been much improved by a dorsal turret or at least dorsal defence of some kind.

 

The increased weight wouldn't have been worth it. The Mosquito was fast enough to avoid the need. Besides, the likelyhood of actually hitting another plane with the guns was miniscule. Better to run and live to fight another day.

 

Hmm, it would scare off some German fighters at least. I mean, the JU88 only had a single MG facing rearward, later versions had two, but they were fixed into the cockpit rear. Therefore they weren't near as heavy as a possible gun turret. This might help a bit for the Mosquito I'd say, but speed is a good thing too...

 

I remeber reading the memoirs of a German fighter pilot, Heinz Knocke, who burned out the engine of his Me-109 chasing a Mosquito, although he claims to have got it. I hope I haven't confused with the Spitfire in Norway story. Anyway it's a good book, published on this side of the pond as "I Flew for the Furher". He was a leading heavy bomber killer, including three in a air-to-air bombing stunt. Wish I still had a copy of the book.

 

If it had been any practical benefit to give the Mosquito a dorsal gun they would have, however both the increased weight and drag of the dorsal gun fairing would have significantly slowed the Mosquito down, so more would have been caught. Yes, against a few inexperienced pilots a stream of tracer may have scared them off, but for the bulk (Who in any case would quickly realise that the Mosquito had no "low" defence, and consequently would attack the slower aircraft from below with impunity!), it would be unlikely to concern them.

It is significant that manually aimed pintel mounted guns are quite frequently refered to as "Scare Weapons" even by the crews that used them, their effectiveness is to say the least questionable. Consider the Battle of Britain, the Ju88A-4 was notoriously difficult to intercept, even by Spitfires, and once they'd dropped their bombs either RAF interceptor would struggle to even close with them (Ju88As had two, not one dorsal MGs BTW). He111Hs, despite much greater defensive weaponary were not difficult to intercept or shoot down, especially once separated from their escorts.

What this shows is that speed was actually a better defence than guns, all the while the speed could be kept on a rough par with contemporary interceptors of course.

I can't help wondering if the Ju88 would have been even more troublesome if the Luftwaffe redesigned it retaining only two crew and the fixed nose MG, and perhaps a single dorsal MG. The lower weight and additional streamlining would have made it even faster, and even more difficult to intercept.

Lastly it's worth pointing out that early He219s had a dorsal defensive MG, however for the bulk of the production models these were deleted, if they were no use for the He219 (Which would have had to contend with night fighting Mosquitoes and Black Widows), why would they have been any benefit to the Mosquito?

 

OK, OK, speed is obviously the key in the Mosquito's defence.

It should be noted that the Ju88 also had a ventral gun pointing rearward; would you remove that too?

 

Yes, especially because removing that ventral bath-tub would be key to cleaning up the nose aerodynamically and increasing the top speed of the design.