The 10 Aviation Greats of WW2

Sorry Ricky, the Lancaster wasn't as tough as the B-17, although many Lancs survived terrible damage. The bombload capacity isn't that relevant either. The B-17 (1935 vintage) was intended to hit specific targets. The (1941 vintage) Lancaster was supposed to drop a bunch a bombs in a general area, such as a city. The range and speed of the Lancaster where not as good as the B-17. The defensive armament of the B-17 was probably a non-factor as you suggest, but the lack of all around defense, tha Lancaster had no ventral turret, probably hurt the Lancaster more than the B-17. The Lancaster was involved in one on one fights with night fighters.
Replacing B-17s with Lancasters would have been mistake.

 

You could similarly argue that the B-17 came out years before the Lanc-almost seven years in fact-and that opoerational requirements s, particularly in the light of the experience gained during the first years of WW2-Unless the bomber is as fast or faster than the opossing fighters, it has to carryu armament-the Luftwaffe certainly paid a heavy price nver England price for overlooking this detail-certainly German (and Japanese) pilots who had to face the B-17's Browning .50 calibers had a healthy respect for the Flying Fortess-'s weponry..and judfing by their accounts, for its ability to withstand punishment...There are photos of B-17s making it back to England with virtually all the tail surfaces shot out-an uding by the Lancasters l saw flying in Canada awhen l was a teenager,hey appeared rather more fragile than the B-17s.l the "yawn" on their wings, while landing was quite noticeabe..

P.S: I've just learned that Lenny Montana, -the real actor who played Luca Brazzi on the silver screen was or is still a real-life gangster..talk about method acting.... :lol:
P.S.S enclosing mediocre but rare pic of a B-17: guess where and why....

 

in germany and is a captured or repaired plane

 

Clark airfield phillipines??

 

Ok, about the Ta.152H-1


Canambridge: I never said the Ta152 was the best fighterbomber, i said it was the best fighter! In fact, the Ta152H-1 was designed exclusively as a figter or interceptor and didnt carry bombs.The range of the Ta152H-1 is 755miles. A more than sufficent amount of fuel for a fighter that flies in its home country against the enemy. Actually, the pilots of the Ta152h-1 thought its fuel was excellent due to the long time it gave them afloat in combat. The legendary P51D had 950 miles of range, but you must remember that mot of this fuel is burned up flying from england to germany and back. So in the end, in the actuall dogfighting , the Ta152H-1 could afford to stay for a longer period of time figthing.

I believe u misunderstood my point about the Ta152h-1. What i was indicating was that this fighter was the most superior piston engined fighter of the war. Its importance in WW2 is an altogether different story. It is clear that this fighter was superior to a P51D in a one to one fight, and history shows us that, but obviously the P51D has a very much greater importance and impact on the war. Simply because only 150 Ta152H-1s were built while thousands of P51s were made. The accomplishments of the P51D are also greater since there were so many of them to do a job, while 150 aircraft cannot all bythemselves achieve a victory for the thirdreich! Although they accomplished miracoulous work in the face of great odds. Your assumption that the Ta152H-1 was given to the best german pilots is also correct, alongside the K model of the Me109, these planes equipped the german elits pilots.

P.S : glad to see u agree on the night fighter


Corpcasselbury: The speed of the Ta152H-1 at 25,000ft is 448mph, which is still superior to that of the P51D mustang of 437mph at 25,000t.

 

DesertWolf:

It was being able to fly all the way to Berlin, fight and return to Britain and throw in odd jobs like bombing that made the P-51 a better all around plane than the Ta-152. The days of dog fighting ended in Spain. Zoom and boom tactics and the finger four formation made dog fighting a thing of the past.

Okay, the few Ta-152's that showed up at the end of the war had somewhat better stats than the P-51 in some areas, the Ta-152 couldn't do all the things the P-51 could do.

 

Range and speed Lanc vs B-17G

Specifications (Lancaster Mk I):
Engines: Four 1,460 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin XX inline piston engines.
Weight: Empty 36,900 lbs, Maximum Takeoff 68,000 lbs.
Wingspan: 102 ft 0 in.
Length 69 ft 6 in.
Height: 20 ft 0 in.
Performance:
Maximum Speed at 12,000 ft: 287 mph
Cruising Speed: 210 mph
Service Ceiling: 24,500 ft
Range with 14,000 pound load: 1,660 miles
Armament:
Two 0.303-inch (7.7mm) guns in nose, ventral and dorsal turrets.
Four 0.303-inch (7.7mm) guns in tail turret.
Fourteen 1,000 pound bombs.
Crew: 7

Specifications (B-17G):
Engines: Four 1,200-hp Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone turbocharged radial piston engines
Weight: Empty 36,135 lbs., Max Takeoff 65,500 lbs.
Wing Span: 103ft. 9in.
Length: 74ft. 4in.
Height: 19ft. 1in.
Performance:
Maximum Speed at 25,000 ft: 287 mph
Cruising Speed: 182 mph
Ceiling: 35,800 ft.
Range: 2,000 miles with 6,000 lb. bomb load
Armament:
13 12.7-mm (0.5-inch) machine guns
Up to 17,600 pounds of bombs

So the Lancaster was MUCH!!! faster than the B-17 and it is a much harder fight to fly and attack bombers at night!!!

Attacking specific targets? Like the B-17 or Lanc could do precision bombing?
atleast the Lanc could sort of (remember the Dambusters!)...

 

...and the Tallboy, and the Grandslam....

It's one of the true tragedys of the war that despite commonly accepted myth, Bomber Command was highly capable of attacking and destroying pinpoint targets, perhaps as well as the USAAF since although the RAF bombsight was not necessarily designed to bomb as accurately it was designed for the European weather, and in any case the RAF's STAB bombsight as used by 617 Sqn was superior even to the Norden.

The RAF's preference for area/terror bombing past about 1942 was as much a policy issue rather than down to the ability of the crews and equipment.

Also don't forget that the Ome Joop's post includes the Lancaster at full bombload and the B-17 at 3/4s bombload. Fully laden the B-17 had an even less impressive range.

As for the B-17 c.1935 being intended to hit pinpoint targets that is not strictly true. The B-17 was never designed as a strategic bomber, it was designed as a patrol bomber to attack invading landing forces threatening mainland US, something that even with the Norden it would have been completely incapable of doing.

You have to bear in mind regarding the B-17s legendary ability to withstand damage that it attracted much more publicity partly due to Bomber Command flying at night, partly due to the relative wealth of US airmen and ground crew (i.e. they were paid more and did not come from a country under a ration culture, so luxuries like cine-film cameras were more widely available) and partly due to the number of "Firsts" the B-17s achieved, especially at a time when the US desperately needed a propaganda boost.

I don't dispute that the B-17 was apparently a tough plane to down, but I don't think the Lancasters would have proven greatly more vulnerable, afterall Lancasters operated by day in the lead up to Overlord under fighter escort and sustained very few losses, by comparisson the only way 8th AAF B-17s could operate by day without suffering crippling losses was with fighter escort, so for all its legendary toughness and extra guns (Whose value is debatable at best) in practical terms a squadron of B-17s was no better off than their British counterparts, except the RAF could drop more bombs per plane and carry them faster and further.

Having said that I still believe the US was better off producing their own designs and the long range escorts they needed to operate over occipied Europe than they would have been disrupting the production lines, training processes and not to mention the impact on national pride ("Our boys are going to have to fly a Limey bomber?!?") that licence producing the Lancaster Stateside would have involved.

 

Let's get our facts striaght gang...


Tech Spec: B-17E-
Powerplants 4 xWright R-1820-65 rated at 1000hp at 25000 ft
Max. Speed: 317 mph
Range: 2000 miles with 4000 lb bombs
service ceiling 36,000 ft
Armament 1 x .30 vcal, 8 x .50 cal m.g.,4000 lb bomb


Speer's memoirs ("Inside The Third Reich")give very interesting details about Allied bombing-the damage caused much publicized attack on the dams was quickly repaired and the raid never achieved its intended goal, wheras US precision raids over specific strategic targets (Schweinefürt, center of roller bearing production) and the costly raids at Ploesti (Rumania) knocked out that country's oil industry and oil wells..These had a greater impact on German war production and shortened the war considerably...particularly when one remembers that by late 1944 many Luftwaffe aircraft were grounded for lack of fuel..Lancasters were mainlu used on night raids again german population centers-in order to destroy civilian morale-something which, again hey failed to acomplish..

Me-262..it is indeed a captured aircraft..but why are the iron crosses and the swastika (as well as its markings covered? hhaahaha!
Best regards

 

How do you figure the max speed of the Lancaster was much higher? It's the same as the B-17G and the B-17G had the slowest maximum speed of all the B-17 models. The B-17E had a max speed of 318 mph, the B-17F 325 mph. Cruise speed for the B-17E was 226 mph, the B-17F 182 mph. I would agree with what has already been stated, speed for a bomber is somewhat irrelevant unless it come close to the speed of the fighters opposing it (like the Mosquito). The B-17 range and ceiling were superior to the Lancaster, bomb load was inferior and bomb accuracy was better. The Dam Busters (617 Sqdn) was a specially trained and equipped squadron that attacked from tree top level. Hardly representative of the lancaster in general. B-17s were used in skip bombing attacks in the South Pacific.
Night bombing wasn't all that safe either, RAF Bomber Command losses on a per sortie basis were about the same as the the 8th USAAF. And much of hte Luftwaffe night fighter force was chewed up in early 1944 trying to stop daylight bombing raids.

 

KG100 plane?

Will reply to others later, retract comment about speed but everything else is valid. There was more to 617 than just the dambusters raid!

 

617 Squadron were a specially selected, trained and equipped squadron. The best of a very good organization. This started withthe premise that the USAAF B-17 was an overated pile of crap and the Yanks should have gone with the Lancaster, which was portryed as a much better aircraft. The Lancaster is demonstrably not a much better aircraft. Rich US aircrews and cine cmaeras aside, the Lancaster was not as tough as the B-17. Bomber Command started flying regular daylight missions only after the Luftwaffe fighters were essentially removed from the equation, primarily by 8th USAAF fighter command.
Why is it so difficult to give credit where due?

 

Because the world is filled with Monday morning quartrebacks..and specialist in foretelling the results of last years's elections.... However, let us see what Adolf Galand-a man endowed with a well-structured scholarly mind, and an able strategist who as well respected on both side of the Atlantic has to say about the bombing of Germany in the " First and The Last" (Double Day, Garden City, New York, 1955) pag.228-230:'

Even though numerically the British raids (1943) against Germany were still stronger than the American and were undoudebtly a great trial for the civilian population, the American precision raids were of greater consequence to the war industry. They received priority attention over the british raids on our towns" "(in other words, as l see it, the Luftwaffe High Command diverted more aircraft to combat the US daylight precision raids)

"Obviously, by raiding the German aircraft industry the 8th AAF aimed at weakening the fighter defense which had caused it a lot of trouble durin =ng the first unescorted bomber raids deeper into Germany. During the summer of 1943 the 8th AAF made 43 such raids on 14 different factyories, dropping a total of 5092 tns of bombs. Although it would have been more important to bomb our motor industry,the consequences were nevertheless soon felt. the output prgram laid down of ME-109 by Milch fell from 725 aircraft in July to 536 in September and to 357 in December. This again smashed all our hopes for an early recovery in strength of our fighter arm ias part o the Reichs's defense. The Americans were well aware of the results of their raids. They repeated their attacks with a new series of raids at the end of February 1944."

Galland goes on to say that In order to counter the American threat, Luftwaffe destroyer squadrons which were deployed outside the range of US fighter escort were fitted withg additional weapons, such as 21 cm rockets 3 c, 3,7cm and"unfortunately also with 5 cm cannon"-American loses were high until the introduction of the P-47 for escort duties, since these aircraft, operating from bases in Southern England could reach the Hamburg-Hanover-Kassel-Frankfurt line.."

 

Perhaps KG200..It was actually photographed in Spain, where it arrived c. April-May 1945...

 

Ah - nothing like a good controversial statement to get a discussion flowing

scaramouche - the evidence you quote from Adolf Galland & Speer is not strictly relevant - they were comparing how the planes were employed, not the planes themselves. Imagine if the B-17s were committed to bombing cities. You cannot blame the Lanc for Harris' obsessions.

ceiling yes, range no - try finding stats for a fully laden B-17, or an empty Lanc! Bomb accuracy? Potentially, with the Norden (which was fantastic) - unless it was cloudy . What would happen if you put a Norden into a Lanc?

Night Bombers did not fly with an escort. Day bombers were well & truely chewed up without an escort too.

well, technically, every extra mph the bomber has makes it that little bit harder to catch, and means that after each attack the fighter will need slightly longer to get back into position to attack once more. Which means that more time is spent shooting down each plane, which statistically means more planes should survive!

Yes, as was their day fighter force (and the USSR was truely thankful). Damn good job by the P-38s, P-47s & P-51s.

 

Ah - and who (or what) was on board?

 

Corpcasselbury:

The Ta152H had huge advantage in stats than the P51D, and in all areas involving air to air combat. The only difference in fuel is not noticeable and as ive mentioned earlier the Ta152H actually enjoyed more combat time over germany than the P51D ever had. The few Ta152H fighters that were built proved a thorn in the side of the american pilots. Kurt tank himself flew the Ta152H and was intercepted by P51D, he simply left them in the dust, and when pilots decided to fight, the Ta152H killed alot of P51Ds.


It is clear from history, statistics, and the pilots themselves that the Ta152H was a better fighter and interceptor than the P51D. It simply is.

However, i am not discussing its capabilities as a fighter bomber or its greater impact on the war. The P51D was far better in both accounts. The only thing that im indicating and which seems to be pretty clear is that in a one on one engagement with the same caliber pilots on both sides. The Ta152H will come out victorious due to its much better stats than the P51D.

 

ceiling yes, range no - try finding stats for a fully laden B-17, or an empty Lanc! Bomb accuracy? Potentially, with the Norden (which was fantastic) - unless it was cloudy . What would happen if you put a Norden into a Lanc?
[/quote]

Was it's accuracy that good?

The Germans committed to dive-bombing, while we pursued high-altitude precision bombing. The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet, 2/3 of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets -- even with the best of bombsights.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1004.htm

I've read that it was even worse than that....

BTW how good was the Bombsight the RAF used?
BTW Lancaster destroyed the Tirpitz from high altitude....Tallboy bombs could be droped pretty precise on that acount...

 

http://www.ww2guide.com/bombs.shtml

Read to know some more about bombs, bombsights and accuracy

 

Haven't the foggiesty idea Ricky... a few "migrating"birds arrived in Spain late in the war, including a Ju-290 which was impressed into the Spanish Af and served into the 1950s, a Fw 200 which crashed-no clue again about the cargo or passengers-a a few other oddities which l'll be sending in future messages..