Actually I quite like B17s but their bombload was too small (a lancaster could carry more than 3 times more) which meant more planes for any given job which meant more loses, on tonnage dropped. Really the B24 was better it could drop more bombs for less loses than the B17.
"Plus think about using the Mosquito as a strategic bomber. It can go one of two ways. Having 1,000 planes operating independantly each navigating to the target and bombing individually"
Ah
WD, that's how night bombing worked in Europe. & the RAF pretty much perfected the routine, they dropped a hell of a lot more tonnage than anyone else & with lower casualty rates too.
"Ah yes the Mosquito made out of wood wasn't it? Great little plane but you see the FF17 could take the abuse and keep on flying unlike the Mosquito, which several well placed Axis machine gun or ack-ack rounds could down, and did. Mosquito pilots did not limp their planes home they left them where they were hit, and while the payload was similar the B17 had almost double the range of the Mosquito, check your facts before speaking incorrectly, DABANSHEE."
Mosquito bombers (& that's with me excluding the Night-Fighter & fighter-bomber varients) had a higher survival rate over enamy territory than the B17 did - it was smaller, faster & more manueverable & half the time flew at night.
"Always use planes as they were designed. Planes like Mosquito are great for photo recon, night fighters, interdiction, and light bombing. Remember when the US tried to use B-24 as a low-level raider during the ill-fated raid on Ploesti."
The Mosquito was designed from the very beginning as a 4000lb payload cross continental bomber. All those other varients came afterwards.
"Many people compare apples to oranges *COUGH DABANSHEE *COUGH* when looking at the numbers. There is combat load and maximum load. Sure a Mosquito's maximum load can whoop a B-17's combat load but how often does a Mosquito get loaded up to the max? There was no way it could acheive it's maximum speed and range with a full load. The Mosquito was usually loaded with a nominal amount of ordnance for pinpoint raids (IE. Gestapo HQ in the Netherlands)."
Actually it was rare for any planes during the war to be loaded up to the max & they all flew like pigs in that situation. BTW, it was the Gestapo headquarters in Norway & the Gestapo prison in France. Also you seem to forget about the Pathfinder squadrons, where the Mossies were loaded up to the max on raids like Berlin, Hamburg & Cologne. BTW, the 'normal' bombload of both the B17 & the
straight bomber varient of the Mossie was the same at 4000lbs.
"but need I remind you of Britain's flops? The Lancaster, the Halifax, and the The Vickers Wellington? BAH"
Ah,
Supergroove, I don't know where you got that list from, I think you mean the Manchester, Stirling, Whitley & Hampden, they were more or less all duds. But the 3 you mentioned definitly weren't. The
Lancaster is consided by many to be
the heavy bomber of the war, it actually had a greater maximum (I put that in for
Winndog's benefit
🙂) bombload than the B29 Superfortress. & just the Lancasters of Bomber Command dropped more tonnage than the whole of the the 8th Aiforce did in the European threatre. Now the
Halifax did not have the greatest of reputations but it did a stirling job (unlike the
Stirling, which the British ended up using as a parrachute dropper & glider & target tug, whenever their supply of Dakotas fell short). & the
Wellington was consided to be the toughest medium bomber (even though is 'maximum' bombload was the same as the B17) of the war, because of its Geodesic construction developed by Barnes Wallis of
Barnes Wallis of dambusters fame.
"It had the infamous Norden bombsight, which made it that much more effective"
Actually studies done after the end of the war showed that the expense Norden bombsight was not that more effective than others, when used in actuall combat situations.
"Example from another thread, a Sunderland had a huge ferry range but could not match the combat radius of a B-24 for maritime operations against German U-Boats.".
Windogg, the
Short Sunderland, had a greater range than the
'B24 Liberator'. However there were long-range reconnaissance variants of the Liberators, but they were not 'B24 Liberators' they were 'PB4Y-1 Liberators' (known as the 'Liberator GRV' in Brtish & Commonwealth Service) &
'PB4Y-2 Privateers' (basically a naval patrol Liberator with a B17 style single tail). Saying that B24 Liberators patroled the Atlantic is like me saying that Mossie night fighters bombed Berlin - the B24 Liborator was the bombing varient, the maritine patrol varient of the Liborator was the previously mentioned
PB4Y-1 Liberator, which was configuerd so differently it had to be done in the factory. Even those Naval Patrol Liberators had a range that was really not much more than that of the Sunderland & virtually the same in operational terms. But Liberators were in much more plentiful supply than the Sunderland in the last years of the war. Consequently Liberators (which also had better payloads) took on anti submarine duties, while the Sunderlands were better suited to air/sea reasue patrols as they were flying boats (even though rough Atlantic seas could easily tear a flying boat in half), although there was much overlap.
"Torminator: I think the plane you are thinking of is the B-57 Canberra. It was used as a bomber and photo-recon plane. It was pretty darn fast. At first the US didn't want to buy a British bomber but soon grew to love them. They were all flown until they fell apart."
The Royal Australian Airforce had a few squadrons of Canberra bomber in Vietnam too. BTW, I think Tom may have been thinking of the Gloster Meteor jet, as they were in action during the last year of the war & it appears the Canberra design was based on the Meteor (going by looks anyway).
BTW, no ones mentioned the Douglas light/medium bombers of the war, the
A20 Boston/Havoc & the
A26 Invader, which soldierd on into Vietnam. They were great planes too.
