Lanc VS B17

[J318]

Bomber Haris wasn't aiming for the civiilians he was actuly amiing for the factorys but he knew he wouldn't hit them in a huge city in night so why not just carry more bombs and destroy the whole city? lowering morale and weakening the german peoples will to fight. plus in AH2 I find it easier to defend myslef in the lanc as i know which button will take me to which gunner and im not fiddling around tryting to find the right gunner out of 7.

[Replicant]

Originally posted by B17Skull12
the lanc's only real draw back i can see is the fact it had no belly gunner, which the brits traded out for bombload.  The germans exploited this to the best of their ability.  They mounted 20 or was it 30mm? guns point upward at 80 or 70 degrees (???) and the pilot would look up through an aim and fire.  the lancs were hopeless again't those attacks if there wasn't a lanc underneath ya.

Early Lancasters were equipped with a 2 x .303 belly turret but it was removed to reduce weight and crew.  Only 'One Group' Bomber Command kept the belly turret on some of their Lancasters through the war.


Although the B17 in AH has a payload capacity of 6,000lbs, it doesn't necessarily mean it always carried that in WW2; it often carried less.  Same applies to the Lancaster.  When you think that the late Mosquito could carry a 4,000lb cookie it puts it into perspective how successful a bomber the Mossie was, especially with only 2 crew.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Jasta
well no matter what you find about takeoff rates, there is one thing about the B17... it was definately not the best bomber in the theatre, but because of both the popularity it recieved and the numbers in which they were built, it is the most famous.

 

And les not forget that most of the  big time war correspondents went to england where the B17's were as opposed to italy where the more numerous B-24's were

[Tilt]

Where as Harris's initial thousand bomber raids to Cologne were targeting "area's of industry"  the raids to Dresden etc were specifically tasked to "undermine the moral of the German people"

They were terror raids.

Night flying Lancasters and Halifaxes would typically ingress at 14 to 18K (Halifaxes taking a slightly lower altitude).

On one occassion my father's Halifax was ordered to lower gear to slow up and reduce altitude to 10K over Dusseldorf. "Window" had been dropped too late and in the wrong place........... forcing the group to wait for a 2nd drop.

On one occasion his Halifax B MkIII(which was Canadian crewed apart from himself) was forced to put down on a US base. Where the crew was "required" to debrief by US personnel.

They were detained over night because the debriefing officer did not believe the size of the loadout they claimed to have carried for such a long mission. ( 2 x 4000lb cookies and another 2000lb of mixed weight).


Despite the massive Allied attacks at Germanies strategic manufacturing industries ............during 44 Germanies industrial out put of "war material" actually peaked  to be higher than at any other time during the war.

[J318]

The argument about the raids will go on for centuries to come but imagine if they didn't take place at all and Germany was free to operate without any inference?? Also the raids did what they set out to do even in WW1, they drew fighters out of the frontlines and into the citys.