The reason to Fix the diving heavies

[Karnak]

I think that the inability of large bomber's structures to take such dives without incurring so much stress damage as to write off the airframe and the inability to drop bombs out of the bomb bay at steep angles were the primary reasons for the absence of such tactics.

The gunners were strapped in.  Such dives did occur unintentionally and they did not kill the gunners if the pilot managed to pull out.  There was an account of a B-24 that had such an accident in a recent thread.

The German Ju88 medium bomber was equipped as a dive bomber and so was the He177 heavy bomber, at least technically.


I think the best way to be looking at this is from a structural and physical limitations perspective, not a gunner comfort perspective.

[dedalos]

Why is it that I think that if the bombs hit anything if released during a dive, it would be the back of the bomb bay and not the front?

Also, not saying that you have not seen this, but in my 2 years here, I have yet to see heavy bombers go vertical.  I have seen them going in to a 20 maybe 30 degree angle to pick up speed before the drop, but not 90 degrees.

Unless you are at really high alt, I dont think a 17 has the time to go into a 90 degree dive, release bombs, and then pull out.  So, are we really talking about 90 degree dives or are we upset that we could not get to the bombers on time?

[Kev367th]

Well I can't believe I'm the only one to see B17, etc actually looping in here.
Yes it was possible, in fact I remember I read about it somewhere, drawback - required immediate landing due to deformed wings from the 'g' forces.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Karnak
.

The gunners were strapped in.  Such dives did occur unintentionally and they did not kill the gunners if the pilot managed to pull out.  There was an account of a B-24 that had such an accident in a recent thread.

The German Ju88 medium bomber was equipped as a dive bomber and so was the He177 heavy bomber, at least technically.

 

Keywords "unintentionally" and "Accident"

Somehow I dont think the pilots would want to do it intentionally and I think we can be pretty sure the crew wouldnt be real happy about it if they did strappped in or not.

I have no problems whatsoever with planes that were designed to be able too divebomb, divebombing.
I dont even have a problem with the heavies going into a "slight" dive. But 45+ degrees  is a bit much

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by dedalos

Also, not saying that you have not seen this, but in my 2 years here, I have yet to see heavy bombers go vertical.  I have seen them going in to a 20 maybe 30 degree angle to pick up speed before the drop, but not 90 degrees.

Unless you are at really high alt, I dont think a 17 has the time to go into a 90 degree dive, release bombs, and then pull out.  So, are we really talking about 90 degree dives or are we upset that we could not get to the bombers on time?

No I havent seen 90 degres eatiher but I've certainly seenconsiderably more then 45 easy.
Might even be able to post a screen shot of it If I canfigure out how to take screenshots with the current film format.
And can find the film.

and this was from less then 10K

[Kev367th]

DREDIOCK - I have seen Lancs, B17 and B26 performing loops in here.

[bustr]

Just a thought, you might contact someone here and ask if they had any directives during the war why not to dive bomb with a B17.

http://www.stelzriede.com/warstory.htm#top

[bustr]

http://457thbombgroup.org/New/Recollections/Anecdotes/dive.html

Dive Bombing in a B-17
There were times during our tour of duty when we managed to have some fun, even though it was not always approved by the field commander. I don't remember what date or time of year this was but it was a time of very bad weather in England in 1944.

We had prepared for a mission and had taken off with a full load of 500 pound bombs. After only a few of the Group's planes were airborn there was a mission recall. This meant that the mission was scrubbed, probably because of very bad weather over Germany. We were told via radio that we were to dispose of our bombs and return to our field.

Our Group's procedure for disposing of our bombs was to arm them and drop them in an area of the North Sea that cuts into the side of England known as "The Wash". The Wash was perhaps a hundred miles Northwest of Glatton airfield. The other primary rule for bomb disposal was to be sure that the visibility was good. We must also be out of site of land, and we were to drop our bombs only when we were sure no English fishing vessels or military boats were anywhere near the area.

We proceeded to the Wash only to find that there was a low thin cover of clouds whose top was perhaps 400 feet above the water and extending as far as we could see. There was never any thought of returning to the field with the bombs. Landing with a load of bombs and full gas tanks was too risky.
What to do?

We decided to go down to determine how low the cloud layer actually was. We made a slow instrument descent through the clouds. When we broke through at about 200 feet we found the visibility to be clear and we could readily see for a considerable distance over the water . A suggestion from our bombardier (Joel Lester) and with gleeful agreement from the rest of the crew, we decided that we would rise above the cloud layer, which was only a few hundred feet thick, arm a bomb, then dive down through the cloud layer, level off, observe that no ships were in the area, quickly release one bomb, pull up as quickly as possible and get as much distance between us and the bomb before it exploded.
We did not know how close we could be to an exploding 500 pound bomb without sustaining damage.

We first made a dry run or two before Joel finally armed one of the bombs. Then, down we went. We started at about 1000 ft altitude and dove down with engines at full throttle, broke through the clouds, "bombs away" came over the intercom from Joel, and up we went as fast as a B-17 could climb at full throttle. Just before we broke out of the cloud layer we heard the bomb explode with a loud 'WOOMMP'. Hearing the bomb explode surprised me since I had never experienced that before.

A check of the crew and the plane determined that there was no sign of damage and no one in the crew observed the bomb exploding through the clouds. We continued this bombing, one at a time, until we had exhausted our supply of bombs. Everyone seemed to enjoy this adventure and I kinda wished that we could do this with some of the Group's targets in Germany. Bad, bad, bad idea. This may be the only B-17 in the 8th Air Force to practice dive bombing.

As we returned to our home field there was much chatter on the intercom about the incident and the fun we had had dive bombing in a B-17G.
Willard (Hap) Reese

[JB42]

To start off, I know they used to have 262s that were used as bombers. They used to pack A6ms and B5Ns with high explosives an crash them into boats. I even heard they took Fw190s and attached Ju88s stuffed with explosives and dropped the Mistle on a target. Point? Forget all this I heard they did, and sometimes they did crap and realize what the primary use of a type of plane was. B17s, B24s and Lancasters were used PRIMARILY as high alt level bombers. Simple solution? Minimum 10k alt and on auto-pilot for bombs to arm.

Side note, dive bombing with with dive bombers in formations is just as big a joke. While I will not argue that there were dive-bombers that bombed targets in groups, the catch was EACH plane was subject to it's OWN aim, judgement and skill. In AH2 all 3 bombers do exactly what the lead one does. LAME!

[2bighorn]

Originally posted by bustr
...arm a bomb, then dive down through the cloud layer, level off, observe that no ships were in the area, quickly release one bomb, pull up as quickly as possible...

Wasn't really dive bombing but low level bombing, bombs were released in level flight.

[bustr]

Hey gimmie a break. It was the closest thing I could find on the Internet. Why not contact the 8th Airforce groups web site and ask them????

http://www.8thafhs.org/

[bustr]

Here is the URL to the general disscusion board for the Mighty 8th. Personaly I'd feel like a fool asking these men a question like this for an Internet game. They played the game for real and survived. I have family that did not survive that war.

http://www.8thafhs.org/messagebrd/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=551a3ce466b17cda42c45188410a87fe

[United]

I think there is no way a bomber can drop a bomb safely other than nearly level.  If you look at the pictures I posted in the thread above (posted by bozon), it is clear that if the wings were not level, the bombs in the upper portion of the bomb bay would not clear the doors and would smash against the plane.

If a bomber was in a dive, the bombs would go straight into the floor and either explode or riccochet out and who knows where they would land.

I have no data to back this up, but its just an assumption I made on what I know.

[Krusty]

I think y'all are ignoring SEVERAL key factors here...

Namely centripetal, centrifugal, and gravitational forces.


No matter WHAT the bank, a bomb will fly straigt out of the bomb bay due to centrifugal forces on the bomb and centripetal forces on the aircraft (due to lift generated by the wings) so nix that idea.

Also consider that these bombs are heavy and drop in a split second. Yes a plane is angled down. If the bomb were to fall straight to earth it might hit the front of the bomb bay. But you then ignore forces of gravity and inertia, which would make the  bomb separate from the fuselage, along a tangent from the bomber's vector, falling safely away from the plane (back to centripetal/centrifugal forces) unless the plane was in perfect zero G freefall, in which case it would knock around inside the bomb bay. I doubt you'd get such an instance except for a 90 degree vertical dive (which is terminal anyways).

No I don't like dweebs that do this crap. But stop saying "it's impossible!" when it's really, in fact, possible. Argue against it for other reasons. Don't change the laws of physics to suit yerselves.

[xHaMmeRx]

Originally posted by Krusty
No matter WHAT the bank, a bomb will fly straigt out of the bomb bay due to centrifugal forces on the bomb and centripetal forces on the aircraft (due to lift generated by the wings) so nix that idea.

If that were true, Stukas and other dive-bombers wouldn't have needed the bomb rack that "threw" the bomb out to help miss the propeller arc.  Also, there will be no centrifical force at 1 G.