Why not use more Mosquitos

[Yarbles]

Having seen the never ending strategic bombing good idea or not thread I thought I would ask a question that has been bugging me on and off ever since I read a book about the Nuremburg raid that effectively was then end of the "Battle of Berlin" 1944

Why didnt bomber command drop the heavies altogether in favour of mass mossie atacks. Mossies could carry the 4000lb cookie though maybe not to Berlin (but maybe could have been modified), had vastly superior surviveability, a crew of only 2 and could get to Berlin and back twice as fastr as a sterling. Ok 2 mossies is no where near 1 lancaster in bomb load but Haliaxes were flying up to the end and if mossies survived better eventually maybe 3 mossies or four per heavy for the same effort. If bomber command could send a 1000 heavies why not 3000 mossies.     

[Karnak]

'Bomber' Harris liked the big bombers.  I understand he actually tried to block Mossie bombers from seeing wide service.

[Rich46yo]

My assumption is there was no way they could make enough 4,000 lb cookies and no way they could make enough Mossies. Not just that but the Mossie just didnt have much of a bombload, not compared to the heavies. There was also other uses for the Mossies, like nightfighters and recon models.

Besides it all comes down to economics. For the price of the airplane, the fuel, the bombs, airplanes like the Lancs sould simply drop more bombs on an enemy for cheaper then could an all Mossie force. Losses from operating such Heavies were reduced by flying them at night.

Further dropping 4,000 cookies on targets that could be destroyed with 500lb HE would be silly and wasteful. You wouldnt watse an 88mm shell to kill ides the typical bombload for the Mossiean enemy infantryman when you have 4 machine guns to do the job would you? Besides the typical bombload for the Mossie was 2,000lb.

[MiloMorai]

Agh but Rich if the heavy was shot down there was no bombs on target.

It took more than 1 500lb bomb to destroy the same target the 4000lb bomb dropped by the Mossie and with more precision.

Two Mossies carried the approximate same bomb load as the B-17 to distant targets. The B-17 and B-24 should have been replaced (well most of them) by the Mossie. Any heavy lift requirements could be filled by the Lanc and Hallie.

There was a mod for the Mossie (never introduced) that would have had 6 500lb in the bomb bay and an option for 2 more under the wing.

[Angus]

AFAIK, read with care...there may be errors but to sum up:

Mossies got it through the somewhat stupid filter of the air ministry by being made out of material amply more availeable in the time of war than what was so necessary for aircraft production....plywood vs aluminium.
The Mossie, at the time of when the prototype flew, and stunned the air ministry folks was absolutely overperforming anything in the close maps of time and reality.

And...the Mossies could deliver at night, and with the accuracy and noteably the safety which made THEM the pathfinders for the bombers.

From history, their delivery efficiency as well as their service record was absolutely amazing.

Read up on Leonard Cheshire for a point of interest BTW.....

[DPQ5]

My assumption is there was no way they could make enough 4,000 lb cookies and no way they could make enough Mossies. Not just that but the Mossie just didnt have much of a bombload, not compared to the heavies. There was also other uses for the Mossies, like nightfighters and recon models.

Besides it all comes down to economics. For the price of the airplane, the fuel, the bombs, airplanes like the Lancs sould simply drop more bombs on an enemy for cheaper then could an all Mossie force. Losses from operating such Heavies were reduced by flying them at night.

Further dropping 4,000 cookies on targets that could be destroyed with 500lb HE would be silly and wasteful. You wouldnt watse an 88mm shell to kill ides the typical bombload for the Mossiean enemy infantryman when you have 4 machine guns to do the job would you? Besides the typical bombload for the Mossie was 2,000lb.

i dont know about that, it was made off wood wich they had plenty of

[Karnak]

Rich,

You have the economics backwards.  A Lanc cost far more than two Mossies, had a crew four times the Mossie's and a loss rate far, far above the Mossie.  An all Mosquito bomber force would have been much more cost effective.

RAF Bomber Command Loss Rates:


Mosquito Bomber Losses:

[Saxman]

Rough average of bomb load delivered per sortie

Lancaster: 3.89 tons/sortie
Mosquito: .675 tons/sortie

There's your answer right there.

[Karnak]

Rough average of bomb load delivered per sortie

Lancaster: 3.89 tons/sortie
Mosquito: .675 tons/sortie

There's your answer right there.

That includes a lot of pathfinder missions on which they dropped only flares for the Lancs and Halibags.  It also includes the early Mossies which were initially limited to four 250lb bombs and not the developed Mossies that would have been used for a major effort.  'Cookie' enabled Mosquitos carried either a 4,000lb bomb or four 500lb bombs in the bomb bay and one 500lb bomb under each wing.

Mosquito bombloads were functional.  Moreover, Mosquitos had a much higher percentage of bombs on target, which makes the raw tonnage numbers misleading.

[Saxman]

Oh I'm aware of that. However as pointed out, how many sorties would have actually even been FLOWN with the cookie? Also, if the Luftwaffe had ONLY the fast Mosquito to contend with they would have just adjusted their tactics and aircraft designs accordingly and I bet you'd see your Mosquito losses escalate.

If small, fast, one or two-man fighter-bombers was all that was needed to do the job, heavy bombers would have been phased out long ago and aircraft like the B-2, or even the old B-52 wouldn't be around today.

[Karnak]

Guided missles change a lot of tactics.

And I agree the Luftwaffe would have ajusted tactics, but there really isn't all that much that they could do about Mosquito bombers until nightfighter Me262s came into it.  Piston tech just doesn't have an effective answer to fast, high flying bombers.

Lots of 'cookies' were dropped by B.XVIs, but I don't have a number.  It was a common load for them.

[bozon]

Oh I'm aware of that. However as pointed out, how many sorties would have actually even been FLOWN with the cookie? Also, if the Luftwaffe had ONLY the fast Mosquito to contend with they would have just adjusted their tactics and aircraft designs accordingly and I bet you'd see your Mosquito losses escalate.

If small, fast, one or two-man fighter-bombers was all that was needed to do the job, heavy bombers would have been phased out long ago and aircraft like the B-2, or even the old B-52 wouldn't be around today.

The problem the Germans were having with the mosquitoes was that its cruise speed (not its max speed) left a very small window to intercept it. If they misjudge the interception even by a little, it will develop into a long chase. Especially at night, setting such an accurate interception course was far from trivial.

Escorting mosquitoes by fighters is also more efficient, as the fighters can fly at their best cruise speeds (actually, the mossies cruise faster than the fighters). Any interference by the escorts would have caused the interceptors to miss their opportunity and fall behind and having a difficult time in setting up a second attack.

The heavy loads carried by WWII bombers were not for putting more TNT on the target - it was for throwing more TNT in the general direction of the target in hope you get lucky and hit with a few bombs. Yes, the Lancs were much more efficient than the mossies in firebombing cities, that much is true.

Virtually all post WWII bombers, dropped almost all defensive armament for speed or stealth defense. I think it was mostly a case of short sightedness that made bomber command stick with their heavy bombers.

[Stoney]

Piston tech just doesn't have an effective answer to fast, high flying bombers.

Necessity is the mother of invention...

Moreover, Mosquitos had a much higher percentage of bombs on target

I've seen you discuss this in numerous forums and I'm just curious as to how this data was gathered.  Is this anecdotal or is there hard data?  (And I'm curious, not argumentative).  Weren't most Mosquito bombing missions night missions?  I haven't read a whole lot about the British bomber campaign, but what I have read was that the cookie wasn't supposed to be a point target/precision weapon.  It wasn't even fin stabilized was it?  The book "Tail End Charlies" stated that it was mainly designed to be a compliment to the incendiary weapons used by the heavies.

[Scherf]

Last time I looked, there was a good thesis on the direct costs to the Brits of the strategic bombing campaign at:

http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/664/2/adt-NU20050104.11440202whole.pdf

The Brits also did a calculation in September 1943 of the comparative costs of the Cookie Mossie vs. the Lanc as below. Lanc bombload I believe represents the load which the contemporary model could carry to Berlin - overload tank in the bomb-bay, IIRC, though I'm willing to be corrected by the local Lanc-fans:

"AVIA 46/116, which is the "Official Historian's type biography of the Mosquito", which says the Lancaster cost 2.8 times as much as the Mossie in terms of standard man-hours (84,000 vs 30,000) - no mention made of ???. This was part of the famous calculation for the Cookie Mossie which went thus:

Mossie: 92 sorties per write-off
Lanc: 28 sorties per write-off

Average Cookie Mossie load (proposed, see below): 4,000 lb
Average Lanc load June & July 1943: 7,450 lb (don't ask me, I'm only the messenger)

Therefore:

Moss/Lanc relative effectiveness =

(92 sorties * 4,000 lb / 30,000 man hours)
_____________________________ _____

(28 sorties * 7,450 lb / 84,000 man hours)

= 12.25 lbs bombs dropped per man hour / 2.48 lbs dropped per man hour

= 4.95

It also notes that the "life load" of one Lanc, given the above life expectancies and weights carried, is less than 60% of that of the Mossie (while costing 3 times as much labour and using twice as many Merlins). It also notes, to use their term, that "crew wastage" in the Lanc is 4 (sic) times higher.

It says the Hallies only had a life expectancy of 20 sorties."

As to the Germans "just" adjusting their force to meet an all-mossie threat, that's in the WouldaCouldaShoulda file, but I don't see much in the history of the LW that indicates an ability to switch / develop types quickly.

At the Australian War Memorial site (I *think* it's www.awm.gov.au ) one can download the official history of the RAAF. There's a note in there that, in the Spring of 1944, the idea of re-equipping up to 3 Groups in Bomber Command exclusively with Mosquitos was actively debated. I have not found any more information than that - hoping to get a copy of Frankland & Webster Vol II to see if there's anything in there. My *guess* (based on a history of 8 Group) is that the demands of the Transportation Plan, ahead of Overlord, were based on a # of bombs per square yard. Over the short haul, the heavies carried more of these than the mossies, whose numbers could not be doubled / tripled in the time available.

[MiloMorai]

I've seen you discuss this in numerous forums and I'm just curious as to how this data was gathered.

I would think it would be from post raid PR photos. PR missions were flown to assess the damage done on the raid.

At one time the Americans considered building the Mossie. Not sure what happened for them not to.

Further to Saxman's comment, the heavies cruised at ~180mph while the Mossie cruised at ~300mph.