avro manchester ... yes please :)

[gblade30]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b03_1356797261

[Karnak]

Other than the fact that it would reuse much of the Lancaster's art, what makes this an appealing addition?  It was a disaster in service with unreliable engines that were never able to produce anything like their specified power.  It was produced in small numbers and had a short service life.

[tuton25]

  :devilI can make you a Manchester out of a Lancaster with my 20mm

[Tilt]

IMO the 2nd British heavy bomber added to the game should be  the Halifax Mk III or VI/VII..........and I think AH will have gone before that ever arrives.

[Karnak]

IMO the 2nd British heavy bomber added to the game should be  the Halifax Mk III or VI/VII..........and I think AH will have gone before that ever arrives.

The problem with the Halifax is that its capabilities and performance are so extremely similar to the Lancaster's that we'd gain very little over the Lancaster.  I cannot think of any scenario in which the Halifax would be needed and the Lancaster not an acceptable stand in.

I do hope that when the Lancaster is redone an option to take the quad .303 tail turret is added.

The only new British bomber that I think is really needed is the Wellington, preferably the Mk III or Mk X. 4500lbs of bombs, two .303s in the nose, one .303 in each waist position and a quad .303 tail turret, about 255mph top speed and structurally the toughest medium bomber due to the geodesic construction.

[Butcher]

I agree with Karnak, one thing is the wellington was used in the Med theater, Europe and Burma campaign. Tough as the wellington is, it would be a handful for japanese fighters.

[Tilt]

I always considered the Wellington  a medium bomber... I suppose its a British perspective. The Wellington would complete the set of light, medium and heavy bombers when put along side the mossie and Lanc.

I agree the Halifax is the comparable stablemate of the Lanc in every respect and as stated very unlikely to be added in game.

[Karnak]

Yes, I agree that the Wellington was a medium bomber.

The only British heavy bomber that is sufficiently different from the Lancaster to warrant inclusion would be there Sterling.  Unfortunately all the ways it is differs from from the Lancaster are for the worse.

The last heavy, large British aircraft that could have a place would be the Short Sunderland flying boat.

[Tilt]

I suppose it could be said that the Halifax is to the Lancaster as the B24 is to the B17. But would not argue the redundancy in either case.

Given the Wellingtons anti shipping role it would offer more variation of game play over any other medium British bomber IMO.

Actually I would still have Halifax before a Stirling even for scenario play. But we would need to create a pucker night time environment to use any of them properly.

[Karnak]

No, the B-24 and B-17 differ in performance and capability significantly more than the Halifax and Lancaster.  The biggest difference between the Halifax and Lancaster is that the Lancaster's bomb bay could take physically larger bombs.  In reality, which would not affect AH, crew had about a 30% better chance of bailing out of a stricken Halifax than they did out of a stricken Lancaster, but in compensation the Lancaster seems to have been tougher as it had about a 30% lower loss per sortie rate.

Bombloads:
Lancaster: 14,000lbs
Halifax: 13,500lbs

Top speed:
Lancaster: 282mph
Halifax: 282mph

Ceiling:
Lancaster: ~25,000ft
Halifax: ~25,000ft

Armament:
Lancaster: eight .303s, two in nose, two in dorsal, four in tail or four .303s and two .50s with the .50s replacing the four .303s in the tail
Halifax: eight .303s, two in nose, two in dorsal, four in tail



They are as close to the same aircraft as one can expect to get when the two aircraft are designed to the same specification, Air Ministry Specification P.13/36, by completely different design teams at different companies and using different engines.

[Tilt]

Halifax MK III, VI, VII ( which would be IMO would be the most representative) had a single .303 in the nose which was removed almost as standard on the MkVII  and removed on many MKIII & MKVI  because it was deemed useless.

An interesting story re bomb load. After one raid many of my fathers squadron were forced to put down at a US AAF base near Cambridge( due to bad weather at Lynton) where they were all debriefed by the USAAF. The "yanks" could not believe the 13,000lb bomb load (nearly 3 times that carried by their B17's for the same mission) and total fuel weight at take off....... And so continued to cross brief the crews for the rest of the day until it was verified by staff at Lynton.

The observation was that they had no idea of the capabilities of RAF/RCAF bombers at the time.

[Butcher]

Question I have to ask, are these the standard typical bomb loads on a combat mission? Like the Wellington, the standard load was only 2,500lbs.

[Tilt]

Question I have to ask, are these the standard typical bomb loads on a combat mission? Like the Wellington, the standard load was only 2,500lbs.

13,0000lbs was typical for a Halibag. I am not sure if the fuel ranks were always full. The payload was generally a mix of mainly 500 lb GP and Incendiaries. This for a typical raid on Dusseldorf,Duisberg, Essen.

Quite often the load out was airfield related ...... In terms of runway length etc. even at Lynton there are accounts of pilots "bouncing" fully laden Halifax's off the end of the runway to clear a hedge and trees some distance away..... Which tells me that these beasts really were reluctant to get off he ground.

[PanosGR]

i prefer the Sort Stirling

[SmokinLoon]

If and when the British are gifted another bomber I say it makes the most sense in bringing the Wellington on board.  Obviously, the Germans deserve their He111 and the Soviets the DB3/IL-4.

Otherwise, the Japanese have their 2 main bombers and the US have their 6 main bombers.... so yeah, the British, Germans, and Soviets all deserve a wee bit more lovin'.