Author Topic: what do you think was the best world war 2 bomber??????? (Read 1426 times)

MiloMorai · « **Reply #30 on:** June 12, 2003, 05:04:03 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Staga
For a quick intruder bombing mission would you rather take a Mosquito or Ar-234 ?

Mosquito, for I would be confidant the engines would keep operating.

AHGOD · « **Reply #31 on:** June 12, 2003, 10:13:09 PM »

AR-234, mossie a close second.

hyena426 · « **Reply #32 on:** June 13, 2003, 02:09:46 AM »

b29 best bomber in ww2 i think,,mossy and lancaster good too,,but b29 had remote controlled machine guns so the gunners were atleast some what protected with out having to be in the turret it self,,it was fast for being so big
it could carry a bigger bomb load than a lancaster,,speed,,high alt,,great guns,,and best bomb load of ww2,,makes it a tuff one to beat

12 .50-caliber machine guns, 1 20 mm cannon, 20,000-pound bomb load,365 mph

Tony Williams · « **Reply #33 on:** June 13, 2003, 02:23:04 AM »

I read some RAF late-WW2 documents in the PRO concerning thinking about the type of bombers needed in the future.

Their conclusion was that for night bombing, the Mosquito type was by far the most efficient. With only two engines, two crew and no guns it was a small fraction of the cost of a heavy, and its high speed made it difficult to intercept. Also, each interception by a night fighter took time to set up, and the payback in shooting down a Mossie was relatively small. So for the same resources, you could have maybe three times as many Mossies as four-engined heavies, and they could swamp the night-fighter defences.

However, if it became necessary to launch daylight attacks the equations altered. There was some dispute between those who favoured a fast and powerful twin, armed with 20mm cannon in turrets, and those who wanted a really big plane, capable of carrying heavy artillery to match the stand-off distances achieved by the new German planes carrying 50mm cannon. They actually worked out the consequences of mounting a pair of turreted 3.7 inch AA guns firing proximity-fuzed ammo! Although by then the P-51 escort fighter was making such heavy fighters obsolete, the RAF was obviously thinking of very long range missions, which would be unescorted.

Of course, if you had escort fighters, you were better off with no bomber armament at all, as the weight and drag saved would increase the average speed and minimise the time in danger.

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frank3 · « **Reply #34 on:** June 13, 2003, 03:31:04 AM »

B-17 is the most fameous I guess, it's a pretty good one too. also the B-24 was equal to the fortress, but it wasnt too well known

I like the B-25 the most

Cooley · « **Reply #35 on:** June 13, 2003, 03:42:25 AM »

B-24 with B-17 as close 2nd

They got the job done.

Hap · « **Reply #36 on:** June 14, 2003, 08:53:36 AM »

dunno which was best but we made more liberators than any other. must have had something going for it.

hazed- · « **Reply #37 on:** June 14, 2003, 06:40:15 PM »

I think the B24 dropped the larger tonnage of bombs on Germany, but i cant' be sure.I know it was the most produced heavy bomber and was the backbone of the US bomber fleet.(some 18,188 produced) (B17 12,731) (Lancaster 7,366)

For some reason it doesnt seem to get much of the attention.It was used as a transport,naval reconaissance aircraft and in Anti-submarine attacks, it was versatile and used by several countries like Great britain,Australia and south Africa etc.Always seems to be the B17 on the documentaries.

very similar to the spitfire and hurricane in the Battle of Britain.Often the Spitfire takes all the laurels when it was actually the hurricane which shot the most aircraft down and was the most numerous.

As for best bomber B29 wasnt the fastest

357mph for the B29 vs 460mph for the Arado 234. Also both had remote controlled guns.

If it comes to my personal favourite Id have to say He177. Its so ugly it actually scores points for it!

close 2nd would be the Wellington Bomber (Wimpy).

Tony Williams · « **Reply #38 on:** June 15, 2003, 02:06:18 AM »

The B-24 had a range advantage over the B-17 which made it very useful in the long-range anti-sub patrol role. However, in the accounts I have read it wasn't as pleasant to fly as the B-17 and it was also less resistant to battle damage, so it tended to be less popular with crews.

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Tony Williams · « **Reply #39 on:** June 15, 2003, 02:11:01 AM »

The question of 'best bombers' is largely one of 'horses for courses'. I recall many decades ago my French teacher, who had friends in a French village, recounting the tale of an incident there during WW2 around D-day. The Allies decided that they needed to take out a bridge near the village, so one day a large number of four-engined bombers roared over at medium altitude. They flattened everything within a half-mile radius of the bridge, but missed the target. So a couple of days later an even larger number of heavies paid a visit. This time they flattened everything within a one-mile radius, but still missed the bridge. So on the third attempt, a single Mosquito came in at zero altitude and dropped one bomb, which took out the bridge. Now there's cost-effectiveness for you...

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HoHun · « **Reply #40 on:** June 15, 2003, 11:57:17 AM »

Hi Tony,

>However, in the accounts I have read it wasn't as pleasant to fly as the B-17 and it was also less resistant to battle damage, so it tended to be less popular with crews.

Reportedly it was faster though, which was a good characteristic as well.

With regard to damage: While Luftwaffe pilots took it as obvious fact that the B-24 was much easier to bring down than the B-17, the actual loss numbers for both aircraft show that they were almost equal - with the B-24 having the advantage! I've also found an article describing casualty statistics that showed that there were considerably fewer crew casualties (death/wounds) in the B-24 than in the B-17.

I'm not quite sure on how to make sense of this contradicting information.

One explanation might be that the B-17 died harder, but once shot up would be shot down in the end (at least in the majority of the cases). That would account for the equal loss rates despite the reportedly greater vulnerability of the B-24. (In fact, Reschke summarized it as "the B-17 needed two passes to be brought down while the B-24 went down in one".)

With regard to the crew casualties, I have no idea. Maybe flak was a greater factor for the slower B-17 than for the B-24, so that more B-17s were lost to flak than B-24s (with fighters shooting down relatively more B-24s so that the balance was equal).

However, that's all speculation.

The really suprising thing is that there was hardly any difference in survivability between the American bombers, while the British bombers were worlds apart (Lancaster:Halifax:Stirling loss ratios were about 1:2:4).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Tony Williams · « **Reply #41 on:** June 15, 2003, 02:30:08 PM »

Interesting, Henning. IIRC the B-24 flew higher than the B-17, which would certainly have reduced its vulnerability to Flak and perhaps made it harder for fighters to intercept. So perhaps it was hit less often, but when it was, it was more likely to go down.

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MiloMorai · « **Reply #42 on:** June 15, 2003, 06:39:09 PM »

The safest postion in the B-17 and B-24 was the ball turret. Less WIA/KIA than any other position. The worst position was to be a waist gunner.

Tony Williams · « **Reply #43 on:** June 16, 2003, 02:10:15 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by MiloMorai
The safest postion in the B-17 and B-24 was the ball turret. Less WIA/KIA than any other position. The worst position was to be a waist gunner.

Well they had to be small to fit into the cramped ball turret, and they were so squashed up, with their kness around their ears, that they made a smaller target

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

Tilt · « **Reply #44 on:** June 16, 2003, 05:02:53 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by HoHun
while the British bombers were worlds apart (Lancaster:Halifax:Stirling loss ratios were about 1:2:4).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Whilst the Stirling was abit of a string bag the Halifax and Lancaster were very similar and I often wonder why the Halifax sufferred such a significantly higher number of crew losses.

Harris obviously prefferred the Lancaster as it had a slightly higher bomb load and this suited his doctrine of terror bombing major cities.

My view is that its the ordance delivered(to target) per cost (be that cost in £/$ or lives) is the deciding factor.

Hence one would favour the Mossie but then it would be a pretty useless terror weapon which should be awarded to the B29.