Beaufighter and Mosquito

[Yarbles]

Beaufighter in ground atack style circa north African campaign and a

Proper mosquito bomber with drones.

Mosquito cos it carried I believe 4000 pounds of bombs at speed and height and would be unstoppable.

Does anyone know why the RAF bothered with the heavies when a mosquito could do 2 x runs to Berlin in the time a sterling could do one, carried 4000 lbs of bombs and had an attrition rate or loss rate or whatever its called of about 1% with a crew of only 2?

[Lusche]

Originally posted by Yarbles

Does anyone know why the RAF bothered with the heavies when a mosquito could do 2 x runs to Berlin in the time a sterling could do one, carried 4000 lbs of bombs and had an attrition rate or loss rate or whatever its called of about 1% with a crew of only 2?

The mossie still would only be able to make one sortie in a given night.
Stirling and Lanc carried 3-4 times the payload of a mosquito.

[Yarbles]

Yeah but with a much higher loss rate and about the crew of 4 mossies. So Mossies seem the obvious answer in area and precision apart from Tall boys and bouncing bombs and all that.

Could I believe fly in much higher and faster and relatively unmolested until the jets arrived and then only in daylght.

[Yarbles]

I think I have a good point here which would be bourne out if they were accurately modelled in ah and they would make all others pretty much redundant, without any real justification for perking them as they were so common in practice unlike 234.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Lusche
The mossie still would only be able to make one sortie in a given night.
Stirling and Lanc carried 3-4 times the payload of a mosquito.

Actually not true.  Mossies in 1944 were making two trips a night to Berlin.  The Mossie would have a different crew for each sortie though.

As to losses:

[Lusche]

Originally posted by Karnak
Actually not true.  Mossies in 1944 were making two trips a night to Berlin.  The Mossie would have a different crew for each sortie though.

Have you any resource you could point me to where I could learn more about that practice? Sounds interesting.

[Martyn]

From those stats it looks like the Mossie delivered 0.675 tons/sortie whereas the Stirling delivered 1.5 tons/sortie. Mossie seems to win again for people/payload and probably time over enemy territory too.

Lancs managed 3.9 tons/sortie.

[tedrbr]

World War II was very much a war of attrition.  You are concentrating on losses of crew, when bombs on target was the priority.  

They did not like losing crews, but so long as they could replace planes and crews faster than the Axis could, they continued the strategic bombing despite crew and plane losses.  When they could not replace planes and crews as fast as their losses is when they would get nervous about operations.

Very much a different perspective and world back then than the one today.

Also have to consider multiple roles for various craft, not just "bomber".  Large bombers were occasionally also pressed into service to haul cargos, and to serve as maritime patrol craft in the U-Boat war. Smaller bombers/attack planes picked up tactical roles and ground attack missions.  There is something to be said about having a diverse and flexible inventory.

[Furball]

Originally posted by Lusche
The mossie still would only be able to make one sortie in a given night.
Stirling and Lanc carried 3-4 times the payload of a mosquito.

As it is said elsewhere, the Mosquito could do 2 x ops per night, deliver more accurately, and you could have two of them using much less resources than a lanc or a stirling.

It did not have the variation in payload of a heavy though, a single lanc could use the cookie to blow out rooftops before the incendiary bombs lit the insides, the 4k bomb load on the Mossie was only a single cookie.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Lusche
Have you any resource you could point me to where I could learn more about that practice? Sounds interesting.

Yes.  I'll post it when I get home from work.

[Karnak]

Ok.  Some fun Mossie data.

When sufficient Mosquitoes became available, RAF Bomber command used some for "Siren Tours" where each unit would bomb several German targets on one sortie to set off the air raid sirens and disrupt the workforce.
Mosquito; Sharp, C. Martin and Bowyer; page 304; Crecy; ISBN 0 947554 41 6

The first raid in which a Mossie dropped a 4,000lb bomb was on the night of 23/24 Febuary, 1944 when two Mosquito B.Mk IV Specials each dropped a cookie as part of a Mossie raid.
Mosquito; Sharp, C. Martin and Bowyer; page 308; Crecy; ISBN 0 947554 41 6

The first raid by the Mosquito B.Mk XVI, which was purpose built to carry a 4,000lb bomb, had a cockpit pressurized to 2psi and the high blown Merlin 72/73 (counter rotating) engines was on 5 March, 1944.
Mosquito; Sharp, C. Martin and Bowyer; page 309; Crecy; ISBN 0 947554 41 6

"Flt. Lt. Val Moore and his navigator, Pat Dillon, were nearing Berlin on 18 July.  Searchlights illuminated them, as Dillon was settling at his bombsight.  Almost immediately tracer whipped past.  Moore called to his navigator to return immediately to his seat and strap himself in, to allow weaving action.  Then he dived MM135 to almost 500 knots to shake off the fighter, before climbing steeply. A s he did so a packet of Window landed on Dillon's lap, so violent was the motion.  Once caught in the searchlights it was difficult to escape at high altitudes, and fighters also had an idea as to the positioning of the Mosquito.  Ten times they fired at MM135 without hitting it.  Next day engineers examined the machine.  They found nothing wrong, although it had dived far beyond the recommended speed limit."
Mosquito; Sharp, C. Martin and Bowyer; page 312; Crecy; ISBN 0 947554 41 6


Lusche,

I cannot find that data tonight.  I just read it the other night while skimming through the book I referenced tonight.  This is, by far, the best Mosquito book I have and I recommend it to anybody interested in adding a book on the Mosquito to their library.  It was an offhand comment in the book though, not a long expose on the two raids a night for the same aircraft.  I don't think it was a common practice, but it was possible.

[Yarbles]

Can anyone tell me what the maximum multiple bomb load of a mossie is i.e. could one carry 4x1000lb and what its spead would be at around 10-12,000 feet with this size of load and it climb rate to this altitude.

Also coming back to this point about a war of attrition. if a Mossie could fly around 2 x sortie per night at around 1% loss rate, then assuming Stirlings could be replaced at a higher attrition rate, if a switch to Mossies was made, the overall bomber force would start to increase rather than be replaced. Then it is reasonable to assume the quantity of bombs delivered would increase which was the purpose of the whole thing.

[Nilsen]

Id love to see the beaufighter and me410

[Martyn]

I know they had issues with the size of some bombs in the bomb bay, but changing the tails made them shorter to fit - I'll try to find out if that was for 500lb or 1000lb.

[Yarbles]

I am thinking 3 x mossies (2 drones), 4 x 1000lb, climb rate 2000 ft per min +, about 350 mph at 12,000 would be awsome numbers in AH if true.

No defensive armament I suspect but still!  

10,000 feet in 5 minutes, probably another 5 mins to target  maybe 8 minutes to return to base and then round again.