Why not use more Mosquitos

[Angus]

It has been on the board before, but I couldn't find it:
After a raid on some site in Denmark (AFAIK) some Mossies were intercepted by 190's, I think at low altitude.
After a long chase and not gaining the 190's broke off and went home.
Anyone have a file on this?

[Furball]

As for modifying tactics to counder the Mossie, the Germans created a squadron of 109's with the specific job of intercepting the daily Mosquito raids on Germany.  They didn't shoot down one.  It is in Galland's book 'The First and the Last', he had high praise for the Mossie, as did Goering.

[MiloMorai]

Those would be JG25 and JG50.

[Scherf]

There's a number like that - for both the Fighter-Bombers and the Bombers.

edit - err, posted too slow, was in response to Angus above: After a long chase and not gaining the 190's broke off and went home.

[Yarbles]

I susspect Harris was constantly trying to "Win the war by bombing alone" in the next 6 months. In the light of the data a longer term shift from heavies to Mossies would have been far more cost effective. Using the data provided so far it seems highly likely that a huge maybe 4000+ force of mossies could have been built up over time which would have been far more effective. I susspect this was apparent but short term considerations meant it was never seriously considered. 

[Angus]

Well, it can be seen well into the war how strong the big-bomber religion was. The USAAF opened their daylight bombing on the Germans without escorts, while the RAF had learned to work at night,- such was the belief on heavy defensive armament.
THere were discussions about completely skipping or at least minimizing the Lancaster's armament on the night missions, just to make them faster. But it was discarded for what some have called morale issues.
Can't remember where I found it,but it had figures of performance increase, which was considerable.
Think of it,- streamlined nose and no top turret, - you have something both faster and quite lighter, with fewer crew, and I didn't skip the most important turret yet.
BTW, Mossie crews would sometimes sneak upon Lancasters, I think by accident. (recognition came when close), but I do not recall an incident where they were spotted.
Imagine a Lancaster doing 40 - 60 mph extra...what would that have been like?
Or with a Griffon,- the somewhat close relative of the Lannie,- Avro Shackleton, had a takeoff max at 39 tonnes and could yet go 300 mph, somewhat faster than the Lannie, and with 10 tonnes more.
Makes one wonder...

[RRAM]

Why Mossies were not used instead of the heavies?.

Easy: the Air Ministry would hear nothing about that. And especially Bomber Command. Bomber command had a lot of political power to put pressure on anyone who didn't go their own way. One instance: for four years Coastal Command had to flew with a collection of barely adequate planes over the Atlantic because they weren't allowed by Bomber Command to get a decent sized force of land based long range planes the Bomber Command "desperately needed to bring the offensive over Germany". While Britain was fighting for it's very survival in the Battle of the Atlantic, Coastal Command (by far the best weapon the British had vs submarines by then) had to make do with an ad hoc force of planes not suited for the task, going from Avro Ansons up to Whitleys.

The Hudsons in the CC were planes the BC had already rejected. The B-17 Mk.I and Mk.II flew with the CC only after the BC had found the plane unsuitable for bombing missions. Wellingtons, Halifaxes, etc were all in short supply because the BC had the priority over them, and Harris won't give any of them easily.
Thanfully for UK, the Sunderland gave a sterling service all that time. Until the introduction of the Liberator VLR with the Coastal Command was by far the best plane the Coastal Command had to field, and the one which gave more nightmares to the german U-boats.

But it is quite an example of the Bomber Command's political power. It was the most powerful branch of the RAF during WWII, and they made that power felt. That the RAF branch fighting a fight for the survival wasn't give a tenth of the resources the Bomber Command (a branch with Britain didn't depend on for her survival) was being given at the high-spot of the Battle of the Atlantic gives a useful hint about it.


And now , why no more mossies?. They weren't able to exercise "saturation bombing", or "area bombing". With a force of Mossies with just one 4000 pounder per plane you can't set a whole city sector's on fire. But with a force of Lancaster carrying a full load of incendiaries, you got apocaliptic fire storms and whole devastated city sectors.

Why no mossies? because Harris won't hear about it. He was convinced of the effectivity of Area Bombing over Precision Bombing. Mossies were highly precise, using Oboe in fact they had a much better hit ratio by nights than the american heavies flying during daytime. But Harris didn't want to hear about planes hitting precision targets: he wanted whole german cities on fire. So what he got was a RAF flying night sorties of hundreds of Lancasters to devastate cities instead of hundreds of Mosquitoes to devastate precision targets- losing thousands of air crews in the meantime in Lancasters, while had RAF used Mosquitoes, much less aircrews would've been put in danger, and much less of them would've died.

Harris' word was a very serious thing indeed, he was the chief of Bomber Command and as we have seen Bomber Command was the loudest and most powerful voice within the RAF. His doctrine was Bomber Command's doctrine. And within that doctrine, all the Mossies could do were to act as pathfinders, to mark with extraordinary degree of accuracy those areas the heavies were to smash later. "thanks" to him many germans civilians died needlesy...but even worse (From a warring nation's perspective) "Thanks" to him many british air crews perished needlessy. I won't say what do I think about Harris...It's pretty clear.

anyway that's the reason the Mossie never got to be the main RAF night bomber. It never got the priority the plane deserved...the reasons are explained avobe.

[Scherf]

You'll be giving us a source next.

[RRAM]

You'll be giving us a source next.

This may serve you:

"The right of the line"
John Terraine
Wordsworth Military Library
ISBN: 978-1853266836

[Scherf]

Thanks, will have a look.

[MiloMorai]

Harris wasn't AOC-in-C of BC til Feb 1942.

Harris followed through the city bombing campaign with dogged determination, he did not conceive the idea or have any part in its discussion. The plan to switch targeting priority from precision bombing of specific targets to the area bombing of industrial centres was conceived by Air Ministry planners and supported by Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s Chief Scientific Advisor who justified the policy as the ‘dehousing’ of industrial workers.
http://www.rafbombercommand.com/people_commanders.html

[Yarbles]

Why Mossies were not used instead of the heavies?.

And now , why no more mossies?. They weren't able to exercise "saturation bombing", or "area bombing". With a force of Mossies with just one 4000 pounder per plane you can't set a whole city sector's on fire. But with a force of Lancaster carrying a full load of incendiaries, you got apocaliptic fire storms and whole devastated city sectors.

My point would be with sufficient mossies saturation area bombing would also be possible. Mossies surviveability would mean in the long runm a larger overall force and bomb load for any type of bombing. In 1944 around 75% of bombers werent surviving a tour. 2-3000 mossies could shurely deliver the same bomb load as 1000 lancs far more accurately and even in area bombing there were allot of misses.

My point is Harris's strategy was too short term probably for political reasons and an objective effort over a longer period in hindsight would have favoured and all mossie force.

[RRAM]

Harris wasn't AOC-in-C of BC til Feb 1942.

And with him came the total obsession about area bombing. BC was already obsessed with area bombing already, and kept a zealous priority over any bomber Britain could build or import. But Harris carried both tendences to the extreme.

In fact, about area bombing,and until 1942 there was little chance the british Bomber command could hit anything in Germany in any other way. But since the radio navigations systems were on line by 1943 (and H2S radar too), precision bombing was more than possible. In fact the degree of accuracy exhibited by mossies flying and bombing with the Oboe system was extraordinary, yet Harris insisted in keeping the area bombing up until the end of the war. While in 1942 area bombing was understandable as the only way to effectively attack germany with bombers by night, by 1944 it was not anymore.

He was an inch from dimission when he was forced to put the Bomber Command away from the main night "bombing offensive" so the planes could fly in support of the preparation bombings for Overlord (where they had to attack precision targets, something he despised. BTW the RAF bombers showed an excellent precision in those attacks, pointing out that area bombing wasn't now the only way the bombers could hit german targets), such was his hate for what he called "Panacea targets" (economig targets requiring precission bombing, instead of targetting civilians)


But back on topic...Harris always supported the use of heavy bombers. In fact in this he was in the same line as the whole of the Bomber Command. To have a fleet of mosquitoes attacking german economic targets with a high degree of precision wasn't something worth a thought for him (neither in the Bomber Command. I think there was never a suggestion to do something as increasing mossie's production at the cost of a lower 4-engine bomber production): he wanted a fleet of lancasters dropping tons of bombs over german cities.

[Angus]

The "NOT" bomber command, - i.e. naval-ops related had all sorts of aircraft in many odd places before there was area bombing in Germany.
We had all sorts of aircraft as far as up here in Iceland. Wellingtons included. As soon as 1940/41.
One of the first German U-boats to be captured intact was off the south coast of Iceland, some Cessna hour from where I live, - subdued by one 2 engined aircraft. I think it was a Douglas but would have to look it up.
BTW, when exactly did the area bombing start? 41 or 42?

[Angus]

Would you care (RRAM) to give some more info on the Nav systems?
While the Germans had the finest of those for night ops already in 1940, the curve of the earth + extra odd 500 miles to go do make a heck of a difference you see....