Best Bomber Killing Aircraft......

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but it couldn't be done in a lancaster, the bomb aimer and tail gunner had the best chance of getting out.....................

[Lightning Guy]

Point for the B-17!

[the lancaster kicks ass]

well not really because to escape you have to be shot down, point taken away from the B-17..............

[Lightning Guy]

B-17 was a lot harder to shoot down that the Lanc.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

if this was both at day i would agree, and i'll agree anyway but can i just point out that as the lancaster flew at night the fighters had to get allot closer to the lanc to identify and take aim at it, bringing the fighter well in range of the lanc's defensive armorment where the attacker would be "strongly disscouraged" from attacking...................

[Lightning Guy]

The same advantage would have applied to the B-17 if it had flow at night. The simple fact is that the B-17 was better able to withstand battle damage.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i said i agreed with that, i'm just saying that it tokk more than allot of people think to bring one down because of the reasons i mentioned, as well as the corkscrew......................

[NightHawk]

LG is back. its been ages from the last time i saw you posting.

[NightHawk]

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

but you have to ask, how smart is someone that straps themselfs to a bomb to make it a smart bomb??

well shahids do it all the time.

[cheddar cheese]

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

if this was both at day i would agree, and i'll agree anyway but can i just point out that as the lancaster flew at night the fighters had to get allot closer to the lanc to identify and take aim at it, bringing the fighter well in range of the lanc's defensive armorment where the attacker would be "strongly disscouraged" from attacking...................

But because the Lancaster had relatively thin armour, it would only take one or 2 lucky hits to bring it down. And I'm sure that before an enemy pilot withdrew from the pursuit, he would take a quick pop at it.

[Erich]

proof is that both the Lanc and B-17 were shot down at night and they were not that hard of a victim to bring down.

the German ammo was superior to anything as the relatiosnhip to cannon arms. with an RD-X component the Minengeschoss was the destructive round in the air war. simple but very much effective.

the night fighters in the Bf 110G and Ju 88G did not use it because of the destructive properties in the Schräge Musik installation but a mild form of tracer, and HE which eaisly brough down all 4 enigne bombers. Because an Allied bomber could be determined by the blip on the radar screen as well as visual the crews did not have to get in that close to have the 2cm weapons take effect on the rear gunner and inboard engines. Will say that manay night fighter crews could not properly ID their RAF victims at night as it was happeneing all too fast and of course on a moonless night you could barely tell a shape, so the log-buchs make reference only to a 4-engine bomber

E ~

[Gemhorse]

Yeah, I agree with you Erich, with the 'ease' almost that the Nachtjagd had in disposing of bombers, especially deadly was the 'Shrage Muzik' oblique cannon, firing-up into the bombers, preferably the wings, for the fuel tanks and engines...
The Allies were bloody lucky really, that the German High Command kept dicking-around and obstructing Kammhuber and his successors from developing the Nachtjagd to it's fullest potential, and when they did acknowledge that 'defensive' was the correct strategy, not 'offensive' [Hitler just wanted to attack and bomb everything], it was too late. But they fought to the last drop of fuel and were taking down bombers right to the end...

I was wondering about the gun-flash on the 262's, due to the position of their cannons.... They stated in the book that they only used two sometimes, probably the lower two ! - In discussing this with the last [very elderly] survivor of one of our Mosquito Squadron's recently, he said when the guns were fired on them at night, there were flames shooting-out about 10-15 yds. in front of the aircraft, along with their thunderous bucking from under their feet, the recoil taking about 30 mph. off their airspeed.... The Nightfighter Mossies only used their 4 cannons, to keep gunflash to a minimum, and minimal tracer... - I know German tracer was red in colour, I was wondering what colour the Allied tracer was ? Was it different for machine-gun from cannon ? - Anyone know ???....

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i believe it was green/yellow..................

[cheddar cheese]

I thought it was more orange in colour...

[MichaelHenley]

Sort of like lightsaber colours... When it comes to nightfighters and that, what was the difference between a normal spotlight and a blue one? Anybody know?