twin engined bombers.

[Tony Williams]

The British RPs were different, and there were two different kinds of US ones.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Glider

Have to agree with this. I would rate the Do217 over the B25/B26.
The A26 I am not sure of. It had the speed certainly but I am not sure about the remote controlled guns. They were aimed using a periscope arrangement, a set up that was fraught with difficulty. What you see is a narrow arc of vision and this must make it difficult to see the incoming fighter and almost impossible to do a visual search for danger

Glider - to me this is one of those interesting comparisons that force you to consider mission closely. On paper the Do 217 was a better pure medium bomber than the B-25 for either daylight or night based on speed altitude and payload.

On the otherhand, the LW tactical doctrine, because it had no capability to escort it to any reasonable range, could not fully exploit those capabilities.

There is no question in my mind that it could be configured to a low level attack aircraft with at least the same firepower capability as a B-25 but to do so probably takes the bomb load and range below a B-25..

On the other hand if you strip the B-25 forward firing armament, the waist gunners, etc to configure close to the Do 217 you will have more range than the D0217 and about the same ordnance capability as a pure medium bomber.

The A-26 was all about forward firepower and bomb load/rocket capability. Reduce the forward firing .50s to say the 4 cheek guns and keep the turret/gunner and you lose 2,000 pounds of weight that really increase the speed and range way beyond the Do 217... in fact you are moving it into Mossie speed range at 20,000 feet and perhaps faster on the deck.

[Glider]

I understand what you are saying but its hardly the fault of the Do217 designers if the LW didn't have the ability to escort the aircraft.
I would actually disagree with using the Do217 as a low altitude attack aircraft, its just too big. B25/B26 were also borderline IMHO as they were fairly slow and vulnerable to LAA. I know they were able to get away with it in the Far East but I admit to not knowing to what they were used as a GA plane in Europe.
Certainly the RAF tended to use them as a medium altitude bomber the low level missions normally being left to the Mossie. There were exceptions to this but even these were specific low level bombing missions as opposed to a normal GA mission. GA missions were the speciality of the Typhoon/P47. I have seen a number of photographs of B25/B26 as used by the RAF but cannot remember seeing any on them with a hard nose.
The A26 I believe would have had a hard time of things against fighter opposition for the reasons mentioned earlier. I just don't trust periscope based sights and have never heard of one working to any degree of satisfaction. Reducing the weight would have increased the range but speed is more difficult, straight level speed doesn't tend to be altered very much so I think it would be stuck at around 360/370mph, give or take a little.
It was a later generation of bomber and always operated under conditions where the USA had control of the air.

[Juha]

Kurfürst
according to my sources, fast bomber Ju 88 S max internal load was just some 800 kg. It could be modified to carry 2 * 1000kg externally, but as You noted on Mossie, external loads affected performance. And only 70 - 120 Ju 88Ss were made or modified from 88 A-4s, depending on source. OK, one 88S proto was capable to carry 3000kg but that version with bulged bomb bay was dropped and not went to even limited production. Ju 188 could carry 3000kg, but that was maximum bomb load, not normal.

Juha

[Vincenzo]

In the allied side the best bomber it's my opinion this is the A26C, it's more slow of Mosquito (~50 mp/h) but a more large range (300 m) and bomb load in more flexible (the mosquito can load a one 4000 pounds bomb but only 2 1000 pounds or 4 500 pounds, the A26 can't load a 4000 lbs but can load 4 1000 lbs or 8 500 lbs). The problem that this bomber it's combat ready only from late summer of '44.

[Vincenzo]

after some readings my opinions are:
best level bombing "medium" Do 217M (allied A26C)
best level bombing "light" Mosquito XVI (axis Me 410B)
best level bombing "long range" Yer 2 (axis Ginga)