Best Bomber of ww2

[cheddar cheese]

/plane

...

[wmaxt]

Originally Posted by Gemhorse

I guess the extra fuel needed to fly at the higher altitudes does play a part in the B-17 range...

Back to the B-25, B-26 & Mossie n' P-38, they were essentially twin-engined 'Medium-bombers'.....Four-engined was termed 'Heavy-bombers'. Others like twin-engined Whitleys, Blenheims, Boston/Havocs etc. were more 'Light-bombers'....I guess really, P-38's, Mosquitos, gunship B-25's and Beaufighters fit into the 'Heavy Fighter-Bomber' Class.......

B-29's were THE 'Heavy-Bomber' of the War, I cannot deny that....
- I'll have to let Lanc sort-out the finer points on the 'Tallboy issue', I do concur though, that operationally, they were the Lancaster's baby, to devastating effect.......

If my nomenclature is disagreeable use "Very Heavy" for the B-29 and move the rest up one catagory making the B-25 and Mossie back into medium bombers. :P

[Lightning Guy]

Lanc, no modification was needed to the bomb bay of the B-17, 6 x 1,600lbs were the designed maximum load. As for the external hardpoints, those were a standard feature for the F and G models.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

and it could still carry all guns and ammo??

[cheddar cheese]

Yeah he said that on the last page...

[Lightning Guy]

Like I said, it would still carry ammo. It wouldn't be possible to "triple-up" on the ammo loads as was common on some of the long-range, unescorted missions. The mere "standard" levels of ammo, however, wouldn't be that serious of a limitation since the targets would (of necessity) be close and escort was quite possible.

[Gemhorse]

I recall reading somewhere that the ''Gunship B-17's'' were too slow with all that extra hardware...

I feel the B-24 was a good bomber, also really came into it's own as in Anti-sub/Convoy work, due to it's long range.....All aircraft in this line of work seemed to be hopelessly out-gunned though, against the U-boats.....

[Lightning Guy]

The gunships were too slow because they dramatically outweighted the rest of the B-17s in a formation. If every bomber is carrying an oversized load there is no speed difference.

[wmaxt]

Originally Posted by Lightning Guy

The gunships were too slow because they dramatically outweighted the rest of the B-17s in a formation. If every bomber is carrying an oversized load there is no speed difference.

True, the problem with the gunships was that after the other bombers dropped their load the gunships couldn't keep up - they still most of their load!

[Lightning Guy]

And even if they fired off all of the extra ammo they were still hindered by the weight/drag of extra guns, turrets, and armor.

[Gemhorse]

As for the Lancaster, although the two prototypes, [which first flew 9th Jan. 1941], made use of Manchester airframe components, mainly the very large bomb-bay, they were not actually Manchester conversions [as often recorded], but were ADDITIONAL to the Manchester contracts....The first production Lancaster I, followed the last Manchester off the Avro assembly line in time to make it's first flight on 31 Oct. 1941, less than two years from the inception of the design, the decision to phase in it's production made on 15 Nov. 1940...and a dozen more had been completed and flown before the end of 1941....
- It's operational debut was 2 months later on 3rd Mar.'42, it's max. speed of 270 mph@ 19,000ft; range of 2,450 mls with 5,500 lbs bombs and 1,020 mls with 14,000 lbs......
- With better engines in later models, it's pretty amazing that they ended-up carrying and dropping Grand Slams of 22,000 lbs by March '45, with precision accuracy....

But they did a helluva lot of work from March '42 through to War's end and beyond......

And in comparison, the B-29 which first got the prototype go-ahead on 6th Sept. 1940, and started off the production lines in Sept.'43, [through until Oct.'45], it finally started it's bombing campaign on Japan in June '44, and after Le May took over in late Aug.'44, they started to get some success from about October....after he started using 'RAF Pathfinder techniques', but by December the loss rate was reaching prohibitively high levels, averaging 4-5 aircraft per trip....
From Nov.'44, ten+ missions to Musashi, near Tokyo, 10% of the damage caused was within the 130 acres of plant area and only 2% of bomb tonnage dropped actually hit buildings...the Jap workforce suffered only 220 casualties, for 40 B-29's lost, 440 aircrew over a total of 11 raids...In one raid in early Feb.'45 by Admiral Mitscher's Task Force 58, of Naval fighters & bombers, far more damage was done to Musashi than all the B-29 strikes put together.... At this time the abort rate by B-29's was 23% per mission, so they stripped 6000 lb of weight off each aircraft, and taking 'RAF Bomber Tactics' again, started incendiary raids on cities, the factories being too hard to hit, and after losses to Japanese flak & fighters, went over to 'RAF-styled night-attacks', which started to make inroads... - It wasn't until late May '45 that they could go daylight without heavy losses, because by then they had P-51 escorts from Iwo Jimi to assist...By June, using B-29B's, they could haul 18,000 lb of ordnance, and they had the new 'Eagle' radar sets, and could go from 'bludgeoning' to more accurate and selective bombing.........

From August '45, the rest was history, but when you 'crow' about the 'B-29 is Best', it's really a case of reading ALL the historical facts.....The Lancaster didn't have any real teething-troubles, the Manchester did with the Vulture engines, a 'bolt-two-V-12's-to-one-crankcase' notion, that I may add Allison tried with it's 2000 hp X-3420 in the late 1930's....

[Lightning Guy]

Many nations tried to fit two engines to one crankshaft and it practically never worked. The He-177 is a good example.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

question, when did the B-29 withdraw from service??

[cheddar cheese]

If you had read Gemhorse's post you would have found out...

[plan_D]

We all know the B-29 was the best. And the B-17 Gunships were YB-40s. And the MiG-15s made B-29s obselete, but that's Korea...no place for it here.