The most important battle of WW2

[NightHawk]

i still think it looks like, some baggers found some scraped planes and put them together,

[cheddar cheese]

Yeah, on closer inspection of the Horsa it isnt that bad really. And I wouldnt say "beautiful", the words "German/Lufwaffe/Nazi" and "beautiful" do not go together, I would say the 177 looked cool

[NightHawk]

The he-177 had 2 bomb compartments no ?

[cheddar cheese]

Im not sure about that, ill have to look it up

[the lancaster kicks ass]

it's hard to tell, from what i've found it had one "weapons bay" with a central partition, but there was also provision for a forwards bomb bay but it was very rarely used and often blanked off, there was also provision for underwing hard points..................

[MP-Willow]

CC -I wil try to lok up about the German planned ivasion of England, and maybe some others can as well and this topic can come back to its roots.
B-24 is a bit better to look at and the art o the nose makes up for the Lberator's looks!

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but the liberator was a brilliant looking plane anyway, the nose art only served to make it look even better.................

[MichaelHenley]

Like the Dragon and his Tail, hmm?
I think the most important battle would have been the Battle of Britain. At one stage during the Blitz, a single bomber went off course, dropping its bombs on civillian areas instead of the industrial area. Because of this, Curchill ordered bomb strikes on germany, freeing up fighter command and giving those pilots a chance to rest. If those pilots hadn't got a chance to rest, then morale amungst (don't know how to spell it) the pilots would have dropped abysmally.
If it wasn't for that single bomber...

[cheddar cheese]

What I find most intrguing about the BoB, was that on BoB day, a Dornier Do-17 detatched from its group and set off for buckingham palace. A Hurricane pilot noticed this, and set off in pursuit. He went to fire, but he was out of ammo. So he pulled around and used the wing of his Hurricane to chop the tail section of the Dornier off. The Dornier crew crashed to their doom, but the Hurricane pilot (I forget his name...Ray Charles or something like that I think) managed to bail out and survived thorough the war. He lives to this day, and recently they tried to locate the place where his Hurricane crashed. They cornered off a street in London and dug a huge hole, and they managed to recover the complete engine and lots of other small pieces, once of which included the stick and control panel.

[NightHawk]

I heared something like thet, but i heard he smashed his plane in to the Dornier.

[cheddar cheese]

He did...he used his wing to chop the tail section off...like I said...

[MP-Willow]

AS much as I like the B-24 Lanc it was only a bit more good looking then the Lanc and the Halifax. Yes the Nose art was just icing on the cake and made the war a little more tollerable.

As for the Collins Foudations B-24 "Dragon and It's Tail" is a nice paint job, but I like the ones from the war, and I have not asked about it. So.

Question any of you know of a B-24 that flew over 100 missions?

[evangilder]

There were at least 2 B-24s to fly 100+ missions in the 380th Bomb Group, 42-72799 "Male Call" and 42-100209 "Rough Knight". The 380th was part of the 5th AF in the Pacific. Not sure about European theater B-24s. Also check 42-40323 "Frenisi" <free and easy> from the 307th BG (Also Pacific). That one flew 104 missions before returning to the US for a war bond drive. It is rumored that Frenisi never lost a member of her crew.

[evangilder]

I don't know how you can say THIS nose looks good. UGH! It looks like an aberration. But the nose art is fantastic, I will give you that. It looked much better before they put those turrets in the nose.

[MichaelHenley]

I agree. I thought that the first version of the B-24 was completely different to those posted above. I think that the later versions were less aerodyanamic than those other ones too.