Paradoxes (Things That Contradict Themselves) Of WWII

[GermansRGeniuses]

well yea but no plane can stay at top speed forever and actually 370mph is the absolute max with a moderate payload (moderate being 8k or less )

[the lancaster kicks ass]

well cheddar cheese, you could kill yourself, then tell them

[cheddar cheese]

not good enough

[cheddar cheese]

heres a paradox for you, the lanc made it up so if you think its crap blame him, but if you think its good give me the credit by all means :


German heavy bombers of world war 2

[the lancaster kicks ass]

ah! that's old news, that was before i know more about the HE-177, which was a german heavy bomber, but that's their only true heavy bomber.

[cheddar cheese]

[bronzewhaler82]

Originally Posted by GermansRGeniuses

well yea but no plane can stay at top speed forever and actually 370mph is the absolute max with a moderate payload (moderate being 8k or less )

If i were you mate i'd check your sources again, i've checked several of my own books and a couple of websites and none of them state the B-29 was capable of anything over 360 at the very maximum so i'm not sure where 370mph came from

Sometimes you have to take "Top Speed"s of fighters and bombers with a grain of salt. These speeds are at that particular aircraft's ideal altitude, that is, the plane will be slower at all other altitudes than the rated speed. The B29s principal advantage was its ability to fly fast at very high altitude when some Japanese fighters had already "run out of breath" so to speak.

Also, if you're talking about fighters intercepting bombers, a typical (or smart) fighter pilot won't "tail chase" a bomber formation going such-and-such mph and try to hammer them from behind, rather will attack at an angle, head on or primarily from above in a dive.

[kiwimac]

Head on being the preferred option because you stand a very good chance of getting the pilot or bombadier or navigator or, with luck, all three.

Tail chasing only gets you shot at by all the rear gunners.

Kiwimac

[ZLIN pilot]

Well, finally decided to get a membership...didn't want to be the smart-ass guest anymore...hehe.

The Germans did prefer the head-on attack against the American bombers, when they had time to organize it. Later they developed "sturmgruppen" tactics where a formation of 60 or so Fw 190s would attack head-on in a group, decimating the lead formations of American bombers. The first time they used this "en masse" tactic (April 44? Maybe earlier...) they shot down the entire lead low squadron (11, should've been 12 aircraft). Interesting to note that this tactic exposed them to fire from the bombardier and navigator (not top turret if the did it right) whose gunnery skills were often questionable (having taken no gunnery courses) compared to the trained gunners "further back" in the aircraft. Had they used this tactic earlier (and before effective escorts came about), it could have changed the course of American daylight bombing.

The Japanese attacked the B-17 formations in a vertical dive with their Zeros, coming in from above then pulling up towards the tail end of the formation to get their fragile planes out of range of the considerable number of 50 calibres that had their attention.

[bronzewhaler82]

Surely any text stating the Maximum speed of a bomber would make a reference to the absolute top speed a bomber was capable of - i'm convinced if a bomber was travelling at speeds that its engine wasn't designed for i.e over the recommended top speed (for example the official top speed for the B-29 WAS 358mph) its engines would over-heat and burnout within minutes (depending on altitude) and even if the B-29 could reach speeds in excess of 370mph (which i still don't believe) it would only be able to maintain such speeds for a very limited period of time (i'm talking only a few mins) which i'm sure most of you would agree is not much use against persistant Fighter attack

As a footnote i have seen alot of footage from cameras fixed to fighters (y'know the type that start filming when the pilot fires the guns) and 9/10 times the fighters are approching from the REAR - and in fact it is a well known FACT that the most dangerous place to be in a bomber was in the rear tailgunners position (Most bomber aircrew deaths were of tailgunners)

Also I would argue that although attacking from the front was very popular it was always a better bet to attack from below...maybe not on bombers such as B-24s B-17s and B-29s but on other bombers such as B-25s, Avro Lancasters, Vickers Wellingtons and Hanley Page Halifaxes this wouldn't have been a problem - bombers of that type were utterly defenceless from the underneath - the main idea of attacking fighters was to destroy the engines - not the crew

[bronzewhaler82]

I don't know why that decided to go bold halfway through but i appolagise

[the lancaster kicks ass]

it's a 'lil worrying that most of those bombers were brittish (the "undefendable from the bottom" ones)

[bronzewhaler82]

I don't think there was a british bomber designed during the war that had an effective underbelly defence position (The Hanley Page Hampden did but it wasn't very effective) - i don't know why but for some reason our designers just didn't bother

[GermansRGeniuses]

there was no space on the lanc because of the huge bomb bay which is why it could carry so much bombs and american bombers (excluding
B-29) had small bomb bays so this wasnt a problem