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Subject: Magic Mossies
Aussiegunneragain    7/11/2010 9:01:10 AM
There was a thread on here a few years ago put up by a fellow named Shooter, who was trying to make the argument that the Dehavilland Mosquito was a strategically insignificant aircraft which should never have been produced for the RAF, because it represented a waste of engines which could have better been used in Avro Lancasters. Shooter, an American, had a hobby of trying to diss any non-American type that had an excellent reputation (the Spitfire was another favourite target) and most people here told him he was being a clown with that being the end of it. However, the thread has stuck in the back of my mind and made me wonder whether in fact the Mossie, despite its widespread usage in a variety of roles, was in fact underutilised in the daylight strategic bombing role? It did perform some very important low level raids such as the daylight raid on the Phillips radio works (along with Ventura's and Bostons - far less Mossies were shot down)in Holland during Operation Oyster. However, I can't find many references to the Mossie being used for the sort of regular high altitude daylight strategic bombing missions that the B-17 and other USAF daylight heavies conducted. Consider its characteristics: -It could carry 4 x 500lb bombs all the way to Berlin which meant that you needed three mossies to carry a slightly larger warload than one B-17 did, which upon this basis meant more engine per lb of bomb in the Mossie. -However, the Mossie was hard to catch and was more survivable than the Heavies. The latter only really became viable with the addition of long-range escort fighters, something that the mossie could have done without. -It only required two crew versus ten on a B-17. Without intending to be critical of the USAF daylight heavies, because they were one of the strategically vital assets in winning WW2, I am wondering whether had the RAF used the Mossie in the role at the expense of night bombing operations in Lancasters? I have read accounts that suggest that the later were not really directly successful in shutting down German production, with the main contribution being that they forced the Germans to provide 24/7 air defence. If they had used Mossies more in the daylight precision role is it possible that the impact that the fighter-escorted USAF bombers had on German production might have been bought forward by a year or so, helping to end the War earlier? Another idea that I have is that if Reich fighter defences had started to get too tough for unescorted Merlin powered Mossies on strategic daylight missions, that they could have built the Griffon or Sabre powered versions that never happenned to keep the speed advantage over the FW-190? Up-engined Fighter versions of the Mossie would also have probably had sufficient performance to provide escort and fighter sweep duties in Germany in order to provide the bombers with even more protection. Thoughts? (PS, in case anybody hasn't worked it out the Mossie is my favourite military aircraft and my second favourite aircraft after the Supermarine S-6B ... so some bias might show through :-). I do think it has to rate as one of the best all round aircraft of all time based on its merits alone).
 
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45-Shooter       3/12/2013 6:42:25 PM

Note that the very first page has a statement from an old timer teacher, parraphrasing; "I never had one quit, or ice up in 25,000 hours."
and how many of those hours were used turbocharged engines on heavy bombers over europe at high altitudes?
talk about not getting it, I have said and repeat that the B17 engines were unreliable, the fact that in a civilian passenger plane they were reliable means nothing
But they were by any measure still twice to three times as reliable as the Merlins in the Lancaster! 291,000 sorties to 156,000 sorties in the same time fraim! 
 
Lots of neet stuff there, inc the TBO of 500 hours for the R-1820. Note that the Merlin never reached this level of performance. 
 
rearly? never reached 500 eh, maybe you should check what the engine life on a Lancastrian was
 OK, what was it? Nothing I have seen goes one way or the other, but in either case they were very gently used on the few they built! 91 including conversions of low time bombers.
and as 500 TBO was the norm for Fighter aircraft fitted with the merlin (except US P51 with water injection they dropped to 150 TBO)
This is not true at all. Most Spits with Merlins were lucky to see 150 hours beteen TBOs! Some used on Diver missions did not last to 25 hours! 
and the according to my source the B17 virtualy never had an engine last to TBO and often were in the teens What source?
No mater how you slice it B-17s flew 291,000 sorties in about the same number of Plane-days as the Lancaster managed to fly only 156,000!

 
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45-Shooter       3/12/2013 6:44:20 PM

Studebaker recommended teardowns ~ 450 hours.
Absolutely right!, But it was still three times as long as the recomended 150 hours that less than half of Lancasters actually flew thier merlins!


 
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45-Shooter       3/12/2013 6:49:47 PM

Ferry range is not effective combat radius, as measured by air hours.
But what it does mean is that there is X amount of gas still left to burn in the B-17's tanks when the Lancaster runs dry! And that amount of gas "X" is sufficient for a B-17 to fly 900 miles.
I still have not heard of any Lanc raid that flew with bombs to a range of 2,200 miles round trip air miles that the B-17 flew to Trondhiem and back. ( 912 Miles Great Circle distance!) In fact, I've neaver heard of any Lancaster Mission that flew 912 Air Miles each way.
But I am always eager to learn, if any of you know of such a mission, please post same for all to see.
 
 
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Maratabc       3/12/2013 6:50:00 PM
Old but not wise,
 
If I understand the argument,
 
A plane that carried one third the load, at a slower speed, with inferior bombing aids, into weaker defenses, with almost the equivalent number of losses per mission, that could bomb no better, and actually no higher with any accuracy, that exposed more crews to enemy action and delivered fewer bombs per sortie, is supposed to be the better plane than the Lancaster?
 
This despite the obvious great advances made in aircraft design between 1934 and 1937-1941 (Manchester that evolves into the Lancaster) and the demonstrated greater adaptability of the Lancaster to meet changing conditions?
 
I see that the Lancaster and Flying Fortress are essentially similar sized, but the Lancaster is a bit heavier, carried easily twice the bomb-load and traveled farther with that bomb load (hours in the air. Fuel consumption matters). 
 
So I can see the plane's differences, the Lancaster opted to cancel the three mpre tonnes of guns, gunners  and ammunition the Flying Fortress carries, and carry fuel and bombs instead.  The B-17 could not eliminate the additional gunners as the plane needed them for daylight defense.
 
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45-Shooter       3/12/2013 8:59:56 PM

A plane that carried one third the load, True, more or less. at a slower speed, Not really! with inferior bombing aids, a wash? into weaker defenses, This is the big lie! Night bombing is much less dangerous that daylight raids! with almost the equivalent number of losses per mission, Again not really. that could bomb no better, and actually no higher with any accuracy, It was the RAF that stated that less than half the bombs they dropped landed inside the city limits! that exposed more crews to enemy action True! and delivered fewer bombs per sortie, True! is supposed to be the better plane than the Lancaster? Absolutely! RAF-BC crew KIA >55,000, USAAF bomber crews lost to enemy action < 30,000!

This despite the obvious great advances made in aircraft design between 1934 and 1937-1941 (Manchester that evolves into the Lancaster) and the demonstrated greater adaptability of the Lancaster to meet changing conditions? And in the same time, the B-17A/B/C/D TURNED into the B-17 E/F/G which was in most ways a completely different plane than the early versions!

I see that the Lancaster and Flying Fortress are essentially similar sized, Almost true! The -17 is slightly wider span and aspect ratio and a better EEW to MTO Ratio, better armor and weapons, strength, more reliable engines and much better stability. but the Lancaster is a bit heavier, carried easily twice the bomb-load Not really! The only reason that the Lanc "Averaged" more bombs per mission is because of Tactical/strategic choises that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the plane's ability to lift a load! and traveled farther with that bomb load (hours in the air. Fuel consumption matters). Yes it does1 there is not that much differance in SFC at cruising speeds, IE both planes use about the same amount of fuel per hour at the same speeds. loads and altitudes! But then the B-17 carries much more fuel and can stay in the air about a third more hours than the Lancaster.

So I can see the plane's differences, the Lancaster opted to cancel the three mpre tonnes of guns, gunners  and ammunition the Flying Fortress carries, and carry fuel and bombs instead. Except that the Lancaster carried much LESS fuel. The B-17 could not eliminate the additional gunners as the plane needed them for daylight defense. Yes, this is also true! BUT, the Lancaster did not carry that armor and was very much more dangerous to fly in and it showed in spite  of the Lancs prederliction for night missions!

So, except for the minor and major defects above, you got it right?

 
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oldbutnotwise       3/13/2013 3:54:18 AM
A plane that carried one third the load, True, more or less.
its the LESS bit for certain
at a slower speed, Not really!
No its it a slower speed
with inferior bombing aids, a wash?
Completely true until late war when the US satrted to install Bitish blind bombing equipment and vastly increased thier accuracy
into weaker defenses, This is the big lie! Night bombing is much less dangerous that daylight raids!
Nope its true, the majori of USAAF raids were to lightly defensed targets, those that whent to the hot zones suffered far greater casulties than was the norm
 
with almost the equivalent number of losses per mission, Again not really.
again you are right and shooter wrong
that could bomb no better, and actually no higher with any accuracy, It was the RAF that stated that less than half the bombs they dropped landed inside the city limits!
Both the USAAF and RAF post war surveys agree that agaisnt the SAME target the RAF night bombing by 44 was as accurate as the USAAF
 
that exposed more crews to enemy action True! and delivered fewer bombs per sortie, True! is supposed to be the better plane than the Lancaster? Absolutely!
only in Stuarts mind, and dont forget the major reason why the B17 is better, its a US plane and the Lanc is GB so that has to make the B17 better
 
RAF-BC crew KIA >55,000, USAAF bomber crews lost to enemy action < 30,000!
figure already disproved
This despite the obvious great advances made in aircraft design between 1934 and 1937-1941 (Manchester that evolves into the Lancaster) and the demonstrated greater adaptability of the Lancaster to meet changing conditions? And in the same time, the B-17A/B/C/D TURNED into the B-17 E/F/G which was in most ways a completely different plane than the early versions!
firstly most of the changes to the A/B/C/D were instigated from the combat use of the B17 by the RAF
secondly we are only considering the F/G anyway.
I see that the Lancaster and Flying Fortress are essentially similar sized, Almost true! The -17 is slightly wider span and aspect ratio and a better EEW to MTO Ratio, better armor and weapons, strength, more reliable engines and much better stability.
well some of that is right, but the Lancaster was not less stable it certainly had more reliable engines that those horrible Cyclones and as the PRIMARY weapon of a Bomber is its BOMBS then the Lanc had superior weapony
 
 but the Lancaster is a bit heavier, carried easily twice the bomb-load Not really!
shooter is correct it was actually 3 times the bomb load not twice
 
 The only reason that the Lanc "Averaged" more bombs per mission is because of Tactical/strategic choises that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the plane's ability to lift a load!
It has EVERYTHING to do with the load the B17 could not carry > 9600lbs without hanging them off the wings something that slashed its range and performance, it could only carry 2000-3000lbs to berlin untill the toyko tanks were introduced and then that was increased to 4000-5000lbs and thats to a target the lanc was carrying 14000lbs to.
the often quoted 17500lbs number is a red herring as that was a paper figure and not something actualy achieved. the bottom line is that the B17 boybay was small very small, even the B24 had twice the capacity of a B17
 

 
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oldbutnotwise       3/13/2013 3:58:43 AM
cont
 
and traveled farther with that bomb load (hours in the air. Fuel consumption matters). Yes it does1 there is not that much differance in SFC at cruising speeds, IE both planes use about the same amount of fuel per hour at the same speeds. loads and altitudes! But then the B-17 carries much more fuel and can stay in the air about a third more hours than the Lancaster.
only if you have both sides of the bomb bay filled with fuel cells which makes it rather pointless as a bomber doesnt it? you get the range but noting to drop when  you get there!
the Lancaster with 14000lbs had a greater range than the B17 did with 4000lbs but because shooter found a site that quoted 3400 miles as the range for a B17 he will keep throwing that figure up as the B17 range when , if he had read and UNDERSTOOD the article he would have seen that its was a FERRY range

So I can see the plane's differences, the Lancaster opted to cancel the three mpre tonnes of guns, gunners  and ammunition the Flying Fortress carries, and carry fuel and bombs instead. Except that the Lancaster carried much LESS fuel.
how did the lancaster carry less fuel to attack the same target with a bigger bombload, oh unless the lancaster USED less fuel - I hadnt thought of that, have you any evidence of that?
 
The B-17 could not eliminate the additional gunners as the plane needed them for daylight defense. Yes, this is also true! BUT, the Lancaster did not carry that armor and was very much more dangerous to fly in and it showed in spite  of the Lancs prederliction for night missions!
oh and the fact that they used the Lancs against the heaviest defended targets consistantly whilst only sending the B17 agasinst them occasionally (due to the losses the B17 suffered when they did 20-30% agaisnt tthe BC 3-5%)

So, except for the minor and major defects above, you got it right?
so between the original post and shooters reply we can see that you were correct and shooter is wrong
 
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oldbutnotwise       3/13/2013 4:26:06 AM
no it doesn't as clearly shown the USAAF had twice the number of bombers so would only need a similar  availability rate to achieve the 2:1nOT AT ALL, THEY DID NOT HAVE "tWICE AS MANY PLANES" ONLY ABOUT 80% MORE. D,BOTBBTCLMA! what the F.... is that supposed to mean (oh and your figures are wrong its closer 110%

  This is a clearly flawed argument! While the number of plane-days coresponds to the bomb tonnage in at least nice round numbers, IE there are the same number of plane-days per ton of bombs dropped for both forces, but in order to do that, the B-17s had to fly twice as many missions per plane-day as the Lancasters.
 
when you get an irrelavent numbe worked out you wont let go will you
 
so you now admit that a B17 had to fly 4 missions to match 1 mission of the Lancaster does not imply that the B17 was better just more numerous
No, we know for a fact that the B-17 flew ~291,000 sorties. We also know that the Lancaster flew about 156,000 missions. So if we devide 608,000 tons by 156,000 sorties we get just under 8,000 pounds per trip.
but we already know that this is 2500lbs short of the actual number (say roughly 25% low)
 
Then if we devide the 640Kt by the 291,000 missions, you get about 4,400 pounds per trip.
and this is 2500lbs HIGHER than the actual number (say 50% High)
 The RAF-BC lost just over 55,000 crew Killed in Action. The USAAF lost just under 50,000 including fighter and transport pilots.
say 55000 Bomber crews and Fighter escort pilots which is a more accurate figure 
So the B-17 flew less than twice as many missions in less than 10% more bomber-days!
an irrelavent figure
 
That is that there were so many planes availible on so many days and those numbers are less than 10% apart. Because heavy bombers can not fly more than one mission per day, AND the fact that there was LESS than 10% MORE Bomber Days availible to the B-17, It had to be roughly 70% more reliable!
 
no its doesnt as your figure fails to take into consideration battle damage, crew fatigue and numeous other figures.
 
 Since niether plane could fly in bad weather, that is a wash.
but it effects the be all figure your spouting
 and as you had suffcient crews to rest one whilst flying the aircraft with the other that allows foe increased sorties, as does short ranged attacks that keep the engine hours down, but of course you have your opinion and mear facts will not effect thatI have addressed those conserns. There is no significant differance in the total miles flown per mission between the RAF and the USAAF! None!
total and absolute rubbish a cursory glance at the mission profiles shows that this is totaly wrong
 
The fact that the B-17 had to fly 291,000 missions mean that the engines had more hours running, more start up and stop cycles, more tempurature cycles into colder stratispheric air and twice as many hours to get damaged by enemy fire! Yet they still flew 291K Missions to 156 K Missions! In only 10% more plane days!
 
yet more rubbish

291,000 sorties vs 156,000 sorties. 640,000 tons to 608,000 tons. Almost the same number of Plane days. One of these two records is for a plane that was very reliable and the other that was marginal at best!
 
firstly you are using short vs long again
then we have this big difference in the figures for the lancaster, an AVERAGE bombload of 10500lbs and 156000 sorties gives 819000 tons not your 608000 whilst your B17 average of 2500lbs and 291000 gives 364000 tons
 
wow just how bad is the B17
 
 
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oldbutnotwise       3/13/2013 4:37:41 AM

Ferry range is not effective combat radius, as measured by air hours.
But what it does mean is that there is X amount of gas still left to burn in the B-17's tanks when the Lancaster runs dry! And that amount of gas "X" is sufficient for a B-17 to fly 900 miles.
I still have not heard of any Lanc raid that flew with bombs to a range of 2,200 miles round trip air miles that the B-17 flew to Trondhiem and back. ( 912 Miles Great Circle distance!) In fact, I've neaver heard of any Lancaster Mission that flew 912 Air Miles each way.
But I am always eager to learn, if any of you know of such a mission, please post same for all to see.
 

well how about the the raids on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troms%C3%B8"> Tromsø or maybe the earlier raid tirpitz raid fu rther north?
oh and I love they way you add an extra 300 miles to your raid?
 
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oldbutnotwise       3/13/2013 4:41:43 AM

Studebaker recommended teardowns ~ 450 hours.
Absolutely right!, But it was still three times as long as the recomended 150 hours that less than half of Lancasters actually flew thier merlins!

you been getting info from the sky pixie again shooter?
 
150 hours the recomended overhaul time for P51 water injected FIGHTER engines engines that were NEVER used in Lancasters, or Diver patrol engines, engines run at 130% recomended output oh what a supprise the overhaul time comes down!
 
 
 
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