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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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oldbutnotwise       1/29/2013 4:12:52 PM
I would still ask for answers to the following questions;
1. If you were in charge of German Air Deffenses with just the assets they had to defend the Homeland and you had to allocate the fighters between HIGH PERFORMANCE Daytime types and much lower performance Night Fighters, How would you deploy them against the following three target sets?
Presigion Day bombers, the Heavy night time bombers with 7-14 thousand pounds up, or the light Mossy with 2000 pounds up?
 
 but we are changing the situation, instead of 700 heavies on a night raid you have 2000 mossies then your priorities change
 
2. IF the Brits had chosen to switch from Lancs and other heavies to an ALL Mossy fleet, do you think the Germans would have adjusted their Night Fighter force to planes with the performance to catch and shoot them down?
 
how? the only night fighter witht the speed were the Heinkel He 219  or the me262 (which was fast but the jet engine gave it away) the 219 was unreliable and difficult to make and the 262 was its own worse eniemy with its self destructing engines, germany would have needed to develope a better night fighter especially as thier would have been a sizable force of mossie night figher to contend with
 
3. On the other hand, if the Brits had made the other choice to drop the mossy and concentrate on just Lancs, how much of a difference could the Germans make by altering their force allocation?
 
very little, the mossie was a pain to the germans but one they had little success in countering however the raf would have suffered as the mossie was big success in the pathfinding role.
 
to throw it back at you, if the USAAF had moved to night bombing in 43 when night bombing was as accurate as day, what would the germans have done, continue building day fighters that were pretyy useless or more expensive complex and resource heavy night fighters?

 
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Belisarius1234       1/29/2013 4:13:38 PM
With jet powered aircraft OBNW, (Canberras)
 
Mossies would not be able to handle bomb drift, nor could they formation bomb to bomb-walk. That was what the B-17 was modified to do. You need to come down to 1500-3000 meters to replicate with a Mosquito stream. That is SUICIDE.
 
B.
 
 
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45-Shooter       1/30/2013 5:36:46 PM



F>

 

Stuart?

 

The British did their part.

 

B.

 

 

 

I would say it was about the same experiance everywhere? Things started out slow and got better later on, like all things do. The rub is in the realitive rates at which things change.

 
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45-Shooter       1/30/2013 6:10:31 PM

so daylight bombing was using bombers as bait? in that case what they were dropping would be faily irrelavent
  No, not at all. If what they attacked was not vital, it could be religated to a less significant deffense priority. That is all. The Germans never put the same amount of effort into night fighters as they did into deffending against the day time raids. Did they?2. If only one half of the total operational mission is used then the night side mission quickly fails because it is the day light portion of the mission spectrom that is the driving force that the Germans MUST deffend with most of their scarce resources.
but if the night bombing was doing as much damage as it was doing then it is either going to continue or you have to react and night fighter tended to be bigger twin engined aircraft which require MORE resource than a single engined day fighter
-But the night bomber was not doing any significant damage until much later in the war and by the time of the first 1,000 plane raid, it was then too late.
3. The Mossy is a very neet AC, but it is also a one trick pony as it were. If the other parts of the combined mission are missing, IE both day and night bombing by HEAVY BOMBERS,but the B17 could only carry a slightly bigger bomb load than a Mossie This is so much drivvle. Let us see; the B-17 could over much shorter ranges carry 17,600 pounds of bombs to the Mossies 4000. but not all Mossies only the last few thousand. They built over 8,000 -17s that could tote that load. But then there is the longer ranged missions that required "Tokyo tanks" that no Mossy could bomb at all. so other than beeing a bigger target and therefore more attractive to the german attackers so using  mossies during the day would have little loss of bomb load and would have resulted in far
fewer losses High altitude Mossies were targets for the newest German interceptors
  Just because it is hard to catch in the presence of other more valuable targets, does not grant that same immunity alone.the problem is that if you have 100mph over the bomber only in level flight, 
  Do you have any sort of proof that the Mossy could out run, or climb any of said planes?
Specifications (Fw 190 D-9) Performance Maximum speed...: 685 km/h (426 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft), 710 km/h (440 mph) at 37,000 ft (11,000 m)Service ceiling...:12,000 m (39,370 ft) with out NO2 injection, 13,200 m (43,310 ft) with. Rate of climb...: 17 m/s (3,300 ft/min

also thier is always the possibility of a griffon engined version
Does the griffon engined variand have the expectation of out running the Me-262, or Ta-152? 
4. With out the speed, maneuverability, OR deffencive guns, it is easy prey for most single engine fighters
easy answer, only have 1 bomber nosed mossie per flight of 4  How does this help the other three when it's the Fighter nosed variant with the Ta-152H on it's tail? AND his five friends are waiting in line to hose the other three?
5. Lastly AAA is inversely effective as the square of the altitude. The higher you fly, the less effective it is. So a plane at 20K' is four times easier to hit than one at 28,280'.
but as at 28000k you cannot hit anything
  Since B-17 attacks from as high as 30,000' in clear weather were many times as effective as OBOE from any altitude and the same as a Mossy with it over cloud?

take the Mossy out of the picture IF it is the only tool
but noone is saying ONLY tool just as ther MAIN tool, replacing the heavies with fast smaller bombers isnt a strange idea as it is basically what happened in the real world
  But that is not what happened in the real world, is it? The B-57 Canberra did not replace the B-47 even after miniature A-Bombs were made. They replaced both with the B-52, or went without.

You problem is that you are using faulty logic in your assumptions and deductions too!

 
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45-Shooter       1/30/2013 6:19:04 PM


I would still ask for answers to the following questions;
1. If you were in charge of German Air Deffenses with just the assets they had to defend the Homeland and you had to allocate the fighters between HIGH PERFORMANCE Daytime types and much lower performance Night Fighters, How would you deploy them against the following three target sets?

Presigion Day bombers, the Heavy night time bombers with 7-14 thousand pounds up, or the light Mossy with 2000 pounds up?

 

 but we are changing the situation, instead of 700 heavies on a night raid you have 2000 mossies then your priorities change
The Mossy was not that easy to make. the airfraim was quite hard to make and the only turned out ~7500, IIRC, in the entire production run, inc post war. So if they were able to make a few more Lancs than mossies, it is not likely they would be able to do that, but if they had done that, replaced Lancs with Mossies, then the fighers are even easier to ramp up and sooner too.
 
 

2. IF the Brits had chosen to switch from Lancs and other heavies to an ALL Mossy fleet, do you think the Germans would have adjusted their Night Fighter force to planes with the performance to catch and shoot them down?

 


how? the only night fighter with the speed were the

Heinkel He 219 

or the me262 (which was fast but the jet engine gave it away) the 219 was unreliable and difficult to make and the 262 was its own worse eniemy with its self destructing engines, germany would have needed to develope a better night fighter especially as thier would have been a sizable force of mossie night figher to contend with
  Since it is easier to make the He-219 than the Mossy, how does this help. What about the Ju-388N? What about the Ta-152? Fw-190D9? The Do-335, there is one for the books by the way. Ect...

 

3. On the other hand, if the Brits had made the other choice to drop the mossy and concentrate on just Lancs, how much of a difference could the Germans make by altering their force allocation?

 


very little, the mossie was a pain to the germans but one they had little success in countering however the raf would have suffered as the mossie was big success in the pathfinding role.
Given extended range fighter escort late in the war, why not shif the Lancs over to daylight bombing? 



to throw it back at you, if the USAAF had moved to night bombing in 43 when night bombing was as accurate as day, what would the germans have done, continue building day fighters that were pretyy useless or more expensive complex and resource heavy night fighters?
  Certainly, but you still build some day fighters too.







 
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Belisarius1234    Same BS from Shooter   1/31/2013 1:16:54 AM
What makes you think the B-17 can carry 17,000 pounds of bombs operationally?
 
Freeman, Roger A. The Mighty Eighth. London: Cassell & Co., 2000.
 
P 153. 4 tons.
 
B.
 
 
 
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oldbutnotwise       1/31/2013 3:14:56 AM
so daylight bombing was using bombers as bait? in that case what they were dropping would be faily irrelavent
  No, not at all. If what they attacked was not vital, it could be religated to a less significant deffense priority. That is all. The Germans never put the same amount of effort into night fighters as they did into deffending against the day time raids. Did they?2.
 yet they were attacking the Ruir the most importanant miltary target in gemany!
 
If only one half of the total operational mission is used then the night side mission quickly fails because it is the day light portion of the mission spectrom that is the driving force that the Germans MUST deffend with most of their scarce resources. but if the night bombing was doing as much damage as it was doing then it is either going to continue or you have to react and night fighter tended to be bigger twin engined aircraft which require MORE resource than a single engined day fighter -But the night bomber was not doing any significant damage until much later in the war and by the time of the first 1,000 plane raid, it was then too late
 
the first 1000 plane raid was May 1942 the month before the first US operateded B17 arrived in europe, by late 43 the RAF was achieving accuracy that equaled and often exceeded that being achieved in daylight raids
 
 Let us see; the B-17 could over much shorter ranges carry 17,600 pounds of bombs to the Mossies 4000.
 
so you take a therotical B17 load (one never carried) against actual Mossie load! how dishonest can you get!
The B17 NEVER carried more than 9000lbs and then this was only on short ranged missions, Berlin loads were 3000-4000lbs and yet the Mossie also carried 4000bs to berlin
 
 
 but not all Mossies only the last few thousand. They built over 8,000 -17s that could tote that load.
no actually you are wrong even in this, to carry more than 8000lbs you needed the wing racks something not fitted to the majority of B17 (IIRC only 100 of ETO B17 had the fitting for wing racks and these were seldom used
 
 But then there is the longer ranged missions that required "Tokyo tanks" that no Mossy could bomb at all.
tokyo tanks were fitted to replace the bomb bay tanks in late model B17 and only matched the range of the bombbay tanks (fitting both tokyo and bombbay did increase the range, but so did the drop tanks fitted to mossies, in fact can you show ONE ETO raid by B17 that wasnt also attacked by Mossies?
 
 so other than beeing a bigger target and therefore more attractive to the german attackers so using  mossies during the day would have little loss of bomb load and would have resulted in far fewer losses High altitude Mossies were targets for the newest German interceptors Just because it is hard to catch in the presence of other more valuable targets, does not grant that same immunity alone.the problem is that if you have 100mph over the bomber only in level flight,   Do you have any sort of proof that the Mossy could out run, or climb any of said planes
 
Have you any evidence that they were consistantly intercepted? its your arguement afterall,  
 
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oldbutnotwise       1/31/2013 3:24:51 AM
also thier is always the possibility of a griffon engined version
Does the griffon engined variand have the expectation of out running the Me-262, or Ta-152? 
ta 152? possibly especially if also fitted with peformance enhancers like the TA, the 262 no but then again what was, it was however more likely to survive than a B17
4. With out the speed, maneuverability, OR deffencive guns, it is easy prey for most single engine fighters
easy answer, only have 1 bomber nosed mossie per flight of 4  How does this help the other three when it's the Fighter nosed variant with the Ta-152H on it's tail? AND his five friends are waiting in line to hose the other three?
 
sorry but what makes you think that you will get 5 ta 152  to a flight of 4 mossies? and as the TA will be climbing to intercept they will be visible and action can be taken , but of course in your world the RAF cannot do anything they will be forced to wait for the attack
 
5. Lastly AAA is inversely effective as the square of the altitude. The higher you fly, the less effective it is. So a plane at 20K' is four times easier to hit than one at 28,280'.
but as at 28000k you cannot hit anything
  Since B-17 attacks from as high as 30,000' in clear weather were many times as effective as OBOE from any altitude and the same as a Mossy with it over cloud?
 
rubbish, the USAAF stoped bombing from 28000 feet as it couldnt even hit the city it was aiming at, it is documented that OBOE was MORE effective than visual aiming FFS even H2S was more effective (which is why the US adopted it)
take the Mossy out of the picture IF it is the only tool
but noone is saying ONLY tool just as ther MAIN tool, replacing the heavies with fast smaller bombers isnt a strange idea as it is basically what happened in the real world
  But that is not what happened in the real world, is it? The B-57 Canberra did not replace the B-47 even after miniature A-Bombs were made. They replaced both with the B-52, or went without.
 
so US doctrin is to send B52 into congested airspace? even in Veitnam they restricted B52 ops, deep strikes were done by aircraft like the Thud,
 
 

You problem is that you are using faulty logic in your assumptions and deductions too!
 
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oldbutnotwise       1/31/2013 3:44:10 AM
 

but we are changing the situation, instead of 700 heavies on a night raid you have 2000 mossies then your priorities change
The Mossy was not that easy to make. the airfraim was quite hard to make and the only turned out ~7500, IIRC, in the entire production run, inc post war. So if they were able to make a few more Lancs than mossies, it is not likely they would be able to do that, but if they had done that, replaced Lancs with Mossies, then the fighers are even easier to ramp up and sooner too.
 
the mossie was realatively easy to make as it was baiscally glued together in a mold and didnt require the thousands of individual rivets of a conventional airframe, it also took less skilled labour to build, but how do you ramp up production of German fighters? if it was possible why didnt the gemans actual do it? its not as if hey could trade off production of 4 engined heavies is it!

how? the only night fighter with the speed were the

Heinkel He 219

or the me262 (which was fast but the jet engine gave it away) the 219 was unreliable and difficult to make and the 262 was its own worse eniemy with its self destructing engines, germany would have needed to develope a better night fighter especially as thier would have been a sizable force of mossie night figher to contend with
  Since it is easier to make the He-219 than the Mossy, how does this help. What about the Ju-388N?
 
August 44 is a bit late dont you think? yes it had the performance but it was difficult to produce and only a few were made
 
 What about the Ta-152? Fw-190D9?
both single seaters and as such terrible nightfighters, had you said a FW190S then you might be closer 
 
The Do-335, there is one for the books by the way. Ect...

oh yes the Do335 (A5 and A6) again a bit late entering service, famous for rear engines problems (often resulting in airctaft losses)

3. On the other hand, if the Brits had made the other choice to drop the mossy and concentrate on just Lancs, how much of a difference could the Germans make by altering their force allocation?

 Given extended range fighter escort late in the war, why not shif the Lancs over to daylight bombing?
What you meanlike the did?

to throw it back at you, if the USAAF had moved to night bombing in 43 when night bombing was as accurate as day, what would the germans have done, continue building day fighters that were pretyy useless or more expensive complex and resource heavy night fighters?
  Certainly, but you still build some day fighters too.
 
true but far fewer especially as you wouldnt lose as many, and you can use them on the fronts rather than hoem defence (looks like the Day bombers were effective as bait)
 
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Belisarius1234    How the Mosquito was actually used...   1/31/2013 9:36:01 AM
.... as a bomber when not used as a Pathfinder,
 
 
 
 
The significant thing I noticed was that the RAF played exactly to the plane's strengths... used as intended and designed.
 
They came in daylight; LOW, fast, (from over the sea to minimize time over land) in very thick air where they could pop up (radar, in case you couldn't understand the reason, Stuart.) and were difficult to spot and track and intercept in time. Bomb release was, as I expected between 1500 and 3000 feet. Attacks were made in squadron strength on point targets. SMART.    
 
One thing about manufacture. Semiskilled labor can rivet a Lancaster together in three days. A Mosquito takes TWO WEEKS to glue together. Same grief I have with the Sherman tank, I have with the Mosquito. If you didn't cure it properly in the mold (glue)? Ruined effort. High reject rate.  
 
So, add another bottleneck, How many MOLDS (jigs) do you have? How many ovens (the glue was radio-cured to speed dry time up) do you have?  
 
Possible to make 15,000? Maybe. I think de Havilland cranked out as many as they could. A LOT of them flew with manufactured defects. Didn't seem to hurt their effectiveness too much. 
 
B.
 
 
 
 
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