# The best 2-engined bomber in 1944-45?



## tomo pauk (Mar 31, 2012)

Out of many workhorses, what 2-engined bomber might be reckoned as the best for time frame between Jan 1944 to VE day? I'm looking at the best complete package (payload over distance, performance with bomb load, reasonable ability to survive vs. fighters AAA, ability to attack different targets, etc), being in combat service (no prototypes, or pre-series types).
Note that I did not state light/medium/heavy/attack bomber type, since different countries have had different nomenclatures. Instead of that: a twin-engined bomber to rule them all


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## davebender (Mar 31, 2012)

> best complete package (payload over distance, performance with bomb load, reasonable ability to survive vs. fighters AAA, ability to attack different targets, etc),


Me-410 has the best bombing accuracy (it could dive bomb). Good armor protection vs AA fire, range and survivability vs enemy fighter aircraft.

Mosquito carried a heavier bomb load but less armor protection. Like the Me-410 it had excellent range and survivability vs enemy aircraft.

A-26 was more of a traditional medium bomber but it was a good one. The USAAC finally realized that speed was more important then multiple defensive gun turrets.


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## wuzak (Mar 31, 2012)

Mosquito without a doubt.


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## pbfoot (Mar 31, 2012)

A26 Invader without a doubt still flying combat missions in the 70`s which certainly surpasses Mosquito


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## jim (Mar 31, 2012)

Me 410 was very good light bomber , so was P1Y Ginga 
A26 invader was good and proved valuable in Korea and Vietnam but always had the benefit of total air superiority provided by the huge numbers of american fighters
My best proposal would be Ki-67 Peggy . Only on two 1900 ps engines, provided good passive protection, heavy and well distributed defensive armament, exceptional manouverability, easy handling,good range , good speed and 6/8 man crew( an exxageration in my opinion). a good basis for upgraded engines and equipment. And one of the most beautiful aircraft of the era . On the other hand the internal bomb load of 1000kgr indicates a small internal bomb bay and lack of 2 stage superchargers limited altitude performance. I would rated it slightly higher than -the excellent- A 26


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## Thorlifter (Mar 31, 2012)

Wouldn't complete air superiority make just about any plane better than it really is? 

I'll side with the A-26 for reasons already stated.


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## woljags (Mar 31, 2012)

Mosquito


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## davebender (Mar 31, 2012)

Why does this matter? Pathfinder aircraft are the only light/medium bombers that have any business above 20,000 feet.


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## Siegfried (Mar 31, 2012)

The Arado 234B, clearly the fastest bomber in service. It had plenty of growth left in it, the Arado 234C with quad engines could push the aircraft well into the 500mph range and a swept or rather crescent wing version was under construction.

The days of the slow level bomber was over; they were probably only months away from being bisected by the first surface to air missiles or slashed by radar assisted computing gun sights firing from fighters able to aim and attack accuratly from any direction and fire from out of the range of defensive guns. Even radar direted tail guns (such as village in) would be of little use against a fighter capable of blind fire at much greater distances and perhaps using unguided proximity fused missiles such as the Rheinmetall-Borsig R100 (about 25 were fired.)

The Arado 234 could aim its bombs by a number of electronic means (Zyklops a beam riding system and also EG-ON a transponder based system) which was the only way to be accurate way to aim; well ahead of H2S or optical (in all but the clearest days). The Arado 234B could also aim its bombs via the Lotfe 7 level bombing sight linked to the autopilot and the Stuvi 5B slide/dive bombing sight with BZA computer. The Ar 234C added a second crew member as well as much more speed and thrust.


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## pbfoot (Mar 31, 2012)

Only months away was a lifetime in the crumbling Reich and all their fantasy weapons would end up being for naught and your talking about the 4 engine version which is not part of the discussion. The reich was a none factor


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## jim (Mar 31, 2012)

Mr Siegfried 
Obviusly jets provided unmatched performance but i feel ,even german jets, belong to the post war era. Additionaly Arado 234 without an internal bomb bay and given its range/bombload combinations seems more like an attack aircraft than a medium bomber
Speaking of Arado 234 .... I read somewhere that the C version was faster even than Me 262A , Do you agree? Eric Brown loved that bird


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## wuzak (Mar 31, 2012)

davebender said:


> Why does this matter? Pathfinder aircraft are the only light/medium bombers that have any business above 20,000 feet.



Below 20,000ft surely brings the bombers well within flak range?

And if bombing from 20-30,000ft was good for the 4 engines heavies, what is wrong with the twins bombing from up there also?

Surely you either want to be up there or just above ground level?


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## wuzak (Mar 31, 2012)

pbfoot said:


> A26 Invader without a doubt still flying combat missions in the 70`s which certainly surpasses Mosquito



It wasn't flying combat missions continuously in that period. And it wasn't operating as a bomber so much as ground attack/coin aircraft.

It only flew in Vietnam because the USAF discovered that they had failed to field an appropriate aircraft for the role. So the A-26 filled in.


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## davebender (Mar 31, 2012)

A price that must be paid if you want to hit the target with iron bombs. That's why the Me-410 and Ju-88 could dive bomb.


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## wuzak (Mar 31, 2012)

davebender said:


> A price that must be paid if you want to hit the target with iron bombs. That's why the Me-410 and Ju-88 could dive bomb.



If you want to hit the target then you could bomb from low level.

Unless you were using bombs that needed to penetrate - in which case you need height (and a bomb specifically designed for the task).


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## davebender (Mar 31, 2012)

23 Sep 1941. 
Hans Rudel approached Kronstadt harbor @ 9,000 feet in a Ju-87 dive bomber. He released his 1,000kg bomb @ 900 feet and leveled out @ 12 feet above the ocean. His 1,000kg bomb detonated in the forward magazine of the battleship Marat which broke in half and sank.

Based on the historical evidence I think 9,000 feet provides plenty of penetration.


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## pbfoot (Mar 31, 2012)

wuzak said:


> It wasn't flying combat missions continuously in that period. And it wasn't operating as a bomber so much as ground attack/coin aircraft.
> 
> It only flew in Vietnam because the USAF discovered that they had failed to field an appropriate aircraft for the role. So the A-26 filled in.


But it did fly missions 11000+ , and as for Viet Nam there was always the Skyraider but I'd take the A26 over any Mosquito a far better aircraft with a better engine that once again is still in use today which cannot be said of the Merlin


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## tyrodtom (Mar 31, 2012)

I was at Nakhon Phanom, RTAFB in the late 60's, we had both A1's and A-26's, ( though they were back to calling them a B-26 then) We supported pilot recovery missions, and bombed the trucks on the Ho Chi Minh trail at night. They seemed to prefer the A-26 for night missions, or they didn't think they could survive a day mission. The only A-26s up during daylight hours was just doing maintenance check flights. 
The A1's flew night or day, the A-26's night only in 67-68 at that base.


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## tyrodtom (Mar 31, 2012)

davebender said:


> 23 Sep 1941.
> Hans Rudel approached Kronstadt harbor @ 9,000 feet in a Ju-87 dive bomber. He released his 1,000kg bomb @ 900 feet and leveled out @ 12 feet above the ocean. His 1,000kg bomb detonated in the forward magazine of the battleship Marat which broke in half and sank.
> 
> Based on the historical evidence I think 9,000 feet provides plenty of penetration.


 That 8000 feet plus that he held on to the bomb added no velocity to the bombs fall, any bomb will fall faster than a aircraft, unless it's retarded with a parachute or retarding fins. He held on to it down to 900 for accuracy only.


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## GregP (Mar 31, 2012)

Douglas A-26 all the way for me, though I really like some of the Japanese twins like th Peggy.


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## riacrato (Apr 1, 2012)

Mosquito for me.


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## A4K (Apr 1, 2012)

Mosquito for me too.


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## woljags (Apr 1, 2012)

don't really see the relevance between the fact that the A26 was better because in was still used by the american's in the 60's it was a stop gap as they found it was all they had for the role it was used for,the Mosquito was British and had been replaced by the Canberra of which the USA switched to building under-licence later


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## Siegfried (Apr 1, 2012)

jim said:


> Mr Siegfried
> Obviously jets provided unmatched performance but i feel ,even german jets, belong to the post war era. Additionaly Arado 234 without an internal bomb bay and given its range/bombload combinations seems more like an attack aircraft than a medium bomber
> Speaking of Arado 234 .... I read somewhere that the C version was faster even than Me 262A , Do you agree? Eric Brown loved that bird



Certainly the Ar 234 was a small aircraft. While it didn't have a bomb bay its centreline bombs were semi-recessed. The Arado 234C replaced the single Jumo 004 engines with a twin pack of BMW 003 engines pending the availability of more powerful individual engines such as the HeS 011, Jumo 004D or BMW 801D.

The Ar 234B belongs in the discussion. It is a 1944-45 aircraft and AFAIKT was in service from about the same time period as the A-26. As far as the Ar 234C speed goes: yes at low altitude it was probably faster than the Me 262. The Ar 234C was so powerful it could drive itself into Mach limit in level flight.

Aircraft such as the A-26, B-29 and B-36 look like technical triumphs. However their successfull post war use was entirely due to the fact that they were only used against primitive enemies unable to assert air superiority and generally not even able to defend itself with light radar directed FLAK.

At the close of WW2 one can see that the Luftwaffe was at the verge of fielding weapons the Soviets and for that matter the UK and USA didn't field till the 1950s. The USSR didn't have the ability, the UK and USA had good radar technology but still needed a few years to digest and reengineer what had been going on in missile development. We know that the dying Reich was physically over run but its possible to see that their weapons were within 1 year of producing a paradigm shift.

For instance the Wasserfall surface to air missile was already test firing. The radar required to produce a track lock tracking of the target already existed: the FuSE 64 Mannheim radar was only one of two ground based radars that could do this (the other was the US SCR-584) and it had been in service since late 43: no deployed British radar achieved automatic track locking. I have a great deal of information on the Wasserfall's intended guidance system/s and they were in a reasonably advanced state since many had been under test development since 1942. In the end they chose beam riding over command due to its anticipated greater resistance to jamming using and the Kulmbach/Marburg microwave radar system. The smaller Hs 298 "Schmeterling" missile, which was actually starting production used the same guidance systems as Wasserfall.

Wasserfall was a Mach 2.7 missile able to engage a 2G manouvering target at over 15000m (48,000ft) with a 300kg proximity fused warhead.

Then there were the radar directed guns such as the 5.5cm Geraet 58 which was remote controlled and radar directed, also close to production and certainly successfully in test. Finally the Luftwaffe had in fact had a proximity fused FLAK shells functioning since 1940, however they used a cold cathode thyratron vacuum tube which could only work passively (ie of electrostatic effects). This shell was not produced due to expected short war plus minor problems with range (about 2m) and some vulnerability due to moisture. The problems were overcome and the shell was ready for production in 1944 with a range of 4m-10m perhaps as much as 15m. In parallel a program to design thermionic vacuum tubes was also underway at Siemens. There are CIOS documents over at the CVBandt web site.


1 A track locking radar FuSE 64 Mannheim in service from early 1944, plus an microwave version
Egerlund - German fire-control radar - linked Marbach and Kulmbach systems starting production in late 1944 early 1945.
2 Had been test firing proxmity fused shells since 1940 and had an electrostatic system ready by 1944 that was entering production and was working (or may have had) active versions.
3 Remote controlled medium guns in the form of the Geraet 58 5.5cm (latter coppied by the Soviets for their famous 57mm AAA gun)
4 Radar Assisted light FLAK, a radar add on to the famous quad 20mm "Vierling guns". The flakvierling (20mm quad light FLAK) would have received radar
director AEG FMG 45 RETTIN for light FLAK between the guns. There is a photograph in one of Ian Hoggs 'German Artillery" books. It was for both land and naval use, I believe based on a Luftwaffe night fighter radar the FuMO 246.

The USA did achieve the proximity fuse and had an excellent track locking radar in the SCR-584 (from 1944 same time as the Germans) however the Germans were clearly catching up with the proximity fuse. They had been effectively radar directing guns with mechanically computed directors since 1941 since the giant Wurzburg offered this accuracy while the smaller Fuse 64 Mannhein radar added the abillity.

So, from the German side, there would be radar directed computer assisted light (20mm), medium (5.5cm) and Heavy FLAK (8.8cm). There likely would be proximity fused shells. There would also be surface to air missiles able to engage an individual target out to 45 miles with a Mach 2.7 missile and a 300kg warhead.

How is an A-26 even with its 8 or 14 x 0.5 calibre guns going to cope with this type of accurate FLAK, small compact easily concealed 20mm guns, that automatically calculate lead, falloff and based their firing solutions on radars providing range to better than 6m?

How does a B-29 or Mosquito cope with a SAM?

There are only two or 3 ways. The one way is speed, which reduces aiming accuracy, opens up aiming errors, makes interception difficult. The other way is intense jamming efforts, which usually only degrade accuracy and must work in conjunction with speed.

The other is stand-off weaponry.

So, aircraft like the Mosquito, A-26, B-29 would have been highly vulnerable by the end of 1945 and certainly by 1946 they were too easy to hit. The A-26 was only good for anti insurgent warfare.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 1, 2012)

Blah blah blah blah Nazi wonder weapons blah blah blah blah

The reason it took till the late 50s for SAMs to work is it took that long to work the bugs out. Yet somehow Nazi SAMs and automatic blind fire computers work straight off the drawing board just like all the other wonderweapons. You ascribe performance for 1945 tech that wasnt even matched till the 60s. Plus Britain was working on an anti radiation missile and countermeasures. Nothing happens in a vacuum you cant have Nazi wonder projects without someone else working on there own wonderweapon.


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## pbfoot (Apr 1, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> Aircraft such as the A-26, B-29 and B-36 look like technical triumphs. However their successfully post war use was entirely due to the fact that they were only used against primitive enemies unable to assert air superiority and generally not even able to defend itself with light radar directed FLAK.
> 
> .


soumds like Germany in 44-45


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## wuzak (Apr 1, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> The Ar 234B belongs in the discussion. It is a 1944-45 aircraft and AFAIKT was in service from about the same time period as the A-26. As far as the Ar 234C speed goes: yes at low altitude it was probably faster than the Me 262. The Ar 234C was so powerful it could drive itself into Mach limit in level flight.



While the Ar234B does belong to this discussion, the A234C fails on two counts - it wasn't operational in the time frame and it had 4 engines.





Siegfried said:


> How is an A-26 even with its 8 or 14 x 0.5 calibre guns going to cope with this type of accurate FLAK, small compact easily concealed 20mm guns, that automatically calculate lead, falloff and based their firing solutions on radars providing range to better than 6m?
> 
> How does a B-29 or Mosquito cope with a SAM?



How accurate is "accurate flak"? How does it cope with fast moving low flying aircraft like the A-26 and Mosquito? 

As for SAMs, I believe the Mosquito had a smaller radar signature than the A-26, much less than the likes of B-17s, B-24s and B-29s. Mosquitos also flew in smaller formations than the big bombers. I would think that the Germans would have wanted the best bang for their buck with SAMs, so sending 300kg warheads in big missiles (like the Wasserfall) against individual bombers would seem unlikely. Much better to get a hit within a tight formation and, hopefully, take out more than one plane.

I also think that SAMs woudl be less effective against low flying aircraft.


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## wuzak (Apr 1, 2012)

Double post


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## drgondog (Apr 1, 2012)

While I agree Jim's assessment that the Ar 234 could be better placed in post war, I would have to go with Siegfried this one. Speed in all altitude envelopes, acceptable bomb load and range. Next and just barely below the Ar 234 for me is the Mosquito. Speed at this time of the war was the only defense worth talking about against enemy fighters.

I love the A-26 (WWII) but if to strip fighter cover from the equations it would be slightly more vulnerable than the above two. In deference to Jim I don't know enough about the K-67 to comment. The Me 410 could only survive at night in 1945, but would be a candidate for me in early 1944.


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## Shortround6 (Apr 1, 2012)

fastmongrel said:


> Blah blah blah blah Nazi wonder weapons blah blah blah blah
> 
> The reason it took till the late 50s for SAMs to work is it took that long to work the bugs out. Yet somehow Nazi SAMs and automatic blind fire computers work straight off the drawing board just like all the other wonderweapons. You ascribe performance for 1945 tech that wasnt even matched till the 60s. Plus Britain was working on an anti radiation missile and countermeasures. Nothing happens in a vacuum you cant have Nazi wonder projects without someone else working on there own wonderweapon.



Not only did it take the Allies until the middle/late 50s get some of these weapons to work, they were working on them with some of the same German scientists who were working on them in Germany during WW II. They weren't being bombed but they were working under the threat of nuclear war.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 1, 2012)

There were several veterans who had flew bombing missions over Gemany in WW2 and Vietnam, according to them those " primitive" Vietnamese managed to put up more intense flak than they'd ever encountered over the Ruhr valley or Berlin. Some areas of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and industrial targets of North Vietnam were very well protected.

The B36 was never used against any primitive targets, it was never used against anyone. It's one of those bombers that never dropped a bomb in anger.

But back to the origional question, i'm torn between the A-26 and Mosquito. I rather judge by RESULTS in that time period, not unfulfilled potential, or later use. So i'd say Mosquito.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 1, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> It's one of those bombers that never dropped a bomb in anger.



Lets face it the best type of bomber.


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## pbfoot (Apr 1, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> Not only did it take the Allies until the middle/late 50s get some of these weapons to work, they were working on them with some of the same German scientists who were working on them in Germany during WW II. They weren't being bombed but they were working under the threat of nuclear war.


I`d carry that on to the 70`s and 80`s


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## norab (Apr 1, 2012)

just to stir the pot, F7F Tigercat, in the time frame, 40,000 feet down to sea level to torpedo bomb, faster than a Hellcat and no need of a fighter escort.


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## drgondog (Apr 1, 2012)

Tyrod - the 'primative' Vietnamese were Not.. They had the unique opportunity to exist unmolested by White House Fiat and were equipped with the most advanced Soviet BARLOCK Radar/fire control systems - ringed by SAM sites, radar controlled AAA from 57mm to 85mm to 122mm and MiGs that could be guided from the BARLOCKs to obtain best tactical advantage.

Why wouldn't it be more intense and lethal?


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## drgondog (Apr 1, 2012)

norab said:


> just to stir the pot, F7F Tigercat, in the time frame, 40,000 feet down to sea level to torpedo bomb, faster than a Hellcat and no need of a fighter escort.



That is a great 'out of the box' thought..


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## GregP (Apr 1, 2012)

I would have selected it if the medium bomber part wasn't there.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 1, 2012)

drgondog said:


> Tyrod - the 'primative' Vietnamese were Not.. They had the unique opportunity to exist unmolested by White House Fiat and were equipped with the most advanced Soviet BARLOCK Radar/fire control systems - ringed by SAM sites, radar controlled AAA from 57mm to 85mm to 122mm and MiGs that could be guided from the BARLOCKs to obtain best tactical advantage.
> 
> Why wouldn't it be more intense and lethal?


That "primitive" was a reaction to a post from Siegfried. 

I fought the NVA, I never considered them primitive.


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## tomo pauk (Apr 1, 2012)

GregP said:


> I would have selected it if the medium bomber part wasn't there.



Twin-enigned bomber, not medium bomber is the requirement


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## drgondog (Apr 1, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> That "primitive" was a reaction to a post from Siegfried.
> 
> I fought the NVA, I never considered them primitive.



Tyrod - I guarantee you that you are in good company with that band of Brothers that were flying Route Pack 6 out of Takhli and Korat and Ubon... until they went to Jail at the Hilton... and I definitely wasn't 'poking' you - just reflecting on what the 355th and 388th, etc had to fight against with both hands and one foot tied behind them in an ass kicking contest.

Off topic remark - I suspect only a few vets of any war we ever fought are NOT outraged at the thought of Hanoi Jane playing Nancy Reagan in the new movie. My only hope for Justice is that she wakes up at the Hanoi Hilton in a future life - and they don't know 'who she is'..


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## davparlr (Apr 1, 2012)

Starting in 1944, the light and medium two engine bomber was in transition. Except perhaps in the PTO, dive bombing was fading in popularity and high altitude bombing was not providing the needed accuracy for tactical support. Low altitude was the coming answer and a move toward the attack aircraft. The very fast but high altitude XB-28 upgrade to the B-25 was cancelled and low altitude high performance upgrade to the very successful A-20, the A-26, went ahead. After the war, nuclear weapons gave a bit of life to two engine bombers such as the B-45, AJ-2 and the A3D (B-66). Except for the B-57, which hung on in tactical role till Vietnam, and A5J, which transitioned to reconnaissance in the early sixties. The B-25 lasted quite a while as a trainer. The Mosquito was produced until the 50's.

Planes like the A-26 and A-1 were valuable for their endurance and stores capability over the battlefield and led to the development of the A-10, which is probably the closest thing to a two engine bomber today. The F-117 did give a short breath. Fighter bombers are now the way.

My selection. The Ar-234 was advanced but lacked range and certainly endurance, which wasn't its forte anyway, and I am not sure of its availability (reliability/maintainability) e.g. flight time verses ground time. I think the A-26 and Mosquito provide good performance and endurance. They would be my selection


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## zoomar (Apr 2, 2012)

In the medium bomber class, I'd go with the A/B-26 or Tu-2. Both were well-armed high performance multi-place types that served well after WW2. In the light bomber group, what else equals the Mosquito?

While it's easy to look at that 460+ mph maximum speed and go with the Ar-234, I refuse to include any late-war German jet in the "best ofs" because of poor engine reliability.


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## Siegfried (Apr 2, 2012)

fastmongrel said:


> Blah blah blah blah Nazi wonder weapons blah blah blah blah
> 
> The reason it took till the late 50s for SAMs to work is it took that long to work the bugs out. Yet somehow Nazi SAMs and automatic blind fire computers work straight off the drawing board just like all the other wonderweapons. You ascribe performance for 1945 tech that wasnt even matched till the 60s. Plus Britain was working on an anti radiation missile and countermeasures. Nothing happens in a vacuum you cant have Nazi wonder projects without someone else working on there own wonderweapon.



The problem with your blah blah attitude is that the Germans (and US) managed to get most of the systems operational. You haven't studied that matter at all.

I'll review allied and German blind fire radar capabilities fused together. Generally the Germans were 1 ahead until the end of 1943 when the SCR-584 was introduced.

1 Early 1940 Wurzburg-A radar is introduced. It used a 3m parabolic dish and 3 operators: one manually nodded the antenna vertically to locate the target, another nodded it horizontally while a 3rd tracked the range. Accuracy is about 2 degrees. Wurzburg was a mobile early warning radar that showed accuracy that promised blind fire.
2 Early 1941 Wurzburg C is introduced. It features the worlds first conical scan which means one operator can track both horizontally and vertically. Accuracy is 0.3 degrees.
3 Mid 1941 Wurzburg D is introduced. It improves range accuracy to 20m and synchro transmitters are added to directly transfer data into the Kommandogeraet 41 FLAK predictor. This is a tyachymetric predictor that uses the linear method to compute exact fuse setting time and aiming firing solution. About the same time Wurzburg Riesse is introduced which is simply a Wurzburg D with a larger antenna. Due to its 7m diameter dish has twice the range and an accuracy of 0.15 degrees. This is a true FLAK/AAA blind fire radar with angular accuracy comparable to optical system though many were 'misused' to guide night fighters.
4 Sometime in 1942 about 50 “mainz” radars are built which use a Wurzburg aerial but better electronics to achieve bearing accuracy of 0.2 degrees.

5 About 1941 the US Navies FC Mk 3 a 40cm AAA radar starts production latter named FD
6 The US Army's SCR-268 was in service around the same time as Wurzburg A but remained inferior with half the accuracy in angle and several times worse in range.

Note; Wurzburg elevation accuracy degrades about 60% in elevation when the beam is close to the ground, hence the two quotes for accuracy.

The US AAA radar is the SCR-268. It uses a separate vertical and horizontal lob switching antenna to achieve 0.5 degree accuracy. It is inferior to Wurzburg and the Germans jam it successfully during the Anzio landings etc. As a result the US finally rushes the SCR-584 centrimetric radar into service, this had been delayed by bureaucracy for almost ½ year. It featured high accuracy and auto-track. 

The UK does not have an effective AAA radar up to this time. Lindemann's influence with Churchill has ensured that most radar efforts go into offensive efforts such as the Area bombardment/dehousing campaign though there was a good AI effort.

The result is that when the V1 campaign started in July 1944 Churchill had to directly beg Roosevelt for help. The US supplied SCR-584 radars which had been thoughtfully provided with Synchro transmitters for British predictors. The US also supplied radar proximity fuses for screwing into British 3.7 inch shells.

Had not the US SCR-584 and proximity fuse effort been made Lindemann's folly would have been even more expensive.

The British Army did get a 9cm radar into service, the so called GLAXO series, however they lacked auto-track. They did have some good ideas, such as separate transmitter receive aerials to avoid disclosing the scanning pattern.

Back to the Germans:

In 1943 the Germans introduce the FuSE 64 Mannheim radar which features a 0.2 degree accuracy and 6m range accuracy from a 3m dish. Issue 2 of this radar, which came into operation at the same time as SCR-584 in early 1944 featured auto-track for range. Elevation and azimuth tracking is supplemented by gauges rather than displays for more accuracy. A version of this known as Mannheim K was to halve wavelength and increase accuracy.

In other words in Early 1944 the Germans had full blind fire with auto-track.

Reduce the wavelength from 54cm to 9cm and the 3m dish proportionatly to 50cm and full blind fire can be installed in a fighter (as in the FuG 244 installed on Ju 88G-7) or it can be installed on a small gun mount.
 
A variant of Mannheim K, known as FuMO 231 Euklid with full 3 dimensional auto-track and a half size 1.5m antenna was completed for the Germany Navy for use on destroyers though the destroyers were never launched.

Mannheim electronics transferred to the 7m dish of Wurzburg Riesse to make (Mannheim Riesse) produced a radar with the range (nearly 100km) and accuracy to pick out an individual bomber in formation for targeting by a Wasserfall missile.





fastmongrel said:


> Blah blah blah blah Nazi wonder weapons blah blah blah blah
> 
> The reason it took till the late 50s for SAMs to work is it took that long to work the bugs out. Yet somehow Nazi SAMs and automatic blind fire computers work straight off the drawing board just like all the other wonderweapons. You ascribe performance for 1945 tech that wasnt even matched till the 60s. Plus Britain was working on an anti radiation missile and countermeasures. Nothing happens in a vacuum you cant have Nazi wonder projects without someone else working on there own wonderweapon.



I've already proven that the Nazis and the Germans as well had the radar tech to provide automatic blind fire track radars accurate enough to guide a SAM.

The V2 missile was achieving close to 100% reliabillity towards the end of its short history of use.

The Wasserfall missile was basically a small V2 with a 3 dimensional auto pilot added to replace the V2's 2d auto pilot, a storable lquid propellant that had been tested for many years, and a pair of mid wing cruciform fins to increase manoeuvrability. Tracking of a transponder aboard the missile provided guidance, alternatively beam riding could be used.

The reason the allies couldn't get SAM going was their complete lack of experience and experimentation, the Germans had started 6 years earlier in a well funded program. The control and guidance had already been “checkride” in a V2 (one of which accidently landed in Sweden and caused a huge pointless allied jamming effort)

When the USN tried to deploy the "Thumper" missile in 1945 they found that the radio command signals were blocked by the rocket exhaust. This is something the von Braun team discovered 5 years earlier from their experience with telemetry.


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## Siegfried (Apr 2, 2012)

wuzak said:


> While the Ar234B does belong to this discussion, the A234C fails on two counts - it wasn't operational in the time frame and it had 4 engines.
> 
> 
> 1 How accurate is "accurate flak"? How does it cope with fast moving low flying aircraft like the A-26 and Mosquito?
> ...



In order:

1 The most impressive German FLAK radar was the 3m dish 54cm wavelength Mannheim FuSE 64 which had a 0.2 degree angular accuracy and a 6m range accuracy. The US SCR-584 radar due to its much shorter wavelength had much better angular accuracy.

Lets look at the range accuracy issue. Imagine trying to engage a crossing Spitfire Mk IX LF flying at its maximum sea level (WEP) speed of 330mph which is 150m/sec at 1000m distance. Shell flight time will be about 1.4 seconds with the shells slowed down to about 0.7m per millisecond.

With an accuracy of 6m meters the error will mean the shell might arrive 8.5 millisecond early or late. During this time the Spitfire could have moved over 1.3m, which is enough to cause a miss if combined with other errors. Optical range finding could get no where near this being 10-20 less accurate nor could it work fast enough to allow a real time adjustment or range or closure rates. Add in speed estimation errors and shell fall off errors and its easy to see why aircraft could surive FLAK.

Just providing radar ranging combined with optical tracking makes FLAK deadly accurate within the dispersion range of the gun. Major increases in speed, sustained penetration speeds are needed to reduce accuracy along with increases in stand-off range. The use of jamming and chaff to try and blur radar accuracy is also important but by the time one is within light FLAK range jamming is less succesfull.

2 The mosquito did not have a small radar signature, it was actually quite easy to detect. There was the metalic propellers, there was the steal framing of the engine mounts, undercarriage, the fuel tanks (which reinforced the wings), the control cables and myriad metal parts.

3 Indeed the idea of the “Wasserfall Missile” was to detonate in the middle of a formation in order to take out several aircraft, however it was decided to build systems that could target an individual target within a box formation at long range hence the large warhead.

4 It wasn't necessary to US a SAM to engage low flying aircraft. Waterfall was meant to opperate at around 45 miles and altitudes of 48000ft however below 10000ft radar guided guns could be fairly accurate especially with proximity fuse.

For lighter FLAK the Germans (there were Allied equivalents) had adapted a FuG 246 night fighter radar to a FLAK 38 Vierling 2.0cm gun known in this form as the AEG FMG 45 RETTIN for naval and ground use. I don't have my books with me so I don't know if this was a range only radar but given it was part of a second generation night fighter radar (the first being the FuG 244 installed on some Ju 88G7) it might have had conical scan which would give it full blind fire capabillity.


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## Siegfried (Apr 2, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> That "primitive" was a reaction to a post from Siegfried.
> 
> I fought the NVA, I never considered them primitive.



The Soviets never supplied there most advanced systems, always holding something back, something they had a reputaiton for and that cost them sales. I agree the Comminist Nth Vietmanese eventually received fairly modern system. The US had to US aircraft a lot better than A-26 to do anything more than go a few kilometers into enemy terrirotory, this despite overwhelming US air power. A few radar directed 20mm guns would have made life impossibly dangerous for the A-26. In many ways 1945 German technical abillities were ahead of Iraqi abillities in Gulf War II.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 2, 2012)

There was radar directed AA on the Ho Chi Minh trail during the time the A-26 was used over it. It was mostly used to protect the daytime truck parks, and various vantage points, not as mobile AA on the truck convoys. The A-26 was used against the convoys.
I don't think the Russians released the ZSU-23-4 to clients until the Vietnam war was almost over, though there were rumors.


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## wuzak (Apr 2, 2012)

In no particular order:



Siegfried said:


> 2 The mosquito did not have a small radar signature, it was actually quite easy to detect. There was the metalic propellers, there was the steal framing of the engine mounts, undercarriage, the fuel tanks (which reinforced the wings), the control cables and myriad metal parts.



I did say _smaller_. It had a smaller radar signature than all metal aircraft of the same size, I'm sure, and certainly smaller than larer bombers such as the A-26 and B-29. It was also less likely to be travelling in tight formations, so not as obvious. They are also able to attack at low levels, which you have stated makes the radar less accurate.




Siegfried said:


> 1 The most impressive German FLAK radar was the 3m dish 54cm wavelength Mannheim FuSE 64 which had a 0.2 degree angular accuracy and a 6m range accuracy. The US SCR-584 radar due to its much shorter wavelength had much better angular accuracy.



6m range accuracy at what range? I doubt it has the same ±6m accuracy at 1000m as it has at 10000m.

0.2° equates 3.5m at 1,000m, 21.3m at 6,096m (20,000ft), 31.9m at 9144m (30,000ft) and 34.9m at 10,000m.

Does 0.2° hold for both azimuth and altitude? Is that ±0.2° also?

This is all just the accuracy of the radar, not taking into account the gun.




Siegfried said:


> 3 Indeed the idea of the “Wasserfall Missile” was to detonate in the middle of a formation in order to take out several aircraft, however it was decided to build systems that could target an individual target within a box formation at long range hence the large warhead.



Still not very efficient for small groups/individual aircraft.

I also understand that the Wasserfall missile didn't really work by the end of the war. Maybe if they spent time on that instead of the V2 it could have made it into battle.




Siegfried said:


> 4 It wasn't necessary to US a SAM to engage low flying aircraft. Waterfall was meant to opperate at around 45 miles and altitudes of 48000ft however below 10000ft radar guided guns could be fairly accurate especially with proximity fuse.
> 
> For lighter FLAK the Germans (there were Allied equivalents) had adapted a FuG 246 night fighter radar to a FLAK 38 Vierling 2.0cm gun known in this form as the AEG FMG 45 RETTIN for naval and ground use. I don't have my books with me so I don't know if this was a range only radar but given it was part of a second generation night fighter radar (the first being the FuG 244 installed on some Ju 88G7) it might have had conical scan which would give it full blind fire capabillity.



Makes you wonder, with all these accurate radar directed guns why the loss rates of allied aircraft went down in the last half of 1944/1945.


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## pbfoot (Apr 2, 2012)

I hope you guys get to actually see and use the radars from that era , I have its called a Quad because it had 4 functions PAR ,Search etc / It was updated with MTI and SSR . I'm curios as to how effective the MTI was on LW radar as well what kind of PRF did have if it did have it. Seigfried I know you have a lot of stats but have you ever looked at or twiddled with a radar . There are so many factors you haven't even mentioned or I'm not sure if it was even known about at the time such as inversion .. Radar in WW2 was in its infancy and not very good even the German radar.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 3, 2012)

I've got the book, The German Air Force,33-45, Anatomy of a Failure, by Matthew Cooper. According to it in 1944 flak brought down about half the allied aircraft lost over the Reich, that's day and night combined. Daytime flak brought down one third of the total, but night flak only 11% of the total.
So going by those figures it's evident that however good the Luftwaffe's targeting radar might have been, there must have been very few, intergrated in with the actual flak batteries. Or those figures wouldn't be so different between day and night.


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## tomo pauk (Apr 3, 2012)

although I don't know why this thread covers AAA SA missiles...

We need to make a distinction of Flak - light or heavy.
The heavy flak could and did used radars far better than light flak - heavy flak operating vs. BC and US bombers had enough time to 'consume' the informations provided by radars to assume the correct azimuth elevation in order to engage fighters heavy bombers flying at 15000-30000 ft. There is enough time to adjust shells' 'clockwork' detonators, to explode at desired point in the air. Of course, for Flak arm (as for all other arms of a militarily) to operate efficiently, it need to have good/great crews and decent weapons. Not the case for LW Flak arm of 1944: the crews comprised from mix of trained men, under-age boys, people unfit for regular military service, (even prisoners of war?), while the bulk of the AA guns had their barrels worn off due to plenty shells fired. Then we toss some jamming, and there is no wonder that it took 4000 heavy shells to bring down the plane. 
The number of radars was decent, I'd say, and the Wurzburg radars (4000 pcs produced) were of fire control type, providing the data for the guns.
Light Flak fires mostly against low-flying attack medium bombers, flying at low level. The state of the art of German radars in ww2 was ill able to provide 'blind fire' mode vs. such targets, and the 20-37mm cannons were not able to be automatically cued to track the incoming targets. So the best feasible solution was the radar (typically Freya) providing* early warning, while Wurzburg was feeding* speed, altitude and course data for the unit's commanders, then the commanders distributing that info for the gun aimers so they can adjust/choose right target lead. If the communication was not established from the gun posts to command posts/radar sites, the gunners were firing upon the assumed values - not contributing to the accuracy. Germans have had thousands of the light Flak, thus negating the disadvantage in good deal. Granted, The gunners were able to build the experience during 1940-44, so that was a factor, too. 

*provided it can track the low-flying Typhoon, P-47, B-26 etc


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## gjs238 (Apr 3, 2012)

pbfoot said:


> A26 Invader without a doubt still flying combat missions in the 70`s which certainly surpasses Mosquito


 But the timeframe specified is '44-'45.


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## pbfoot (Apr 3, 2012)

gjs238 said:


> But the timeframe specified is '44-'45.


yes it is and it had flown over 11000 sorties in the second war IIRC correctly and soldiered on til the late 60`s and I don`t know of another with that pedigree .


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## drgondog (Apr 3, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> I've got the book, The German Air Force,33-45, Anatomy of a Failure, by Matthew Cooper. According to it in 1944 flak brought down about half the allied aircraft lost over the Reich, that's day and night combined. Daytime flak brought down one third of the total, but night flak only 11% of the total.
> So going by those figures it's evident that however good the Luftwaffe's targeting radar might have been, there must have been very few, intergrated in with the actual flak batteries. Or those figures wouldn't be so different between day and night.



It is actually a worse condemnation on german radar directed AAA as Brit bombers were generally 7-12K Lower which should give AAA a better probability of a hit.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 3, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> ..snip..



You carry on with your fantasy world, what you internet nazi wonder weapon warriors never understand is that figures written down on a piece of paper have about as much relation to reality as does my relationship with Beyonce. 

You are quoting performance figures that werent equalled till the mid 1960s and even then many systems only became solidly reliable after several major rejigs of the design. I reckon the figures you are quoting would not be beaten  in service till much later maybe even as late as the 70s. I can believe many fantasies I can even believe in the Tooth fairy I dont believe any of the figures you quote.


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## Kryten (Apr 3, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> In order:
> 
> The mosquito did not have a small radar signature, it was actually quite easy to detect. There was the metalic propellers, there was the steal framing of the engine mounts, undercarriage, the fuel tanks (which reinforced the wings), the control cables and myriad metal parts.
> ----------------------------------------------
> ...


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## Siegfried (Apr 3, 2012)

[


wuzak said:


> In no particular order:
> 
> I did say _smaller_. It had a smaller radar signature than all metal aircraft of the same size, I'm sure, and certainly smaller than larer bombers such as the A-26 and B-29. It was also less likely to be travelling in tight formations, so not as obvious. They are also able to attack at low levels, which you have stated makes the radar less accurate.
> 
> ...



Due to a poor decision in late 1942 the Germans abandoned their 25cm program (despite succesfull tests) and also the 5cm magnetron. Without short wavelengths the beam width increased proportionatly and jamming by windows and nose went up with the square. This effected the Germans from 1944. This Germans overcame several jamming issues, quite succesfull, however never kept up.


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## Siegfried (Apr 3, 2012)

pbfoot said:


> I hope you guys get to actually see and use the radars from that era , I have its called a Quad because it had 4 functions PAR ,Search etc / It was updated with MTI and SSR . I'm curios as to how effective the MTI was on LW radar as well what kind of PRF did have if it did have it. Seigfried I know you have a lot of stats but have you ever looked at or twiddled with a radar . There are so many factors you haven't even mentioned or I'm not sure if it was even known about at the time such as inversion .. Radar in WW2 was in its infancy and not very good even the German radar.



German radar developed independantly from allied radar as they invented their own. The Germans tended to use 'grid modulation' while the allies used anode modulation whereby something equivalent to an automative ignition coild is discharged into the tube (triode) or magnetron. This produces a powerfull short pulse of a somewhat uncorntrolled time. It is the only way to modulate a magentron as it lacks a grid, being a diode.

The Germans grid modulated their triodes to not only stop and start the pulse but control its phase and frequency. In the case a Wurzburg-D a series of frequency multipliers forced the LC tank (resonance circuit) that is forced to resonate in phase with the frequency multiplied signal. (created by distorting a crystal locked frequency and amolifying its 3rd harmonic in a chain). This also gave jam resistance (for Seetakt and Freya) in the form of FM modulation and allowed a longer pulse with range accuracy achieved not by a short pulse but by recovery of phase information.

There were 3 'pulse doppler circuits
1 Wurzlaus, which showed moving targets as jittery while windows was stationary. 
2 Tastlaus, which was a refined version of the above not susceptible to the crystal reference being knocked out of alignment by gunfire.
3 k-laus which had very good resitance to windowns (25:1 signal ratio) and worked in conjunction with windalus (to offeste high altitude winds) as well as frequyency changing methods. 
This tech was very hard to get working. This was used in small numbers with Wurzburg-Riesse and Mannheim radars. It could get through allied jamming; a fe were used over Hamburg.

High grade coherant pulse doppler needs soome kind of memmory to compare phase changes between range bins to detect moving targets.

There seem to have been attempts at producing high speed memmory to facilitate this,


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## wuzak (Apr 3, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> *Still not very efficient for small groups/individual aircraft.*
> 
> I don't quite understand by what you mean. Wasserfall was designed to hit an individal bomber with a 300kg warhead, even if it missied the proximity fuse would take out 3 or more bombers given the USAAF box formation.



I mean for attacking aircraft in small formations, or alone, or where the formations are looser than the 8th AF formations. Ie, RAF heavy bomber formations tended to be looser (because of flying at night), and Mosquito formations tended to be smaller and looser.


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## Siegfried (Apr 3, 2012)

Kryten said:


> Siegfried said:
> 
> 
> > In order:
> ...


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## Siegfried (Apr 3, 2012)

fastmongrel said:


> You carry on with your fantasy world, what you internet nazi wonder weapon warriors never understand is that figures written down on a piece of paper have about as much relation to reality as does my relationship with Beyonce.
> 
> You are quoting performance figures that werent equalled till the mid 1960s and even then many systems only became solidly reliable after several major rejigs of the design. I reckon the figures you are quoting would not be beaten  in service till much later maybe even as late as the 70s. I can believe many fantasies I can even believe in the Tooth fairy I dont believe any of the figures you quote.



I can only lead you to water, I can;t make you drink the facts. The SCR-584 had outstanding accuracy of about 1m at 1km and a fraction of a degree, it was only a matter of time that it was reduced to fit medium and light FLAK. The Germans simply adapted their FuG 246 night figher radar onto their quad FLAK. No 60s tech requiried. They had computers to do a calucalted a firing solutuon instanteaneously as well.


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## Siegfried (Apr 3, 2012)

drgondog said:


> It is actually a worse condemnation on german radar directed AAA as Brit bombers were generally 7-12K Lower which should give AAA a better probability of a hit.



1944 was a low point for German radar, as Wurzburg was being succesfully jammed when confronted by formations of aircraft dropping tons of window and carrrying in some cases hundreds of noise jammers kniwn as "carpet".

However when the radar was not degraded by jamming it was very deadly, providing highly accurate range data to FLAK computers, locating the target and either targeting it directly to within a faction of a degree or allowing its illumination for engagement by optical techniques.

The first problem was Windows, this was overcome with a series of coherant pulse doppler circuits, however some time latter "Carpet" noise jamming laid the system low again as the stable frequencies reqiured for pulse dopper were not compatible with the freqency changing methods needed for avoiding noise jamming.

A circuit called k-laus succeded in late 44 or 1945 in recovering use of radar on Wurzburg Riesse and Mannhiem radars, but it was too late for much use.

the 54cm wavelenth over a 3m dish used on Wruzburg-D and Mannheim produced a fairly wide beam, had the Germans used 9cm microwaves their beams would have been 6 time narrower and intercepted 36 times less windows and noise. The abandonment of the microwave radar program in 1942 (apart from one naval radar FuMO 231 Euklid) disrupted even the recovery of the allied technology.

Microwave radars should have been deploying widely from mid 1944 however bombing destroyed both the Sanitaz company' factory making the tubes and latter the Haraeous vacuum casting company making the magnets putting the program of producing 100 microwave radars per month months behined.

K-laus did overcome the problem, as did new tubes that increased pulse power from 8kW to 120kW (Wurzburg-Riesses Gigant) to burn through jamming. What was needed was microaves or a halving of wavelenth as had been originally planned.

The LD7 ceramic disk triode tubes developed by the Germans continued to be copied, in exact form, and used in Soviet era radars all through the 70;s.

These German microave tubes, disk triodes were not vapourware. They were tested in a 5kW radar called Eisbaer in 1941 and produced a 55kW naval radar in 1944. The tubes could produce 20kW pulse at 9cm. The version to produce the 120kW for the Manheim-K LD11 existed.


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## pbfoot (Apr 3, 2012)

I must ask a question is all this stuff you state theoretical or otherwise.


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## Siegfried (Apr 3, 2012)

tomo pauk said:


> although I don't know why this thread covers AAA SA missiles...
> 
> We need to make a distinction of Flak - light or heavy.
> The heavy flak could and did used radars far better than light flak - Germans have had thousands of the light Flak, thus negating the disadvantage in good deal. Granted, The gunners were able to build the experience during 1940-44, so that was a factor, too.
> ...








Garaet 58 5.5cm gun.


Heavy FLAK was equiped with good radar as you acknowlege, a Mannheim FuSE 64 combined with a FLAK 37 battery was an effective system.

Geraete 58 was a 5.5cm system with remote power control designed to work with radar that just missed out on deployment. The Soviets developed this 
system as their 57mm AAA system after WW2. It came out of the need to protect high value with single hit to kill weapons, the 'dambuster' raid being
one such case where 20mm weapons mortally wounded many bombers but not enough to down them before they released their weapons.

Light FLAK such as the quad 20mm FLAK 38 were also prototyped with radars adapted from night fighters. So heavy, medium and light FLAK were all getting radar direction.

Allied systems such as the 3cm radar 40mm STAG mounts for the Royal Navy were also moving into the area.

The Germans were bound to get their proximity fuse working and so would other technically capable nations. They already has some electrostatic versions working, had a better battery than the allies (molten salt thermal battery) and had the vacuum tubes in development in 1944/45.

The point I am making is this. The A-26 and Mosquito didn't have the performance to survive deep into hostile airspace with the weapons likely to be comming on line in 1945.

Give the Luftwaffe 4 squadrons or A-26's and Mosquitos in 1945 and ask them to attack Britain. They would all get destroyed to an aircraft. Use the same number of Ar 234 and they are likely to avoid interception.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 3, 2012)

In the Vietnam era the way the A-26 DID survive the presence of radar guided light flak was the very low attack run. You're by the weapon before they can swing the barrel to acquire you. It works much better in mountainous areas, but of course very hazardous at night.

I'm sure if confronted with a similiar situation late in WW2, they would have come up with a solution.

On they could take the German approach, and wait for a super weapon.


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## wuzak (Apr 3, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> The point I am making is this. The A-26 and Mosquito didn't have the performance to survive deep into hostile airspace with the weapons likely to be comming on line in 1945.
> 
> Give the Luftwaffe 4 squadrons or A-26's and Mosquitos in 1945 and ask them to attack Britain. They would all get destroyed to an aircraft. Use the same number of Ar 234 and they are likely to avoid interception.



In 1950 some Mosquito B.35s (improved B.XVI) performed a mock attack on a fighter base, which housed Meteors, successfully. The attack was conducted at low level.

According to your description of the weapons coming on line in 1945 the Ar234 wouldn't stand a chance either.


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## JoeB (Apr 3, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> View attachment 197910
> 
> 
> The Germans were bound to get their proximity fuse working and so would other technically capable nations. They already has some electrostatic versions working, had a better battery than the allies (molten salt thermal battery) and had the vacuum tubes in development in 1944/45.


This stands out as one of the more exaggerated of your statements. Yes other technically capable nations would eventually have proximity fuzes for artillery shells, but the Germans weren't anywhere near it at the end of the war. They had (several) workable concepts for 'soft' fuzes, but had not done any testing of versions hardened for firing from a cannon, and that was the big hurdle. As far as 'soft' proximity fuzes, even the Japanese used prototype proximity fuzed bombs v the B-29 bases in the Marianas in late 1944. The US NDRC proximity effort was all about producing *hardened* components in *huge quantity*. The concept of the US fuze was adapted from a British concept from early in the war. Making it work in a shell with components that could be manufactured in quantity was the critical trick, and the Germans were not close to doing that.

More generally, producing stuff in quantity wasn't some minor detail, but more like the heart of the matter. That was where the Germans fell well behind the Anglo-Americans generally in electronics by 1944; they simply had less resources. 

The Germans were not about to produce AA systems in quantity comparable to the combination of US 90mm AA with M9 director and SCR-584 radar firing VT fuzed ammo already operational in large quantity, not even close. But if you want to assess the vulnerability of 1944-45 prop bombers (including A-26 or Mosquito) to the *best* heavy systems in 1944-45, which were the Allied ones by far, then yes prop a/c without good ECM to counter those systems would suffer heavy losses. German prop bombers, and even jets and V-1's suffered heavily to those systems in actual combat. But the Germans produced no effective ECM v microwave radars or VT fuzes; the Allies would have been in a much better position to do so. A USAAF study concluded that the air offensive over Germany would have been become infeasible v the best US AA weapons of 1944-45, far superior to what the Germans could actually produce in quantity or were near to doing. But it also assumed no ECM developed to counter the US weapons, whereas Allied bomber ECM was quite effective against the less advanced actually operational German systems of 1944-45, and countermeasures to the US AA systems were possible, though never developed by the Germans.

Joe


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## nuuumannn (Apr 4, 2012)

Getting back to the original thread, Mosquito for me; just incredible what that aeroplane was capable of; it had a definite impact on the course of WW2, and for that reason alone it stands head and shoulders above the A/B-26 in my opinion, as great an aircraft that it was. Tupolev Tu-2 also in my favour.

As for German wonder weapons, in hindsight weren't going to do much to change the outcome of the war, no matter how sophisticated. By 1944/45, the Allies were building more bombers than the Germans were bringing down and with the technological progress of the war being that with every measure, the other side produced a countermeasure, there's no reason to suspect this would have changed had the introduction of the wonder weapons discussed taken place sooner, even though there would have been an immediate impact on the bombers.

Besides, no amount of sophisticated weapons in testing or on the drawing board were going to stop the Russian armies and their steady advance toward the Oder. That is really where the German effort should have been focussed. In short; no wonder weapon was going to prevent what happened to Nazi Germany, and the Mosquito played a big part in bringing about that end.


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## MacArther (Apr 4, 2012)

I'm torn really. I love the solid nose A-20 and B-25, but I think the B-25 would probably not work as well in the European Theater with the solid nose. But for low level work, the A-20 and B-25 with the Para-frag bombs and 6+ forward firing guns for straffing and attack seems like a good fit for the Pacific and Burma theaters.


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## wuzak (Apr 4, 2012)

Is strafing bombing?


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 4, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> The point I am making is this. The A-26 and Mosquito didn't have the performance to survive deep into hostile airspace with the weapons likely to be comming on line in 1945
> 
> Give the Luftwaffe 4 squadrons or A-26's and Mosquitos in 1945 and ask them to attack Britain. They would all get destroyed to an aircraft. Use the same number of Ar 234 and they are likely to avoid interception.


 "Would have, could have, should had." IF THE QUEEN HAD BALLS SHE'D BE THE KING!

From Wiki...
_


Parallel NDRC work focused on anti-aircraft fuzes. Major problems included microphonic difficulties and tube failures attributed to vibration and acceleration in gun projectiles. The T-3 fuze had a 52% success against a water target when tested in January, 1942. The United States Navy accepted that failure rate and batteries aboard cruiser USS Cleveland (CL-55) tested proximity-fuzed ammunition against drone aircraft targets over Chesapeake Bay in *August 1942*. *The tests were so successful that all target drones were destroyed before testing was complete*. First large scale production of tubes for the new fuzes was at a General Electric plant in Cleveland, Ohio formerly used for manufacture of Christmas-tree lamps. Fuze assembly was completed at General Electric plants in Schenectady, New York and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

By 1944 a large proportion of the American electronics industry concentrated on making the fuzes. Procurement contracts increased from $60 million in 1942, to $200 million in 1943, to $300 million in 1944 and were topped by $450 million in 1945. As volume increased, efficiency came into play and the cost per fuze fell from $732 in 1942 to $18 in 1945. This permitted the purchase of over 22 million fuzes for approximately $1,010 million. The main suppliers were Crosley, RCA, Eastman Kodak, McQuay-Norris and Sylvania._

A well know fact that the US Navy used proximity fuses on anti-aircraft guns and their effectivness was highly documented.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq96-1.htm


Getting back on subject...

I'd have to go with the B-26 just edging out the Mossie. It's evident that by looking at the B-26's (A-26) longevity that it was a potential weapon. I'd have to rate it better than the Mossie in terms of operational matainability (a round engine vs. liquid cooled and also wood vs. metal construction - this subject has been beat to death on other threads).

Although the killing potential was there, I would dismiss any jet bomber of the day. Despite showing great potential, during the time frame we are looking at, their reliability is highly questionable compared to their slower but if not more effective allied contemporaries.


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## vonmallard (Apr 4, 2012)

I think the Soviet PE-2 or IL-10 are worthy of note but I am also partial to the A-26 as an all around delivery system. I always thought the A-26 was a A-20 on steroids.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 4, 2012)

I will go for the English Electric Canberra.

Whada ya mean it wasnt in service and didnt fly till 1949 it was down on paper and thats good enough for the Nazi Vunder Veapon Napkinwaffe boys.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 4, 2012)

Lets not start a pissing contest here...

This is not a Kindergarten. Just don't stoop to their level.


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## wuzak (Apr 4, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I'd have to go with the B-26 just edging out the Mossie. It's evident that by looking at the B-26's (A-26) longevity that it was a potential weapon. I'd have to rate it better than the Mossie in terms of operational matainability (a round engine vs. liquid cooled and also wood vs. metal construction - this subject has been beat to death on other threads).



As I said before, the longevity argument doesn't fly.

The A/B-26 was retired at about the same time as the Mosquito, in the 1950s. That a few were brought out of storage some 15 years later and extensively modified (lots of structural strengthening) to serve as an interim because the USAF had nothing better doesn't count as longevity. Now, if they had been in continuous service with the USAF that would be a different matter - but they didn't. And in talking longevity, do we talk about the 2-3 years of service Mosquitos put in before teh A-26 even made it to the front line?

As for serviceability, it would be interesting if we had comparitive numbers for service hours vs operational flight hours for the two types. We do know that Mosquitos didn't get a lot of rest - one month one squadron bombed Berlin every night. One Mosquito racked up 215 missions before it was retired from the front line (only to crahs on a demonstration tour of Canada!).

Wood construction was actually wood-composite construction. Wood has one important advantage over metal - it doesn't fatigue.

The Mosquito's advantages over the A/B-16 were (IMO) that it was faster (except near sea level), had a higher ceiling, better range, used fewer crew to deliver the same (roughly speaking) bombload. Mosquitos coudl also carry the 4000lb HC or 4000lb MC bombs - could the A-26?


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## CobberKane (Apr 4, 2012)

The Mosquito, hands down. It could carry most of the bomb load of a B-17 all the way to Berlin, using half the engines and a fifth of the crew, and substain far fewer losses doing it. Which begs the question, wouldn't the Mighty 8th have been better off with Mossies rather than Fortresses? Excuse me while I run for cover...


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## fastmongrel (Apr 5, 2012)

I cant decide between 3 aircraft the A-26 the Tu-4 or the Mossie. On the simple basis that the Mossie is earlier I will go with it as the best. The A-26 and the Tu-4 are an incredibly close joint 2nd.

If we are talking about length of service being the final arbiter then the Tu-4 wins hands down it was in continuous service till the late 70s which beats the A/B-26.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 5, 2012)

wuzak said:


> As I said before, the longevity argument doesn't fly.



Why not? It shows they are able to continue to perform a role way past this operational heyday.


wuzak said:


> The A/B-26 was retired at about the same time as the Mosquito, in the 1950s.


NOT TRUE - they were used extensively during the Korean War and served in National Guard units up to and into the Viet Nam War



wuzak said:


> That a few were brought out of storage some 15 years later and extensively modified (lots of structural strengthening) to serve as an interim because the USAF had nothing better doesn't count as longevity. Now, if they had been in continuous service with the USAF that would be a different matter - but they didn't. And in talking longevity, do we talk about the 2-3 years of service Mosquitos put in before teh A-26 even made it to the front line?


Again not completely true - although there were some A-26s modified out of the bone yard, some that served in Vietnam came from guard units AFAIK.


wuzak said:


> As for serviceability, it would be interesting if we had comparative numbers for service hours vs operational flight hours for the two types. We do know that Mosquitos didn't get a lot of rest - one month one squadron bombed Berlin every night. One Mosquito racked up 215 missions before it was retired from the front line (only to crahs on a demonstration tour of Canada!).


That proves the aircraft resiliency for the time it was operated. Take that airframe and put it out in the desert or Jungle and bring it back to England and see what would have happened - another reason why the Mosquito didn't last long in the post war period.


wuzak said:


> Wood construction was actually wood-composite construction. Wood has one important advantage over metal - it doesn't fatigue.


But it does have a shelf life - it expands and contracts, is harder to repair and will eventually break down - the Mosquito was cleverly constructed in its heyday but let's face it, "wood composite" structures on a primary airframe quickly became a thing of the past. Metal does fatigue, but it can be made to last longer than any wood structure.


wuzak said:


> The Mosquito's advantages over the A/B-16 were (IMO) that it was faster (except near sea level), had a higher ceiling, better range, used fewer crew to deliver the same (roughly speaking) bombload. Mosquitos coudl also carry the 4000lb HC or 4000lb MC bombs - could the A-26?


No doubt about the speed and payload capability of the Mosquito over the A-26. The A-26 had a more advanced airframe, its configuration (tricycle landing gear) enabled the aircraft to be operated safer and its airframe gave it room for growth and again longevity. Both were great aircraft and although the Mosquito was superior in some aspects, it was a dated design when compared to the A-26.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 5, 2012)

CobberKane said:


> The Mosquito, hands down. It could carry most of the bomb load of a B-17 all the way to Berlin, using half the engines and a fifth of the crew, and substain far fewer losses doing it. Which begs the question, wouldn't the Mighty 8th have been better off with Mossies rather than Fortresses? Excuse me while I run for cover...


Run now!!!! 

Although the Mosquito was able to carry the same bomb load it was not able to deliver it from altitude at the speeds it was famous for if deployed in the same manner. To carry out a daylight precision strike like the 8th AF did with the Mosquito would be placing the same amount of aircraft over a target at 130 - 150 mph while a lead plane with a bomb sight guided the formation over the target. Flying straight and level, how long would that two man crew survived? Also remember the Mosquito was not able to drop its bombs at top speed, I think the opening of the bomb bay doors were limited to something like 280 or 300 mph (that subject was discussed on another thread somewhere on this site)


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## pbfoot (Apr 5, 2012)

Has anyone thought that the Mosquito was a bare bones bird , I read of one guy post war losing his hydraulics and then (I hope I get this right) had a runaway prop which he was not able to feather because there was no resovoir . I can't quote this bible and verse as my book is sitting in a A340 somewhere I hope


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## Milosh (Apr 5, 2012)

The 8th AF did precision bombing? Why would the Mossie be flying slower than the B-17?

I don't know what it is for the bomber but for the FB VI the max speed for bomb bay open was 305kt or 350mph.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 5, 2012)

pbfoot said:


> Has anyone thought that the Mosquito was a bare bones bird , I read of one guy post war losing his hydraulics and then (I hope I get this right) had a runaway prop which he was not able to feather because there was no resovoir . I can't quote this bible and verse as *my book is sitting in a A340 somewhere I hope*



That sucks!

AFAIK the Mosquito had an auto feather system where by the push of a button would feather the prop after the engine was shut down. In the case of a run away prop I would think that something happened so the prop hub lost hydraulic fluid (which is not part of the main system).

The Mosquito had a basic hydraulic hydraulic system with each engine driving a pump. I'm pretty sure it had a reservior but no accumulator.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 5, 2012)

Milosh said:


> The 8th AF did precision bombing? Why would the Mossie be flying slower than the B-17?
> 
> I don't know what it is for the bomber but for the FB VI the max speed for bomb bay open was 305kt or 350mph.



B-17s dropped their bombs at something like 130 mph.


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## Siegfried (Apr 5, 2012)

JoeB said:


> This stands out as one of the more exaggerated of your statements. Yes other technically capable nations would eventually have proximity fuzes for artillery shells, but the Germans weren't anywhere near it at the end of the war. They had (several) workable concepts for 'soft' fuzes, but had not done any testing of versions hardened for firing from a cannon, and that was the big hurdle.
> Joe



“As Isaac Newton once said: I have studied that matter, you have not.” The German proximity fuse was built on a type of 'vacuum' tube called a cold gas thyratron. It was surviving shots in 1940.

These argon filled tubes had three electrodes: a cathode, anode and a 2nd anode near the cathode that is used as striking grid. Some were recovered from German bomb time delay fuses along with solid state selenium rectifier diodes. It was examination of these by “Mr Neutron” Cockroft that triggered development of the British fuse. 

The shell needed no battery relying on a pre-charged capacitor. The triggering anode was connected to the nose of the shell and the other to the insulated base. As the shell flew through the air it generated an electrostatic field. The disturbance of this field by the presence of the aircraft triggered the tube which discharged into an ignition primer. This version had a range of about 2m though prone to ignition by clouds. Circuits did exist to overcome this.

R+D continued with a view to producing electronically programmed time delay fuses. The thyratron functioned as an accurate voltage comparator when used in a RC circuit. After two years of shelf life 80% of shells still complied with the 0.2% time accuracy.

By 1943 the program was reactivated. The control anode was connected to a nose antenna of length of radius of the shell. Rotation whipped the antenna about which perceived electrostatic field imbalances as an AC current. This was put through a bandpass filter. The result was a range of 15m and resistance to false triggering and ECM. Such fuzes are suitable for ABM missiles and are hard to jam.

The fuse featured a nose contact as a backup and was cheap.

The Germans had worked out that going for a direct hit and not bothering with fuze setting (it wasted time, cost money, required powerful explosives and complicated fragmentation). This was the best of both worlds.

There is some information here from the tube developers Siemens 
http://www.cdvandt.org/CIOS-XXXI-50.pdf

The report of the actual fuze is supposedly in: 
"Proximity Fuse Development - Rheinmettal Borsig A.G.
Mullhausen. CIOS report ITEM nos 3 file nos XXVI -1 (1945)

Another mentions thermionic tube development at Telefunken (instead of Siemens) 
capable of surviving several thousand G
http://www.cdvandt.org/CIOS-XXXII-87.pdf

There are references to a KTB (Officers Daily Journal) of an officer sent to fetch a proximity fuse for a 5 inch FLAK shell for use in a V2 missile.

This fuse was essentially ready for production in 1944 as it was 95% reliable but unfortunately the factory was over run.

The battery seems to have been molten salt type first used in the V2 and adopted by the US post war.



JoeB said:


> The concept of the US fuze was adapted from a British concept from early in the war. Making it work in a shell with components that could be manufactured in quantity was the critical trick, and the Germans were not close to doing that.
> Joe



The British fuse was inspired by the German one, had not the R+D program been suspended it would have had a good chance of success. There is little difference between a directly heated cathode triode tube and a cold gas triode. R.V.Jones even ended up with a shock hardened tube.



JoeB said:


> More generally, producing stuff in quantity wasn't some minor detail, but more like the heart of the matter. That was where the Germans fell well behind the Anglo-Americans generally in electronics by 1944; they simply had less resources.
> Joe



This ignores the allied bombing campaign after 1944. The Germans fell behind in development of microwaves but this was an own kill with an decision to abandon work in December 1942 against strong objections by General Wolfgang Martini and physicist Dr Abraham Essau. Nevertheless the Germans had caught up by the middle of1944 with several microwave radars in production. The 1942 German microwave program was successful it could initially generate a 20kW pulse down to 12 cm using disk triodes (later with minor modifications the same power at 9cm and finally 3cm). 

They did not fall behind in sophistication of their signal processing. They had coherent pulse Doppler (the allies not), they had track locking radars, they had elaborate anti-jamming circuits, only the width of their non microwave beams made them vulnerable to jamming.



JoeB said:


> The Germans were not about to produce AA systems in quantity comparable to the combination of US 90mm AA with M9 director and SCR-584 radar firing VT fuzed ammo already operational in large quantity, not even close.
> Joe



The US 90mm was no better than the German 88mm FLAK 43 which featured autoloaders, autofuze setters and outstanding ballistics. The US 90mm AAA gun was better than the common FLAK 37 88mm but the FLAK 37 was barely over half the weight and was suitable for operation by school children (FLAK Kinder) including the future Pope Benedict. The larger 10.5 and 12.8cm German guns often had power control. Don't compare the US 90mm gun to the much lighter 88mm FLAK 37.

The Germans were about to produce a sophisticated 5.5cm remote power control radar directed AAA gun known as the Garaet 58; a weapon in which was aimed by computer.

The Germans had directors as good and in fact better than the M9 in having a full 3D algorithem.

The M9 implemented the defective algorithm of the mechanical M7. All it did was use more electronic hardware rather than mechanical hardware. It was no faster nor accurate: it was cheaper to make and lighter, that's all. It still required servo motors to drive the pick-ups of potentiometers moving over ballistics data on windings rather than a 3d camshaft.

The SCR-584 radar was a breakthrough in performance I very much agree with, the Bell M9 director was not. In fact the M9's electronics was behind that of the analogue computers the Germans were using.

Harry Nyquist developed a far superior director the “T2” which used mechanical subtraction rather than differentiation (so not vulnerable to noise as the M9's electronic differentiation ) and was more than twice as accurate as the M9. 

Mechanical computers added/subtracted via differential gears, they used tacho generators to generate voltages that effectively differentiate shaft speed, servos to buffer shafts while 3 dimensional cams have trigonometric, log/antilog and ballistics data ground on to them. 

The German FLAK directors was the Komandogaraet 40 that had an integrated 4m range finder but would accept synchro inputs from radars. 

Kommandogeräte 40(M), a simplified, mechanical design by Zeiss;
kommandogeräte 40(e), by Askania, a fully automatic electronic director. 



JoeB said:


> But if you want to assess the vulnerability of 1944-45 prop bombers (including A-26 or Mosquito) to the *best* heavy systems in 1944-45, which were the Allied ones by far, then yes prop a/c without good ECM to counter those systems would suffer heavy losses. German prop bombers, and even jets and V-1's suffered heavily to those systems in actual combat. But the Germans produced no effective ECM v microwave radars or VT fuzes; the Allies would have been in a much better position to do so. A USAAF study concluded that the air offensive over Germany would have been become infeasible v the best US AA weapons of 1944-45, far superior to what the Germans could actually produce in quantity or were near to doing. But it also assumed no ECM developed to counter the US weapons, whereas Allied bomber ECM was quite effective against the less advanced actually operational German systems of 1944-45, and countermeasures to the US AA systems were possible, though never developed by the Germans.
> Joe



The Germans had 'effective' ECM, they were successful pioneers in the field. This included jamming the US SCR-268 radar in 1943 and 1944 forcing the SCR-584 to be rushed into service in January 1944. They at times jammed Chain Home. They invented windows before the British. (first test drops of Duppel in 1940). They could jam 9cm H2S. The problem for the Germans was that they weren't able to raid with a fleet of 500+ bombers each of which carried a noise jammer. In 1943 1944 the “baby blitz” raids almost completely shutdown British GCI radar due to 'duppel' drops.

As far as sophistication goes the both the US and Germany introduced the only two track locking radars of WW2 in Jan 1944 the FuSE 64 Mannheim and the SCR-584. Prior to that German AAA radar was superior to US in all key parameters.

US AA weapons had 2 advantages worthy of consideration.
1 The proximity fuse, which was potentially very vulnerable to jamming due to the limited sophistication possible.
2 A microwave radar system whose narrow beam provided greater angular accuracy and resistance to jamming but was not superior in range accuracy or features such as auto track.

The Germans were already fielding 2, several microwave radars but had a setback producing the magnetrons due to bomb damage. 

A big advantage for the Germans would have been a 3-5 year lead in SAM development and so long as they could make their radar resilient enough aircraft such as the B-29 and B-36 would be neutralised.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 5, 2012)

Reliability during test and operational reliability can vary greatly. 

If that fuze was ready for production in 1944, but was prevented by the factory being over run, It must have been ready for production very late in 44, and that factory must have been awfully near the western border, because no allied soldiers got into Germany till Oct. 44.

Like someone else said about the wunderwaffe, could've, would've, should've, but didn't. In other words irrelevant in the discussion about about twin-engine bombers.


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## wuzak (Apr 5, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Why not? It shows they are able to continue to perform a role way past this operational heyday.



I dispute that it was the case for the A-26.




FLYBOYJ said:


> NOT TRUE - they were used extensively during the Korean War and served in National Guard units up to and into the Viet Nam War



The Korean War didn't extend past the service life of the Mosquito.

And what did guard units use them for?




FLYBOYJ said:


> That proves the aircraft resiliency for the time it was operated. Take that airframe and put it out in the desert or Jungle and bring it back to England and see what would have happened - another reason why the Mosquito didn't last long in the post war period.



Not the case at all. Mosquitos had difficulty in the tropics because of the glue, but that was solved during the war.

Mosquitos were replaced by jet aircraft - like the Canberra.




FLYBOYJ said:


> But it does have a shelf life - it expands and contracts, is harder to repair and will eventually break down - the Mosquito was cleverly constructed in its heyday but let's face it, "wood composite" structures on a primary airframe quickly became a thing of the past. Metal does fatigue, but it can be made to last longer than any wood structure.



I would argue that the Mosquito's structure was easier to repair. Depending were the damage was it could be just patched. Winds could be sawed off and another spliced in place.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 5, 2012)

> I'd have to rate it better than the Mossie in terms of operational matainability (a round engine vs. liquid cooled and also wood vs. metal construction - this subject has been beat to death on other threads).



Trying desperately to stay on thread and avoid more discussions about the merits of German wonder weapons! I gotta agree with you to a certain extent, but the argument that Mossies were inferior to the A-26 in 1944-45 for this reason isn't that strong. There was an entire industry supporting the maintenance of the Mosquito in RAF service; wooden construction and in-line engines were definitely not a disadvantage at this time.

Still Mossie for me. Tu-2 as well, disadvantage was that the bomb load wasn't all that big 1 to 3 tons internally (4 x 500 kg bombs) up to 4 tons with external load of 2 FAB-1000 bombs, but impressive stats: (translated from Russian, hence kilometres), Tu-2S Max t/off weight 11,450 kg (25,243 lb), Tu-2S max speed 550 km/h (342 mph) at 5.7 km, Tu-2M max speed 605 km/h (376 mph) at 8.8 km, Tu-2S climb time to 5 km, 9.5 min, Tu-2M climb time to 5 km, 8.5 min, Tu-2S ceiling 9 km (29,530 ft), Tu-2M 10.4 km (34,120 ft), Tu-2S range 2100 km (1300 miles) Tu-2M range 1950 km.


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## Siegfried (Apr 5, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> Reliability during test and operational reliability can vary greatly.
> 
> If that fuze was ready for production in 1944, but was prevented by the factory being over run, It must have been ready for production very late in 44, and that factory must have been awfully near the western border, because no allied soldiers got into Germany till Oct. 44.
> 
> Like someone else said about the wunderwaffe, could've, would've, should've, but didn't. In other words irrelevant in the discussion about about twin-engine bombers.



The A-26 had no influence on the war. It came way to late to matter. When it did come into service into numbers it was post war and was used to strafe small statured people fighting wars of liberation who had little in the way of suffcient numbers of sophisticated defences and what they did have they didn't make themselves but received. It was easy to intercept, it's remote controlled armament was ineffective and in fact of such little use it was removed. It relied on air superiority on vastly more advanced aircraft. A competantly conceived A-26 would at least have had a radar directed tail gun if it were built to the times. The A-26 entered service at the same month as the Jets that outmoded it. The A-26 was an anachronism from the first day it entered service in september 1944 (the same time as the Me 262 and Meteor) to the day it was retired. I still state that by its nature it was inadaquete against an enemy of equal technical sophistication. The Mosquito belongs in the discusion, the A-26 does not.

The Rheinmetall-Borsig factory that was lost was in Eastern Parts of Germany, now Poland. It was very difficult to get anything new into mass production in 1944 in Germany.

The coulda would shoulda joke is just plain silly. I have given dates for either service entry and field trials of these weapons. They are not weapons that were mere projections, they were built and either in full production (like the manheim radar) or low level production (like the German microwave radars only held back by damage to magnetron production) or in an advanced state of development. About 2000 rounds of 88mm gun shell with proximity fuze was fired with reliabillity starting at 90% and reaching 95%.

As far as the Rheinmetall-Borsig electrostatic proximity fuzes reliabilly: it would have been much more reliable than the allied radio fuze by its nature. The cold gas thyratron was intrinsically far more reliable than a thermionic tube and only 1 or 2 tubes was needed instead of 7 or 8. No unreliable battery was needed (only a capacitor which are easily shock hardened)


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## CobberKane (Apr 5, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Run now!!!!
> 
> Although the Mosquito was able to carry the same bomb load it was not able to deliver it from altitude at the speeds it was famous for if deployed in the same manner. To carry out a daylight precision strike like the 8th AF did with the Mosquito would be placing the same amount of aircraft over a target at 130 - 150 mph while a lead plane with a bomb sight guided the formation over the target. Flying straight and level, how long would that two man crew survived? Also remember the Mosquito was not able to drop its bombs at top speed, I think the opening of the bomb bay doors were limited to something like 280 or 300 mph (that subject was discussed on another thread somewhere on this site)


 
Fair enough, although I think your description of the 8th AF performing 'precision stike(s)' is more a reflection of the wishful thinking of the times than the historical reality. I think by D-Day the USAAF tacticians had pretty much accepted that destroying the intended target generally involved taking out half the surrounding city as well. What was that oft-used expression? The RAF area-bombed precision targets and the USA precision-bombed area targets. I suspect the distinction might have been lost on the people underneath. Full credit to the Americans for trying to keep the civilian casualties down, but the technology of the time just wasn't sufficient for the job. 
Of course, if you really wanted to take something out with pinpoint accuracy the best option was a low level strike with a fast manouverable bomber - like the Mosquito.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 5, 2012)

> The coulda would shoulda joke is just plain silly. I have given dates for either service entry and field trials of these weapons. They are not weapons that were mere projections, they were built and either in full production (like the manheim radar) or low level production (like the German microwave radars only held back by damage to magnetron production) or in an advanced state of development. About 2000 rounds of 88mm gun shell with proximity fuze was fired with reliabillity starting at 90% and reaching 95%. As far as the Rheinmetall-Borsig electrostatic proximity fuzes reliabilly: it would have been much more reliable than the allied radio fuze by its nature. The cold gas thyratron was intrinsically far more reliable than a thermionic tube and only 1 or 2 tubes was needed instead of 7 or 8. No unreliable battery was needed (only a capacitor which are easily shock hardened)



Didn't make a lick of difference to Germany's war effort or the inevitable outcome, in which the de Havilland Mosquito played a decisive part in 1944 -45.


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## Tante Ju (Apr 6, 2012)

nuuumannn said:


> Didn't make a lick of difference to Germany's war effort or the inevitable outcome, in which the de Havilland Mosquito played a decisive part in 1944 -45.



Decisive? Important yes but decisive.. conventional heavy bombers hit the most important targets, the Mosquito was just try to draw away german force with not-so-important small raids.


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## Juha (Apr 6, 2012)

Re Siegfried's message #83. Reading p. 22 of the 
http://www.cdvandt.org/CIOS-XXXI-50.pdf

gave me an impression that German fuzes were far from ready for deployment

Juha


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## JoeB (Apr 6, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> 1. The Germans had worked out that going for a direct hit and not bothering with fuze setting (it wasted time, cost money, required powerful explosives and complicated fragmentation). This was the best of both worlds.
> 
> The report of the actual fuze is supposedly in:
> "Proximity Fuse Development - Rheinmettal Borsig A.G.
> ...


1. My source is "Radar History of WWII" by Brown. There's lot of verbiage in your response but no solid source quoted, (not 'supposed') that contradicts my statement: the Germans got as far as testing (several) designs of *soft* proximity fuzes, concepts they perhaps hoped to build into artillery shells, but never did the testing and development of hardened fuzes, and that was the biggest hurdle.

The British tested soft fuzes all through WWII but never mass produced hardened ones, and like I said, even the Japanese used soft proximity fuzes in actual combat. This was in each case far from 'almost' having mass issue shell fired fuzes (all the fuzes the British fired from guns were US produced, albeit as mentioned the fuze circuit concept used was developed by the Brits [independently], but a drawing of a fuze circuit or breadboard tests thereof, while necessary, was very different than mass issue shell fired proximity fuzes).

The German conclusion that impact fuzed shells worked just as well was in comparison to *time fuzed* shells, and given their radar and director capabilities; not proximity fuzed shells, which they didn't have.

2. It doesn't ignore anything, it just states the fact: the Germans fell progessively behind the Allies in electronics in the second half of WWII.

3. The overall combination, gun/director/radar/fuze, was far superior.

4. I said the Germans never developed effective ECM v Allied microwave radars, you're just repeating that.

5. the first advantage alone increased effectiveness on the order of 3-4 times (the USN determined in comparative use of time and VT in the Pacific), and the second was very significant as well. And again the Germans were not close to replicating either of those major advantages, whereas the basic US Army gun (or guns including the 120mm) and directors were also strong. The overall combination was vastly superior to what the Germans actually fielded in any quantity through 1945, and the US combination was in widespread use in 1944.

Joe


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## tyrodtom (Apr 6, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> The A-26 had no influence on the war. It came way to late to matter. When it did come into service into numbers it was post war and was used to strafe small statured people fighting wars of liberation who had little in the way of suffcient numbers of sophisticated defences and what they did have they didn't make themselves but received. It was easy to intercept, it's remote controlled armament was ineffective and in fact of such little use it was removed. It relied on air superiority on vastly more advanced aircraft. A competantly conceived A-26 would at least have had a radar directed tail gun if it were built to the times. The A-26 entered service at the same month as the Jets that outmoded it. The A-26 was an anachronism from the first day it entered service in september 1944 (the same time as the Me 262 and Meteor) to the day it was retired. I still state that by its nature it was inadaquete against an enemy of equal technical sophistication. The Mosquito belongs in the discusion, the A-26 does not.
> 
> The Rheinmetall-Borsig factory that was lost was in Eastern Parts of Germany, now Poland. It was very difficult to get anything new into mass production in 1944 in Germany.
> 
> ...


Then your date of ready for production in 44 must be a error, Russia didn't cross the border into Germany till Jan. 45.

Pretty dumb to put a factory that important that close to a border, must be some of Hitler's right brain thinking.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 6, 2012)

wuzak said:


> I dispute that it was the case for the A-26. The Korean War didn't extend past the service life of the Mosquito.
> 
> And what did guard units use them for?



From wiki...

_"The USAF Strategic Air Command had the renamed B-26 (RB-26) in service from 1949 through 1950, the Tactical Air Command through the late 1960s, and the *last examples in service with the Air National Guard through 1972.* The US Navy also used a small number of these aircraft in their utility squadrons for target towing and general utility use until superseded by the DC-130A variant of the C-130 Hercules. The Navy designation was JD-1 and JD-1D until 1962, when the JD-1 was redesignated UB-26J and the JD-1D was redesignated DB-26J."_



wuzak said:


> Not the case at all. Mosquitos had difficulty in the tropics because of the glue, but that was solved during the war.


And like all wood aircraft, it had trouble with wood swelling and drying.




wuzak said:


> Mosquitos were replaced by jet aircraft - like the Canberra.



As planned...






wuzak said:


> I would argue that the Mosquito's structure was easier to repair. Depending were the damage was it could be just patched. Winds could be sawed off and another spliced in place.


NOT TRUE - I have worked on both metal and wood aircraft and wood is way more difficult to inspect and repair. The shop enviornment has to be clean, glues and resins have to be prepared at certain temperatures and during the curing process the area has to be kept clean and sometimes at certain temperatures.


nuuumannn said:


> Trying desperately to stay on thread and avoid more discussions about the merits of German wonder weapons! I gotta agree with you to a certain extent, but the argument that Mossies were inferior to the A-26 in 1944-45 for this reason isn't that strong. *There was an entire industry supporting the maintenance of the Mosquito in RAF service; wooden construction and in-line engines were definitely not a disadvantage at this time.*


 At that time all true but once that industry was taken away we seen much of the Mosquito fleet disappear as there was little or no field support for the aircraft in the post WW2 era.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 6, 2012)

CobberKane said:


> Fair enough, although I think your description of the 8th AF performing 'precision stike(s)' is more a reflection of the wishful thinking of the times than the historical reality. I think by D-Day the USAAF tacticians had pretty much accepted that destroying the intended target generally involved taking out half the surrounding city as well. What was that oft-used expression? The RAF area-bombed precision targets and the USA precision-bombed area targets. I suspect the distinction might have been lost on the people underneath. Full credit to the Americans for trying to keep the civilian casualties down, but the technology of the time just wasn't sufficient for the job.
> Of course, *if you really wanted to take something out with pinpoint accuracy the best option was a low level strike with a fast manouverable bomber - like the Mosquito*.



Agree -


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 6, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> The A-26 had no influence on the war. It came way to late to matter. When it did come into service into numbers it was post war and was used to strafe small statured people fighting wars of liberation who had little in the way of suffcient numbers of sophisticated defences and what they did have they didn't make themselves but received. It was easy to intercept, it's remote controlled armament was ineffective and in fact of such little use it was removed. It relied on air superiority on vastly more advanced aircraft. A competantly conceived A-26 would at least have had a radar directed tail gun if it were built to the times. The A-26 entered service at the same month as the Jets that outmoded it. The A-26 was an anachronism from the first day it entered service in september 1944 (the same time as the Me 262 and Meteor) to the day it was retired. I still state that by its nature it was inadaquete against an enemy of equal technical sophistication. The Mosquito belongs in the discusion, the A-26 does not.


While I agree the A-26 had no real impact on the war it was a generation a head of the Mosquito as far as construction, operation, systems, room for growth and longevity. While the Mosquito had advantages over the A-26, just it's configuration made it an operational risk. The A/B-26 performed well not only during WW2 but two wars later in a number of roles.


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## Siegfried (Apr 7, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> While I agree the A-26 had no real impact on the war it was a generation a head of the Mosquito as far as construction, operation, systems, room for growth and longevity. While the Mosquito had advantages over the A-26, just it's configuration made it an operational risk. The A/B-26 performed well not only during WW2 but two wars later in a number of roles.



Certainly the A-26 was an excellent design, with deliveries commencing in Aug 1944 but first service in the PTO in Jul 1944 and Sept in the ETO. This extensive delay between first deliveries and opperational combat seems unique to American aircraft. The Luftwaffe tended to take A-0 pre series aircraft (eg FW 190A-0) in order to work out bugs, understand mainteance requirements and develope tactics with the occaisional controlled risk opportunistic mission. The A-26 might have been in service sooner and therefore been influential, but its fairly late intro certainly reduce its contribution. The Douglass Havoc was providing an extraordinary amount of 'bomb lift' approx equal to that of the B-26 and B-25 combined. 

Whoever started this thread left the preimis wide open however "best 2 engined bomber". Between 1941 and late 1944 the Mosquito provided the most extraordinary cabillity to the RAF and I would argue it was incontrovertably the finest twin engine bomber in that period. Not because it was a fastes bomber but because it was in service in numbers. It did have limitations (not very resistant to ground fire damage hence use of aircraft like the Beaufighter) and it would be interesting to see how it would have performed in a role such as combat support for the Russian Army. (The Rocket firing FB or Fighter Bombers version quite well I immagine). (The Luftwaffe could incidently penetrate British airspace with a handfull of Ar 240 incidently)

I added in the "Ar 234" (only 76 to see service) as a bit of a curve ball. Everything is in context. Immagine a "What If analysis" of say the Luftwaffe being given 100 of the best US or British aircraft and attempting a raid against some of the most defended airspace of WW2; Britain itself.

I can't see a 'stike package' of A-26's and say P-51's penetrating British airspace in say December/44 to Jan 1945. They would be detected by radar and intercepted by Tempest V, with its extraordinary low altitude speed and deadly 4 x 20mm Hispano armament, Mk XIV Griffon Spitfires and also still capable Mk IX. Meteor I with upgraded Welland engines and Meteor III with the early derated derwent II engines would also be able of intercepting and overwhelming the small package.

I wouldn't count the A-26 as an easy target, it was fast, I believe an A-26 with Water Injection could manage nearly 400mph at low altitude but it was well within capabilities of the faster late war piston aircraft.

However the Ar 234, if lightly bombed up (single 250kg/550 lb bomb, possibly witth a single 500kg/1100lb bomb) could get through by relying on its speed either with or without an Me 262 escort. It might take some losses from opportune 'lucky intercepts' where an interceptor is position where it can dive onto its target. Of course if you can guarantee air superiority, like the USAAF could with its exceptional force of fighter aircraft the fire power and lift of the A-26 is going to be most effective.

The late war AAA capabilities as seen with US Army AAA defenses: an accurate radar, the SCR-584 training via a computer remote power control driven 90mm guns firing a proximity fuze shell itself makes the A-26 vulnerable. The Luftwaffe (who ran FLAK for the Army) had similar defenses though it lagged in deploying microwave radar and probably didn't get a proximity fuze into service. (there are tantalizing accounts of their use and existance however). One can see an extra-ordinary improvment in FLAK defenses comming on line, including some very capable SAM's.


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## pbfoot (Apr 7, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> That sucks!
> 
> AFAIK the Mosquito had an auto feather system where by the push of a button would feather the prop after the engine was shut down. In the case of a run away prop I would think that something happened so the prop hub lost hydraulic fluid (which is not part of the main system).
> 
> The Mosquito had a basic hydraulic hydraulic system with each engine driving a pump. I'm pretty sure it had a reservior but no accumulator.


on the turn I noted a variation in my port oil pressure and so decided to watch it on the southbound line. When the oil pressure drops you immediatly hope you have a faulty instrument .No Way the chance of an oil pressure guage lying to you is very much less then the chance of winning the lottery
After the pressure fluctuation increased Itold the crew that we were aborting the trip. I was going to feather the prop and head for home.Feathering means the prop blade edges arefacing into the oncoming air to give minimum drag. The prop stated a normal feather procedure and the as soon as it was just about to stop in the fully feathered postion it ran away. The rpm increased uncontrolled to whar was later estimated to be 5000 or 6000 rpm . The drag from the full fine position of a huge windmilling prop is alarming - like pushing a barn door through the air . The onset of high drag happened so suddenly that I was caught completely by surprise . The port side of the aircraft pivoted about 90 degres to the left. the turning movement from one prop in fine pitch dragging and the other in normal cruise changed the heading so rapidly it almost seemed like the fin and rudder were gone. The deacceleration was so great that the huge aluminium spiiner on the left prop pulled its bolts out the metal and spun off the prop feet from my head and moved ahead of the aircraft . It then came back as the aircraft caught up to it and was shredded by the screaming prop which sent pieces of spinner flying like confetti. This all happened in seconds
"I was terrified Vince was wide eyed .but imagine Barry in his cocoon at the back with all the noises and sound effects and no way of knowing what was happening. What had happened was that oil had not been added after the morning flight and we had simply run out of oil on that side . When the quantity was low , I had indication on the pressure guage and shut down the engine. Normally a return to base on one engine was no problem at all . What we did not knowwas that Rolls Royce had not installed a standpipe in their wartime engines. The purpose of this feature is maintain an emergency reserve of oil for emergency feathering
The 2 crew bailed out and the pilot was unable to flew it back to base 200 miles away he landed it and lived the aircraft burnt on landing . This Mosquito is currently under" restoration" in Calgary


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## Shortround6 (Apr 7, 2012)

The Americans believed in working up trained squadrons before committing them to combat. This includes training the mechanics and maintenance personnel on the type of aircraft. While a mechanic who has been working on B-24s for a year is certainly better than a guy fresh out of mechanics school giving both of them a number weeks or two months to 'wrench' on a new type like the A-26 stateside before sending them overseas would help the overall efficiency of the unit. Letting crews or pilots get 30-50 hours on their new aircraft before getting to a combat zone was also a plus. 
Remember that the front lines were thousands of miles away from the american factories and planes could NOT be returned to the factories for reworking if something was wrong. Spare parts often came by ship. Fuel for training flights over England, North Africa or Asian areas of operation had to be brought by tanker. Why not do the initial flight training and familiarization in the US? 


Bombers are essentially bomb trucks. 
A worthwhile bomber has to carry a worthwhile bomb load to a certain distance.
A worthwhile bomber has to be able to hit the target (or come fairly close).
A worthwhile bomber has to have a survival rate good enough to keep losses to an acceptable level.

Needing 3-4 bombers to carry the same payload as a single bomber of another type is not a good thing.
Not being able to reach a fair number of targets is not a good thing.
Bombing at high speed from medium altitudes is probably no better than medium or low speed bombing from higher altitudes. Better bomb sights and electronic aids do help as the war goes on. 
While it doesn't tell the whole story, planes lost per 100tons (or per 1000tons) bombs dropped might be a better indicator of a bombers "effectiveness" than number of planes lost per 100 or 1000 missions.


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## wuzak (Apr 8, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> Bombers are essentially bomb trucks.
> A worthwhile bomber has to carry a worthwhile bomb load to a certain distance.
> A worthwhile bomber has to be able to hit the target (or come fairly close).
> A worthwhile bomber has to have a survival rate good enough to keep losses to an acceptable level.
> ...



So, do you have any comparitive numbers?

There are some numbers for Mosquitos - about 27,000 sorties for 106 aircraft lost and 88 damaged beyond economical repair during the night campaign from 1943-1945. I don't have the bomb tonnage dropped, but I believe it is just over a tonne per sortie.


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## wuzak (Apr 8, 2012)

From a similar discussion on the www.warbirds.com forum some time ago:



Tony Williams said:


> It was best summed up in the book 'Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45', in which my co-author Emmanuel Gustin wrote the following:
> 
> "Soon Mosquito bombers became a vital part of the night operations too. In early 1944 a bulged bomb bay was introduced to hold a 4000 lb ‘cookie,’ doubling the bomb load. The combat introduction of the high-altitude B.XVI version, which was even harder to intercept, was in March. A paper by the Ministry or Aircraft production calculated that, before the aircraft was lost, a Mosquito could be expected to drop an average of 1690 kg of bombs in 92 sorties. A Lancaster would drop 3370 kg on an average sortie, but survived on average only 28 sorties, and cost 2.8 times as much as a Mosquito. It could be concluded that the material cost per ton of bombs dropped was at least four times lower for the Mosquito than for the Lancaster. And the Mosquito had only one-fourth of the crew of the Lancaster, so its use also reduced the loss of life. Evidently, such figures are dependent on time, tactics, and circumstances, but they were nevertheless evidence that the Mosquito had advantages that had to be exploited. The “Light Night Strike Force” became an important part of Bomber Command’s No.8 Group; its operations included 170 attacks on Berlin."
> 
> ...






Tony Williams said:


> There is an interesting late-war study carried out by the RAF in the PRO files (reference AIR 2/5487, minutes of meeting held 20 April 1944 to consider future bomber needs). This was called to discuss potential super-heavy bombers, but the discussion included much questioning of the need for such planes. A mathematical proof was included of the superior efficiency of a large number of small bombers rather than a small number of big ones (unfortunately, this was before the days when digital cameras were allowed and I didn't have the patience to copy it all). However, from memory it compared the construction cost, bomb loads and survival chances of big and small bombers and demonstrated that the small, fast unarmed bomber (read: Mosquito) was a more efficient bomb delivery system than the big slow one (read: Lancaster).
> 
> Yes, the Lanc could carry the super-heavy bombs, but frankly such attacks were more effective at hitting the headlines than they were at shortening the war.
> 
> ...


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## oldcrowcv63 (Apr 8, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> That "primitive" was a reaction to a post from Siegfried.
> 
> I fought the NVA, I never considered them primitive.



Just to ice the cake on this point, the Vietnamese SAM: SA-2 acquistion, tracking and control was by upgraded FAN SONG RADAR systems which the most advanced electronic countermeasures aircraft in existence for the time, the USN EA-6B, at that time, had very limited capability to defeat. I don't know whether the USAF Wild Weasel A/C had better capability in that regard, but the USN was seriously challenged.


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## oldcrowcv63 (Apr 8, 2012)

davparlr said:


> Starting in 1944, the light and medium two engine bomber was in transition. Except perhaps in the PTO, _*dive bombing was fading in popularity*_ and high altitude bombing was not providing the needed accuracy for tactical support. Low altitude was the coming answer and a move toward the attack aircraft.
> 
> Planes like the A-26 and A-1 were valuable for their endurance and stores capability over the battlefield and led to the development of the A-10, which is probably the closest thing to a two engine bomber today. The F-117 did give a short breath. *Fighter bombers are now the way.*



One twin engine bomber/attack aircraft that does NOT qualify for entrance in this thread but retained design features making it suitable for classic dive bombing past the Vietnam era is the Grumman A-6 Intruder which initially sported fuselage mounted dive (speed) brakes, ultimately forsaken in favor of wing tip-mounted speed-brakes beneficial in a number of flight regimes, including landing. A Vietnam era A-6 B/N reports that 95% of his mission ordnance deliveries were in the dive bombing mode. I suspect this may be a cultural departure wrt to USAF emphasis (or deemphasis). Dive bombing was even occasionally practiced by USN pilots in tactical aircraft that never carried ordnance. I believe the USN carried dive bombing as a preferred method of delivery beyond the time that the USAF did and into the modern era, although I'd guess USAF fighter bombers may have used a DB-like delivery profile on occasion as well.

Post script, as for my choice of a preferred twin engined end-war period bomber, I'd say A-26 with the Mossy a close second
Reason? They were designed by Ed Heineman and Geoffrey DeHavilland, respectively. That's almost all I need to know. The performance details provide validation (in my mind at least).


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## pbfoot (Apr 16, 2012)

Just finished rereading Alan Macnutts Altimeter Rising and he probably has to be 1 of the high time Mosquito pilots having flown them post war on survey work around most of the world and he also flew the A26 as a FireBomber , he preferred the the A26 as a flyer and platform and was regurlay hauling 8000lbs of fire retardent in it, He also did a lot of work in P38`s loved the contra rotating props but found they were more labour intensive maintainence wise then the Mosquito but far more pilot friendly. Some great stories in this book such as flying a P38 for Chilean survey along border with Argentina and the Argentinians at the time tried to intercept him but they had nothing to get to his altitude he buggered off. He was an AME as well and flew as an instrument check pilot for the MOT . 
Great book on flying


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## renrich (Apr 18, 2012)

If my memory is OK I seem to remember that the B26 served well in the Korean War and that the North Koreans and South Koreans were both about the same size and North Korea invaded South Korea not to liberate then but to conquer them for their own purposes. Thanks be we along with our allies stood in the way.


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## MacArther (Apr 18, 2012)

It hasn't been mentioned...but what about a Black Cat style Catalina for patrol, night attack, and harassment duties?


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## pbfoot (Apr 18, 2012)

MacArther said:


> It hasn't been mentioned...but what about a Black Cat style Catalina for patrol, night attack, and harassment duties?


What is a Black Cat is it different then a normal PBY5 ,


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## parsifal (Apr 19, 2012)

davebender said:


> A price that must be paid if you want to hit the target with iron bombs. That's why the Me-410 and Ju-88 could dive bomb.




....you forgot to add...with less accuracy than the mosquito operating at low level, and using an attack method that rendered the aircraft highly vulnerable


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## MacArther (Apr 19, 2012)

pbfoot said:


> What is a Black Cat is it different then a normal PBY5 ,



If I tried to explain it, I know I'd screw up. Under the Night Attack and Naval Interdiction is the Black Cat section. Basically, the Cats were modified to carry more guns (like 20mm bow guns), we painted black for night operations, and carried bombs both on the wings, and grenade sized munitions in the body dropped by the crew. The rest is better read from the site (even if it is Wiki).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PBY_Catalina#Night_attack_and_naval_interdiction


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## pbfoot (Apr 19, 2012)

MacArther said:


> If I tried to explain it, I know I'd screw up. Under the Night Attack and Naval Interdiction is the Black Cat section. Basically, the Cats were modified to carry more guns (like 20mm bow guns), we painted black for night operations, and carried bombs both on the wings, and grenade sized munitions in the body dropped by the crew. The rest is better read from the site (even if it is Wiki).
> Consolidated PBY Catalina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


so not much different save the 20mm and the hand dropped grenades so Catalina or Canso depending on builder


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## wuzak (Apr 19, 2012)

pbfoot said:


> Just finished rereading Alan Macnutts Altimeter Rising and he probably has to be 1 of the high time Mosquito pilots having flown them post war on survey work around most of the world and he also flew the A26 as a FireBomber , he preferred the the A26 as a flyer and platform and was regurlay hauling 8000lbs of fire retardent in it, He also did a lot of work in P38`s loved the contra rotating props but found they were more labour intensive maintainence wise then the Mosquito but far more pilot friendly. Some great stories in this book such as flying a P38 for Chilean survey along border with Argentina and the Argentinians at the time tried to intercept him but they had nothing to get to his altitude he buggered off. He was an AME as well and flew as an instrument check pilot for the MOT .
> Great book on flying


 
I wonder if that was just a comfort thing for the pilot.

The Mosquito had two very noisy Merlins mounted next to the crew's ears.

Also not surprised that the A-26 could carry such a load. Once you dump the turrets and guns and any other military equipment you would have increased the lift capacity substantially.

And the A-26 was about 1/3 larger than the Mosquito.

None of which makes the A-26 a better bomber in 1944-45 than the Mosquito.


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## pbfoot (Apr 19, 2012)

wuzak said:


> I wonder if that was just a comfort thing for the pilot.
> 
> The Mosquito had two very noisy Merlins mounted next to the crew's ears.
> 
> ...


I would think the engines would be one thing ,the Merlin didn't have the same life span in any way close to the R2800 which was still neing put into newbuild aircraft as late as the 70s , and as for the comfort that was usually the last consideration for any Brit aircraft . I've heard it mentioned more then once in humour they designed a lovely aircraft and then had to decide where to put the pilot


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## Lucky13 (Apr 20, 2012)

For the sake of talking, as you say 44-45....
How well the Swedish B-18 compare?

General characteristics

Crew: 3 (pilot, navigator/gunner, and bombardier) 
Length: 13.23 m (43 ft 5 in) 
Wingspan: 17 m (55 ft 9 in) 
Height: 4.35 m (14 ft 3 in) 
Wing area: 43.75 m2 (470.9 sq ft) 
Empty weight: 6,100 kg (13,448 lb) 
Max takeoff weight: 8,800 kg (19,401 lb) 
Fuel capacity: 1,700 litres (370 imp gal; 450 US gal) 
Powerplant: 2 × Daimler-Benz DB 605 inverted-vee piston engines, 1,100 kW (1,475 hp) each 
Performance

Maximum speed: 575 km/h (357 mph; 310 kn) 
Range: 2,600 km (1,616 mi; 1,404 nmi) 
Service ceiling: 9,800 m (32,152 ft) 
Armament


Guns: one 7.92mm fixed forwards-firing gun in wing root; two 13.2mm defensive guns. 
Rockets: 8 air-to-surface rockets on underwing stubs 
Bombs: 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) in internal bay


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## Siegfried (Apr 21, 2012)

Lucky13 said:


> For the sake of talking, as you say 44-45....
> How well the Swedish B-18 compare?
> 
> General characteristics
> ...



Certainly a usefull machine in 1944 though it would need to improve by 1945 to be competitive with the best allied and axis aircraft.

I've heard that the DB605A when run of 100/130 fuel in swedish service could produce 1700hp? Any info on this?


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## Lucky13 (Apr 22, 2012)

Worth looking into mate! What would that do to the performance of the B-18, another 450hp on those engines (together)?


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## wuzak (Apr 22, 2012)

Lucky13 said:


> Worth looking into mate! What would that do to the performance of the B-18, another 450hp on those engines (together)?



1700hp DB605s will give a maximum speed of 376mph/606km/h.

2040hp will allow it to crack 400mph/644km/h.

2360hp would be required to match the Mosquito's B.XVI's maximum (unloaded) of around 420mph/675km/h.


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## Shortround6 (Apr 22, 2012)

I am not sure the Swedes ever rated the DB605 over 1475hp or PS at take off. It was rated at 1575hp at 7000ft and 1250hp at 19,000ft. fuel was 91/96 octane. Figures are in several editions of "Aircraft Engines of the World" no higher numbers are listed. The Swedes may have been build the 605 with the original smaller supercharger. In peace time they may have been more interested in engine life than peak performance and if combat had occurred they may have pushed the engines.


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## Siegfried (Apr 22, 2012)

Lucky13 said:


> Worth looking into mate! What would that do to the performance of the B-18, another 450hp on those engines (together)?



Using a cube root law (1700/1475)^0.333 = 1.048. That equates to a speed increase from 357 to 375. The calculation is somewhat conservative as induced drag does not increase while the increased jet thrust only obeys a square root law. However I did not include whether the supercharger was maxed out 1.7 ata boost at the maximum speed altitude needed to achieve this. The effect of the extra power might then be to sustain maximum speed down to much lower altitudes, including at sea level. This is likely where the B18 would be opperating anyway. Certainly with the 2000hp DB605DCM engine at least 395mph would be possible while the aircraft would be able to cruise in at 357mph.

Shortround6, the DB605AM engine could clear 1700hp on B4+MW50, this was essentially a DB605A with water methanol injection added and retained the orginal supercharger. Around the same time that the Me 109G6AM was entering service around March 1944 the Me 109G6ASM was entering service with an enlarged supercharger variant (DB605ASM). However the non enlarged Me 109G6AM was actually faster at low altitude due to better matching of the supercharger for low altitude work.

The swedes would have had better fuel and likely better sparking plugs etc.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 22, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> The calculation is somewhat conservative as induced drag does not increase while the increased jet thrust only obeys a square root law. However I did not include whether the supercharger was maxed out 1.7 ata boost at the maximum speed altitude needed to achieve this. The effect of the extra power might then be to sustain maximum speed down to much lower altitudes, including at sea level.  This is likely where the B18 would be opperating anyway. Certainly with the 2000hp DB605DCM engine at least 395mph would be possible while the aircraft would be able to cruise in at 357mph.


I think you have a flaw there as induced drag will increase with speed and if the airframe remains unmodified with any parasitic producing items on the aircraft (antennas, scoops, etc.) will increase drag as well, increasing parasitic drag and in the end total drag. How about the extra weight of the engine?


Siegfried said:


> The swedes would have had better fuel and likely better sparking plugs etc.


I could understand fuel, but why spark plugs?


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## Siegfried (Apr 22, 2012)

Allied aeroengine engineers regarded the germans somewhat lagging in spark plug or ignition consciousness and development. There is a book on this "the vital spark aero engine spark plug development" of course allied engine technology was extremely agressive on the spark plugs (rich mixtures and lack of fuel injection). The plug has to keep cool enough to prevent pre-ignition but also able to remain clear of fouling and create a potent spark.

overhead camshaft | pdf archive | piston-encine progress | 1945 | 2398 | Flight Archive

The engine is no heavier, maybe 15kg for the AS engine with the bigger supercharger.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 22, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> Allied aeroengine engineers regarded the germans somewhat lagging in spark plug or ignition consciousness and development. There is a book on this "the vital spark aero engine spark plug development" of course allied engine technology was extremely agressive on the spark plugs (rich mixtures and lack of fuel injection). The plug has to keep cool enough to prevent pre-ignition but also able to remain clear of fouling and create a potent spark.
> 
> overhead camshaft | pdf archive | piston-encine progress | 1945 | 2398 | Flight Archive
> 
> The engine is no heavier, maybe 15kg for the AS engine with the bigger supercharger.



Still doesn't explain what the swedes would have better spark plugs. Did they make their own? I doubt a western plug is going to fit into German engine...


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## Jack_Hill (Jan 1, 2013)

A-26 Invader, Mosquito and Ar-234B to me.
No pure bombers, multipurposes a/c, love them.


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## Glider (Jan 1, 2013)

Personally my choice for a bomber would always be the Do217 but an outside option would be the Ki67. The Ki67 is fast, well protected, agile and with a strong defence. Its main problem would be a limited payload, but it ticks all the other boxes.


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## delcyros (Jan 2, 2013)

As usual, this question is difficult to answer in general. I picked up seven contenders (in alphabetical order) for the comparison below , which were in general operational service during the 1944 to 1945 timeframe, I require them to be deployed operationally by dec. 1944 at the very least to get rid of some pre production or last resort types. Note that I do accept the Ar-234B (which sortied as early as during the Invasion of France, in PR mission and was employed in bombing missions by the turn of 44/45).

PLANES
A-26, US, twin radial air cooled engined
Ar-234B, german, twin axial jet engined
B-18, swedish, twin inverted V-liquid cooled engined
Ki-67, japanese, twin radial air cooled engined
Me-410A, german, twin inverted V-liquid cooled engined
Mosquito B. Mk. XVI, british, twin V-liquid cooled engined
Tu-2S, soviet, twin radial air cooled engined

METHODS
In order to get meaningful results, I herewith follow z-normalization practices, which are applied successfully in descriptive statistics. Normalization is important if You want to get comparative values. My choosen approach is z-normalization, a value between 1.0 (max. possible) and 0.0 (min possible). The extracted figures can be directly compared with each other, they represent relational units.
Note: Imagine You want to compare ceiling (varying between 30000ft and 48000ft) with length (varying between 75ft and 90 ft). The first category not only varies much more than the second but also has much higher absolute figures and would- if You don´t apply any normalization, skew the results in a comparison between both by inertia effects if You enter the field of explorative statistics.

The comparison is split up in successive parts. One count for offensive and another onw for defensive and general aspects. Normalised Counts can be positive (the more speed, the better) or negative (the larger the size the worse it is for survivability).

I. OFFENSIVE COUNT.
For offensive counts, I selected -owing to limited database aviable- only two categories, bombload and range. Both counts are positive (the higher the bombload and the larger the range, the better it is) and direct, that is any payload between 0 and max is possible to be flown by th aircraft (thy don´t require a min. bombload to lift off in simple words). I am aware that fuselage mounted offensive gunnery is not mentioned here but it´s inclusion -albeit possible- would require a different explorative approach to be statistically valid. Please keep this in mind, some planes benefit by the exclusion of f.e. fuselage mounted fwd directed guns (Mossie and Ar-234), some are not having received full credit for extensive fwd guns (A-26 and Me-410A).
The first data is for payload in lbs, the following table is sorted by rank with the normalised values beeing printed on top of each column. These figures are relational, which is correct, as You have probably noticed that the normalized figure (=0.25) for payload of the Me-410A (=2,204lbs) is exactly one quarter as large as the max. figure in this comparison (1.0 for the Tu-2s´s 8,816 lbs max bombload).






Appearently, the Tu-2´s bombload is heavy enough to form a distinct unit in this comparison. The A-26´s ordenance is also very large and seperates the A-26 clearly from other A/C in this category. Differences in bombload between Ki-67, Mossie, B-18 and Ar-234B are negliable with only the Me-410A beeing distinctly weaker in this category.

The next count is range. Bombload and range are varyable, still, one might assume that specifically short legged A/C like the jet powered Ar-234B may also proportionally suffer here. 





Unsurprisingly, the Ki-67, owing to it´s superior range (more than twice the range of a jet powered Ar-234B) comes out best with most of the other planes forming a comparable cluster, except for the notorious jet powered A/C which comes out clearly worst.

Now we enter the ormalised figures in a table and compare the results (figure for bombload times figure for range). The resultant value can never exceed 1.0 and usually falls clear short of this figure. Indeed, the best offensive count goes to the soviet Tu-2S with 0.53. This is the reference for 1.0, and the normalized figures from this reference show a very close 2nd place shared between A-26 and Ki-67, respectively. Also the third place is shared between Mossie and B-18. The last place finally, is shared by the two german entries, the Me-410A and Ar-234B, respectively. The principal result of low payload (Me-410A) and short range (Ar-234B), respectively.






The logistically oriented readers will be surprised to see that a squadron of Tu-2S is a very deadly offensive instrument. You can send in thirty-six Mosquite B Mk XVI or a squadron of only twelve Tu-2 provided that the pilots are capable to do the same and operate under an escort fighter umbrella in low thread areas with little AAA. We will see if that holds true when confronted with real data. The next comparison will be general and defensive counts. The methods stay the same.
(...to be continued)


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## delcyros (Jan 2, 2013)

II. GENERAL AND DEFENSIVE COUNT

At the end of ww2, surface directed air defense efforts prooved to be a very serious thread for all involved airforces with losses inflicted by fighters usually rank 2nd. Then again, A/C have been improved in their capability to take damage. Self Sealing fuel tanks and pilot armour plating was a general standart in this period. Air cooled radials reduce the risk of coolant damage but then again, air cooled radials represent larger targets and increase the exposed area. Jet engines may be unreliable but then again, jet engines prooved to be much less complicated in operation and jet propelled A/C prooved to be more difficult to take down for this reason (The USAAF invented a specific jet-killer bullet to adress this problem). An as small as possible target area is a generally good asset in high thread environments. But typically, reduced wing area corresponds with reduced low speed handling and load taking capbilities. The comparison consist of four independent categories here. Generally spoken, we are confronted with both, positive and negative categories.


[A]-max Speed. This is a distinct defensive asset. A high top speed allows short exposure times on target and may even extract the plane from enemy pursuit fighters as demonstrated by the Mosquito and Ar-234 multiple times. This is a positive relationship.

*-cruise Speed. This is a general asset. While top speed may be boosted, the cruise speed ultimately allows to enter and exit target airspace at the max. permissable (for range) speed the airframe and engines can tolerate. This is a positive category. 
My personal ideal would be to know the landing speed for each plane. Unfortunately, these data do not exist for all planes and I have to resort to other criteria. Landing speed would be greatly welcome as it allows to study and compare the whole flight envelope and not parts of that.
Take notice that neither plane can operate adeaquately at only 200mph with gears and flaps fully retracted (actually the Ki-67 can but only at much reduced capacities). Thus, 200 mp/h is considered to be the bottomline for comparison. Any speed in excess of 200mp/h counts compared to the max speed of all contenders. Note that this may slightly but linearely over-emphasize speed differences shown by these planes. The increase of speed is not linearely with power but more a cube fit function, with this in mind it becomes very difficult to increase the speed of an already fast A/C. Fighter A/C had a speed envelope of 400 to 450mp/h, so any speed coming close to this line is worth all the effort. 




As You may see, the best places for cruise and top speed go to the jet-propelled Ar-234B, the second beeing the Mossie closely followed by the Me-410A. These three planes were generally on the low ranks in the previous comparison, reflecting the effort put in designing a bomber to operate under more hostile environments, which dominated particularely the german airplane design at the close of ww2.
B-18 and A-26 don´t differ much in their relative speed with the two candidates Ki-67 and Tu-2S beeing the slowest and most exposed in comparison.

The next criterium is wing area. A large Wing area is considered to be a negative aspect for defensive questions, as it ultimately leads to a larger aircraft, which is easier to hit. Thus the numeric relationship of the normalised values is negative, the larger the wing area, the more the likelyhood f beeing hit by cannon or Flak fire. A large wingload helps in load taking abaility, but the general advent of high lift flaps in the second part of ww2 made this benefit also aviable to small wing aread designs.




It can be seen that both, the Mossie and the Ar-234B are extremely small aircraft, the Mossie beeing basically half the size of the japanese Ki-67, the Tu-2 and A-26 are also relatively large aircraft.

The final criterium is the relationship between maximum take off weight an power aviable. This again is a negative relationship, the less weight is related to a single hp engine power the shorter the take-off-run, the better the acceleration and the powered handling capacity of the airplane. Jet´s generate thrust, not hp. The relationship of thrust to speed is a square one instead of a cube fit, making jet propelled A/C the clearely preferable choice for high speed aircraft.





The A-26 this time appears to be less well provided with power for the max weight of the plane, Tu-2, B-18, Me-410A and Mossie are remarkably similarely powered in relative terms. The Ar-234B has excellent acceleration, albeit not at take off or landing, of course.

The result is quite clearly cut. 





The Ar-234B, Mosquito B Mk-XVI and Me-410A are the winner of the defensive general Counts with the Ki-67 claiming the last place for itselfe.*


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## delcyros (Jan 2, 2013)

The concluding comparative figures for offensive and defensive may be valued according to the desired thread scenarios. I didn´t attempt a valuing as these undertakings are highly subjective in nature and varyable, too.
But one may prefer higher offensive values when operating in dominated or friendly airspace while engaging missions under hostile or contested airspaces one may prefer to overvalue the defensive figures.





The concluding count shows my personal selection of the best 44/45 2-engined bomber A/C. I hope, I succeeded in outlining the reasons for this selection in the two rather long memos above. Please note that this still remains to be my subjective perspective. Other readers will perhaps discuss different criteria or use different methods to explore on their own initiative. I need to outline that I was surprised to see the Tu-2S staying relatively comfortable as a third choice. To be honest, I didn´t expected this. These bombers are slow but compact and well powered with a comparably large payload, making them very competetive. The Ar-234B´s primary asset is the new jet propelled propulsion technology, which paved way for the more general advent of the jet bomber following the years after the end of ww2. The speed alone and the small target size of the airplane allowed it to operate where needed, despite beeing under enemy controlled and thus hostile airspace from anywhere after take off. This is a remarkable achievement.
The Mosquito ended up at a well respected second place, beeing basically the best piston engined bomber A/C of this comparison, with both, Me-410 and B-18 challanging each other for No. 4 5. These two planes show very similar approaches, the B-18 beeing a bit better in the offensive with the Me-410A beeing more survivable, so I take it that every airforce got precisely what they required. The US A-26 INVADER ended only beeing sixth, something I didn´t expected. It´s a large airplane, comparably slow and less well powered than most of the others. The Tu-2S shows what improvement could have been possible for a bomber with good payload. Then the final place goes to the japanese Ki-67, an airplane with possibly to arrow an prupose envelope to be reflected correctly in this kind of comparison. Long range was an existential requirement for the Pacific theatre and not nearly as important in europe. The Ki-67 stays out as a medium bomber with long legs but a poor tune of speed, relatively underpowered and an easy to hit, large target. It would not be as competitive in Europe as it was in the Pacific.


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## zoomar (Jan 2, 2013)

Delcryos, I certainly can't and won't take issue with your exhaustive analysis, and I am certainly glad it included the Tu-2, since Soviet types are often forgotten in these discussions. The only comment I would make regarding the Ar 234's placement at the top is that these rankings do not take into account the unreliabililty and short service life of its turbojet engines. If I was forced to chose one of these planes around which to build a late war twin-engined bomber force, it would not be the Blitz. I would go with the Tu-2, followed by the Mossie and A-26.


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## wuzak (Jan 2, 2013)

Hmmm....in what universe does a Me 410 have a higher top speed than a Mosquito B.XVI?

Also, Wiki says that the internal bomb load for a Tu 2 was 3300lb, and if it wanted to carry more then it carried the extra externally. That is less desirable, as it slows the aircraft down and reduces range. Similarly for the A-26, only 4000lb could be carried internally.


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## stona (Jan 2, 2013)

A Spitfire pilot might beg to differ that "a large wing area is considered to be a negative aspect for defensive questions" as he turned inside a Bf 109.

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Jan 2, 2013)

While the Tu-2s was a very remarkable plane many of the published figures are a bit too remarkable as little note is taken of the difference in bombload between inside and outside. Or war time aircraft and post war aircraft. Perhaps the post war aircraft used better runways? 

See: Tu-2S, ANT-61 by A.N.Tupolev

Little seems to be availalbe as to what the range of the TU-2 was when carrying heavy loads as 3000kg can suck up a very large amount of it's allowable payload without going over most commonly quoted Max Gross weights ( B-26 weights are a bit strange themselves. Max Gross can be 8,000lb higher _or more_ than normal gross weight.)


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## delcyros (Jan 3, 2013)

zoomar said:


> Delcryos, I certainly can't and won't take issue with your exhaustive analysis, and I am certainly glad it included the Tu-2, since Soviet types are often forgotten in these discussions. The only comment I would make regarding the Ar 234's placement at the top is that these rankings do not take into account the unreliabililty and short service life of its turbojet engines. If I was forced to chose one of these planes around which to build a late war twin-engined bomber force, it would not be the Blitz. I would go with the Tu-2, followed by the Mossie and A-26.



I understand this concern. Short overhaul times were a general problem in this period (The J-47 required 25 hours in 1948). It´s particularely a problem for the Jumo-004B driven Ar-234´s but less by those which were driven by a BMW-003. The BMW-003´s lifetime of the combustion chamber was 200 hours, significantly longer than the Jumo-004 (acc. to Anselm Franz 60 hours for the final -004D and much less -about 30 in the regular -004B) or most period german high performance piston engines. The disadvantage of the Jumo´s in general, beside of the average lifetime was its prone to flameouts under 6.000 rpm. This is mostly because of the fuel regulation system at lower rpm (easy to burn out the turbine blades if too much fuel is injected at low rpm):
A gear driven pump that produced a linear amount of fuel proportion to the engines rpm, the pilots throttle was directly connected to a bypass valve that would recirculate unwanted fuel. Fuel then passed to a centrifugal speed governer that operated another bypass valve. However, if the engines rpm was under 6.000 rpm (set to idle), the speed governer did not take into effect and the throttle bypass was the only fuel flow regulation. The pilots throttle also was connected to a governor by a pressure spring and would regulate the governers rpm setpoint this way. At full throttle, for example, the rpm of a Jumo-004 B4 was at 8875 rpm. Under 6.000 rpm the pilot had to be very careful, because without the governeor it was easy to allow to much fuel entering the combustion chambers and thereby burn them out.
So there can be a dissimilarity between engines rpm and air flow. The BMW-003 had a similar layout but in addition a device that consisted of an aneorid capsule across the compressor stages. This "accelerator valve" regulated the fuel flow in correspondence to the air flow (by pressure) and the governeor had less importance. In the end the actual air flow and spool up time was taken into account, so that the BMW-003 throttle could be handled less gingerly. The Jumo-004 on the other hand had a more sophisticated system to regulate the exhaust nozzle, while the BMW-003 exhaust nozzle was manually controlled. In the end, the BMW-003 is much easier to operate, more reliable and durable and less prone to flameouts in direct comparison to the JUMO-004. The latter´s principal advantage over the BMW-jet engine was it´s earlier aviability as a functional prototype (roughly 1942/3 compared to 1943/4) and mass produced engine (mid 1944 vs late 1944 to 1945) plus it´s larger production quantity.


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## delcyros (Jan 3, 2013)

wuzak said:


> Hmmm....in what universe does a Me 410 have a higher top speed than a Mosquito B.XVI?
> 
> Also, Wiki says that the internal bomb load for a Tu 2 was 3300lb, and if it wanted to carry more then it carried the extra externally. That is less desirable, as it slows the aircraft down and reduces range. Similarly for the A-26, only 4000lb could be carried internally.



Thanks for the replies Wuzak, In the above comparison, I don´t care if a bombload is carried internally or externally as long as the bomber A/C is able to drop the bombs in case of an emergancy and can restore it´s max. top speed. As mentioned previously, top speed is considered by myselfe as a distinct defensive asset for an bomber A/C. A bulged bombbay (say Ju-388K2 f.e. or some specially modified Mossies to carry extra large bombs) is something else as it doesn´t allow to restore the planes max. speed after emergancy drop. That´s how I see it, Your perspective doesn´t necessarely need to match mine.


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## delcyros (Jan 3, 2013)

stona said:


> A Spitfire pilot might beg to differ that "a large wing area is considered to be a negative aspect for defensive questions" as he turned inside a Bf 109.
> 
> Steve


Wingarea doesn´t help in turning per se, only in combination with a high lift generation per ft^2 (caused by a high lift airfoil/devices/planform) and a low weight. Thus what You are talking is basically a very low wingload caused -in part- by a larger wingarea (in part by a high Cl-max, too).
Generally, low wingload may be an asset for a fighter bt not for a bomber. Any Ju-87 can outturn any late ww2 fighter A/C but that doesn´t make the Ju-87 competetive or less vulnerable to a fighter. Any biplane can outturn a late ww2 fighter, so what?
I am referring to wing area as an indicator of target size and that´s true not only against fighters but also against AAA.


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## wuzak (Jan 3, 2013)

delcyros said:


> Thanks for the replies Wuzak, In the above comparison, I don´t care if a bombload is carried internally or externally as long as the bomber A/C is able to drop the bombs in case of an emergancy and can restore it´s max. top speed. As mentioned previously, top speed is considered by myselfe as a distinct defensive asset for an bomber A/C. A bulged bombbay (say Ju-388K2 f.e. or some specially modified Mossies to carry extra large bombs) is something else as it doesn´t allow to restore the planes max. speed after emergancy drop. That´s how I see it, Your perspective doesn´t necessarely need to match mine.



delcyros, the Mosquito B.XVI is rated as having a top speed of 408mph. That is some 20mph from the quoted speed of the Me 410. Other sources give 408mph as the speed with a 4000lb bomb, 416mph as the speed after dropping the bomb.

A B.IX with a bomb under each wing and a full load of bombs (2000lb) and fuel was measured at the same speed as a Me 410 (388mph), albeit with +21psi boost.
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/lr495-b.pdf

It was still recorded at 383mph with the normal +18psi, and the conclusion was that the wing bombs cost between 15-18mph in top speed.

The Mosquito B.XVI Data Sheet gives a maximum speed of 408mph after dropping the wing bombs.

External stores not only affect top speed, but also cruising speed, height for best performance, ceiling and, more importantly, range.


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## delcyros (Jan 3, 2013)

Thanks, Wuzak, that´s definitive enough for me. I update the Mossie entries above (top speed: 408mph, cruise speed 321mph (max. weak mixture), bombload 4000lbs, range 850 (at cruise speed -but I keep the old range as I suspect other planes are reported with a range not fitting to optimum bombload)). There are different configurations possible, unfortunately that great deal of information isn´t aviable for other planes, too. The total doesn´t change much, the lower cruise speed is offsetting what it gained in top speed in the first place (0.89 top speed*0.51 cruise speed =0.454 compared to previously 0.71*0.71 =0.504).
In reflective terms the new speed data compared to the Ar-234B´s 1.0 rating is:
Nr²= topspeed*cruisespeed that results to
Nr= sqrt(topspeed rating * cruise speed rating)

1st) Ar-234B = 1.0
2nd shared) Me-410A = 0.68 (due to higher cruise speed, top speed inferior to Mossie)
2nd shared) Mosquito BMk XVI = 0.67 (better top speed but worse cruise speed)
3rd) B-18 = 0.57
4th) A-26 = 0.55
5th) Ki-67 = 0.47
6th) Tu-2S= 0.44


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## Shortround6 (Jan 3, 2013)

Production Saab B-18s don't get the DB 605 engines until after the war. 

TU-2 bombers used normal bomb loads of under 1500kg for most missions during the war. 

No mention is made of defensive guns. While the A-26 had 4 compared to the TU-2's 3 the A-26 guns were in remote aimed turrets/barbettes (very similar to B-29) with much wider fields of fire and better ammo supply.


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## 69TA (Jan 3, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> Production Saab B-18s don't get the DB 605 engines until after the war.



Almost correct. Saab took delivery of some 70 german built DB605A complete with props and reduction gears already in 1943. They were initially used in the B18B from june 1944 in testing. During testing the german built engines were found to be of questionable quality so a decision was made to wait for the swedish license built DB605. The first production built B18B with the swedish license built DB605 were delivered to the swedish air force in october 1945.

The B18A had swedish license built TWC-3 engines and the first production built B18A were delivered to and in service in the swedish air force in march 1944.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 3, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> Production Saab B-18s don't get the DB 605 engines until after the war.
> 
> TU-2 bombers used normal bomb loads of under 1500kg for most missions during the war.
> 
> No mention is made of defensive guns. While the A-26 had 4 compared to the TU-2's 3 the A-26 guns were in remote aimed turrets/barbettes (very similar to B-29) with much wider fields of fire and better ammo supply.



How able was the A-26 to simultaneously defend vs. 2 fighters?


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## delcyros (Jan 3, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> TU-2 bombers used normal bomb loads of under 1500kg for most missions during the war.
> 
> No mention is made of defensive guns. While the A-26 had 4 compared to the TU-2's 3 the A-26 guns were in remote aimed turrets/barbettes (very similar to B-29) with much wider fields of fire and better ammo supply.


 
The comparison reflect capabilities of the bomber A/C not how they were employed or what was the normal bombload at the most common mission profile. The normal bombload of the Tu-2 in missions flown 1944 was 1000kg though at several occassions, entering low thread areas, 3 ts of bombs were delivered and in few cases on short range trips engaging the remains of the KM in the Baltic 4 ts were delivered in spring 1945. 

Also, You will notice that defensive guns are indeed mentioned and listed in these posts. The A-26 is there credited with four 0.50cal M2 BMG in RC (=remote controlled) barbettes. The Tu-2s has three seperated gun stations with one LMG (replaced with BMG later) each. Defensive gun positions are not part of the statistic analysis because they have a different scale level (0.50cal BMG is not a measurable metric but can be counted, thus beeing in principle a nominal scale level) and shouldn´t be mixed with metric scale levels, which form the base of the analysis. 
In principle, it is possible to code nominal scale levels along a metric axis, though this is not justified here as it would involve very many questions, which would easily end up in a study of it´s own.



> How able was the A-26 to simultaneously defend vs. 2 fighters?



In principle one target can be engaged at any time. The system works, remote controlled barbette with BMG guns were also placed in the Me-410A fuselage as defensive armement and we know some fighters were downed by that. However, it helped little to nothing to make these A/C more survivable against fighter opposition, though it drastically increased claim rates. That the Me-410A was not able to operate at daylight despite it´s high defensive ratings lends us an idea just how inferior twins were against single engined fighter A/C opposition.


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## riacrato (Jan 3, 2013)

While statistical analyses are always fun, they are always limited by the factors chosen and the data available. Nice effort nontheless.

But what immediatly came to mind after reading your posts is the fact that *accuracy* seems to me to be a more decisive offensive factor especially for the light-to-medium bombers that we are talking about here.

How does an Ar 234, with its one-man-crew stack up against the ones with a dedicated bombardier (autopilot, I know but still)? Or a bomber capable of dive bombing?

And on a small note: I don't think any Ar 234s were ever fitted with the two MG151 operationally.


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## mhuxt (Jan 3, 2013)

delcyros said:


> Thanks, Wuzak, that´s definitive enough for me. I update the Mossie entries above (top speed: 408mph, cruise speed 321mph (max. weak mixture), bombload 4000lbs, range 850 (at cruise speed -but I keep the old range as I suspect other planes are reported with a range not fitting to optimum bombload)). There are different configurations possible, unfortunately that great deal of information isn´t aviable for other planes, too. The total doesn´t change much, the lower cruise speed is offsetting what it gained in top speed in the first place (0.89 top speed*0.51 cruise speed =0.454 compared to previously 0.71*0.71 =0.504).
> In reflective terms the new speed data compared to the Ar-234B´s 1.0 rating is:
> Nr²= topspeed*cruisespeed that results to
> Nr= sqrt(topspeed rating * cruise speed rating)
> ...



You've put together a most interesting approach, and should be commended for it. I confess it's the first time I've seen anyone attempt to put together a numerical analysis in a "best of..." thread.

Point of order though, the 410 cruise is still too high, according to the German doccos I have. The DB603A manual says the Maximum Continuous setting (I don't know if this is max continous rich mixture, or max continuous weak mixture, as per the mossie) is 2300 rpm at 1.2 ata.







The handbook for the 410 says at that engine setting, the max speed is 540 km/h






Accordingly, the cruise speed for the 410 can have been no higher than 335 mph. Again, I don't know if "Hoechstverlaessige Dauerleistung" compares to max rich or max weak mixture, or if the comparison can even be made (according to the Mossie pilot's notes, the difference is in the boost, rpms are the same for both.)


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2013)

> Accordingly, the cruise speed for the 410 can have been no higher than 335 mph. Again, I don't know if "Hoechstverlaessige Dauerleistung" compares to max rich or max weak mixture, or if the comparison can even be made (according to the Mossie pilot's notes, the difference is in the boost, rpms are the same for both.)



Mhuxt, 
thanks for the data, that´s solid data enough to justify a correction. From what I can tell, "Höchstzulässige Dauerleistung" is specified usually as "max. rich mixture" and "Sparleistung" -in it´s different variants as "weak mixture".

Max. cruise speed should be at a little less than 6000m from these tables (to attain the full benefit of 1.20ata rather than 1.19 ata at 6000m) Cruise speed may correspondingly be slightly higher (~5 km/h) but I´m not going to quibble on that. Noteworthy that range figures are with alarger than specified safety figure (consumption is given with 970 ltr/h instead of the 800 ltr/h from the engine manual, thus 21.25% rather than 15% specified in the table). Interesting.

I am trying to redo the analysis with some different proposition, but I will need some time to prepare.
CHANGES:
[1] Speed. the borderline min. speed referenced for normalization is the landing speed of the slowest plane of the comparison.
[2] Planes. Additional planes involved: B-26B; B-25J; HE-177A5; Pe-2FT; any more ideas?
[3] Defensive guns. The idea is to use a categorical analysis which is related to the max cruise speed. The higher the speed, the less importance is given to defensive guns. Or in other words, the slower the speed of the bomber A/C, the more defensive guns are required. Not sure, how this will be measured though, thinking about a numerical coding of nominal entries.


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## Glider (Jan 6, 2013)

re any other aircraft, Do 217 please


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2013)

Ok. Will add the Do-217M. More suggestions?


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## Vincenzo (Jan 6, 2013)

B-26G? a late A-20? a late 88 or a 188?
what's the most common in RAF? (except the Mosquito)


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## Shortround6 (Jan 6, 2013)

Some thoughts on your changes.

"[2] Planes. Additional planes involved: B-26B; B-25J;HE-177A5 ; Pe-2FT; any more ideas?" 

You can add more but it won't change the the top 2-4 any. Or shouldn't if the method is valid. Due to evolution the later planes (1944) should beat the early planes. HE-177A5 is questionable as is it a twin engine plane or a 4 engine with two props or? 
Comparing an 19,000lb airplane (Pe-2FT) to a 70,000lb airplane (HE-177A5) may be stretching the ability of the analysis a bit too far. 

"[3] Defensive guns." 
This is a whole can of worms in itself. You cannot really not count it but how much weight should it carry? IS one or two more defensive guns (B-25s, and B-26s having 6-7 defensive guns) worth 1000lb of bomb load or several hundred miles of range? 

Simple counting of guns is far from the whole story. Leaving the merits of the various guns aside (long threads in their own right) the effectiveness of the mountings is largely unknown ( or little discussed). Everybody agrees that a power turret is better than a manual mounting but by how much? Not all mounts had the same field of fire even if in the same position, like a tail mount. And in a number of cases two guns (or more?), pointing in different directions are "manned" by the same crew man. Counted as two guns or one gun with a larger field of fire? 
And in the end the Defensive fire doesn't count for a whole lot as very few (if any) of these aircraft could "fight" their through unescorted ( AR 234 and Mosquito excepted and they weren't "fighting").


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## Glider (Jan 6, 2013)

delcyros said:


> Ok. Will add the Do-217M. More suggestions?



Thanks


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## tomo pauk (Jan 6, 2013)

For what is worth, specf for the Tu-2, both serial and non-ww2 version with Mikulins:


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> Some thoughts on your changes.
> 
> "[2] Planes. Additional planes involved: B-26B; B-25J;HE-177A5 ; Pe-2FT; any more ideas?"
> 
> ...



My opinion is that the He-177A´s two DB-610 engines justify the qualification as a twin engined airplane. While it´s true that the Db-610 is a coupled pair of DB-605´s each, They are still in a single engine housing, sharing the same cankshaft and it´s not possible to manage any of the two coupled parts of this engine individually. Similarely as it´s not possible to manage any single cylinder star out of the two row radials which drove the A20 and A-26. Thus, a twin liquid cooled V-engine is comparapble to a twin radial one.
My expectation is that the He-177 will perform as a landmark for relative normalizations (range, payload but also- in a negative sense- size and powerweight). I am quite interested in the result and whether or not the method can be held valid for it or not.



> This is a whole can of worms in itself. You cannot really not count it but how much weight should it carry? IS one or two more defensive guns (B-25s, and B-26s having 6-7 defensive guns) worth 1000lb of bomb load or several hundred miles of range?
> 
> Simple counting of guns is far from the whole story. Leaving the merits of the various guns aside (long threads in their own right) the effectiveness of the mountings is largely unknown ( or little discussed). Everybody agrees that a power turret is better than a manual mounting but by how much? Not all mounts had the same field of fire even if in the same position, like a tail mount. And in a number of cases two guns (or more?), pointing in different directions are "manned" by the same crew man. Counted as two guns or one gun with a larger field of fire?
> And in the end the Defensive fire doesn't count for a whole lot as very few (if any) of these aircraft could "fight" their through unescorted ( AR 234 and Mosquito excepted and they weren't "fighting").


Good points, agreed.


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2013)

Vincenzo said:


> B-26G? a late A-20? a late 88 or a 188?
> what's the most common in RAF? (except the Mosquito)



I was thinking about the Ju-388K but discarded the idea because of the prototype stage of the airplane. Leaving the Ju-188A2 with MW-50 boosted JUMO-213AM because there was no late war Ju-88 bomber subtype (only NF derivates).
I have no idea about the RAF twin bomber for late war, the Mossie was extremely versatile.
Maybe fighter bomber P-38? Does anybody happen to know the specifics of the P-38 snoop droop, from which around 120 have been operationally used from mid44 onwards (mostly pathfinder, altough there was a proposal to use them as level bomber)?


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## Denniss (Jan 6, 2013)

It was possible to disable/idle the engines of the DB 606/610 individually. See He 177A Exerzierkarte 4/1943, page 14-17.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 6, 2013)

delcyros said:


> My opinion is that the He-177A´s two DB-610 engines justify the qualification as a twin engined airplane. While it´s true that the Db-610 is a coupled pair of DB-605´s each, They are still in a single engine housing, sharing the same cankshaft and it´s not possible to manage any of the two coupled parts of this engine individually. Similarely as it´s not possible to manage any single cylinder star out of the two row radials which drove the A20 and A-26. Thus, a twin liquid cooled V-engine is comparapble to a twin radial one.



many sources claim that one engine or the other _could_ be declutched? errors in old sources or? 

Not sure if it helped "limp" home ability even if true. Some power on one side being better than no power but juggling throttle settings and prop pitch might be a bit difficult. 



delcyros said:


> My expectation is that the He-177 will perform as a landmark for relative normalizations (range, payload but also- in a negative sense- size and powerweight). I am quite interested in the result and whether or not the method can be held valid for it or not.



It may work or it may just "squish" a fair number of the results for the other aircraft into a very narrow band. I am certainly no expert in this technique though.


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## Denniss (Jan 6, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> many sources claim that one engine or the other _could_ be declutched? errors in old sources or?


No error


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2013)

I didn't knew that.
So excluded she should be, agreed.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 7, 2013)

delcyros said:


> I was thinking about the Ju-388K but discarded the idea because of the prototype stage of the airplane. Leaving the Ju-188A2 with MW-50 boosted JUMO-213AM because there was no late war Ju-88 bomber subtype (only NF derivates).
> I have no idea about the RAF twin bomber for late war, the Mossie was extremely versatile.
> Maybe fighter bomber P-38? Does anybody happen to know the specifics of the P-38 snoop droop, from which around 120 have been operationally used from mid44 onwards (mostly pathfinder, altough there was a proposal to use them as level bomber)?



On RAF twin bomber i've not found my paper with data but after a quick check with google i think they were a US model, Mitchell or Boston so B-25 or A-20 already mentioned.


What you think to add the classical 111 and Wellington? and G4M for the japanese navy would be not bad


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## Shortround6 (Jan 7, 2013)

Here we have the problem of comparing early aircraft and late aircraft and trying to rate for _best_. The He-111 and Wellington ended with 1700hp engines (rounded off) but started with under 1000hp engines which meant certain design aspects (like wing size or bombbay) were somewhat fixed at an early stage of production. Late war bombers were designed from the start to have 1700-2000+hp engines. 

Early bombers can be added to such a comparison but it won't change the top places in the list.

It may show the progress that was made over the course of the war though.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 7, 2013)

Yes my ask to add classical was for just see the progress was made over the course of the war


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## Tante Ju (Jan 7, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> The He-111 and Wellington ended with 1700hp engines (rounded off) but started with under 1000hp engines which meant certain design aspects (like wing size or bombbay) were somewhat fixed at an early stage of production. Late war bombers were designed from the start to have 1700-2000+hp engines.



Did later designed medium (twin) engine bombers really have a larger bomb bay or more internal capacity? 

A quick glance over specs of various well known mediums doesn't really strike me of superior bomb lifting capacity for those later and supposedly 'more advanced' bombers (even _the much larger_ Do 217 was, IIRC limited to 2.5 tons internally). I am rather more convinced that with two engines you cannot expect really more than about 2 tons of internal load. More bomb bay may require a much wider fuselage (or a very long one), at which point more engines are probably becoming the optimum configuration.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 7, 2013)

Do 217M can load 4 tons internally but only SD (4x1000), for the SC load max would be 2800 (2x1400)


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## delcyros (Jan 7, 2013)

Tante Ju said:


> Did later designed medium (twin) engine bombers really have a larger bomb bay or more internal capacity?
> 
> A quick glance over specs of various well known mediums doesn't really strike me of superior bomb lifting capacity for those later and supposedly 'more advanced' bombers (even _the much larger_ Do 217 was, IIRC limited to 2.5 tons internally). I am rather more convinced that with two engines you cannot expect really more than about 2 tons of internal load. More bomb bay may require a much wider fuselage (or a very long one), at which point more engines are probably becoming the optimum configuration.


 
Not necessarely. The Ju-288A´s internal bombbay is an example of efficient space management. It could take 
[2] SC-2500 bombs
or
[2] SC-1800 bombs
or
[2] SC-1700 bombs
or
[2] PC-1400 bombs
or
[2] SC/SD-1500 bombs
or
[2] SC/SD-1000 /PC-1000RS bombs
or
[3] PC/SC/SD-500 bombs
or
[3] PC-1000 bombs
or
[8] SC-250
or
[36] SC-50

max internal bombload was a whopping 5t.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 7, 2013)

Tante Ju said:


> Did later designed medium (twin) engine bombers really have a larger bomb bay or more internal capacity?
> 
> A quick glance over specs of various well known mediums doesn't really strike me of superior bomb lifting capacity for those later and supposedly 'more advanced' bombers .....



Well, the A-26 might have only held 4000lbs inside but that could consist of two MK 13 Torpedoes (although the doors did not close). Or carriers for 56 fragmentation bombs or various combinations. 2 x 2000lbs, 4 X 1000lbs, 8 X 500lbs, 8 X 250lbs, 12 X 100lbs. The weight capacity may not have gone up but the volume and flexibility may have. 

An A-26 can be looked at two ways. An A-20 with a lot more firepower (bombs and guns) or a B-25 with a _LOT_ more speed. A-26 could cruise about 9mph faster than a B-25Js top speed.


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## Denniss (Jan 7, 2013)

Vincenzo said:


> Do 217M can load 4 tons internally but only SD (4x1000), for the SC load max would be 2800 (2x1400)


Do you have a source for this? I only have a source for the E-2 stating 3x SD1000 or 2xSD1000 + 2xSD/SC500 and both loads (as well as 2xSD1400) are stated as exceeding the rear CoG limit.


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## mhuxt (Jan 8, 2013)

delcyros said:


> Mhuxt,
> thanks for the data, that´s solid data enough to justify a correction. From what I can tell, "Höchstzulässige Dauerleistung" is specified usually as "max. rich mixture" and "Sparleistung" -in it´s different variants as "weak mixture".
> 
> Max. cruise speed should be at a little less than 6000m from these tables (to attain the full benefit of 1.20ata rather than 1.19 ata at 6000m) Cruise speed may correspondingly be slightly higher (~5 km/h) but I´m not going to quibble on that. Noteworthy that range figures are with alarger than specified safety figure (consumption is given with 970 ltr/h instead of the 800 ltr/h from the engine manual, thus 21.25% rather than 15% specified in the table). Interesting.




Cheers, glad the info was useful.

The only other twin-engine bombers the RAF seems to have been operating with any regularity in 1944 and 1945 were the Mitchell and the Boston, both with 2 Group in 2nd TAF.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 8, 2013)

I think Wellingtons were still in use in the Med and/or Far East.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 8, 2013)

Denniss said:


> Do you have a source for this? I only have a source for the E-2 stating 3x SD1000 or 2xSD1000 + 2xSD/SC500 and both loads (as well as 2xSD1400) are stated as exceeding the rear CoG limit.



the source it's this PALBA.CZ • Zobrazit téma - Dornier Do 217, read on K-1 description and use a translator if like me don't speak czech
the max load with SC was 2x1800kg i was wrong in previous topic,


we (the forum) had the abwurfwaffenanlage here http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/other-mechanical-systems-tech/new-do-217-manuals-thread-5141.html but i can't speak Deutsch so i don't know if this confirm the palba web page


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## mhuxt (Jan 8, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> I think Wellingtons were still in use in the Med and/or Far East.


 
Very true, I stand corrected.


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## Sydhuey (Jan 10, 2013)

for me it has to be the A-26, longevity of service, multi role , weapons load, multi environment (arctic to desert to tropics), able to take punishment in airframe and radial engines , it was designed to replace 3 (A-20, B-25,B-26)and supliment 1 (P-61 if it failed) aircaft, was to replace multple aircraft in RAF service if war continued (A-20 Boston,Baltimore, B-26 Maurader, B-25 Mitchell, Ventura, Wellington (Med theatre) Mosquitos were for europe, Mosquito was an absolutly fantastic aircraft but in europe never was good in Desert or Tropics (eg the RAAF got the Mosquito to replace the Beaufighter the Beaufighter out lasted the Mossie in RAAF service as it was not as durable being wood .....it literaly fell apart as told to me by some old boys who worked on both after the war), Russian aircraft not in hot climates, even today operating Russian aircraft in hot /tropical places , no ventilation ( you are in a flying sauna)


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## tomo pauk (Jan 10, 2013)

What were the experiences of the in-topic plane (Tu-2) in hot climates? You do know that steppes in Southern Russia and Ukraine can have 35°C in summer?


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## Sydhuey (Jan 10, 2013)

Undoubtedly it gets hot there, but 35 is an average day in the tropics and desert, the other 11 months a year its cold , just from my experiance with Russian vehicles and aircraft they are build for the cold not the heat, if the TU2 was tropicalised , filters , cooling ducts for engines , smaller spinners to increase airflow into engine not restrict it, cooling and ventilation in cockpit it would probably be better than the A-26 , but like the Mosquito is the choice aircraft for europe for moderate to cold climates, even today most aircraft are build to and operate in ISO conditions (15oC) and talk about hot and high performance at ISO +5 or +10 or +15 which covers Europe and North America, in Most of Australia ,the Pacific and Africa 15oC is a cold winters day, its hard to compare all these aircraft in all environments, each country build there aircraft for the role in there part of the world, the TU2 and Mosquito are probably the best twin multi roles in Europe but give me a A-26 in the rest of the world .


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## wuzak (Jan 10, 2013)

Sydhuey said:


> longevity of service



Longevity of service is not relevant to a discussion on which was the best twin-engine bomber in 1944-45. 




Sydhuey said:


> multi role



I would dispute that of the A-26, especially during the 1944-45 time frame. After the war and in later wars, maybe.





Sydhuey said:


> weapons load



In 1944-45 you are talking 4000lbs internally, which is what the Mossie could carry too. Granted the A-26 could hang a couple of thousand pounds under the wings - but that cost performance. 




Sydhuey said:


> multi environment (arctic to desert to tropics)



When did the A-26 operate in the arctic? The desert?

Certainly the North Africa campaign was over before the A-26 was available, and before the Mosquito was available in sufficient numbers that they could be used outside the ETO.

If you are talking post war then the Mossie did serve in the middle east and in South East Asia.




Sydhuey said:


> it was designed to replace 3 (A-20, B-25,B-26)and supliment 1 (P-61 if it failed) aircaft



That may be so, but it doesn't make it the best twin engine bomber of 1944-45. 





Sydhuey said:


> was to replace multple aircraft in RAF service if war continued (A-20 Boston,Baltimore, B-26 Maurader, B-25 Mitchell, Ventura, Wellington (Med theatre)



As far as I can tell the only aircraft it was going to replace in British service was the A-20/Boston.




Sydhuey said:


> Mosquito was an absolutly fantastic aircraft but in europe never was good in Desert or Tropics (eg the RAAF got the Mosquito to replace the Beaufighter the Beaufighter out lasted the Mossie in RAAF service as it was not as durable being wood .....it literaly fell apart as told to me by some old boys who worked on both after the war)



Now, you know that the last Mosquito in the RAAF served until 1953? As far as I can tell the last Beaufighter finished in 1946. 

Also, the Beaufighter was not a bomber. This the roles for bomber Mosquitoes could not be done by a Beaufighter. The Beaufighter could not do PR work, at least not to the standard of the Mosquito. From what little I've read it seems that part of the reason why the RAAF didn't convert to Mosquitoes in SEA was due to slow deliveries, meaning they arrived to late for squadrons to train in them and join the war effort.




Sydhuey said:


> able to take punishment in airframe and radial engines



I suppose being a bigger, slower target would require the airframe to take more punishment. Not sure there is the evidence to prove that, though.


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## Sydhuey (Jan 10, 2013)

Good replys don't agree with most but we all have our opinions 
1/ longevity , yep didn't realy count in 44/45
2/light Bomber , low level strafer /Attack, Photo recon.
3/all the good ones very similar A-26/TU2/Mossie
4/maybe not arctic but it was Bloody cold in northern France end of 44 , Battle of the Bulge rings a bell coldest winter in years. Ok thats a one off, post war arctic weather service with USAF.
5/Don't think they designed an aircraft to be worse than these 3 !!
6/was ordered by RAF to replace existing types with 4 RAAF and 3 RNZAF sqns in europe(article XV sqns) (ETO and MTO), RAF changed their minds and they were earmarked to replace A-20's and B-25's with 88,342 and 226 Sqns, with there a/c going to MTO, with the MTO sqns getting subsiquent orders in 46 if war had continued on
7/yep last RAAF ops with Mossie 87 Sqn 1953, last target tug Beaufighter retired Mar 1956 with 30 TT(Target Tow) sqn so the first sqn in RAAF to operate the Beau was also the last.
8/matter of opinion, but the liquid cooled Merlins in the Mossie as any liquid cooled machine were always suseptible to damage.

I think all three the A-26 , Mossie and TU-2 were the outstanding twins in that time of the war , just depends on your opinion and were you want to use them .


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## Shortround6 (Jan 10, 2013)

wuzak said:


> In 1944-45 you are talking 4000lbs internally, which is what the Mossie could carry too. Granted the A-26 could hang a couple of thousand pounds under the wings - but that cost performance.



The A-26 may have had the same wight capacity but it could vary the bomb load much more to suit the mission. While a single 4000lb is NOT listed, two 2000lbs are, four 1000lb bombs, eight 500lb bombs. 

Four 500lb could be carried under wing. 



wuzak said:


> That may be so, but it doesn't make it the best twin engine bomber of 1944-45.



Because of it's size there some jobs it wasn't quite as suited for. But because of it's size and power there other jobs it could do rather well, like ground attack, with it's heavy forward firing armament. Glass nose versions had the option of replacing underwing ordnance with eight .50 cal guns. Ammo was in boxes mounted within the wing so pods only had to be sized to fit the guns. Perhaps not up to the Mosquito with four 20mm and four .303s but 6-16 .50 cal depending on plane and set up seems like a decent ground attack armament, and the bomb bay could still hold 4000lb of bombs. 




wuzak said:


> I suppose being a bigger, slower target would require the airframe to take more punishment. Not sure there is the evidence to prove that, though.



Considering some of the uses the A-26 has been put to (fire fighting tanker) I think we can assume it was fairly rugged. Douglas was not noted for building flimsy aircraft. The plane carried a fair amount of armor and large panels oh hardened dural plate were used as combination skinning/protection from angle fire to extend the protection envelope. 

See: Warbird Information Exchange • View topic - A-26 Invader Armor - Help!!!


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## parsifal (Jan 10, 2013)

> Now, you know that the last Mosquito in the RAAF served until 1953? As far as I can tell the last Beaufighter finished in 1946


. 

Actually both answers arent completely correct. Both types were effectively retired in 1946, but a few of each were used in various specilaised roles for quite a few years. The last operational usage of a Beafighter that I know of in Australian service (not actually RAAF, it by then a DAP hack) was 1957, whilst for the Mossie it was 1962, for just one airframe, which had been gifted to a University squadron in Queensland.

Of the two types, undoubtedly the Mosquito was retained in greater numbers and was used more for operational purposes (for the most part aerial survey work and Operational Training) , whereas the Beafighter was used for flight school training and instruction mostly (including non-flying instructional airframes) 

It is not valid to measure the ruggedness of either type on the basis of post war service, because in both cases their post war service was convoluted and cut short by the rapidly advancing technology.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

As promised, I reconsidered my approach. 

BASIC CHANGES IN METHODOLOGY.

I keep the z-normalization to create relational units. I also keep the general rating, splitted up between offeensive (payload range), speed (see below) and general defensive (target size and power/weight ratio). Specific defense is not included, it´s determination requires an analysis by it´s own (it´s not measurable like the other entries) and I am limited in the time I can spend here. Of course, this selection maybe simplicistic and I am aware of the problem. Thus, please take the following as the outlines and explenation for my personal selection for the title "best late war twin bomber", rather than an attempt to authoritatively rank them. You may have different criterias than I followed here in this rather arbitrary and simple approach.
I change a bit the speed rating. Speed was earlier the only non-relational but compressed rating (created by an artificial starting point at 200mph). Thus, we know have three setups in speed rating:
[A] Top speed (boost speed at best altitude)
* Cruise speed (sustainable cruise speed with bombs but w/o external stores as far as is known -not ferry range with all out fuel loaded)
[C] maneuvering speed realm (cruise speed minus (stall speed clean+10%))

PLANES.

I dismissed the swedish B-18 (a reasonable plane but not warproof). Added are
Do-217M, He-111H, Ju-188A, A-20G, B-25H, B-26G Pe-2FT 
I also changes some entries based upon various sources pointed to me.

COMPARISON.

ASPECT 1. OFFENSIVE.
The most important asset of a bomber is to deliver a maximum of ordenance at pinpoint accuracy.
Since accuracy is a relative term dependent on crew skills it will not be touched by this comparison.
Note that I didn´t cared whether or not ordenance is be carried within a bombbay or externally as long as the airplane is capable to restore max. speed once the load is dropped.





The maximum ordenance to be dropped by a qualified twin engined bomber is 4t., to be shared between Do-217M and Tu-2S (=1.0 rating). Both, the He-111H, Ju-188A, A-26 and B-26 also have very credible payloads. This is not surprising as all four types doubled in the heavy bomber role occassionally. The 1 t. bombload of the Me-410A on the other end of the comparison is roughly one quarter as heavy as that of the two leading types (=0.25 rating, which is correct as four times 0.25 = 1.0 -true, four times 1t = 4t., z-normalization works).





Range also appears to be of fundamental importance for a bomber A/C. The japanese Ki-67 rules here. It follows a smooth transition, beginning with the He-111H and ending with the Ar-234B before - to my surprise, the rather short legged tactical twin engined bomber Pe-2FT follows.
The composite rating for this comparative offensive aspect is calculated as following:
rating= sqrt(payload*range)






For the offensive count, my choice is the He-111H, a good blend of payload and range (if You can afford the aerial superiority to expose this type of bomber). Followed by Tu-2S, Do-217M, Ju-188A and A-26. The last places are shared between Pe-2FT and Me-410A, the primary result of them beeing devoted to different types of attack under different tactical envelopes.


(to be continued)*


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## Shortround6 (Jan 10, 2013)

I think you have seriously underestimated the B-25H. Either it carries more bombs or you have to give it it's true forward firing armament, eight. 50 cal MG AND the 75mm cannon. I would also be a bit leary of of the He 111 and a 4 ton bomb load. Same goes for the TU-2S. They may get off the ground with such loads but their operational radius is might short compared to their "normal" range. 

Like the B-17. Some of them could carry over 17,000lb of bombs but they would be lucky to reach the coast of France and get back to England.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

II SPEED RATING

The Top Speed is for me considered to be an primarely defensive asset. Bombers may be forced to drop their load in emergancy in order to attain the maximum speed possible. The advent of the jet engine greatly benefitted the Ar-234B in this regard, whiches top speed of 461mph is only little slower than twice the maximum speed of the old´He-111H:





Both, the Mosquito and the Me-410A are significantly faster than the bulk of the other bombers, except for B-26, B-25 and He-111H, which are distinctly slower than the bulk of them.






The cruise speed, however, is a general asset of the bomber (in my personal opinion, cruise speed is to often underscored in these types of comparisons), again demonstrating the superiority of the jet engined bomber over it´s piston engined competitors. The difference is more marked with the jet driven Ar-234 beeing able to cruise at twice the speed of the B-26 (!), making sort of intercept very difficult. Both, Pe-2FT and Me-410A are also cruising very fast (for a prop), beeing bested by the Mosquito B.Mk XVI and Tu-2S fourth.

I have attempted a stall speed comparison but owing to a lack of valid data, this part is intentionally left open for a later time.

The composite rating once again = sqrt(topspeed * cruisespeed)





Unsuprisingly, the jet engined Ar-234B holds a tempting superiority and is able to cruise among the top speed of many single engined piston fighters of the day. The 2nd place goes to the Mosquito B.Mk. XVI, depending on whether You prefer top speed or cruise speed ratings with a very close fellow third, the Me-410A. On the other end of the scale, no difference can be found between B-25 and B-26 with the He-111H beeing the slowest all-around- bomber of the day.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> I think you have seriously underestimated the B-25H. Either it carries more bombs or you have to give it it's true forward firing armament, eight. 50 cal MG AND the 75mm cannon. I would also be a bit leary of of the He 111 and a 4 ton bomb load. Same goes for the TU-2S. They may get off the ground with such loads but their operational radius is might short compared to their "normal" range.
> 
> Like the B-17. Some of them could carry over 17,000lb of bombs but they would be lucky to reach the coast of France and get back to England.



to be corrected to 5000 lbs from the Boing manual. It´s late already here.


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## wuzak (Jan 10, 2013)

What are you using for cruise speed - max range, max weak mixture, max continuous?


----------



## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

I used the aequivalent to "max rich mixture". Please notice me if You encounter a problem.


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## wuzak (Jan 10, 2013)

So, what is that in mph for each?


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## tomo pauk (Jan 10, 2013)

The max bomb load for the Tu-2S was 3t, not 4t, from the table previously posted; the engine is of radial type, not V-12.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

III GENERAL DEFENSIVE ASPECTs

As shown in the first attempt, only measurable aspects have been choosen. These conduct for negative counts, that is the more wing area, the larger the target size against gun AAA. A target which is smaller is also more difficult to spot and to track. Of course, there will be a negative count (the plane, even a small one, simply doesn´t disappear physically). Other advantages for bigger wing area are not disregarded (implying a lower wingloading and better maneuverability and slow speed handling). In my perspective, a bomber has to fullfill it´s function, not to engage in aerobatics.
This isn´t necessarely the only perspective imaginable to this subject.
Another, more general asset is weight/power relation. The more weight is accumulated on a single hp, the worse it is. All these bombers were in principle underpowered compared to modern standarts.





The He-111H by far represents the biggest target size in this comparison, roughly twice the size of the compact A-20 attack bomber. The Ar-234B has less than one third the target size of the He-111H and represents the smallest target.





The power/weight ratio also gives an idea about developmental potential of the basic airframe/ engine combination. The He-111 was considered outdated, the Do-217M was new but rapidly aging and very underpowered. This problem may have been worse, too, in the B-26, where the margin between stall speed and cruise speed is the smallest of all planes in this comparison.
Some high performance planes typically have less lbs per hp in order to attain a higher speed rating. The Ju-188A2 in particular benefits from MW-50 boost at low altitude (speed rating hasn´t been accounted for that as I was unable to find a speed graph for MW-50 boosted Ju-188A2). The piston engined A/C vary around 9.5lbs/hp +- 20% (significantly less variance than target size above). Jet engined A/C is not perfectly comparable as thrust is not power but compared to a prop driven unit, the thrust generated by a jet engine is awesome.





Note how the amount of defensive gunnery increases with negative rating. There is a significant correlation with the fitting of larger number of flexible and RPC defensive guns.

To Wuzak:
all speeds are in mph (range in st. mls., payload in lbs)


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## wuzak (Jan 10, 2013)

We know that Mosquito B.XVI cruised at 311mph with wing tanks/bombs, and 321mph without, maximum weak mixture.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/Mosquito_MkXVI_ads.jpg


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

tomo pauk said:


> The max bomb load for the Tu-2S was 3t, not 4t, from the table previously posted; the engine is of radial type, not V-12.



I stand corrected.
Rating for Tu-2s changes accordingly. 3t. = 0.75 payload
sqrt(0.75*.61) =0.68 offensive rating (instead of 0.78!), which put´s it right between Ju-188A2 and A-26.

Wuzak, Do you happen to know the B Mk-XVI´s cruise rating at rich mixture? Thanks in advance


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## wuzak (Jan 10, 2013)

delcyros said:


> Wuzak, Do you happen to know the B Mk-XVI´s cruise rating at rich mixture? Thanks in advance



Sorry, I don't.

Though the PR.XVI, which is generally similar, had a maximum cruising speed of 352mph @ 18,000ft (MS gear) and 366mph @ 30,000ft (FS gear).

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/dz540.pdf


The B.IX is also similar to the B.XVI and had max cruising speeds of 334mph @ 18,400ft (MS) and 345mph @ 30,800ft (FS) at maximum weight with wing bombs mounted on faired housings.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/lr495-b.pdf

Max cruising speed was with 2650rpm and +7psi boost.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2013)

Thanks. I based the editing on the B Mk IX until further data surfaces.





The final rating shows -in principle- the sequence we have seen before. The Ar-234B wins with ca. 19 points distance to the Tu-2S, which has a very good blend between offensive rating, speed and target size in particular. Mosquito and Tu-2S changed places, the reason beeing the reconsidered speed rule (starting with 0mph rather than 200mph, otherwise we would end up with non-relational speed units).
A-26, Ju-188, Me-410A and Do-217M are within the center of the sequence, followed by Pe-2FT and A-20G, too.
The B-25 and B-26 show little to choose from. Their performances are to identic to differentiate. These two, along with the He-111H were in the process of beeing phased out, the principal conclusion from their low speed and big target size in combination with rather mediocre bombloads.


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## parsifal (Jan 10, 2013)

del for what its worthy, I really like what you are attempting


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## Shortround6 (Jan 10, 2013)

I like it too but a couple of more corrections. 

Late model A-20s had a twin .50 power turret on top with one .30 or .50 out the bottom. 

The B-25H had a twin top turret, a twin tail mount and a single .50 out each side But how may waist gunners?, no bottom turret on the H model. Bomb load on the H was 3000lbs I believe (early models without the 75mm cannon could do 5200lbs but in a very bizarre configuration. But eight .50 cal guns weigh about 500lbs or more including mounts and ammo boxes. Even 200rpg is is another 480lbs and the 75mm cannon and ammo weigh?

B-26 had the twin top gun, twin tail mount, two single low waist/bottom guns (but one gunner) and flexible gun in the nose.


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## krieghund (Jan 10, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> I would also be a bit leary of of the He 111 and a 4 ton bomb load.



Your looking at 2 tons internal normal, any externals carried and range is greatly affected. With 2 tons range is about 1800km with a bigger load external you are down to 640km.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 11, 2013)

Very true, but the chart you have so kindly given us (twice) seems to show a max bomb load of 3250kg. 4 short tons (2000lb) is 3636kg. 

Perhaps 4 tons might have been carried but it means even less fuel, less ammo and/or crewmen left behind. 

A 4 short ton bomb load seems to leave about 1550KG for crew, fuel, oil and ammo if I am interpreting the chart right?


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> Very true, but the chart you have so kindly given us (twice) seems to show a max bomb load of 3250kg. 4 short tons (2000lb) is 3636kg.



A typo SR? 4 short tons would be 8000lb = 3628kg


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## Shortround6 (Jan 11, 2013)

could be? I am using 2.2lbs to the kg. 

12kg isn't going to change things much.


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

I thought you were saying 4 short tons was 2000lb, but now I see you meant that a short ton is 2000lb and there were 4 of them.


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

Do you think it would be worth seeing the raw numbers that delcyros has been using so we can refine the parameters.

The Mosquito reports I posted show that wing mounted bombs (500lbs) cost 15-18mph for all out level speed, and at least that much for cruise speed. It would be useful to see what effect external stores had on other aircraft.


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## Neil Stirling (Jan 11, 2013)

RAF data cards for the Mosquito B XVI and some other twin engine bombers. 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/93074546/RAF Twins.rar

Neil.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 11, 2013)

Neil thank you for the file 
just a info Whitley VII is present twice


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## tomo pauk (Jan 11, 2013)

Many thanks, Neil.


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## Neil Stirling (Jan 11, 2013)

Thanks guys. A little more :- 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/93074546/RAF twins 2.rar

Neil.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 11, 2013)

thanks again


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

Thanks Neil.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 11, 2013)

Thank you.


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## mhuxt (Jan 11, 2013)

Neil Stirling said:


> RAF data cards for the Mosquito B XVI and some other twin engine bombers.
> 
> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/93074546/RAF Twins.rar
> 
> Neil.



Many thanks as always Neil.

(Dammit, I still owe you that NF.30 stuff... sorry)

Holy crap! Look at the difference the 76/77 makes! Had a quick check of the files, XVIs with 76/77s were certainly in action in the last months of the war.


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

mhuxt said:


> Many thanks as always Neil.
> 
> (Dammit, I still owe you that NF.30 stuff... sorry)
> 
> Holy crap! Look at the difference the 76/77 makes!



30hp doesn't seem that much a difference, but I guess it is the 2000-2500ft difference at which the power is achieved makes all the difference.

37mph difference on max weak mixture cruise....Wonder what it would do at max rich mixture?

This report shows a max weak mixture cruise of 352mph TAS at 32,000ft for a B.IX with Merlin 72/73 engines.

Max weak mixture is defined as 2650rpm and +4.0psi boost. Max rich mixture is 2650rpm and +7.0psi boost. 1 hour limit (defined as max climbing, but is that the only place it could be used) is 2850rpm and +12psi boost.


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

Oh, those max speeds and max cruising speeds were corrected to 95% of max take-off weight (full fuel and 4 x 500lb bombs).


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## wuzak (Jan 11, 2013)

I hadn't realised that the B.XVI could carry 5000lbs of bombs - 1 x 4000lb bomb in the bomb bay and one 500lb bomb under each wing. With 500 UK gallons of fuel that gives a maximum range of 1370 miles (max economical cruise) and a range of 850 miles at max weak mixture cruise.


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## delcyros (Jan 12, 2013)

Do You guys think we should define cruise speed more strictly?

My idea is to use cruise speed figures outbound as max. continous figure at the A/C´s best altitude with a fixed 1 t. bombload (2000lbs to 2204lbs). This is about the maximum bombload to be carried by some of the light twin engined bombers here. Bombers with internal bombbays, capable to hold 2200lbs should benefit here.

Do You agree?


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## wuzak (Jan 12, 2013)

delcyros said:


> Do You guys think we should define cruise speed more strictly?
> 
> My idea is to use cruise speed figures outbound as max. continous figure at the A/C´s best altitude with a fixed 1 t. bombload (2000lbs to 2204lbs). This is about the maximum bombload to be carried by some of the light twin engined bombers here. Bombers with internal bombbays, capable to hold 2200lbs should benefit here.
> 
> Do You agree?



Not sure that equalising to the same bomb load is the best way. 

I think most cruise speeds you would be able to find will be for max range (ie most economical) and for internal bomb loads only. I think that keeping that consistent across all aircraft would be better.

Same for range. It should be only for normal fuel tanks, not overload or external fuel tanks.


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## Neil Stirling (Jan 12, 2013)

Mosquito B XVI 100 gall drop tanks.







Neil.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 13, 2013)

Perhaps two bomb weights/ranges could be considered and averaged/normalized?

Excluding such things as the He 177, Manchester and Vickers Warrwick it seems the max bomb load that could be carried any distance was 7,000-8,000lbs (misprint?) over 630 miles by the Whitley? Dropping the bomb load to 5500lbs the Whitley could cover 1370 miles. While a He 111 could lift 7150lbs of bombs it was over about 400 miles. 

Perhaps 4000/4500lbs load and range shoud be considered and 2000/2200lbs load and range?


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## delcyros (Jan 13, 2013)

Possible. Though in this case, we would have to exclude all airplanes, which are unable to lift 4000lbs.
If my numbers are right that includes:
Pe-2FT
Me-410
Ki-67 (it could lift more but only in a Kamikaze mission profile)


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## parsifal (Jan 13, 2013)

couldnt you just add another column to the table to accommodate the two bombloads, and those types that cant lift that load get an NA result.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 13, 2013)

I wouldn't say that a bomber that can carry 4000lbs over 1200 miles is twice as good as one that carries 2000lbs over the same distance but the whole purpose of a bomber is to carry bombs over long distances. Some planes had more flexibility than others in trading bombs for fuel. 
The He 111 chart so kindly provided by Kreighund helps tell the story. The He 111 could carry up to 2555kg of fuel in the normal tanks although even a full bomb load of eight 250kg bombs required leaving 100kg of fuel out without going into overload condition. Either side of the internal bomb bay could be fitted with a tank that held another 620kg of fuel, However fitting both sides with fuel tanks reduces the available payload to 660kg or below and hung outside. Useful for recon or a nuisance raid with a pair of 250kg bombs? Max bomb load in the chart (below what some web sites claim) has a range under 400 miles. Perhaps more fuel could be carried with rocket assist take-off? 
where do you draw the line? 

What is a _useful_ bomb load for a late WW II _bomber_? 
And over what range?

I don't want them included but at wars end a P-38 could carry a pair of 1600lbs bombs on a 250 mile _radius_ mission if it flew the right mission profile (altitude). A P-47N could carry a pair of 1000lbs on a 300 mile _radius_ mission at 25,000ft.
These radius's include 20 minutes of combat (5min at WER and 15 min at full Military power) and a pretty high cruise speed. Their accuracy may leave a bit to be desired but if a twin engine bomber cannot out haul a fighter plane it's inclusion in a "best" list is a little suspect even if interesting.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 13, 2013)

SR6 i've the impression that He 111 "range" numbers are radius numbers


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## Shortround6 (Jan 13, 2013)

Vincenzo said:


> SR6 i've the impression that He 111 "range" numbers are radius numbers



Well, it is 1000 miles from Berlin to Moscow. 

Distance Berlin → Moscow - Distance between Berlin and Moscow

If the He 111 could fly 4400lbs of bombs a 2000km (1240 mile) radius what were they fooling around with the He 177 for


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## parsifal (Jan 13, 2013)

facts are, under operational conditions, He111s had nowhere near that range. Want an idea of the types true operational capabilities.....look at its operations in the Stalingrad operation, when it operated generally at a range of 150 miles, carrying around 2/3 its max lift capacity. 

"The necessary aircraft and crews for the Stalingrad airlift were assembled on short notice from the advanced flight training schools, using mostly Ju-52 and He-111 aircraft (Boog, 1978: 142). The Ju-52 carried about two and a half tons of cargo, and the He-111 could carry only two tons (or 4500 lbs). Von Richthofen began airlift operations as ordered on 24 November. Approximately 320 Ju-52 and Ju-86 transports located at Tazinskaya and approximately 190 He-111 bombers at Morosovskaya (150 miles distant from Pitomnik) were available to conduct the airlift. Neither transport type could trade much fuel for freight, because the distance from Tazinskaya to Pitomik, the main airfield at Stalingrad, was 140 miles (Whiting, 1978: 114). The primary load delivered to Stalingrad was ammunition, which the Germans desperately needed to withstand the Russian attacks. The Germans had previously agreed to slaughter and eat the horses that had carried their supplies when they first arrived in Stalingrad. But eventually even the horses were gone. 

The high point of the airlift occurred when 700 tons was delivered between 19 and 21 December—that is, 700 tons for all three days combined (Whiting, 1978: 114). 

The supply airfields at Tazinskaya and Morosovskaya fell into Russian hands on 22 December, increasing the distance the transports had to fly from 140 to 200 miles. Manstein gave up hope of relieving Stalingrad on 23 December (Jukes, 1985: 125). At 200 miles, the he 111 had to further reduce lift capacity, down to about half its combat rating. Pitomik airfield was overrun on 16 January, and the smaller auxiliary airfield at Gumrak was seized on 21 January (Whiting, 1978: 115). The Sixth Army was split into two pockets by the Russian Army, with no hope of relief or resupply. Paulus, in the southern pocket, surrendered on 31 January, but the German troops in the northern pocket held out for two more days. German radio reported the fall of Stalingrad on 3 February". 

Source: 
From Stalingrad to Khe Sanh: Factors in the Successful Use of Tactical Airlift to Support Isolated Land Battle Areas, Dr. David K. Vaughan, Air Force Institute of Technology, Major James H. Donoho, Air Combat Command


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## Shortround6 (Jan 14, 2013)

I am not sure if the field conditions might not have had something to do with that. Just guessing here but trying to get a heavily loaded bomber off a crappy airfield in winter is going to be really difficult.

I don't have any information on the He 111 but here is a chart for the B-25, take-off run can vary from 1000ft at 28,000lbs with a 40 kt head wind and a hard runway to 8,000ft at 36,000lbs at zero wind on a "soft" runway. 
0 wind at 28,000lbs on the soft runway is 3500ft. 

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Images/B-25/B25TOC&LC.pdf

I would imagine that the He 111 follows a similar pattern.


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## parsifal (Jan 14, 2013)

yes, i agree. Another example perhaps worth looking at were the LF5 attacks in the north east of England, 15 august 1940. Does anyone have the basic statistics for these raids. Are they indicative?


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## Shortround6 (Jan 14, 2013)

Well it is 429 miles from Stavanger to Glasgow. 390 miles from Stavanger to New Castle. I don't know where the Luftwaffe 5 airfields were or what the bomb loads were but if you figure that radius is about 1/3 of range this is certainly in line. 

436 miles from Le Harve to Belfast. I don't know where the bombers that hit Belfast were from and that is a straight line. Perhaps the planes were only carring 1 ton apiece? they were carrying large loads of incendiaries which are usually more volume limited than weigh t limited.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 14, 2013)

Sorry SR6 last night (is good don't math the night after beer) i've confusing the convert factor when i put in same measure the 111 and whitley data
i do again now
Plane/Range/Bombload/Fuelload (metric) [fuel gals to 7.2 lbs] 
111H/640/3250/1040
111H/1270/2500/1790
111H/1885/2000/2425
111H/2000/1750/2555
111H/2465/1000/3175
WhitleyVII/2189/2495/2303
WhitleyVII/2623/2041/2734
WhitleyVII/3058/1588/3165
WhitleyVII/3492/1134/3596
WhitleyV/1014/3629/1208
WhitleyV/2205/2495/2303
WhitleyV/2647/2041/2734
WhitleyV/3106/1588/3165

is strange that with more fuel and less bomb the 111 had less range, unlucky we have no data on 111 cruise


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## Denniss (Jan 14, 2013)

Vincenzo said:


> is strange that with more fuel and less bomb the 111 had less range, unlucky we have no data on 111 cruise


See attached range table of a H-4 with Jumo 211 D-1 engines


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## Vincenzo (Jan 14, 2013)

if i understant this give at most economical cruise
111H/2800/2000/3175 

so the previous 111 data are not at most economical cruise


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## Shortround6 (Jan 14, 2013)

Vincenzo said:


> is strange that with more fuel and less bomb the 111 had less range, unlucky we have no data on 111 cruise




The Whitley was sort of in a class of it's own when it came to bomb load and range, Due in large part to fact that it was in a class of it's own when it came to speed. 

A big wing and a slow cruising speed (economical was 135mph? and max lean about 180mph? making it 25-45mph slower than most of the other older bombers) make for good payload and range but a plane that needs to fly at night to have a hope of surviving. 
The Whitley was often referred to as a "heavy" bomber and not a medium and was intended from day #1 to operate at night.


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## Vincenzo (Jan 14, 2013)

SR6 yes i thinked that the long range of Whitley came out from the low speed, for this i've ask for 111 cruise data 
and the data uploaded from Dennis show as the 111 going slower can go farther


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