# Bombers defensive armament: a misconceived idea?



## Udet (Dec 3, 2004)

I would like to focus exclusively on certain bombers within the thread, leaving aside ground attack planes and interceptors which were equipped with defensive armament.

The Battle of Britain saw Luftwaffe´s He111s, Do17s, Ju88s bombing targets all across central/southern England.

While each of the 3 bomber models were equipped with defensive machine guns -the number of guns depending on the bomber model- the German notion did not rely on defensive armament to ensure survival of the bombers. The Luftwaffe rather saw speed and maneuverability of its medium bombers to make interception an unlikely event -even if this was a pre world war two notion-.

They also relied on fighter escort which would be provided by the Bf110Cs (Zerstörer) as the BoB progressed.

Both notions were proved wrong once put into practice over England: the Luftwaffe bombers, while indeed fast for bomber standards, were uncapable of outspeeding the RAF interceptors and the "Zerstörer" did not perform well as bomber escort.

The Battle of Britain, however, saw the vast majority of the planes involved, German and British alike, armed with very light caliber armament: RAF´s fighters had .303 Browning caliber machine guns while the Germa bombers mainly carried 7.92 mm machine guns (either MG15 or MG81) for self defense. The exception to this rule was made by the cannon armed Bf109E-3 and Bf110C.

So as you can see, German bombers defensive MG´s were of a caliber slightly higher than the guns of RAF interceptors.

I have several combat film recorded from the cockpits of Do17s and Ju88s showing the German gunners setting Hurricanes and Spitfires ablaze during the Batlle of Britain. (I also hapenn to have rear gunner camera footage of a Stuka, where a Spitfire tailing the dive bomber is set on fire and disengaes in a cloud of smoke and fire, to immediately dissapear from the camera sight).

So far, it seems like most of us think of the USAAF heavies (B24s B17s) shooting down German interceptors with their big number of defensive machine guns. The German bombers during the Battle of Britain certainly killed a number of RAF interceptors, however, that is not the topic.


However, it was the USAAF´s 8th Air Force who pushed the bomber defensive armament theory further down the spiral.

They were firmly convinced, on paper, the massive boxes of heavy bombers such as the B17 and B24, fitted with up to 12 .50 cal defensive machine guns, were powerful enough to look after themselves from German interceptors and to accomplish their bombing runs then return safely to base and have a warm dinner. Fighter escort was not considered a necessary element.

While on the paper, the theory appeared to be sound, for the B17 indeed made a sound massive all metal aircraft packed with defensive machine guns capable of taking a good deal of damage and still be flying, once it got put to practice battlefield reports proved them very wrong.

Different notions for bomber formations:

(a) Luftwaffe in 1940: speed and maneuverability/fighter escort.

(b) USAAF 1943/early 1944: soundness of the construction of their heavy bombers/ heavy defensive armament.

Both theories with different grounds each were failures.

Still, the failure of the USAAF heavies was a disaster which surpassed that of the Germans during the Battle of Britain, both in terms of bombers and aircrews lost.

The German pilots very soon learned on the weaknesses of the defensive fire of the "heavies" and immediately started destroying big numbers of those.

The bombers while of course capable of shooting down a number of Luftwaffe interceptors proved very vulnerable.

The 2 Schweinfurt and the first Ploesti raids conducted by the USAAF, while being representative cases of terrible disasters, are only a percentage of the failed USAAF doctrine on heavy bomber boxes.

You are talking about so many days when hundreds of USAAF bomber crews simply did not return for dinner and had to be erased of the 8th Air Force order of battle for good.

Yes, several of those who made it through could hit the targets but not with the requiered intensity to put German industry at jeopardy.

The daylight unescorted bombing missions brought an attrition rate for the USAAF in terms on bombers and crews, not even a large country with massive resources could afford.

Conclusion: flying unescorted the bombers lose to fighters. No matter how heavily packed with guns your aircraft is if it is very big, very clumsy and totally uncapable of maneuvering. The B17s and B24s on their own are losers.

Your much smaller and perhaps "less" armed (by no mean implying the fighter armament wasnt powerful) but very fast and very maneuverable foe will bring you down in bigger numbers.

Meeting with USAAF veterans, they accepted the claims of the USAAF gunners reached levels of insanity. On return to base, those who made it through, would claim numbers of fighters which simply surpassed the whole order of battle for the Lufrtwaffe in the combat area.

Example: they could return claiming to have shot down 40 fighters, while during the complete bombing run they were intercepted in total by 35 fighters.

Only until fighter escort arrived the "heavies" improved their combat performance.

What are your thoughts?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 3, 2004)

very good points, that's what annoys me, people always talk about the american bomber's huge armorment, but even 13x.50cal wouldn't give you much of a chance against a fighter attack, another similar thing that annoys me is when people say the british bombers lacked defensive armourment, however we developed numerous measures to counter the threat of night fighters, many were extremely effective, Flight Sergeant Tom J. McLean, a tail gunner with 617 Sqn even became an ace in his own right after gaining the tally of 5 confirmed kils and one probable, if i get round to it i'll post his story at the weekend.................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 3, 2004)

During the BoB, the Dornier Do-17 was equipped with experimental Flamethrowers in the rear. They were largely a failure however, and just squirted oil everywhere.


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## Udet (Dec 3, 2004)

Lancaster, I do think I agree with you.

The Avro Lancaster, for instance, carried too powerful defensive armament, although of smaller caliber than those of the USAAF, carrying up to 8 .303 Browning machine guns.

As I am sure you know Lancaster Kicks Ass, the RAF bomber command faced an extraodinarily professional weapon: the Luftwaffe´s NJGs, and losses of the RAF were very high many times as well, if smaller to those of the USAAF though.

While I have never ever read it on any book of my private library, it appears to me like if the British, when knowing of the intention of the 8th Air Force to conduct bombing missions in daylight "because or big heavy bomber boxes will deal with the German fighters", thought to themselves: "Ok sods, go ahead and have a lovely flight" and simply said: "Ok Sir, in view of your insisting and since you are our guests, we, the RAF, will have to take the night shift."

If you remember, in 1939 and 1940 the RAF conducted some daylight bombing raids over Germany, just small formations of their bombers (Blenheims and Wellingtons), and took catastrophic losses (i.e. December 1939) at the hands of the Luftwaffe.

The RAF had endured the experience of daylight bombing when unescorted small bomber formations faced the Luftwaffe. Yes, such RAF bombers (1939 and 1940) did not carry the number of defensive machine guns those of the USAAF did from 1943 and on; but they learned the lesson and knew daylight bombing unescorted missions were extremely dangerous, switching thus to night missions.

It appears to me, after all, the theory of the Luftwaffe to send big fleets of bombers to bomb England, even if it failed, had more coherence and had a certain level of combat background (Spanish civil war).

Unlike the Luftwaffe, the USAAF went on to put into practice an experiment which proved a failure. We now know the outcome of such experiment: dozens of thousands of airmen simply took off to never be seen again.

While I agree when you say many speak only on how massive the defensive armament of the USAAF heavies was and also how effective they were at shooting down German fighters (which most of the times were not shot down, at all), the RAF effort has been certainly remained in a lower profile.


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## Medvedya (Dec 3, 2004)

Udet said:


> Ok sods, go ahead and have a lovely flight" and simply said: "Ok Sir, in view of your insisting and since you are our guests, we, the RAF, will have to take the night shift."



Shhhhh!  You know far, far, too much about us!


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## Tony Williams (Dec 3, 2004)

There was a fundamental difference in the requirements for day and night bombing. The day bombers needed their heavy defensive armament (if only for the morale of the crew!) but the night bombers would have been better off without it. All they needed was people to keep a good lookout for the night fighters, as once spotted the bombers' best chance of escape was to take violent evasive action and hope to 'lose' the fighter.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum


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## Anonymous (Dec 4, 2004)

Gunnery was difficult for fighter pilots. It was nearly impossible for bomber gunners.

The defensive guns of planes like the B-17 did force the enemy to modify their tactics. A fighter could not just sit behind a bomber box and pick off the targets at will. But this could have been accomplished with perhaps just the turrets and tail positions, the other guns were relatively ineffective (until the chin turret came into play).

Had the B-17's had the gun system of the B-29, they might have been more effective in defending themselves. The computerized gunsights and firing system meant that hitting fighters, even when making relatively fast approaches, would be much more likely.

But in the end it's simply a matter of cost. A single fighter, costing under $100,000 (in WWII $) with a crew of one could reasonably be expected to kill a $600,000+ bomber with a crew of ten more often than it got killed itself. Given this fact, the idea of gunners defending the bombers was totally unrealistic. However, in combination with escort fighters, which made proper setup for attacking the bombers very difficult, the gunners were somewhat effective in protecting themselves. Without both escorts and gunners the bombers would have been much more vulnerable. On the other hand, faster bombers with only a tail gunner might have been even more successful.

=S=

Lunatic


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 4, 2004)

> but the night bombers would have been better off without it. All they needed was people to keep a good lookout for the night fighters, as once spotted the bombers' best chance of escape was to take violent evasive action and hope to 'lose' the fighter.



that's a fair point and i agree largely, however the defensive armourment was still nessisary, 9/10 if an attacking night fighter pilot knew he had been spotted and the bomber was doing something about it (firing on him/taking evasive action) he would find another target, as such the armourment was important if only to scare off the fighters..............


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## Udet (Dec 4, 2004)

Tony Williams¿?

He makes a very good point when saying perhaps an implicit element in the massive defensive armament of the USAAF heavies was the morale boosting one. To make them crews feel they had a "powerful" tool to defend themselves from interceptors.

Why is it you think the RAF heavy bombers would have fared better without defensive armament?

The Avro Lancaster was not capable of taking violent evasive action if spotting a German Ju88, Bf110 or He219 nightfighter homing in for the attack. 

Even after releasing their bombs, the Lanc MkI is heavier than the B-17 and the maximun speed of both models is almost the same.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 4, 2004)

> The Avro Lancaster was not capable of taking violent evasive action if spotting a German Ju88, Bf110 or He219 nightfighter homing in for the attack.
> 
> Even after releasing their bombs, the Lanc MkI is heavier than the B-17 and the maximun speed of both models is almost the same.



the lancaster was EXTREMELY manouverable for a plane of it's size, it was extremely capable of violent evasive action, even by day the best fighter pilots would struggle to get a good aim on a corkscrewing lancaster....................



> the maximun speed of both models is almost the same.



their top speed was the same, and bombers never flew at maximum, the cruising speed of the lanc was 28mph faster than that of the B-17, and speed means nothing in a Bomber-fighter encounter............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 4, 2004)

I think a Zero would do it easily


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## Udet (Dec 4, 2004)

Lan Kick Ass:

The thread swiftly begins switching to off-topic playgrounds.  

When I remarked upon the speed of both the B-17 and the Lancaster, I did so in order to put a minimun reference on their specifications, and not to give that sole element full value for the outcome in combat action.

Well, I do not doubt the Avro Lancaster, for heavy bomber standards, had a good level of maneuverability, since all aircraft have either a higher or lesser level of it. But against the 2 engine night fighters?

A big four engine heavy bomber with a crew of 7 and an empty weight about 10 times that of most Luftwaffe interceptors, does not stand much of a chance in outmaneuvering the twin engine Ju88Gs or Bf110s.

The Ju88 as a medium bomber during the Battle of Britain was strikingly fast and maneuverable once its bombload had been delivered and indeed surprised many Hurricane and Spitfire pilots with its ability to turn and accelerate: With this I am just telling the Ju88 as bomber, was a tough cookie for RAF interceptors in 1940, and not superior in terms of speed and maneuverability, ok?

If I recall correctly it was the German bomber with the lowest casualty rate during the BoB. Try to think of it as pure fighter during the night bombing missions of the RAF pursuing the Lancs.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 4, 2004)

> A big four engine heavy bomber with a crew of 7 and an empty weight about 10 times that of most Luftwaffe interceptors, does not stand much of a chance in outmaneuvering the twin engine Ju88Gs or Bf110s.



ah, you interpreted what i said to mean "the lanc could out manouver an attacking fighter" which, if you read my post again, you'll find i never said, i said 



> the best fighter pilots would struggle to get a good aim on a corkscrewing lancaster



that means that they, literally wouldn't be able to keep their aim on the lanc for long enough because it was being thrown around too violently, and it worked extremely well, there was absolutely no way to counter it and it saved thousands of lives



> I think a Zero would do it easily



no it couldn't for the same reason as above, it wouldn't be able to keep it's aim for long enough...................


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## BombTaxi (Dec 4, 2004)

To echo a point already made, the aim of the USAAF's 'Combat Box' was not to ensure the accuracy of individual gunners when engaging German interceptors. Like the box barrage used by German flak batteries, and by every surface fleet of WW2, it was designed to ensure the maximum amount of lead in the air during an inteceptors pass, hopefully crippling it. IMHO, the mistake of the USAAF was in underestimating the power of contemporary fighter armament. Against six- or eight gun fighters, such as the USAAF used, the Combat Box may well have succeeded, as each fighter would need to make a number of passes to destroy a B-17 sized target. However, cannon-armed LW fighter, especially the Fw190, were capable of destroying or seriously damaging a heavy bomber in one short pass, thereby negating the Combat Box principle.

German bombers suffered defensively largely as a result of faulty design philosophy. The idea of concentrating the crew in a small, glazed nose compartment, in order to preserve morale, simply made the crew more vulnerable to being eliminated in a single pass, and also limited the arc of defensive MG's, especially on aircraft like the Ju88 and the Dornier bombers. Had the designs allowed for a greater distribution of weapons as as seen on the later He11s and on allied heavy bombers, the LW medium bombers might have fared better defensively.
Furthermore, the LW made a similar mistake to the USAAF in underestimating the power of its enemies. When the medium bomber designs were formulated aroud the Spanish Civil War, the fighters then available to European airforces were inferior inperformance to the LW mediums. The RAF and Regia Aeronautica were still flying biplanes, with some monoplanes appearing, while the VVS and Armee d' Air (excuse my poor French!  ) were using first-generation monoplanes like the I-16, which did not compare favourably to the latest German designs. So in 1936-8, the German bomber philosophy was well-founded; however, the introduction of fast monoplanes, especially the Spitfire and Hurricane in the post-Munich era, invalidated both the bomber philosophy, and the Zerstorer philosophy that acommpanied it.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 4, 2004)

all very valid and interesting points, you sound like you know what you're talking about...................


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## BombTaxi (Dec 4, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> all very valid and interesting points, you sound like you know what you're talking about...................



Thankyou 8) Its mainly stuff Ive picked up from various reading. Its strange how most of the powers going into WW2 were expecting some re-run of either the Spanish Civil War or WW1. The reality, of course, was somewhat different...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 4, 2004)

i think the Blitzkrieg tactics were amazing, everyone expected it to be like WWI, no one expected them to move that quickly..............


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## Udet (Dec 4, 2004)

Lancaster Kicks Ass, hello again:

I did not misunderstand you at all when you said the Avro Lancaster was a maneuverable aircraft. I also know you never did say the Lanc could outmaneuver the German night interceptors. I just wanted to have a clearer global view on your aguments. 8) 

As I said, I am sure the Lanc as heavy bomber, was a fine machine. It certainly took very heavy losses on many missions. The "shräge musik" cannon installation on the Ju88Gs and Bf110´s sent big numbers of Lancs to the ground.

That the Lancaster certainly was not "a piece of cake" to just grab and chump on, of course it wasn´t. As I shared with you before, I have rear gunner combat film of a Stuka setting a Spitfire ablaze, and it has always been depicted like if hitting Stukas was like chumping on chips! 

Still the outcome is the same for both cases: the Avro Lanc and the Stuka certainly lose to fighters even if they can manage to destroy attackers sometimes (the Lanc more than the Stuka of course, since more guns are available).

Bomb taxi: I do think we are on the same path regarding the failure B-17´s boxes.

However, and as I put it on this thread, while the German bomber formations over England in 1940 did never thought their defensive armaments where the sole element to rely on, expecting more rather from speed, maneuverability and escort fighter, it is obvious the machine guns were fitted to provide them with a certain level of self defense.

Even if for the Luftwaffe was not the main principle, I am convinced there were many times when German bomber crews over England saved their asses by shooting down RAF interceptors or at least forcing them to disengage combat with their MG´s.

So while it was mainly speed, maneuverability and escorts for the Luftwaffe´s bombers over England, I do not think the Luftwaffe believed the combat scenario over England after the fall of France, would be, at all, like that of the Spanish civil war.

The Luftwaffe of course knew of the Spitfire and Hurricane before the campaign, having engaged them during Fall Gelb. The BEF evacuation at Dunkirk saw raging air battles between the Luftwaffe and the RAF.

So it is very unlikely the Germans thought the RAF´s warehouse contained fighters in any way similar nor nearly equal to those biplanes of the Spanish civil war they had fought.

Still they thought their bombers had enough speed and maneuvering level to give the RAF interceptors a hard time; furthermore the escort which was going to be provided by the "Zerstörer" would add soundness to the German notion.

I am convinced the Luftwaffe bomber force over England in 1940, with the failure of the Bf110 as escort and the very competitive RAF fighter force, performed far better than the USAAF bomber boxes before the arrival of the long range escort P-51´s.

Without the escorts, the boxes of heavies, inspite the soundness of the plane and the massive defensive weapons, never came as close as the Luftwaffe did to put the enemy to sweat blood.

Let´s remember the only ones to see massive defensive machine gun fire as fundamental element of bombing missions deep into enemy territory were the guys of the USAAF.

Not the RAF nor the Luftwaffe ever relied solely in defensive weaponry to ensure both accomplished mission and survival of the bombers.


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## Anonymous (Dec 4, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> the lancaster was EXTREMELY manouverable for a plane of it's size, it was extremely capable of violent evasive action, even by day the best fighter pilots would struggle to get a good aim on a corkscrewing lancaster....................



Ummm... yes... after it'd dropped its bombs. With a full bombay and half a load of fuel it was a pig just like all bombers.

=S=

Lunatic


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 4, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> i think the Blitzkrieg tactics were amazing, everyone expected it to be like WWI, no one expected them to move that quickly..............



Except the Germans of course...


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## Cheap Labour (Dec 4, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> and speed means nothing in a Bomber-fighter encounter............



Incorrect. Has everyone forgotten about the Mosquito? The RAF's very own wooden wonder? It is by all right a bomber and re-proved beyond a doubt that speed was the most potent weapon in air combat. 

However, you can't attack with purely super-light, super-fast aircraft because the enemy will make an even faster aircraft (see Me-262) to shoot yours out of the sky. 

Also keep in mind that the ENTIRE point of the USAAF bomber offensive was to cripple the Luftwaffe to make invasion a possibility. Time and time again, post-mission recce flights over bombed targets showed that the facilities hit by USAAF heavies were back to nearly 100% operating capacity within a week. 

The job of the combat box was to destroy German fighters and kill the highly experienced pilots inside them. It took a long time, and a lot of folks got killed but the job was done. Thats the nature of war.


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Good points 8)


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

cheddar cheese said:


> the lancaster kicks ass said:
> 
> 
> > i think the Blitzkrieg tactics were amazing, everyone expected it to be like WWI, no one expected them to move that quickly..............
> ...



actually even the germans didn't expect it, that's why hitler stopped his tanks short of Dunquirke, if he'd had let them go on insted of stopping them for a few days it wouldn't have been the miracle it was...........


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Dunquirke


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

> Incorrect. Has everyone forgotten about the Mosquito? The RAF's very own wooden wonder? It is by all right a bomber and re-proved beyond a doubt that speed was the most potent weapon in air combat.



sorry i wasn't thinking about the mossie but i was refering to an encounter between a 4 engined heavy and a twin engined night figter...........


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

The speed of bombers isnt really worth mentioning unless its incredibly slow or incredibly fast...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

actually there was another defensive move used by Bomber command that did involve speed. If an attacking fighter was coming in for a pass the tial gunner could call "drop" if he did the flight engineer would drop the throttles (the pilot didn't controll the throttles) and the bomber, ,let's assume it's a lanc, would rapidly loose speed, this caused the gap between fighter and bomber to drop allot quicker than the fighter pilot would have planned, as such he wouldn't be able to get any shots in and the tail gunner would have a few shots, upon hearing the command "easy" from the tail gunner, the flight engineer would increse the throttles, this whole process would be over in a matter of seconds..............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Werent certain engines known to catch fire during rapid power changes though?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

yes but i've never heard of an instance where that happened on a lanc, proberly because the merlin was such an amazing engine.............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

What about the MkII weith Hercules engines...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

the Mk.II was a wee bit heavyer so i don't know if it would've worked as well, i don't know much about the Hurcules..........


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

The MkII lanc is my favourite....


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

it did look good...............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Not really...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

yes it did...............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Of the 3 its the best looking, but its still downright hideous.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

3, how dare you.................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Well theres the MkI, II and II isnt there?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

there's the Mk.I,II,III,IV,V,VI,VII,X, ASR.Mk.III and GR.Mk.III, plus numerous other conversions.....................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Ah...I though there was just the 3.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

3 main ones yes..............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

And it was definatley the ugliest of the 3 british heavies 

~You realise the last page was all us, except for Cheap Labour?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

and the lanc was one of the best looking planes of the war................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

If we're comparing it to the plains of Africa and the woodwork tool then yes, air planes no


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 5, 2004)

that should actually be aeroplanes.........

and the lanc was an extremely attractive aeroplane...............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 5, 2004)

Actually some people do call them air planes...

No it wasnt, one day ill make a homepage poll debating the subject...


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## Cheap Labour (Dec 6, 2004)

cheddar cheese said:


> And it was definatley the ugliest of the 3 british heavies
> 
> ~You realise the last page was all us, except for Cheap Labour?



Can't let you have this page, either.


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## BombTaxi (Dec 6, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> that should actually be aeroplanes.........
> 
> and the lanc was an extremely attractive aeroplane...............



The Lanc certainly wasnt as ugly as the Stirling!  Although I do have a soft spot for the Halibag. Ive never seen a flyable one for any sim either - which is a shame


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## Andrew (Dec 6, 2004)

The Wellington Mk2 onwards had the same defensive arnament as all the British heavies ie: 2 Machine guns in a forward turret, 4 in a rear turret, and 2 machine guns mounted on the beam, 1 on each side where the window is situated along the side instead of the mid Upper Turret.

The Lancaster was so manouverable that Alex Henshaw could and did as part of of test flights do a barrel roll, and at some point during this roll negative G was attained, he did this once while demonstrating the Lanc to some USAF Generals, and they couldn't believe that a bomber that size could do a barrel roll.


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 6, 2004)

The Stirling was the best looking of the 3! Even the lanc will agree with me that it looked cool 8)


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 6, 2004)

it looked cool, just not as good as the lanc.............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 6, 2004)

Looked much better than the Lancaster 8)

Halifax was pretty ugly too though...


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## BombTaxi (Dec 6, 2004)

Andrew said:


> The Wellington Mk2 onwards had the same defensive arnament as all the British heavies ie: 2 Machine guns in a forward turret, 4 in a rear turret, and 2 machine guns mounted on the beam, 1 on each side where the window is situated along the side instead of the mid Upper Turret.



True, but by the same token, this left all of the British heavies vulnerable to the nightfighter's most lethal weapon, the Schrage Musik installation. A ball turret would have rendered this lethal system useless, as even the least able gunner could have destroyed the night fighter while it moved into position. I still find it surprising that the RAF took no interest at all in making this modification  Also, the nose turrer was of dubiously value on aircraft operating at night. It would have been pretty foolish of a nightfighter pilot to try head-on pass in the dark, and in any case, the gunner would have had only a split-second to fire at him. With two guns, it would have been a farly pointless exercise anyway.

*EDIT: Edited my spelling because I seem to have lost all ability to write in English tonight!  *


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 6, 2004)

Good points 8)


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## Cheap Labour (Dec 6, 2004)

Yeah, great stuff BombTaxi. Even without installing a turret, you'd think that a pair of ventral MGs would have done the job.


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## Anonymous (Dec 6, 2004)

I agree. Some ventral mg's would have made a lot more sense than the nose turret.

But, the Brits should have upgraded to .50 caliber in 1942. There was no shortage of them available from the USA, and ammo was also quite readily availble. .303's don't pack much punch, but .50's can rip through any fighter easily, and pack enough incediary to make um burn.

=S=

Lunatic


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## BombTaxi (Dec 6, 2004)

RG_Lunatic said:


> I agree. Some ventral mg's would have made a lot more sense than the nose turret.
> 
> But, the Brits should have upgraded to .50 caliber in 1942. There was no shortage of them available from the USA, and ammo was also quite readily availble. .303's don't pack much punch, but .50's can rip through any fighter easily, and pack enough incediary to make um burn.
> 
> ...



I absolutely agree, the rifle-calibre mg was obsolecent by 1942 at the very latest. The only explanation I can find is that the War Department felt it better to keep churning bombers as they were rather than messing about with turrets (which would have to be redesigned for the new weapon), and the complexity of delivering two kinds of ammo during the inevitable change-over period  

Having said that, I'd swear that I read somewhere, a loooong time ago, about RAF heavies having .50cal turrets, maybe just as a trial? My books are split between here (uni digs) and my parents house (100 miles or so away), so I cant be sure, but I'll see if I can dig anything up!


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## Anonymous (Dec 7, 2004)

Indeed, some Lancasters did sport a pair of .50's in the rear turret instead of the 4 x .303 armament.


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## Andrew (Dec 7, 2004)

Bomb Taxi Wrote


> True, but by the same token, this left all of the British heavies vulnerable to the nightfighter's most lethal weapon, the Schrage Musik installation. A ball turret would have rendered this lethal system useless, as even the least able gunner could have destroyed the night fighter while it moved into position. I still find it surprising that the RAF took no interest at all in making this modification



The Early Lancasters were fitted with a Ball Turret, but it was not fitted to later production models, and those that did have the Ball Turret fitted had it removed, this I can only presume was because of drag, and the speed reduction involved with it.

RG Lunatic Wrote



> But, the Brits should have upgraded to .50 caliber in 1942. There was no shortage of them available from the USA, and ammo was also quite readily availble. .303's don't pack much punch, but .50's can rip through any fighter easily, and pack enough incediary to make um burn.



In Late 1944 early 1945 Lancasetr Bombers were coming off the production line with 2 X 20mm mounted in the rear turret, these turrets were also fitted with radar control, and I think automatic fire control but I am not sure about that, these Radar fitted rear turrets also had IFF so that no freindly bombers were shot down


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## Anonymous (Dec 7, 2004)

> From the findings it was soon obvious Lancaster HK620 came in a shallow dive, so no large parts were to be recovered. However, an oleo leg was found more or less intact, as well as lots of window strips (dropped to disturb the German radar installation) and the remains of a few .50 caliber rounds - the proof that this Lanc was equipped with the American heavy machine gun.
> http://users.pandora.be/airwareurope/en/bergingen/lancaster_wauthier_e.htm



I know I've seen more evidence for .50's in the Lanc, but I cannot locate it now. I don't think there were many fitted with .50's, but there were some.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 7, 2004)

I believe a few of the Canadian Lancs were fitted with .50 cals. Again, I'd have to hunt around for confirmation.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 7, 2004)

yes many canadian Mk.X mid upper turrets were fitted with twin .50cals, but not the tail................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 7, 2004)

Oh wow great pic, they could be anything


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 7, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> yes many canadian Mk.X mid upper turrets were fitted with twin .50cals, but not the tail................



Ah-ha. Thanks. 8)


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 7, 2004)

Whats the plane on the left?


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## BombTaxi (Dec 7, 2004)

cheddar cheese said:


> Oh wow great pic, they could be anything



Well. the barrels are far too long to be 303s and RAF bombers didnt carry 20mm cannon till the Lincoln. So unless they're nicked ShVaks or MG131s...


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 7, 2004)

They might be silencers on the end


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## Udet (Dec 7, 2004)

Being seated in such tail gun position, as shown here in that photo, would be the last place on earth where I would like to be during combat missions.

It seems as vulnerable as a jello under the Sahara desert sun. It seems pretty overexposed.

A Bf110 or a Ju88 with their noses packed with cannons, homing in for the kill, in a full moon night, would perhaps be an utterly nightmarish vision. The German NJG´s could certainly reduce the tail gunner to a bloody fleshy pulp.


I exchanged emails with a veteran of the USSAF a few days ago: he told me that in his opinion, for each German fighter shot down by the "heavies" no less than 4 USAAF heavies were shot down by the German interceptors. A 4 to 1 exchange ratio.

A while ago, when I told him of sources affirming the exchange ratio was 2 bombers for each fighter, he bursted in laughter telling me that if such ratio had had any approach to reality, the long range P-51´s and P-47´s would have never been necessary, at all.

And after further asking and reading I agree with him.

Do we have an agreement here? 
The USSAF boxes of heavy bombers are losers to fighters?


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## BombTaxi (Dec 7, 2004)




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## wmaxt (Dec 7, 2004)

I agree with the premis that unescorted bombers were not able to defed themselves.

One of the interesting things to come out of this is that when the P-38s started to escort the bombers in late October '43 the losses dropped from an average of 9/10% to 4/5%. 
With the public and congress started asking why escort fighters were not used prior to that date the AAF answered that they didn't have a fighter that could do the job prior to the P-51. The P-38 did have some severe problems with the early models in Europe (not fully solved until the L model, but still got the job done against odds as high as 20-1) the AAF answer to this was to discredit the P-38 including quoting all performance figures (L model in particular) in METO power, in comparison to WEP power used in all other aircraft. 
P-38s were succesfuly escorting bombers in the med on trips from Africka to Italy months earlier '43 after bases in North Africka were secured. It was criminal to send the bombers to places like Regensberg and Swinfurt (sorry about the spelling) without escort - when it was availabe and proven effective.
The P-51s never bettered the 4/5% loss rate, even with 10 times the aircraft than the P-38s had.


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## Cheap Labour (Dec 7, 2004)

For future reference for you: Schweinfurt


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## Anonymous (Dec 7, 2004)

Udet said:


> Do we have an agreement here?
> The USSAF boxes of heavy bombers are losers to fighters?



Not quite. With escorting fighters forcing the Luftwaffe pilots to make hasty attacks, the defensive gunners became significant. Yes the bomber boxes by themselves were very vulnerable to enemy fighters, but along with escorts, the bomber boxes and their firepower became somewhat effective.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Udet (Dec 7, 2004)

RG_Lunatic, hi:

Not quite?

I am referring to the unescorted boxes of heavy bombers of course.

Unescorted the heavy bombers lose. That is the point.

As I put here, and we know it, once escorted by the long range fighters the situation did improve for them heavies.

Still, when the escort fighters had arrived and got deployed in important numbers to protect the boxes, there were specific episodes when escorted boxes of heavy bombers where virtually obliterated by the Luftwaffe, especially at the hands of the "sturm" gruppen of JG3, JG4 and JG300 during 1944, equipped with the Fw190A8/R8 "sturmböck".


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 8, 2004)

> Do we have an agreement here?
> The USSAF boxes of heavy bombers are losers to fighters?



i'd agree with that...................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 8, 2004)

I reckon at night those tactics would be pretty good.


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## BombTaxi (Dec 8, 2004)

The problem with flying a box at night was holding it together withou nav lights...as lighting the formation up like a Christmas tree would rather defeat the object  I believe this was why Bomber Command opted for the freeform bomber stream. It also minimised the odds of nightfighter plughing into bombers as they completed a pass.


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## lesofprimus (Dec 9, 2004)

U have to remember also that those Fw-190A-8 Bomber Destroyers had a fighter cover, usually -109's to keep the Bomber Escorts busy while they, being heavy with armor and armament, would slide in and decimate those B-17 formations with 6X 20mm cannons... 

Not the thing u wanna see as a tail gunner.......


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## GermansRGeniuses (Dec 11, 2004)

cheddar cheese said:


> Whats the plane on the left?




I'd say an Anson, if you mean the one in the camo...


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 12, 2004)

It does look kinda like an Anson, thanks.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 12, 2004)

> I reckon at night those tactics would be pretty good.



it wouldn't have worked for the RAF at night, assuming you were talking about the RAF adopting the tactics..............



> It seems as vulnerable as a jello under the Sahara desert sun. It seems pretty overexposed.
> 
> A Bf110 or a Ju88 with their noses packed with cannons, homing in for the kill, in a full moon night, would perhaps be an utterly nightmarish vision. The German NJG´s could certainly reduce the tail gunner to a bloody fleshy pulp.



it's important to remember a attacking figher pilot wouldn't go for the fusilage, if you wanna bring a bomber down you go for the engines/fuel tanks, you'd have to be a good shot to take out the tail gunner, but it did happen allot...............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 12, 2004)

Nope I was talking about the USAAF.

If you take out the tail gunner, you have less fire to deal with. Then you dont have to worry about being shot down yourself so much while you take out the engines.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 12, 2004)

but they weren't the german tactics..........


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 12, 2004)

But they could have been


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 14, 2004)

but they weren't...................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 14, 2004)

Perhaps they should have been...


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## remoraptor (Dec 14, 2004)

I'm just wondering why the RAF stuck to their .303s when they could have acquired the .50 heavy machine-guns much earlier from the Americans. Any of you guys know of a reason for this?


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## Lightning Guy (Dec 14, 2004)

There weren't that many .50s to spare since virtually EVERY American aircraft was using them and America was producing a whole LOT of aircraft. Also, Bomber Command wasn't especially concerned with shooting down German fighters as much as they were driving them off. The .303s put out a lot of ammo and few fighters were going to press an attack while they were taking hits. The reduced visibility at night meant that the short range wasn't that much of a problem. The .50 would have been better, but for the situation the .303 wasn't bad at all.


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## Anonymous (Dec 15, 2004)

Lightning Guy said:


> There weren't that many .50s to spare since virtually EVERY American aircraft was using them and America was producing a whole LOT of aircraft. Also, Bomber Command wasn't especially concerned with shooting down German fighters as much as they were driving them off. The .303s put out a lot of ammo and few fighters were going to press an attack while they were taking hits. The reduced visibility at night meant that the short range wasn't that much of a problem. The .50 would have been better, but for the situation the .303 wasn't bad at all.



I disagree. .50's were quite abundant. If the RAF had really wanted them they'd have gotten them, availability was not really the problem.

=S=

Lunatic


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## lesofprimus (Dec 15, 2004)

I think its more about the fact the the Brits had a CRAPLOAD of .303 ammunition on thier hands and that the sensible choice was to use a weapon that ammo was abundant for, rather than having to buy or manufacture it...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 15, 2004)

as has been mentioned, .303s did the job well, a Browning .303 can throw out 1,150rpm, compared to the 750/850rpm of the browning .50. This meant that in a four second burst, the 4x.303 could throw out 306 shells in a 4 second burst compared to just 113 from the .50, the total of 2,500rpg in the tail turret of the lanc gave 130 seconds of firing time (over two minutes!!!!!) compared to the 24 seconds offered by the 335rpg of the .50. Two other major advantages of the 4 gun turret was that it allowed for blockages, one gun fails, t'other 3 keep going, that happens in with the .50cals whick often did with the .50 (Harry Nunn, the rear gunner on "Oor Willie" an aircraft of 101Sqn, was one of the first in the RAF to convert to the twin .50cals, told his leader where stick his new .50cals after they jammed after the oil used to stop them freezing, well, froze ) 1x.50 would do nothing, finally the .303 was almost 3 times as light as the .50, the .303 weighing 22lbs, the .50 weighing 64lbs.


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## lesofprimus (Dec 15, 2004)

But the fact that the .50 cal round was more destructive has to take in a certain amount of measure when comparing the 2 rounds...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 15, 2004)

yes there are also many arguments for the .50 cal, primarily its' range and the fact that shell for shell it had about 50% more destructive power................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 15, 2004)

And because its more destructive, in theory you shouldnt need to fire as many shells, meaning the ammo difference doesnt matter so much...


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## lesofprimus (Dec 15, 2004)

My point exactly.... If the Brits had used the .50 cal in place of the .303, many German planes that landed back at base with holes in their planes woulda crashed into the countryside instead......


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 15, 2004)

but in all honesty an attacking night fighter would have to get to within 400m of a bomber before making an attack, bringing it well in range of the .303s, once you're in range you suddenly see the .303 at its' best, that's allot of tracer coming at you, and the rate of fire eeasily makes the .303 the better choise over the .50cal...............


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## lesofprimus (Dec 15, 2004)

HMMMM... From a short distance any calibre of bullet would cause some damage.... But i do agree with u that its rate of fire was nice... Not too sure about making it a better 'Choice" tho...


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 15, 2004)

The German night fighters could attack from 1000 yards away, the Gunner had to wait until they were within 400 yards before he could get some effective shots in...in this case the think the .50cal was better...


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## Anonymous (Dec 15, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> yes there are also many arguments for the .50 cal, primarily its' range and the fact that shell for shell it had about 50% more destructive power................



50%? Ummm... lets look at the math....

Browning .303 = 11.3 grams @ 745 m/s
Browning .50 = 48.5 grams @ 870 m/s

Momentum comparison:

11.3 x 745 = ~8,419
48.5 x 870 = ~42,195

Kenetic Energy comparison:

11.3 x 745 x 745 = ~6,272,000
48.5 x 870 x 870 = ~36,709,000

So by momentum the .50 is about 5 times more powerful than the .303, by KE it is 6 times more powerful. Your figures are off by more than ten fold m8!

When it comes to chemical payloads, the story is even more in favor of the .50, which can hold a temendous amount more incendiary material than the .303 DeWilde (spelling?) round.

And likewise, the ballistics of the .50 are much much flatter than those of the .303, it easily had at least double the effective range, maybe triple. The approximate Sectional Density figures are: (the forumula for the area of a circle is radius squared x Pie, the SD is the mass divided by the frontal area)

11.3g / (0.5 x 7.7mm)^2 x 3.14 = 11.3g/~46.6 sq. mm = .242 g/sq. mm
48.5g / (0.5 x 12.7mm)^2 x 3.14 = 48.5g/~126.7 sq. mm = 0.383 g/sq. mm

As you can see the .50 has more than 50% more sectional density than the .303, it is going to hold its velocity much much better. I've never worked the ballistics of the .303, but it looks a lot like those of the MG131 13mm (SD = 0.250, muzzel velocity = 750 m/s). The MG131 goes sub-sonic (sea level) at about 300 meters, where the .50 BMG goes sub-sonic at 900 meters.

As for the abundance of .303 ammo, well, I'm not sure of that. For fighters the DeWilde incendiary ammo was used almost exclusively after they got production ramped up for it. I assume this would also be true of the Bomber guns, but perhaps not. One thing is certain, the hitting power and ballistics of the .50 are so much better than those of the .303 that the aprox. 50% better RoF didn't even come close to balancing the two weapons. The .50 BMG was far far superior.

=S=

Lunatic


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## lesofprimus (Dec 15, 2004)

Ive done the math before, as well as seen LG post the same velocity measurements......

The .50 was a much more destructive and all-around better calibre....


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## Anonymous (Dec 15, 2004)

lesofprimus said:


> Ive done the math before, as well as seen LG post the same velocity measurements......
> 
> The .50 was a much more destructive and all-around better calibre....



I just wanted to make clear to Lancaster and others just how much difference there really was. I hope I've succeeded.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Lightning Guy (Dec 16, 2004)

The .303 was better for scaring off a fighter. It put out alot of ammo and that was a good thing. The higher ammo count was a minor advantage for a night bomber as it was HIGHLY unlikely a night bomber was going to need 130secs of firing time. If you wanted to shoot down a fighter, the .50cal was far and away the better choice. Most American fighters at the start of the war carried the .30cal but those were replaced with .50cals ASAP. Ditto for the RAF putting 20mm guns in the Spit and Hurricane rather than staying with the all .303 armament. For a NIGHT bomber, .303 wasn't bad but the .50cal was better. In daylight, it was no contest, the .303 was nearly obsolete as an air-to-air weapon.


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## Anonymous (Dec 16, 2004)

Lightning Guy said:


> The .303 was better for scaring off a fighter. It put out alot of ammo and that was a good thing. The higher ammo count was a minor advantage for a night bomber as it was HIGHLY unlikely a night bomber was going to need 130secs of firing time. If you wanted to shoot down a fighter, the .50cal was far and away the better choice. Most American fighters at the start of the war carried the .30cal but those were replaced with .50cals ASAP. Ditto for the RAF putting 20mm guns in the Spit and Hurricane rather than staying with the all .303 armament. For a NIGHT bomber, .303 wasn't bad but the .50cal was better. In daylight, it was no contest, the .303 was nearly obsolete as an air-to-air weapon.



In general, fighters, especially night fighters, were not scared off by the defensive fire from gunners. If you did manage to get a bead on a night fighter, you would want to kill it quickly before you lost sight of it. .303 ammo would be relatively ineffective on an Me110 or Ju88 night fighter, especially in the relatively few hits you'd be likely to score.

In my opinion, the .303's were there on the night bombers for much the same reason as there were so many .50's on a B-17 - for crew moral.

Also, even before WWII, the USA had pretty much abandon the .30 cal for the .50 cal. They did this in the late 20's or early 30's, which was a big reason why the US did not move up to cannon in WWII. Most other nations had .30 cal class weapons, which were found quite insufficent, and moved up to 20mm or larger after the war began. The USA already had a large investment in the .50 and it was sufficient to the task (though it was found to require 4 or more to be effective). As the war progressed, the .50 began to weaken, but it was bolstered by the introduction of the M8 incendiary round which carried it through the end of WWII.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Lightning Guy (Dec 16, 2004)

The USA was relying heavily on the .30cal for designs even into the late thirties. The intitial versions of the P-38, -40, and -51 (just as examples) all featured .30cal weapons.


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## Anonymous (Dec 17, 2004)

Lightning Guy said:


> The USA was relying heavily on the .30cal for designs even into the late thirties. The intitial versions of the P-38, -40, and -51 (just as examples) all featured .30cal weapons.



Even the YP-38 was designed to have 4 x .50 BMG's and one cannon. The P-40 and P-51 both shared the same weapons spec, with .30 cal's in the wings and .50's in the nose. The .303's were more by influence of the Brits than the USA. On the P-40 this was quickly changed to all .50 cals for American usage (I think by the F model, most of the earlier models having gone to the Brits). On the P-51, again the early versions specified by the Brits had .303's, but for American usage, starting with the A-36 and the P-51A, all guns were .50 caliber.

On the P-47 all guns were .50 caliber from the get-go, as was true of the Wildcat. Pretty much, by the late 1930's all US fighers were armed with .50 caliber guns as a part of the basic design. Only "export" figthers carried .30's or .303's.

=S=

Lunatic


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## evangilder (Dec 17, 2004)

Actually, most YP-38s flew with no guns at all. The specification for them was 2 x .30 caliber, 2 x .50 caliber and 1 x 37mm cannon. There were one or 2 that flew in this configuration. The first P-38 orders from the Army did change out the 2 x .30 calibers for .50s. The 37mm cannon only carried 15 rounds! The 37mm was replaced with 20mm cannons starting with the P-38E. These carried 150 rounds for the 20mm.

The very first version of the P-47, the AP-10 had 2 x .50 calibers in the nose and 4 x .30 calibers in the wing, 2 on each side. None of these were produced. It is interesting that the very first P-47 design was powered by the Allison engine.

The P-40D was the first model to remove the .30 calibers and replace them with .50 calibers. Nose guns were removed altogether from that model onwards.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 17, 2004)

> The German night fighters could attack from 1000 yards away, the Gunner had to wait until they were within 400 yards before he could get some effective shots in...in this case the think the .50cal was better...



I'm not saying NFs never shot as far away as 1000yards, for me to claim they didn't would be stupid, however they quite often got to within 400 yards, given the need to seek out and identify the target, it was quite common...............


> Your figures are off by more than ten fold m8!


 
sorry, they weren't my figures, i got that figure from a very reliable source................



> If you wanted to shoot down a fighter, the .50cal was far and away the better choice.



that is, for the most part, true, however it wasn't the role of the bomber's defensive armorment to shoot down an attacking fighter, merely to "discourage" it from an attack, a job for the .303......................



> In general, fighters, especially night fighters, were not scared off by the defensive fire from gunners


 
that's a big fat pile off bull's excriment, in a 4 second burst the 4x.303 could throw out over 300 rounds, any percentage of which could be tracer, 9 times out of 10, if a attacking fighter even knew he'd been spotted he'd go find another target, no pilot would press home an attack whilst being fired on................



> .303 ammo would be relatively ineffective on an Me110 or Ju88 night fighter



as was stated before, it was not the job of the defensive armourment to shoot down an attacking fighter..................



> especially in the relatively few hits you'd be likely to score.



you have a much better chance of scoring a hit with the .303 than with the .50cal..................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 17, 2004)

The .50 cal was the better gun. Pure and simple.

And to say they werent used for shooting down fighters is actually pretty stupid. If the fighter stopped attacking you, hed only go find one of your fellow bombers. You shoot him down, he cant take anyone else out. You scare him off, youre giving him another chance...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 17, 2004)

> And to say they werent used for shooting down fighters is actually pretty stupid



it's not, as this was it's inteneded perpose, if you believe the defensive armourment was intended to shoot down enemy aircraft, you are the stupid one...............



> If the fighter stopped attacking you, hed only go find one of your fellow bombers



that's the next bomber's problem, a gunner's job was to scare off attacking fighters, not to shoot them down..............



> The .50 cal was the better gun. Pure and simple.



tell that to Harry Nunn.................


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 17, 2004)

> it's not, as this was it's inteneded perpose, if you believe the defensive armourment was intended to shoot down enemy aircraft, you are the stupid one...............



Look. Your a gunner. You see an enemy lane coming towards you. You dont just fire the gun willy nilly do you, you do your best to shoot it down.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 17, 2004)

no, you aim your guns at the attacking fighter and fire, you know you have very little chance of shooting him down, you know you have every chance of scaring him off, i suggest you do some heavy reading on the night war before making such statements...............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 17, 2004)

Although that may have been its purpose it wasnt what the gunners would have been trying to do...I suggest YOU start thinking morally and not relying totally on sources...


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## Anonymous (Dec 17, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> Cheedar Cheese said:
> 
> 
> > The German night fighters could attack from 1000 yards away, the Gunner had to wait until they were within 400 yards before he could get some effective shots in...in this case the think the .50cal was better...
> ...



First off, please indicate who you are quoting. Notice in your reply (quoted above) the first quote (about the 1000 yard range of the german guns) is from Cheddar, the rest is from me. Please note who the quotes are from by changing it from {quote} to {quote="Posters_Name"} (where the curly brackets are square brackets) for at least the first sub-quote in a series if you are going to reply to more than one person, as I've done above. I also suggest using color to make things even clearer where appropriate.

I'll reply to this post in another reply  

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Dec 17, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> Cheddar Cheeze said:
> 
> 
> > The German night fighters could attack from 1000 yards away, the Gunner had to wait until they were within 400 yards before he could get some effective shots in...in this case the think the .50cal was better...
> ...



Well I'll say it - they didn't, at least not for effect. The only German aircraft guns that had that kind of range were the MG151/15 15mm, Mk103 30mm, and the BK50 50mm. As far as I know the MG151/15 was not used on night fighters, nor was the BK50. The MK103 might have been.

However, the idea of firing from such a limited ammo supply weapon at a target more than half a mile away in the dark is just silly. The chances of hitting it would be almost nil. The standoff weapons concept was tried for day combat, and even here the range was too much and it was unsucessful.

The most used German cannon, the MG151/20 20mm, did not have much (if any) better range than the .303, it flies almost exactly like the MG131 13mm, going sub-sonic before 300 meters! The .303 had about the same sectional density, and superior ballistic shape - it probably had better range than the MG151/20 (which has horrible ballistic shape).

And the next most used weapon, the MK108 30mm had terrible range - it's sub-sonic right out of the barrel!

At night a fighter had to get close to kill its prey with any degree of effectiveness. 



the lancaster kicks ass said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > Your figures are off by more than ten fold m8!
> ...



Well, you should have a talk with him then, he needs to revise his figures.



the lancaster kicks ass said:


> > If you wanted to shoot down a fighter, the .50cal was far and away the better choice.
> 
> 
> 
> that is, for the most part, true, however it wasn't the role of the bomber's defensive armorment to shoot down an attacking fighter, merely to "discourage" it from an attack, a job for the .303......................



I disagree. German night fighters were armored well enough to endure a few frontal hits from .303 class guns. They might rudder a bit and try to get out of the gunners view before comming back in for the attack, but seeing that the rounds were .303's, they would be much more willing to press home an attack than seeing .50's comming at them. The tracers are very noticably different.



the lancaster kicks ass said:


> > In general, fighters, especially night fighters, were not scared off by the defensive fire from gunners
> 
> 
> 
> that's a big fat pile off bull's excriment, in a 4 second burst the 4x.303 could throw out over 300 rounds, any percentage of which could be tracer, 9 times out of 10, if a attacking fighter even knew he'd been spotted he'd go find another target, no pilot would press home an attack whilst being fired on................



Sure they would. Especially if the bomber had not yet dropped its load. German pilots were not cowards, they were brave men. They knew that a British night bomber was going to bomb a city, not a factory, and that civilian lives were probably going to be lost if it reached its target.

The .303 could not even penetrate their armor-glass windscreen. The odds of taking more than a handful of hits was minimal. In 4 seconds 2 x .50's would put out over 100 rounds, and any hit could likely seriously hurt the target. The armor and especially the armor-glass windscreen was not likely to stop a .50 API round (which could penetrate over 10 mm of armor at 400 meters), especially at typical night fighter engagment ranges of 100 meters or less. And there is no reaon the rear turret of the lanc could not have sported 4 x .50s.


A night fighter would be much more likely to break off his attack upon seeing .50 tracers than on seeing .303 tracers, because he would know he could not sustain hits. With the .303's, he might well figure he could.



the lancaster kicks ass said:


> > .303 ammo would be relatively ineffective on an Me110 or Ju88 night fighter
> 
> 
> 
> as was stated before, it was not the job of the defensive armourment to shoot down an attacking fighter..................



No, but the defensive guns have to pose a serious threat. The .303's posed a minimal threat. The attacking night fighter pilot could ignore them and press home his attack and would probably survive it and quite likely shoot down the bomber. Against the .50 this was much less likely, the pilot would know just a few hits could kill or cripple his plane.



the lancaster kicks ass said:


> > especially in the relatively few hits you'd be likely to score.
> 
> 
> 
> you have a much better chance of scoring a hit with the .303 than with the .50cal..................



You'd have a little better chance. The .50's fire much truer than the .303's, making them easier to score with. The 1150 rpm max. RoF of the .303 is not really that much higher than the 850 rpm. max RoF of the .50. And, the .50's RoF could be boosted to 950-1050 rpm by replacing the buffer pad (a round fiberous washer) with a nickle as was done frequently on P-51B's. This would be more doable in a bomber, since the gunner could clear jams much easier and loss of a turret gun would not be nearly as significant as loss of a wing gun (which unbalances a fighter).

Again, I tend to think the gunners were generally not very effective, their primary function was to provide some (false) reassurance to the rest of the crew and their families.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Lightning Guy (Dec 18, 2004)

Not in the USAAF. The whole of the pre-war bomber doctrine in America was based on the idea of a heavily armed bomber blasting it's way clear through to a city. "The bomber will always get through" was the motto of the day. Clearly they weren't expected to get through of moral boosts to the family back home. The whole idea was that the gunners could shoot down, or at least drive off a considerable number of the attacking fighters. While the gunners were not as effective as hoped they did take their tool. Look at the emphasis the Luftwaffe placed on breaking up the bomber formations as proof.


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## Anonymous (Dec 18, 2004)

Lightning Guy said:


> Not in the USAAF. The whole of the pre-war bomber doctrine in America was based on the idea of a heavily armed bomber blasting it's way clear through to a city. "The bomber will always get through" was the motto of the day. Clearly they weren't expected to get through of moral boosts to the family back home. The whole idea was that the gunners could shoot down, or at least drive off a considerable number of the attacking fighters. While the gunners were not as effective as hoped they did take their tool. Look at the emphasis the Luftwaffe placed on breaking up the bomber formations as proof.



And that doctrine was proven wrong very early, yet the USA kept adding more guns to its bombers. Only the rearward firing guns were signficantly effective against attacking fighters, forcing them to use other angles of attack. The Luftwaffe' emphasized breaking up bomber "boxes" to allow the fighters to attack from the rear. Other angles of attack were generally only successful in wounding a heavy bomber because the number of rounds scored was genrally quite small. Once driven out of the box, the fighters were then willing to risk the rearward firing .50's to finish it off, where they were not willing to risk combine rearward fire from a bomber box.

Had the US bombers been armed with .303's rather than .50's, the Germans would probably not have bothered with trying to break up the boxes, they would just have pressed home their attacks from the rear. The .303 was not capable of penetrating any of the armor on a FW190A8 or even a Bf-109G, whereas none of that armor could stop a .50 API round (just about the only ammo used by US aircraft from about Aug. 1943 on).

=S=

Lunatic


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 18, 2004)

> no pilot would press home an attack whilst being fired on................





> Sure they would



9 times out of 10, if an attacking fighter so much as knew he's been spotted he'd go oof and find another target..........



> Well, you should have a talk with him then, he needs to revise his figures.



a book..................

and it's important to remember that the defensive guns weren't the lancaster's only form of defence (i speak only of the lanc because i don't think the tactics worked as well with the halibag), there were several evasive manouvers, the most important being the corkscrew, even with a 10,000lb payload it would take an extraordinary pilot to hit a heavily corkscrewing lanc even by day let alone by night, and the best part was there was no way of countering it


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## lesofprimus (Dec 18, 2004)

> 9 times out of 10, if an attacking fighter so much as knew he's been spotted he'd go off and find another target..........


I dont think thats an accurate statistic.. I have seen many films and videos, as well as pilot documentaries and interviews, where u see many planes pressing in for the kill under fire from a bombers guns....



> The .303 was not capable of penetrating any of the armor on a FW190A8 or even a Bf-109G, whereas none of that armor could stop a .50 API round


The heavily armed A-8/R2's and 3's constantly had B-17 gunners rounds bouncing off them as they pressed in... It freaked the bomber crews out..... Kinda surprised u put a goof in like that RG... Normally ur very accurate....


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 18, 2004)

There was still a higher chance the .50 would penetrate that the .303 woul though.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 18, 2004)

> I dont think thats an accurate statistic..



that's the statistic given to RAF gunnerery crews during training..............


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 18, 2004)

Probably to boost morale.


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## wmaxt (Dec 18, 2004)

You know as defesive armament it was a good Idea - however the idea of unescorted bombers was ludicriss. A sad part of this was that after escort fighters were flying the bombers became bait to get the German aircraft where they could be destroyed.


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## Anonymous (Dec 19, 2004)

lesofprimus said:


> The heavily armed A-8/R2's and 3's constantly had B-17 gunners rounds bouncing off them as they pressed in... It freaked the bomber crews out..... Kinda surprised u put a goof in like that RG... Normally ur very accurate....



There were some A-8's (R2's and R3's) that were very heavily armored from the front, specifically modified for bomber attack. Even so, .50 rounds would only "bounce off" if they hit the armor at a sufficient angle. If they hit it directly they would penetrate. Since most gunners would be shooting at the plane's nose (a very hard shot), the odds of oblique hits are very high, so yes they might well see some tracers bounce off, but quite likely other rounds were penetrating the engine or the canopy.

The .50 API would penetrate up to 19mm's of homogonous steel in WWII (more today), which was far more than any fighter carried. Against face hardened armor, it would penetrate more than half that thickness, and the first hit would probably shatter the face hardening allowing subsiquent rounds to fully penetrate.

Day fighters generally attacked at very high relative speeds, making it very hard to hit them. Night fighters on the other hand, hung behind or below the target seeking a perfect firing position and then opened up. In this situation, if the gunner sees the fighter, it would have a very good chance of scoring hits compared to the daylight situation and the odds of scoring on the canopy front or engine would be a real concern to the night fighter pilot. If he is confident the rounds will not penetrate the canopy armor glass or engine blocks, he is much more likely to press home his attack.

=S=

Lunatic


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 19, 2004)

you gotta love that pic though..........


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 19, 2004)

Yeah it is pretty cool.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 19, 2004)

> A sad part of this was that after escort fighters were flying the bombers became bait to get the German aircraft where they could be destroyed.



that was a risk they had to take, if the escort fighters were up to it, the bombers'd be safe...........


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## Anonymous (Dec 19, 2004)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> > A sad part of this was that after escort fighters were flying the bombers became bait to get the German aircraft where they could be destroyed.
> 
> 
> 
> that was a risk they had to take, if the escort fighters were up to it, the bombers'd be safe...........



Actually, escort never really worked. If the fighters stayed with the bombers, the enemy would succeed in penatrating the fighter screen and reaching the bombers. This is true in Fighter Ace (the game) and it was true in real life. By the time the escorting fighters can engage the attackers, they are already hitting the bombers.

To be successful, the fighters must sweep an area in front of the bombers, both high and low, and clear the path. There is a famous story about how when Gen.'s Spaatz and Doolittle took over the 8th Airforce from Eaker just before Operation Pointblank, their was the pharase "stay with the bomber" (or something to that effect) written on the chalkboard in the fighter ops briefing room. Doolittle (or Spaatz) scratched that out and replaced it with "kill the Luftwaffe'" (or something to that effect). He then instituted phased escort, where instead of hugging the bombers, the fighters would fly at speed, join the bombers for a short period of escort, and then move on to sweep for fighters and finally to raid them low. Sptifires covered the first part of the mission out to the coast of France, P-47's then took over covering for the next 150-200 miles, then P-38's and P-51's from there on.

This is where the P-51 shined. German fighters already had poor endurance (range), and if they were to cruise while trying to setup for their attacks on bomber formations, they were easy meat for the P-51's. P-51's had a fast cruise speed of 395 mph, where the German fighters cruise speeds were around 250 mph or slower. This meant that if the German fighters were at cruising speed, the P-51's would slaughter them, so they had to fly in rich mode, giving them even less endurance, and making thier operations extremely predictable as they had to take off and head strait for the bombers. Within a few months the Luftwaffe' was all but finished.

People really tend to underestimate the P-51 because of various "specs". In real-life terms it was an excellent fighter, able to achieve the advantage for a number of reasons. If you compare it in a "fair fight" where both it and the enemy start at equal altitudes and speeds, it does not fair so well. But this is very misleading, the P-51 was all about being able to start at the advantage.

=S=

Lunatic


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## wmaxt (Dec 19, 2004)

RG_Lunatic said:


> the lancaster kicks ass said:
> 
> 
> > > A sad part of this was that after escort fighters were flying the bombers became bait to get the German aircraft where they could be destroyed.
> ...



Cruise on the P-51 was less than 300mph like all WWII fighters. Cruise fast or not is a partial throttle setting that will give a max range/max speed compramise. Often the cruise was dependant on the aircraft that was being escorted and the escort orders ie. close escort or able to sweep ahead/leave the bombers to persue. The tactics that allowed the fighters to roam made a tremendous difference in both overall effect and in decimation of enemy aircraft. Speeds of over 300 were not used until enemy contact or after being freed from the bombers and it was determined that fuel existed for fast fighter sweeps. It is also interesting that with these tactics and the far greater numbers of P-51s they never bettered the Close support loss percentages of the P-38s of 4/5%


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## Anonymous (Dec 20, 2004)

wmaxt said:


> Cruise on the P-51 was less than 300mph like all WWII fighters. Cruise fast or not is a partial throttle setting that will give a max range/max speed compramise. Often the cruise was dependant on the aircraft that was being escorted and the escort orders ie. close escort or able to sweep ahead/leave the bombers to persue. The tactics that allowed the fighters to roam made a tremendous difference in both overall effect and in decimation of enemy aircraft. Speeds of over 300 were not used until enemy contact or after being freed from the bombers and it was determined that fuel existed for fast fighter sweeps. It is also interesting that with these tactics and the far greater numbers of P-51s they never bettered the Close support loss percentages of the P-38s of 4/5%



That is partially correct. The P-51D had a cruise speed of 275 mph yeilding an 1180 mile range, or at 325 mph an ~1050 mile range. But it also had two fast cruise speeds; at 370 mph the range was ~1000 miles, at 395 mph the range was reduced to ~950 miles (some sources give fast cruise ranges of 50 miles less than these figures). Cruise being defined as running in auto-lean mode as opposed to auto rich mode (which gobbles fuel).

Your statement about cruise being a partial throttle setting is incorrect. Cruising was (on most planes) done using a lean fuel mixture setting (usually refered to as "auto-lean" for American planes which had automatic mixture controls), where combat is done using rich fuel mixture settings ("auto-rich"). Auto-Lean settings keep the plugs from fouling and are more economical but limit the available boost and quick throttle changes because of detonation issues. Auto-Rich settings allow higher boosts and more agressive throttle handling, but gobble fuel and, espeically at partial throttle settings, tend to foul plugs.



Side note ------- said:


> On your beloved P-38, until very late in the J series, this was a major problem because going from auto-lean to auto-rich was more complicated than on most other fighters (and there were two sets of controls) and part of a long series of steps involved in going from cruise to combat condition. Many P-38's were lost when bounced because the pilot was so busy trying to get into combat configuration that no evasive action was taken at all, making them a sitting duck for the attacking fighter.


Because the range curve is so little effected by the speed I've seen many different cruise speed ratings for the P-51.

275 mph <--- click to see site
325 mph
363 mph

And of course, the 395 mph cruise info:



> Specification of the P-51D-25-NA:
> 
> One 1695 hp Packard Merlin V-1650-7 twelve-cylinder Vee liquid-cooled engine. Maximum speed: 395 mph at 5000 feet, 416 mph at 10,000 feet, 424 mph at 20,000 feet, 437 mph at 25,000 feet. *Range was 950 miles at 395 mph at 25,000 feet (clean)*, 2300 miles with maximum fuel (including drop tanks) of 489 US gallons under most economical cruise conditions. Initial climb rate was 3475 feet per minute. An altitude of 5000 feet could be reached in 1.7 minutes, 10,000 feet in 3.3 minutes, 20,000 feet in 7.3 minutes. Service ceiling was 41,900 feet.
> http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_10.html



That jbaugher site is very well respected. However, I personally go by the NA documents which are available at the Cal Tech library (or at least they were about 20 years ago). They had charts showing speed vs. fuel consumption in the auto-lean and auto-rich settings at different altitudes. Next time I am in the LA area and have some free time, I'm planning to go back to the libarary and see if I can photo the pages (they are in a huge format in binders, and you have to ask to see them by appointment unless they are on display in which case they're in glass cases).

It should be noted that 250 mph is the recommended maximum cruise speed for civilian Mustangs, but this is to prolong engine life (about 2200 rpms at low hg), something that was not a concern during WWII for combat aircraft. Also, this is done at 10,000 feet, which greatly reduces the cruise speed. Few civilian P-51's even have O2 equipment.

=S=

Lunatic


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## TheMustangRider (Jan 6, 2009)

Escort fighters being useless defending heavy bombers, where did you get that from? Pilots from both sides agree that it was the use of long range fighters that changed the curse of the war for the USAAF and officials records shows that the loss of heavy bomber droped 70% from the spring of 1944 until the the end of the war.


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## drgondog (Jan 6, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> To echo a point already made, the aim of the USAAF's 'Combat Box' was not to ensure the accuracy of individual gunners when engaging German interceptors. Like the box barrage used by German flak batteries, and by every surface fleet of WW2, it was designed to ensure the maximum amount of lead in the air during an inteceptors pass, hopefully crippling it. IMHO, the mistake of the USAAF was in underestimating the power of contemporary fighter armament. Against six- or eight gun fighters, such as the USAAF used, the Combat Box may well have succeeded, as each fighter would need to make a number of passes to destroy a B-17 sized target. However, cannon-armed LW fighter, especially the Fw190, were capable of destroying or seriously damaging a heavy bomber in one short pass, thereby negating the Combat Box principle.
> 
> .



While the defensive firepower was ultimately not enough - the Combat Box formation had two objectives. First to achieve higher concentrations of bombs over the smallest formation footprint. The second was to uncover and concentrate the most possible defensive fire on attacking fighters.

Both of these obejectives were achieved over alternative approaches.

One additional benefit to the staggered combat box formation is that few bombers seen from the ground were actually at the same altitude - with a couple of thousand feet between the high flight of the high formation to the low flight of the low formation. This forced many variations on fusing and diluted the volume of fire 'effectiveness' as well as forced German gunners to figure out the which formations were at which altitudes.

If for example the formations had not been flown in eschelon up or down, instead flying at same altitude, then the volume of space containing the bombers would be much smaller and making German fusing that much easier and more effective.


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## Colin1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Udet said:


> 1. The Luftwaffe rather saw speed and maneuverability of its medium bombers to make interception an unlikely event - even if this was a pre world war two notion-.
> 
> 2. I also happen to have rear gunner camera footage of a Stuka, where a Spitfire tailing the dive bomber is set on fire and disengaes in a cloud of smoke and fire
> 
> ...



1. Germany didn't adopt speed and manoeuvrability as a philosophy for their bomber designs, they simply hadn't designed or developed a heavy strategic bomber. 
When they bombed Britain in 1940, they used what they had and what they had was a corps of bombers designed to support blitzkrieg. You fail to mention the glaringly obvious ie that the German bomber offensive failed. Certainly, they knocked out dozens of interceptors but they just couldn't bomb us hard enough or intensely enough to knock us out completely.

2. Carrying out a stern attack on the only other aspect in which an otherwise poorly-defended aircraft could defend itself, in an interceptor with lots of fragile coolant pipes, is probably asking for it.

3. Aren't we forgetting a couple of things here

(a.) economies of scale: A 'big effort' over London in 1940 would have looked a tiddler heading out over Germany in 1944; with a similarly proportionate elevation in the number of defending fighters surely you are going to see more aircraft shot down?

(b.) armament: as you pointed out yourself, in 1940 cannons were generally the exception, in 1944 not only were they the rule but the Luftwaffe were coming up with specialised ways of deploying them eg the Sturmbock Fw190. Underwing ordnance in the various forms of rocketry were used and whatever their effectiveness, the point is they weren't available in 1940. USAAF heavy machine guns, when they did find the target would often meet with heavily armoured protection.

4. I'm not disputing exaggerated claims but I think 'insanity' is a little excessive; you imagine a fighter rolling through a defensive box being hit by the waist gunner on the side where the fighter entered the box "Yo, chalk one up". The same fighter is tagged again, maybe by the dorsal gunner of a bomber in the middle of the box, he says the same thing and finally by the Sperry operator of a bomber on the side where the fighter exits the box and it's perhaps a little easier to see why things got confused. In a fight-or-die situation like that I can't see many gunners wondering if someone else possibly got him before he did and discounting the kill.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 6, 2009)

Colin1 said:


> 1. Germany didn't adopt speed and manoeuvrability as a philosophy for their bomber designs,



They both actually. All German bombers at the start of the war and in Spain were fast enough to outrun or at least be as fast as the biplane fighters of the 1930s - it worked pretty well in Poland BTW. The very fast and agile and versatile Ju 88 also comes into mind, which was probably the finest example of this concept in Germany, and becoming the most important German bomber in the second half of the war. But its equally obvious that the older Do 17 was also optimized for speed, for example. 

Udet is correct to note that wasn't only a German notion at the time, generally, air forces saw the monoplane bomber a threat that 'always gets through'.



> they simply hadn't designed or developed a heavy strategic bomber.



They had - the He 177 comes to mind, very much of a strategic heavy bomber in every sense of the word indeed.



> When they bombed Britain in 1940, they used what they had and what they had was a corps of bombers designed to support blitzkrieg.



The only German bomber I know of that was designed to support the 'Blitzkrieg' as a tactical bomber was the Ju 87 Stuka. But Stukas were only a fraction of the bomber force.

All the others - He 111s, Do 17s, Ju 88s and older Ju86s - were characterized by long range, some very serious navigational aids for blind bombing at night, and respectable bombload for the time.

None of these are needed for tactical support, as far capability goes, the Germans were the best equipped in 1939 for any sort of 'strategic' air war - they had advanced long ranged bombers (for the time), and plenty of them.

It is another matter that in 1940 these were primarly used to cut off communications, hinder deployment of the troops, bombing down marshalling yards and lines of communication behind the frontlines but also in the _Hinterland_ - ie. on the operation level, but its somewhat difficult to criticize them for this, given the results which were stunning.



> You fail to mention the glaringly obvious ie that the German bomber offensive failed. Certainly, they knocked out dozens of interceptors but they just couldn't bomb us hard enough or intensely enought to knock us out completely.



By that definition, all bomber offensives of WW2 failed, and with them, Douhet's theory as well. Air Power did not win wars, it only helped in winning them.


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## Colin1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Kurfürst said:


> 1. All German bombers at the start of the war and in Spain were fast enough to outrun or at least be as fast as the biplane fighters of the 1930s - it worked pretty well in Poland BTW. The very fast and agile and versatile Ju 88 also comes into mind, which was probably the finest example of this concept in Germany, and becoming the most important German bomber in the second half of the war. But its equally obvious that the older Do 17 was also optimized for speed, for example.
> 
> They had - the He 177 comes to mind, very much of a strategic heavy bomber in every sense of the word indeed.
> 
> ...



1. Within the context of the Battle of Britain, speed and manoevrability were not decisive, the trade-off for speed and manoevrability is a lighter bomb load, that's why the Luftwaffe couldn't hit us hard enough and what defined the Dorniers and Heinkels as being geared to support blitzkrieg. Germany built her fleet of medium bombers to support blitzkrieg.

You mention development of the He177, well, why do you think it was developed? What lessons do you think the Luftwaffe had learned from attempting dedicated strategic bombing with a fleet of medium bombers, in order to inaugurate such a project?

2. It is another matter that in 1940 these were primarily used to...? 
I don't understand how their primary task could be considered 'another matter'. Their 'primary task' makes them sound ominously good at supporting blitzkrieg...

3. Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Taking Denmark's surrender by flying bombers over Copenhagen (without dropping a single bomb)?

4. I think you just echoed the sentiments of every theatre commander in history who had air power at his disposal.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 7, 2009)

Colin1 said:


> 1. Within the context of the Battle of Britain, speed and manoevrability were not decisive, the trade-off for speed and manoevrability is a lighter bomb load, that's why the Luftwaffe couldn't hit us hard enough and what defined the Dorniers and Heinkels as being geared to support blitzkrieg. Germany built her fleet of medium bombers to support blitzkrieg.



The reasoning is sound about the lighter bombload, but on the other hand its just not true. Even the early war variants of the He 111 could carry 2000 kg internally, which was actually slightly more what the RAF's medium bombers like the Wellington and Hampden - there were no meaningful heavy bombers around at the time - could carry (4000 lbs or 1814 kg), the third most numerous type, the Blenheim, could carry IIRC a mere 600 kg. 

The Ju 88 could carry up to loads of 3000 kg, the Heinkel could carry later 2500 kg, which was further increased later on to 3+ tons.

An interesting comparison can be made with contemporary (produced from July 1940) B-17C, which was very much unlike the later ones we know of. It carried just four .50 caliber guns in single mounts and not yet in powered turrets, and maximum internal bomb load was 4800 lbs (2179 kg), practically that of the contemporary He 111P/H's (2000 kg). It was, in effect, a very long ranged medium bomber from the start.

The idea that these LW bombers carried less bombload in 1939/40 than the typical foreign bombers of the time is simply not true. Its only somewhat true in some comparisons for the Do 17, but that was an older design, which although was very advanced for its time, was already considered obsolete by 1940 and was being withdrawn from front-line service. This was replaced by a new Dornier design, the twin engined Do 217, which fell in size somewhere between medium and heavy bombers, carried a very heavy bombload (4000 kg or 8800 lbs, 2500 kg internally) and was rather fast for a bomber at the same time.

These bombers were not designed with direct support of the army in mind - long range, significant bombload, advanced bomb sights and blind bombing equipment makes it clear - although they were capable of that, just as B-17s and Lancasters were used in tactical roles over Normandy. I believe Corum has throughly adressed the false notion of the Luftwaffe as a 'tactical support' force.

The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918-1940 Book Reviews



Colin1 said:


> You mention development of the He177, well, why do you think it was developed? What lessons do you think the Luftwaffe had learned from attempting dedicated strategic bombing with a fleet of medium bombers, in order to inaugurate such a project?



Again, the reasoning is fine, but the fact is that the He 177 goes back to a pre-war specification ('Bomber A') specifying for a high speed, extremly high range (6600+ km) heavy bomber with also some dive bombing capability. The prototype flew by November 1939. 

In short, the He 177s development has nothing to do with performance the Luftwaffe's medium bombers at time.


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## BombTaxi (Jan 7, 2009)

Woah, I think this was one of the first five threads I posted in when I joined this board 4-and-a-bit years ago  8) 

The fallacy, IMHO, of many arguments regarding the 'tactical' nature of the LW bomber arm, is that they focus on _equipment_ rather than _employment_. As I see it, the LW employed it's bombers in 'tactical' roles designed to secure strategic objectives. Examples which spring to mind are the bombing of 11 Group airfields to secure air superiority during the BoB, and the concerted joint effort with the Italians against the Pedestal convoy, with the aim of securing Malta's collapse. The enemy's material was attacked directly in order to secure a strategic advantage in a specific theatre.

The Allied strategic bombing campaign, on the other hand, struck at the enemy's means of production and at distribution and C3I infrastructures as a means of reducing the Axis capacity to wage war in _all_ theatres simultaneously. To my mind, there is no doubt that the Allied approach was more efficient, as attacking production/distribution nodes has a more widespread effect than simply attacking the material on the front line.

Having said that, there were cross-overs between the two doctrines - the Blitz foreshadowed the tactics that the RAF would employ against German cities, and Bomber Command's strikes on individual major surface units of the Kriegsmarine echoed German concepts of making tactical strikes for overall strategic advantage.

The Germans obviously anticipated the need to for bombers to make deep penetrations of hostile airspace - I would argue that this is at least part of the origins of the doctrine that flew Bf110s as close escort to bombers during the BoB. As such, they must have been expecting to make some kind of 'strategic' attack far beyond enemy lines - something that a strictly 'tactical' air force would be less likely to do.

What I am trying to say, I suppose, is that both sides engaged in 'strategic' bombing during the war, but thier definition of 'strategic' bombing differed. I would also argue that although German bombers were equivalent in performance to Allied types in the first few years of the war, they eventually fell behind. I believe this is because Germany invested much more effort in her fighters. As they needed to secure total air superiority to facilitate Blitzkrieg, then needed to protect the Reich from 24-hour bombing raids, this focus is perfectly understandable, and almost inevitable.

Lecture over folks  8) 

BT


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## Waynos (Jan 7, 2009)

Germany could have had an operational 4 engined heavy before the RAF, remember the Do 19. I believe it was killed for political or doctrinal reasons rather than for any shortcoming of the plane itself? I wonder how the BoB might have looked with this aircraft in LW service in large numbers? 

Also the RAF's 'heavy' bomber at that time was the Whitley, and I think that both this and the Wellington carried a bigger load than the He-111, but I'll give you the Hampden and Blenheim without any argument. Ironically the Blenheim was the first British bomber designed to use speed and agility as its primary defence. With the abandonment of the Hawker P.1005 after the prototype was bombed we only had the Mosquito which got this right.


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## Colin1 (Jan 8, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> ...As I see it, the LW employed it's bombers in 'tactical' roles designed to secure strategic objectives. Examples which spring to mind are the bombing of 11 Group airfields to secure air superiority during the BoB, and the concerted joint effort with the Italians against the Pedestal convoy, with the aim of securing Malta's collapse. The enemy's material was attacked directly in order to secure a strategic advantage in a specific theatre...



That does resemble the doctrine underpinning blitzkrieg, the difference with the attack on the British mainland being that the rest of the blitzkrieg components couldn't roll forwards and take advantage of the temporarily incapacitated airfields, with the English Channel being in the way.

It's a measure of a good debate though, if it's lasted this long


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## Kurfürst (Jan 9, 2009)

Waynos said:


> Germany could have had an operational 4 engined heavy before the RAF, remember the Do 19. I believe it was killed for political or doctrinal reasons rather than for any shortcoming of the plane itself? I wonder how the BoB might have looked with this aircraft in LW service in large numbers?



I don't think it would give them any advantage, the plane itself was a rather outfashioned design - maximum internal bombload was only 1600 kg, less than that of the Heinkel 111 actually, although I have seen sources that it could carry 3000 kg (which is still not very different from what the Ju 88/He111 was capable of). Its speed was also much inferior at a mere 315 km/h, although it had long range, but there would be no gain against Britain, which was well within range of the Luftwaffe's existing medium bombers at the time.



Waynos said:


> Also the RAF's 'heavy' bomber at that time was the Whitley, and I think that both this and the Wellington carried a bigger load than the He-111, but I'll give you the Hampden and Blenheim without any argument.



From what I gathered, the early *Wellington* could carry 2041 kg (later versions the same or less) , same as the Heinkel 111 (2000 kg, though I believe by the BoB the 111 could carry 2500 kg externally). The only advantage in payload it had was its longer range, 4100 km, altough bombload had to be drastically reduced in this case to just 454 kg, and with 2041 km it was very similiar to the Heinkel.

The *Whitley *could carry 3175 kg maximum, but this was possible for over very short ranges only (756 km), while its long range bombload was only 1360 kg with a range of 2650km. This was actually inferior to the Heinkel's long range load, given for the H-2 variant as 2,000 kg payload to a range of 2340 km. The H-2 only entered service after the BoB, but I believe its internal tankage was the same, it only differed from the earlier variants in being able to use half of the internal bomb bay to place an extra fuel tank to it, with reduced bombload, and earlier variants would be very much the same. 

The *Hempden* could carry 1814 kg as maximum load, though range was somewhat less than that of the others at 1700 km or so.

There were six Squadrons of Whitleys (ie. roughly 70 operational planes) and 8 Squadrosn of Wellingtons (ie. roughly 100 operational bombers) and a similiar number of Hampdens in 8 Squadrons in the RAF at the start of the war. The rest were Blenheims AFAIK, fast but definietely lacking in payload and survivability. 

So we are talking about 250-300 more or less comparable medium bomber aircraft in the RAF at the start of the war, against the balance of some 705 He 111s and 533 Dornier 17s the Luftwaffe had; the Ju 88 was only coming into service, and was available in very limited numbers in September 1939, though it became the second most important type by mid-1940.

The above is just a brief overview as to how the world air forces compared in strategic capability, and I think its understandable why I find it somewhat revolting to characterize the Luftwaffe, _the air force that had arguably the most potent strategic bomber capacity at the start of the war_, a 'tactical' air force.


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