Best medium bomber of WWII?

[Shortround6]

Allow me to explain all this to you. Mosquito in 1942 was already as important as the Ju 388 or AR 234 were in the late war. Probably the Ki-67 too. You are trying to say that the Mosquito doesn't count because there were relatively few operational in the early war. There were relatively few of a lot of good types. There weren't that many Pe 2s yet either for example.

There were a lot more PE-2s in 1941 than there were Mosquitos in 1942. The Mosquito was performing a lot of important functions in 1942. Recon and nightfighter, but unarmed fast bomber was barely on the screen, a few newspaper headline raids with heavy losses. The two squadrons that used them in 1942 were switched to night bombing/pathfinding in 1943 to reduce losses. Again it is timing, what the Mosquito accomplished from 1943 was amazing, but it was not that significant a bomber in 1942.

Most of the fighters as well as the bombers fighting in 1942 were 1930's or very early 1940's designs, made when they couldn't anticipate the full realities of war. They didn't know how many bombs Hurricanes and Kittyhawks could carry in particular. Nevertheless, that was the competition. I'm not saying that designers in the 1930s should have anticipated every nuance of how the war actually turned out in 1941-45, they didn't even know there would actually be a war or who would be fighting on what sides so how could they.

Then use your own criteria but look at it honestly. Range and speed of a Hurricane II with two 250lb bombs, or with two 500lb bombs?
Hurricane I didn't carry any.
Pair of 500lb bombs on a Hurricane II knock about 30mph off the speed.
And please remember that the Hurribomber used the Merlin XX engine of 1940, Kittyhawk range and speed carrying a 250 or 500lb bomb?
Now compare range/speed to the Blenheim or Marylander let alone the Baltimore or Boston.


As SHORT range bombers the fighter bombers could do good work but quit saying they only had a bit less range than light or medium bombers. Blenheim could carry four 250lb bombs, or two 500lb bombs 1400 miles. It could also carry numbers of 40lb bombs in small bomb containers for certain targets. Other light bombers had similar capabilities.
Some mid-war fighter bomber missions seem rather wasteful. Hurricane IVs with a drop tank under one wing and one bomb or four rockets under the other?
P-38 raid on Ploesti, one 300 gallon tank and one 1000lb bomb per plane?

BTW raids on Ploesti (or other Romanian targets) need to take into account the state of the defenses. Numbers/types of AA guns and numbers/types of defending fighters against any given raid.

Blenheims, Marylands, Baltimores and Bostons. The latter three types, though they did not carry much heavier bombs loads than a Kittyhawk necessarily, proved 'competitive' because they were adapted successfully to their missions.

What we don't know is how far the Kittyhawk could carry heavy loads. It also seems that the not all Kittyhawks carried the same load. The 1941-42 Kittyhawk Is and Ia's were rated to carry one 500lb and two 100lb bombs. When or if they were modified to carry heavier loads? By the time you get to the Kittyhawk IV the plane could officially (in the manual) carry two 1000lb bombs and one 500lb (no mention of how long the runway had to be.) The KittyHawks IVs that attacked the Pescara river in May of 1944 carried one 1000lb bomb and two 500lb bombs according to squadron records. It was noted that the Kittyhawk IIIs were only rated to carry 1000lbs of bombs totoal.

One of the planes used in the Pescara raid but this is almost one year after Sicily let alone North Africa.

I have seen the photos of P-40s with six 250lb bombs. Exactly which model P-40 and what was done to allow this ( limited ammo?, guns pulled? less than full fuel tanks?) I have no idea. Getting a P-40E off the ground at 1000lbs over max gross weight in tropical conditions might have been a bit exciting however as in a long period of boredom with several seconds of terror as the end of the runway approached

However there were alot of missions these fighter bombers could NOT do that the light bombers could do to range.

Let me help your analogy along a bit and clarify it. If you try to make it a starting point, then what you are actually doing is creating a filter or a funnel. You are placing bomb tonnage carried as a higher criteria than accuracy or survivability or range or servicability. All of which are actually equally important.

I did say starting point didn't I? Range is pretty much equally important. Serviceability is nice but if you can't reach the target, or reach it with a worthwhile bomb load the most serviceable planes in the world are useless for the mission. You have to reach the target with a worthwhile payload, then you can worry about the other stuff.
This is one reason the A-20 was not popular in the South Pacific (and the A-24 even less so) as it didn't have the range to reach many of the targets the Allies wanted to hit.
Fighter bombers in 1942 in that theater?
Once you can reach the target you can worry about (or rate) accuracy (which also depends on crew training and bomb sights and tactics in addition to the characteristics of the plane).
Survivability somewhat depends on the enemy, not all enemies were the same and even some enemies changed their defenses considerably in a short period of time.
Survivability becomes somewhat subjective. PE-2s vs Romanian PZL 11Fs and PZL 24Es or survivability vs Bf 109Fs?
Stukas vs the British and French AA in 1940 or Stukes vs the American AA in 1942/43 ?

I can find bomb loads and range (not always accurate), trying to find actual data (not opinion) on survivability is an awful lot harder.

Poor accuracy and a miserable survival ratio in combat restrict options. Poor range restricts options. Poor serviceability restricts options. The Hampden bomber carried a heavier bomb load than the A-20 or Pe-2, but does anyone think it was a better bomber? The Whitely carried more than the A-20 and the Hampden combined, but what kind of dent did it put into the Axis cause compared to say, the Mosquito,

As to the Hampden, it somewhat depends on what the target is
Hampdens were used for dropping sea mines and did attack (not very successfully) the Germans ships at Brest and other places on the French coast. The Scharnhorst was hit according to some sources by three 2000lb AP bombs (not dropped by Hampdens) The Hampden however could carry two such bombs over distances from England to Brest.
The A-20 and PE-2 could not carry one such bomb. Hampdens also were used to attack German industry but British night bombing techniques were pretty poor in the early part of the war regardless of the bomber airframe used. Assuming an A-20 could even reach some of the targets in daylight it might not have done much damage and suffered high losses (early A-20s only held 400 US gallons of fuel). By night the A-20 is using one less crewman to deliver 1/2 the bomb load with no better accuracy.

Whitley was sort of two engine heavy bomber, it was never intended to operate in daylight. During the phony war it did leaflet raids as far as Warsaw Poland. It Bombed Northern Italy right after the Italians declared war.Damage may not have been much but could the A-20 or PE-2 do either mission?
There were only 1814 built and 160 of those were not being used as bombers before WW II started (Tiger engines banned from over water flights)
Whitleys did perform a number of roles rather unrelated to bombing so impact on the war is hard to judge.

The last is certainly shifting the goal posts. Many late war medium bombers didn't come close to the impact that the Mosquito had. however a large part of the Mosquitos impact was marking targets and keeping them marked for the four engine heavies. The Mosquitos increased the accuracy of the 4 engine bombers and so acted as a force multiplier.
So does this mean the KI-67 and Arado 234 were crappy bombers because they had little impact on the allied cause?

I guarantee D3As could have sunk the Hipper, if Skuas could lay a bomb on it. SBDs as well.

 

[Koopernic]

The Ju-88 needs some kudos. First flying in 1936 and staying competitive right up to the last days of the war.

The Ju 88, Ju 188 and certainly the Ju 388 all belong there, proably more than any other type. The Ju 388 is an evolutionary improvement to the Ju 88A1 rather than a new type. The aircraft was there from before 1939 all the way to the end and it can be argue that the Ju 388 was fully competitive with the best allied types at the end.

The Bombers grew along this route Ju 88A1->Ju 88A5(intermediate)-Ju 88A4(enlarged wing)-Ju 88S0 (with blown nose) BMW801 but still with ventral guns 335mph)
Ju 88S1 removed the ventral bandola to get speeds in excess of 384 mph as well as variants Ju 188S2 (BMWTJ engines) and Ju 88S3 (Jumo 213 engines)

The Ju 88A4 evolved into the Ju 188E (BMW 801 engines) and Ju 188A(Jumo 213 engines). This had an improved wing and extended wing tips.

The Ju 88A1/A5/A4 had a heavy fighter analogues Ju 88C usually used as night fighters but also long range fighters over the sea. The Ju 88R was a Ju 88C series with BMW 801 engines.

The Ju 88G series heavy fighters/night fighters used the enlarged tail and improved wing tips of the Ju 188 with the BMW 801 engines (Ju 88G1) and Jumo 213A (Ju 88G6) or Jumo 213E (Ju 88G7)

The Ju 388 was an evolution of the Ju 188 Estimated speeds were:
With BMW 801TJ engine, about 385 mph service ceiling 44,000ft.
With Jumo 213E and MW50 about 408mph
With Jumo 222E/F 444mph.

 

[Schweik]

Ju 388 with Jumo 222E/F was operational?

 

[Shortround6]

Nothing with a Jumo 222 was operational. The Ju 222 was a huge success for the allies.

 

[Koopernic]

Ju 388 with Jumo 222E/F was operational?

I think one Ju 288 flew with the Jumo 288A2/B2 so it would have been possible to put it in a Ju 388. The Jumo 222A3/B3 based Jumo 222E/F(had two stage Supercharger) was passing all its bench tests so engine was on the production program in 1944/45.

Engines planed for the Ju 388 were BMW 801TJ, Jumo 213 series and the Jumo 222E/F and Jumo 222A3/B3

The Jumo 222E/F was producing 2800hp on B4+MW50 but was taken of the production program in 1945 again unless it achieved 3000hp. Obviously Germany has Russian and Allied troops in it at this time and the country is divided into pockets so this was as much a decision based on performance as the realities of production possibilites. It still looked good with the turbocharged 801TJ and Jumo 213E. Engines such as the DB603N and Jumo 213J was promising 2600hp-2800hp on C3+MW50 so that may have had something to do with it as well.

 

[Schweik]

That's what I thought.

 

[Schweik]

You can come up with plenty of American, Russian and British planes operational circa 1945-1946 which were hella badass too.

 

[Koopernic]

You can come up with plenty of American, Russian and British planes operational circa 1945-1946 which were hella badass too.

The A26 with a 2800hp Water injected PW-2800 could have been made but really only a 1945 aircraft. The point I wanted to make was the Ju 388 is still at its core a Ju 88 going back to pre-war.

 

[Schweik]

Yeah that's a fair point. I would argue it still wasn't quite the beast that a Mosquito was, mainly because they seemed to be somewhat vulnerable to (the reasonably fast) fighters, at least in the bomber role. But it was certainly a long lasting and versatile design that proved useful to the war effort from the early days to the end of the war. Also a Ju 388 just looks cool.

But in terms of sheer performance, maybe an F7F? I guess that's really a fighter but by then the line was certainly blurred.

 

[wuzak]

There were a lot more PE-2s in 1941 than there were Mosquitos in 1942. The Mosquito was performing a lot of important functions in 1942. Recon and nightfighter, but unarmed fast bomber was barely on the screen, a few newspaper headline raids with heavy losses. The two squadrons that used them in 1942 were switched to night bombing/pathfinding in 1943 to reduce losses. Again it is timing, what the Mosquito accomplished from 1943 was amazing, but it was not that significant a bomber in 1942.

Heavy losses?

As you point out, there were small numbers of Mosquitoes available for early daylight bombing missions, so even the loss of one or two aircraft makes for a high loss rate.

The main reason for switching to night was for pathfinding duties, but the low level raids have proved much more successful than anticipated.

 

[Schweik]

No other bomber could really pull those off in that manner. There were a few other daring feats (the Beaufighter dropping a Tricolor on the Arc de Triumph and strafing the gestapo HQ was pretty badass) but the Mosquito demonstrated a capability that really no other bomber had. Before 1943. They rushed it into service as a pathfinder in part because all those heavy bombers with the super impressive payloads were barely able to navigate to the right targets and needed a lot of help hitting anything at night.

 

[Shortround6]

Heavy losses?

As you point out, there were small numbers of Mosquitoes available for early daylight bombing missions, so even the loss of one or two aircraft makes for a high loss rate.

The main reason for switching to night was for pathfinding duties, but the low level raids have proved much more successful than anticipated.

Well, 20 planes lost out of 400 is a 5% loss rate but one out of six is 16.6%. One story says that the squadron (or squadrons) were experiencing a higher loss rate than when they were flying Blenheims. Of course they were accomplishing quite a bit more too but still?
The daylight strike role was taken over by the fighter bomber version of the Mosquito.
These were highly experienced crews and most (all) of the raids were carefully planned.

 

[MikeMeech]

Well, 20 planes lost out of 400 is a 5% loss rate but one out of six is 16.6%. One story says that the squadron (or squadrons) were experiencing a higher loss rate than when they were flying Blenheims. Of course they were accomplishing quite a bit more too but still?
The daylight strike role was taken over by the fighter bomber version of the Mosquito.
These were highly experienced crews and most (all) of the raids were carefully planned.

Hi

In the book 'The Bomber Command War Diaries' by Middlebrook and Everitt, pp. 707-708, has statistics on losses that include some of the bombers mentioned in the tread when they were in use by Bomber Command:

I hope that is of use.

Mike

 

[Schweik]

There were a lot more PE-2s in 1941 than there were Mosquitos in 1942. The Mosquito was performing a lot of important functions in 1942. Recon and nightfighter, but unarmed fast bomber was barely on the screen, a few newspaper headline raids with heavy losses. The two squadrons that used them in 1942 were switched to night bombing/pathfinding in 1943 to reduce losses. Again it is timing, what the Mosquito accomplished from 1943 was amazing, but it was not that significant a bomber in 1942.

You seem to have established some criteria for what is a "good bomber" that I haven't necessarily bought into. That's almost like making up your own religion and then calling me a sinner according to your rites. So what? Why don't you spell out what you think it is rather than arguing at oblique angles with hints and insinuations. As far as I know, no single medium bomber type was a major game changer in the early war. Most of the early war devastation was wrought by single engined types like the Stuka, D3A, SBD etc. The Mosquito however was a far better design than any of the others on our list, clearly, and it's early missions were wildly successful in comparison to all other Allied types. They were able to attack fairly deep into enemy territory unescorted and hit their targets, and even if they did take some rather heavy losses they demonstrated a "proof of concept" which was as alarming for the enemy as it was encouraging to the Allies. Those loss rates absolutely paled in comparison to the attempts at daylight raids by other types including with escorts.

Then use your own criteria but look at it honestly. Range and speed of a Hurricane II with two 250lb bombs, or with two 500lb bombs?
Hurricane I didn't carry any.
Pair of 500lb bombs on a Hurricane II knock about 30mph off the speed.
And please remember that the Hurribomber used the Merlin XX engine of 1940, Kittyhawk range and speed carrying a 250 or 500lb bomb?
Now compare range/speed to the Blenheim or Marylander let alone the Baltimore or Boston.

So what? How does this make anything I wrote in any way 'dishonest'? I would say the above implies something which is itself dishonest - the Blenheim was being phased out as a front line bomber type in 1942, certainly in the MTO it was put on the back bench rather quickly. The Maryland was phased out of front line service for the most part by 1943. Bostons and Baltimores soldiered on, but so did Kittyhawks (and Hurricanes too for a while). They were being used as Fighter Bombers in Italy right to the end of the war so obviously the commanders and planners thought they brought something useful to the role.

They started using Kittyhawks and Hurricanes as fighter bombers specifically because of the miserable performance of aircraft like the Blenheim. More on that in a second.

What we don't know is how far the Kittyhawk could carry heavy loads. It also seems that the not all Kittyhawks carried the same load. The 1941-42 Kittyhawk Is and Ia's were rated to carry one 500lb and two 100lb bombs. When or if they were modified to carry heavier loads? By the time you get to the Kittyhawk IV the plane could officially (in the manual) carry two 1000lb bombs and one 500lb (no mention of how long the runway had to be.) The KittyHawks IVs that attacked the Pescara river in May of 1944 carried one 1000lb bomb and two 500lb bombs according to squadron records. It was noted that the Kittyhawk IIIs were only rated to carry 1000lbs of bombs totoal.
View attachment 613396
One of the planes used in the Pescara raid but this is almost one year after Sicily let alone North Africa.

You seem to be flailing about a bit with your query / insinuations, because you don't know the operational history. But that doesn't by any means mean it's unknowable.

They were beginning to experiment with bombs on fighters in the Western Desert as early as January 1942. Clive Caldwell specifically complained to higher command about escorting Blenheims which were trundling along at low altitude and a cruising speed of barely 95 knots, making both the bombers and the escorting fighters highly vulnerable (as we borne out by heavy losses). The fighter bombers were still vulnerable flying low and slow but vastly less so, especially after they had released their bombs. Caldwell himself participated in some of the first tests of bombing, which was done on Kittyhawks (never Tomahawks as far as I'm aware) after some modifications by their squadron mechanics to put bomb shackles on them. Other famous Kittyhawk aces including Bobby Gibbes and James Edwards also participated in experiments carrying various new configurations of bombs with ever heavier loads.

They never did do much structural strengthening of Kittyhawks to carry bombs. The only major change aside from lengthening the fuselage was with the engines, which were rated for higher and higher power (though actually rated engine power at the altitudes the fighter bombers typically operated peaked with the 1942 vintage P-40K)

I have seen the photos of P-40s with six 250lb bombs. Exactly which model P-40 and what was done to allow this ( limited ammo?, guns pulled? less than full fuel tanks?) I have no idea. Getting a P-40E off the ground at 1000lbs over max gross weight in tropical conditions might have been a bit exciting however as in a long period of boredom with several seconds of terror as the end of the runway approached

However there were alot of missions these fighter bombers could NOT do that the light bombers could do to range.

Your opinions and speculations, while interesting, are by no means definitive. Here is what an actual kittyhawk pilot said about using them as fighter bombers:

Jack Doyle Interview

"Getting on to your first point I don't think everyone did come to like them, because I know some people that would never do a three-point landing with it, or attempt to and they'd do tail-down wheelers. But I think they were an outstanding aircraft for the job you were doing. I went right through the war on Kittyhawks although I was promised Mustangs in 450 Squadron. They didn't give me Mustangs but they gave me one personally to play with to sort of abate my wrath a bit, but actually the Kittyhawk was better than the Mustang for doing the job that the Kittyhawks were doing. It is very robust. It is very solid. It has a minimum amount of plumbing for radiator and oil and that sort of thing - the Mustang has a radiator way back and there's a lot of plumbing and you can get bullets through the pipes which causes you problems. But the Kitty was very strong and robust and it had very good armament. It carried 2000 pounds of bombs. There were twin-engined three-crew aircraft in the Middle East that only carried 1500 pounds of bombs. We carried 1500 pounds of bombs on the Kittyhawk as a perfectly normal bomb load.

So it had a very powerful, or it had very good lift and strong engines.

Oh yes, it did. I mean - you can laugh at this - we were climbing at 200 feet a minute with a bomb load - you're modern stuff goes up vertically - but they didn't have much of a rate of climb but I carried the first 1000 pound bomb on the Kittyhawk and in subsequent operations the more experienced pilots which sometimes flew the newer aircraft, a better aircraft, they carried 2000 pounds and the remaining six or so in the squadron would carry 1500 pounds; a normal load is 1 500 pounds but we carried 2000 for shipping."

So performance was certainly limited while carrying a heavy bomb load, however they were using these against the most dangerous and risky targets, up against quite dangerous German fighter and later mostly increasingly heavy and effective flak opposition right up to 1945, in environments that Blenheims simply couldn't survive in, and they could both hit the targets more often (mainly due to "shallow angle" dive bombing methods) and survive better. Fighter bombers were smaller targets, could strafe the AA positions themselves, and Kittyhawks in particular were strongly made with less vulnerable 'plumbing' as Doyle put it.

Anyway, I'd really like clarification as to what your point actually was? I said that fighter bombers were 'competiton' for light and medium bombers. Some, like the Blenheim, were basically replaced. Others like the A-20, the B-25 and Baltimore, and of course, the Mosquito, soldiered on. New types like the A-26 emerged. I never said fighter-bombers and light or medium bombers were equal in every way. I in fact pointed out that twin engined medium bombers (by my own stipulated definition, you could also include twin-engined light bombers here) had the advantages of navigators, extra engines, and (usually) longer range. You objection seems a bit turgid and lacking in an actual point.

I did say starting point didn't I? Range is pretty much equally important. Serviceability is nice but if you can't reach the target, or reach it with a worthwhile bomb load the most serviceable planes in the world are useless for the mission. You have to reach the target with a worthwhile payload, then you can worry about the other stuff.
This is one reason the A-20 was not popular in the South Pacific (and the A-24 even less so) as it didn't have the range to reach many of the targets the Allies wanted to hit.
Fighter bombers in 1942 in that theater?
Once you can reach the target you can worry about (or rate) accuracy (which also depends on crew training and bomb sights and tactics in addition to the characteristics of the plane).
Survivability somewhat depends on the enemy, not all enemies were the same and even some enemies changed their defenses considerably in a short period of time.
Survivability becomes somewhat subjective. PE-2s vs Romanian PZL 11Fs and PZL 24Es or survivability vs Bf 109Fs?
Stukas vs the British and French AA in 1940 or Stukes vs the American AA in 1942/43 ?

I can find bomb loads and range (not always accurate), trying to find actual data (not opinion) on survivability is an awful lot harder.

Maybe harder, but not impossible. The operational histories are available. For example, B-25s, A-20s, Baltimores, Pe-2s and Moqsuitoes - as well as Kittyhawk and Hurricane fighter bombers, all contended with Bf 109s and MC 202s and the assortments of German flak on a sufficient number of sorties that you can observe patterns. The Soviets recorded mission survival statistics on their aircraft, and the Pe-2 had one of the best rates of survival, especially after they put in the heavier dorsal gun.

As to the Hampden, it somewhat depends on what the target is
Hampdens were used for dropping sea mines and did attack (not very successfully) the Germans ships at Brest and other places on the French coast. The Scharnhorst was hit according to some sources by three 2000lb AP bombs (not dropped by Hampdens) The Hampden however could carry two such bombs over distances from England to Brest.

If the mission was delivery for UPS or DHL, then I agree, the Hampden takes the cake. For actual destruction of wartime targets, there is a reason why the Hampden was relegated to dropping mines.

The A-20 and PE-2 could not carry one such bomb. Hampdens also were used to attack German industry but British night bombing techniques were pretty poor in the early part of the war regardless of the bomber airframe used. Assuming an A-20 could even reach some of the targets in daylight it might not have done much damage and suffered high losses (early A-20s only held 400 US gallons of fuel). By night the A-20 is using one less crewman to deliver 1/2 the bomb load with no better accuracy.

Yet I guarantee the A-20 and Pe-2 destroyed more enemy targets - including ships, than the Hampden did. The A-20 could skip bomb and it could carry a torpedo (that was how the Soviets used them for the most part). I know they were used with skip and masthead bombing techniques by the Americans in the MTO as well as in the Pacific. The Pe-2 could dive bomb. Therefore both were vastly more accurate than the Hampden or any level bomber.

Whitley was sort of two engine heavy bomber, it was never intended to operate in daylight. During the phony war it did leaflet raids as far as Warsaw Poland. It Bombed Northern Italy right after the Italians declared war.Damage may not have been much but could the A-20 or PE-2 do either mission?

We have different criteria, delivering bombs to long distance seems to be yours, for mine, damaging enemy targets and surviving are my two most important.

I'd really like to see evidence that the Whitley was planned as a night bomber from the early design stage or spec.

The last is certainly shifting the goal posts. Many late war medium bombers didn't come close to the impact that the Mosquito had. however a large part of the Mosquitos impact was marking targets and keeping them marked for the four engine heavies. The Mosquitos increased the accuracy of the 4 engine bombers and so acted as a force multiplier.
So does this mean the KI-67 and Arado 234 were crappy bombers because they had little impact on the allied cause?

It means there are different criteria for what makes a good or useful bomber, which you haven't defined but seem to be playing around with.

Mine are damaging the target, surviving combat long enough to complete multiple missions, range too, relatively high serviceability (the Mosquito was ineffective in the CBI because due to the materials it was made of it did poorly in high humidity / wet environments, apparently) and versatility.

Performing 'Sterling service' as a target tug, a maritime mine layer, or a liaison aircraft isn't exceptional to me, certainly not for a bomber or fighter. Other missions like recon, which the Mosquito excelled at, or night fighting, again kudos mosquito, pathfinding, night intruder etc. also were useful. And other light bombers including both A-20 and Pe -2 also performed at those roles.

Bomb load however does not trump all other factors. All things being equal, of course it's better to carry bigger and heavier bombs. But if you miss the target, and / or don't survive 3 missions, it doesn't actually help the war effort.

 

[ThomasP]

"If the mission was delivery for UPS or DHL, . . . "

re Whitley

In my notes I have the following:

The Whitley was designed to meet Air Ministry Specification B.3/34 for a night capable heavy bomber, with a secondary troop carrying ability. Requirements included the carriage of a 2500 lb bomb load over 1250 miles at 225 mph at 15,000 ft.

I do not remember where I got the above info from (the note is from ~20 years ago) but I would not have made the note in my aircraft data file on the Whitley if it were not from something ~official.

 

[Schweik]

Night capable doesn't sound to me like 'night only'

 

[Shortround6]

So what? How does this make anything I wrote in any way 'dishonest'? I would say the above implies something which is itself dishonest - the Blenheim was being phased out as a front line bomber type in 1942, certainly in the MTO it was put on the back bench rather quickly.

Lets see, Post #101 of yours

My criteria for a light bomber is (somewhat arbitrarily) something that carries about the same amount of bombs as a fighter bomber to a range not much greater than a fighter bomber can fly. These are kind of useless unless they are super accurate or deadly (i.e. dive bombers or torpedo bombers) or have a good survival rate, though with a navigator they could also be useful as pathfinders. A medium bomber is a plane that can carry more than a typical fighter bomber (often about 2,000 lbs) and carry it a bit further than most fighter bombers can fly (say close to 1,000 miles nominal range).

It appears that your fighter bombers, The Hurricane and KittyHawk had ranges of 400 to 600 miles depending on load and speed, high speed which you prize would shorten the range considerably. Operational radius would be less than 1/2.
KIttyhawk IV (of 1943) lost about 15mph of cruising speed with a single 500lb bomb. Range at 9000ft at 257mph true with 140 gallons internal fuel (no reserves/allowances) was 540 miles.
It could go further if it flew slower. combat allowance and reserve are going to cut into the combat radius.
Fighter bombers that carried 2000lbs (and even near 2000lbs) were few and far between in 1942. For the US it pretty much the P-38 with that rating. P-47s didn't get under wing racks until late 1943. It took quite a while to get the Typhoon to carry a pair of 1000lb bombs.(1944?) It carried a pair of 500lbs bombs much earlier.

That is the difference between light bombers/medium bombers and fighter bombers. Other fighter bombers like Bf 109s had even shorter ranges with a single 550lb bomb.

For some perspective it is about 300 miles from El Alamein to tobruk, 225 miles from Tobruk to Benghazi and about 400 miles from Benghazi to Tripoli (over water).
You can do a lot with fighter bombers, there is also an awful lot you cannot do with them.

You can believe what you want in your own religion about what light and medium bombers are.

Your opinions and speculations, while interesting, are by no means definitive. Here is what an actual kittyhawk pilot said about using them as fighter bombers:

According to the manual for the P-40N/Kittyhawk IV take-off run with a 170 gallon ferry tank (just over 700lbs more weight than the 52 gallon tank plus whatever the difference in the tank weights were) was 2500ft. actual weight not given but it was suggested that extra weight, like ammo, not be carried on ferry flights. Manual gives 1200ft for a hard surface at 7900lbs and 1600 ft for 8900lbs with a 500lb bomb or 75 gallon tank. Except that is for 32 degrees F and you need to add 9% for every 20 degrees above 32 degrees.

BTW two 170 gallon tanks need 3800ft for take-off, temperature not given.

I would note that while the pilot you quote says something about landings he makes no reference to take-offs which is what I was speculating on (with the aid of the manual) .


Bomb load does not trump all but it is a starting point for comparison.
Mine laying was an important role for bombers (B-29s laid lots them, helping shut down Japanese inter island shipping.)
Range is important. If you can't reach the target and return then there are no missions and nothing is achieved. But it is not the only criteria.

Survivability is very hard to figure out. Unless the operational histories are very, very detailed. When the German ships were in Brest there were an estimated 1000 AA guns defending them, at the time it was supposed to be the most heavily defended area in Europe. Unless operational histories detail AA gn density, ammo supply and some other details we don't know what the actual situation was.
Perhaps you can tell us if the Soviets in those summer, early fall of 1941 raids into Romania were opposed by Just the Romanian air force or were German fighter units there? The Germans did move units in later. Would the Soviets have been able to mount raids several hundred miles deep into German territory on the north end of the front?
What were the AA defenses of the the oil refineries and Bridges in the summer of 1941? All of these things changed as the war went on.

BTW the PE-2 used at least three different setups for the 12.7mm gun out the back. So we are comparing what to what? 7.62mm gun to A, B or C?

The A-20 could skip bomb and it could carry a torpedo (that was how the Soviets used them for the most part). I know they were used with skip and masthead bombing techniques by the Americans in the MTO as well as in the Pacific. The Pe-2 could dive bomb. Therefore both were vastly more accurate than the Hampden or any level bomber.

The Hampden was used for low level attacks on certain targets.
I will note that AP bombs don't work in low level attacks.

I would also note the PE-2 could dive bomb in theory. A good crew with a properly maintained/operating aircraft could dive bomb. A poor crew is not going to give good results and the dive brake retraction mechanism often malfunctioned leaving the plane with a top speed of 260-280kph. One reason some crews stopped using it as a dive bomber. perhaps later ones got the retraction system fixed?

 

[Schweik]

Lets see, Post #101 of yours

It appears that your fighter bombers, The Hurricane and KittyHawk had ranges of 400 to 600 miles depending on load and speed, high speed which you prize would shorten the range considerably. Operational radius would be less than 1/2.
KIttyhawk IV (of 1943) lost about 15mph of cruising speed with a single 500lb bomb. Range at 9000ft at 257mph true with 140 gallons internal fuel (no reserves/allowances) was 540 miles.
It could go further if it flew slower. combat allowance and reserve are going to cut into the combat radius.
Fighter bombers that carried 2000lbs (and even near 2000lbs) were few and far between in 1942. For the US it pretty much the P-38 with that rating. P-47s didn't get under wing racks until late 1943. It took quite a while to get the Typhoon to carry a pair of 1000lb bombs.(1944?) It carried a pair of 500lbs bombs much earlier.

I think you misunderstood my post, I was saying that medium bombers, or light twin engined bombers, often carried bomb loads of around 2000 lbs. Whether Kittyhawks could or not wasn't necessarily known by early 1942 but they were actually carrying two 500 lbs routinely by the end of 1942 and sometimes three of them. By mid 1943 the 2,000 lb bomb loads were not unusual. They could also carry a single bomb for a longer flight which didn't seem to affect range much.

That is the difference between light bombers/medium bombers and fighter bombers. Other fighter bombers like Bf 109s had even shorter ranges with a single 550lb bomb.

For some perspective it is about 300 miles from El Alamein to tobruk, 225 miles from Tobruk to Benghazi and about 400 miles from Benghazi to Tripoli (over water).
You can do a lot with fighter bombers, there is also an awful lot you cannot do with them.

You can believe what you want in your own religion about what light and medium bombers are.

According to the manual for the P-40N/Kittyhawk IV take-off run with a 170 gallon ferry tank (just over 700lbs more weight than the 52 gallon tank plus whatever the difference in the tank weights were) was 2500ft. actual weight not given but it was suggested that extra weight, like ammo, not be carried on ferry flights. Manual gives 1200ft for a hard surface at 7900lbs and 1600 ft for 8900lbs with a 500lb bomb or 75 gallon tank. Except that is for 32 degrees F and you need to add 9% for every 20 degrees above 32 degrees.

BTW two 170 gallon tanks need 3800ft for take-off, temperature not given.

I would note that while the pilot you quote says something about landings he makes no reference to take-offs which is what I was speculating on (with the aid of the manual) .

The pilot I quoted, Jack Doyle, very experienced pilot flying later in the war who ended up leader of 450 Sqn RAAF, said in his own words:

There were twin-engined three-crew aircraft in the Middle East that only carried 1500 pounds of bombs. We carried 1500 pounds of bombs on the Kittyhawk as a perfectly normal bomb load.

So it had a very powerful, or it had very good lift and strong engines.

Oh yes, it did. I mean - you can laugh at this - we were climbing at 200 feet a minute with a bomb load - you're modern stuff goes up vertically - but they didn't have much of a rate of climb but I carried the first 1000 pound bomb on the Kittyhawk and in subsequent operations the more experienced pilots which sometimes flew the newer aircraft, a better aircraft, they carried 2000 pounds and the remaining six or so in the squadron would carry 1500 pounds; a normal load is 1 500 pounds but we carried 2000 for shipping."

Now I may be reading into this, but when he says "We carried 1500 lbs of bombs on the Kittyhawk as a perfectly normal bomb load that does not seem to reflect a lot of anxiety about taking off with them. I can tell you from some of the interviews that the first time this was attempted there was a great deal of anxiety, but it turned out the Kittyhawk could handle the weight, and as Doyle said, it had a lot of lift.

Again, this isn't me putting words in this fellows mouth. He is the one who brought up the comparison of the Kittyhawk in bomber role with the other light bomber types. So I think that supports the notion that it is a viable comparison.

By the way, the two Kittyhawk types he is referring to are Kittyhawk III and IV, the IV being the one he refers to as more powerful. The III (equivalent to P-40K and M) was available in the Western desert from mid 1942 (K) or late 1942 (M).

Bomb load does not trump all but it is a starting point for comparison.
Mine laying was an important role for bombers (B-29s laid lots them, helping shut down Japanese inter island shipping.)
Range is important. If you can't reach the target and return then there are no missions and nothing is achieved. But it is not the only criteria.

Right, range, surviveability, bomb load, serviceability and bombing accuracy all mattered. And still do. You need most of those factors to do at least one or two of the bombers jobs. more on that in a second.

Survivability is very hard to figure out. Unless the operational histories are very, very detailed. When the German ships were in Brest there were an estimated 1000 AA guns defending them, at the time it was supposed to be the most heavily defended area in Europe. Unless operational histories detail AA gn density, ammo supply and some other details we don't know what the actual situation was.
Perhaps you can tell us if the Soviets in those summer, early fall of 1941 raids into Romania were opposed by Just the Romanian air force or were German fighter units there? The Germans did move units in later. Would the Soviets have been able to mount raids several hundred miles deep into German territory on the north end of the front?
What were the AA defenses of the the oil refineries and Bridges in the summer of 1941? All of these things changed as the war went on.

BTW the PE-2 used at least three different setups for the 12.7mm gun out the back. So we are comparing what to what? 7.62mm gun to A, B or C?

It's really not that mysterious, IMO, at least for types that were in wide use. Once the number of sorties go up, and when the same types are used against the same types of targets, not just fortified defenses like at Brest (or Ploesti, or some of the German maritime targets in the Baltic) but also the more routine targets, you can, and they did, form fairly accurate impressions of their comparative viability. It also helps to listen to the crews, like this Doyle fellow.

The Soviets tried a wide variety of aircraft in the Tactical role, but only a few could survive long enough and do enough damage in the hellish environment of the Soviet-German war to be worth using. Pe-2 was probably their best in that role.

The Hampden was used for low level attacks on certain targets.
I will note that AP bombs don't work in low level attacks.

Great! I'd love to do a side by side comparison of damage done to the enemy compared to a Mosquito, a Pe 2, an A-20, or a Kittyhawk.

By the way, that brings me to another point - there are many missions for a bomber. There is Tactical bombing (tanks and infantry concentrations, big AT and AA guns, etc.), Operational bombing (Bridges and supply dumps, railheads and rail yards, airfields, ships and docks) and Strategic bombing (oil refineries, pipelines, factories). And then the are ancillary duties like mine laying or maritime patrol, recon, night intruder raids and so forth. And finally stuff like target tugs, liaison, and training which are where most of the failed designs end up.

For a bomber type to be successful, it helps to be able to conduct at least two types of mission. Mosquitoes could do basically all of them.

I would also note the PE-2 could dive bomb in theory. A good crew with a properly maintained/operating aircraft could dive bomb. A poor crew is not going to give good results and the dive brake retraction mechanism often malfunctioned leaving the plane with a top speed of 260-280kph. One reason some crews stopped using it as a dive bomber. perhaps later ones got the retraction system fixed?

Well that's true, it's also true of Douglas SBD and the Ju 88 and many other types. The Pe 2 did two types of dive bombing, the truly lethal high angle bombing with the dive brakes (which did impose penalties on most airframes), and the more shallow angle (but still fairly steep) bombing such as done by Kittyhawks and the like. Pe-2 could endure quite high speed so the latter method worked fairly well too.

 

[Schweik]

By the way both Ki 48 and Ki 49 were used with success against Darwin, for example on May 12 1943. They held up fairly well (with Ki-43 escorts) against Spitfire Vs. They lost 1 Ki 49 and 1 Ki 43, with another Ki 49 and two Ki 48 crash landing on their return to base. Three Spitfires were also lost.

 

[WARSPITER]

The other important factor when looking at this is psychological. The two highest scorers in this poll are perfect examples.

First, the B-25. An untried aircraft first used to hit back at Japan in the Doolittle raid. Morale wise this affected both the US and Japan. Tokyo and other cities
could be bombed as was shown. Japanese resources had to be diverted for future protection of the home islands and the B-25 was instantly famous. Look at the
models that have been made of these raiders over time.

Second, the Mosquito. The Spitfire was the symbol of the RAF victory in the Battle of Britain and the Mossie became the symbol of the RAF hitting back as far as
Germany itself. Bombing Berlin in broad daylight and being able to outrun interception was a morale boost for Britain and a downer for Germany. Again instant
fame for the Mossie as well.

Although these two raid examples did not cause much in material damage the dual effect at home and on the enemy is gold.