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The fantasy of reality is that many things in war are made to fool those that believe all they see, the allies as well of the axis used propaganda to the best. The bomb load of the typical b-17g was around 8000 to 9600 lbs. Yes the aircraft could be overloaded by up to 17,000+lbs, however this dramatically reduced the aircrafts range of operations. Also the photo you reference 34 x 440lb bombs, obviously a fake as the B-17 only had 42 bomb stations in the bomb bay, to carry 500lb bombs(no table for 440bombs on bomb load chart)it could only carry 16 bombs(that's in overload also)Hi again;
The pic of the plane is 352 mm long on my monitor and the bomb is 19.6 and when you divide those two numbers and the length of the plane, the bombs are about 3.6' long and thus are 100 pounders. The picture only shows 27 bombs and thus there are still three inside. But if you really want to raise a stink, look at the picture of a formation of B-17s dropping, IIRC 34 each 440 pound bombs in the time life pictorial history of WW-II. (The epic of flight-America in the air war, page 115!)
That's over 15,000 pounds of bombs out of a B-17 which according to some old threads, supposedly could not lift over 8,000/9,600, or whatever load of bombs when the Air Force stated it had a bomb load of "over 17,600 pounds"?
Just goes to show you things were done in the war and now some people doubt it.
New tid-bit. Some of the bombs were probably dropped in clusters of three. Those clusters of three will spread in the horizontal plane as we look at them much more than in the vertical plane. At this stage of the trajectory, the force of gravity is much more powerful than the air pressure between the bombs, thus they bunch up into the original cluster from this angle, but not from above.The crew, and other details, have been 'spotted out' by the application of potasium fericyanide to the relevant areas of the print - notice the 'white' areas of the cockpit glazing. This is the white of the photo print paper, where the silver halide image of the original area has been removed by the chemical mentioned, applied with a fine brush and then washed off. The sort of thing done today on a computer with the eraser tool, but the standard method of deleting areas from monochrome prints up to the early 1990's.
At a guess, I'd say the bottom two sections of the sticks of bombs have been added, using an image of bombs just released from the bay from a separate photo - note the 'clumps' of bombs together, which haven't yet started to separate in the disrupted air flow.
Yes, larger loads were traded off for range, but all of this depends on the model and sub type. Most later B-17s had 34 stations on the internal racks, all of which could be used for smaller diameter bombs, like the 440 pound incendiary cluster. For instance, the 1,600 pound AP bomb was small enough in size that 12 could be loaded at one time, three on each of the four racks. ( Top of the outer rack, just below that on the inner rack, middle of the outer rack, then middle of the inner rack, then at the bottom of both inner and outer racks, all staggered for clearance.) But that weight would be more than the plane was safe for at it's MTO of 72,000 pounds, so only 11 of said bombs could be carried with a useful load of fuel and ammo. But if you were willing and or required, the plane could take off with 12, IF you left some fuel behind. I know that several missions were flown Vs sub pens with 11 of that type of bomb, but do not know if any left with all twelve stations so loaded.The maximum bomb load for a B-17 of 17,600lb was 6 x 1,600lb SAP (9,600lb) plus two 4,000lb light case bombs carried on external racks. Not something that was ever really used.
8 1,000lb bombs coould be carried internally, but only 2 2,000lb bombs.
24 100lb (2400lb total), 125lb (3000lb total) or 140lb (3360lb total) could be carried.
The largest practical load was 8 x 1000lb or 16 x 500lb for a total of 8000lb.
But the larger bomb loads were traded off against range.
Yes! Absolutely true! Anything substantialy over ~8,000 pounds of bombs was an overload for the B-17! ( At that time, all bombs exceeded their "Nominal" listed weight.) But some missions did exceed that weight and by a very large margin! The most numerous in number of missions, of said "over load" missions was 30-34 440 pound incendiary clusters, for just over 13Klbs to just under 15Klbs of bombs.As I have said above, over 8000 was overload.
The B-17 had only two hardpoints, one centered under each inboard wing. Each was designed for a 1,000 lb., 1,600 lb., 2,000 lb. or 4,000 lb. bomb.440lb = 200kg a common axis weight. maybe some confusion of the bomb here. The figures that Wuzak and I are referencing appear to be the same, B-17G, from my sources that was the latest variant. As Wuzak points out, the B-17 could only handle 16 in the bomb bay, that means that 18 were external(love to see photo of B-17 with 18 bombs under wings) or the bomber dropping 34 bombs had another modification unknown to the known universe.
Thanks for the pic. This is typical overload condition, however I was asking Mr Stewart if he had any photo of the B-17 with 18 bombs on the wing hard points, the only possible configuration to accomplish the 34 200kg bomb load in his post.The B-17 had only two hardpoints, one centered under each inboard wing. Each was designed for a 1,000 lb., 1,600 lb., 2,000 lb. or 4,000 lb. bomb.
The early B-17 variants had external racks off an on, officially discontinued for the D series but the F series onward saw the airframe fitted with hardware points and electrical connections to allow for an external rack to be fitted when necessary.
here's a shot of a B-17 with the 303rd BG in Molesworth with the external racks in place before a mission in September '43.
View attachment 351295
I'll post a few more pics plus a few pages from the armorer's guide when I'm back on the computer this evening.That's the best pickup I have ever seen of those external racks.
The B-17 had only two hardpoints, one centered under each inboard wing. Each was designed for a 1,000 lb., 1,600 lb., 2,000 lb. or 4,000 lb. bomb.
The early B-17 variants had external racks off an on, officially discontinued for the D series but the F series onward saw the airframe fitted with hardware points and electrical connections to allow for an external rack to be fitted when necessary.
The Disney bomb required a special rack, but then, so did the Glide-bomb and JB Loon.