How good dogfighter was the Mosquito?

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SaparotRob said:
(Dakota)
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Transports, flying boats, recon, tugs, trainers, etc. are still needed to move and find stuff, and train future crew, but for combat types, all the RAF needs is Mosquitos, Lancasters and Spitfires.

Swap out every late-produced Blenheim, Bombay, Hampden and Hereford and every Beaufort, Beaufighter and Albemarle, plus most lend lease twins (Hudson, Ventura, Boston, Maryland, Baltimore, etc.) with a Mosquito and the RAF is alright.

Same goes for the Spitfire. Swap out every Defiant, Whirlwind, Hurricane, Tempest, Typhoon and lend lease fighter (Mohawk, Buffalo, Kittyhawk, Mustang, Jug, etc...) with the same number of Spitfires and there's little to no downside for the RAF. And again for the Lancaster, swap out every late produced Wellington plus every Halifax and Stirling with the Lanc and no worries.

The issue of course is making enough Mossies, Spits and Lancs to replace all these types, especially in the early war years, such as when Hurricanes were easier to produce. But get it done, and the DH/Supermarine/Avro lads have the only three combat types the RAF needs to win most missions.

Thankfully most were used as transports and tugs, but, if we'd asked anyone who had to fly the Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle into combat if they'd rather have a Mossie? I'll take the 400 mph beast with 4 x 20mm cannons, 4 x.303 guns, eight RP-3 unguided rockets and 2,000 lbs of internal bombs please.

 
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Admiral Beez said:
I'll take the 400 mph beast with 4 x 20mm cannons, 4 x.303 guns, eight RP-3 unguided rockets and 2,000 lbs of internal bombs please.
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I would too,
Now where do I find one?
Chances of finding a Mosquito doing 400mph with eight RP-3 unguided rockets (unless in a steep dive) about 0.0%.
Chances of finding a Mosquito with 20mm guns and 2000lbs of internal bombs even without the RP-3 rockets about 0.0%
 
This part sounds really good on paper, but we have to take a few things into consideration.
Early war, Britain was hard pressed for numbers. Their industry was ramping up, but not fast enough to fill out operational units or replace losses.

To the lend-lease part:
Many types in their early inventory weren't lend-least, but diversion of foreign orders from over-run nations.
In addition, the much needed lend-lease types were put to use to fill gaps and bolster unit strength.

Removing either group (or all) would create a void that British manufacturers would be hard pressed to fill at that point in time.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Swap out every late-produced Blenheim, Bombay, Hampden and Hereford and every Beaufort, Beaufighter and Albemarle, plus most lend lease twins (Hudson, Ventura, Boston, Maryland, Baltimore, etc.) with a Mosquito and the RAF is alright.
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Hmm, none of the first group use Merlin engines.

None of the 2nd group (except a few hundred Beaufighters) use Merlin engines.

None of the 3rd group use Merlin engines.

Now while you are getting several factories around Britain to scrap their facilities for Bristol engines and retooled to make Merlins the RAF is reduced to having their pilots "fly" about the airfields making Vroom, Vroom noises with arms outstretched (or using cardboard wings).

Of course we can use thousands of the factory workers to go to Ecuador to harvest Balsa logs out of the rain forest.

It generally took one year to get a plane from the 5th production example to the 500th plane. It took less than 1/2 time to got from the 500th plane to to 1000th.

Yes, the British did make a bunch of mistakes, but without a time machine a lot of them are going to be hard to fix.

Trying to make Mosquitos using small Bristol radial engines is not going to end well.

Trying to make Mosquitos early using Merlin X engines is also not going to give what you are looking.
 
Yes, I appreciate it's not doable, and I did my very best, though miserably so to try to convey that above.....

Admiral Beez said:
The issue of course is making enough Mossies, Spits and Lancs to replace all these types, especially in the early war years, such as when Hurricanes were easier to produce.
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But my point was those three are all the RAF needs, everything is a distraction, necessary or otherwise. Same goes for the Germans, asap drop the IIIs and focus on churning out only the L48 armed Pz.Kpfw. IVs, skipping all the cats and casemate SPGs and TDs and they'd be further ahead, IMO. Give the Luftwaffe just three aircraft: Ju-88s, Bf-109s and Ju-52s and they'd do no worse than historically.

It's more a mental exercise in what was needed rather than what was feasible. Though why someone thought it was worth producing six hundred Albemarles from 1940-43 instead of nearly anything else, Mossie or otherwise is beyond me. Wikipedia says the Albemarle was created to meet Specification B.9/38 for "an aircraft that could be built of wood and metal without using any light alloys", well damn, isn't that the Mosquito FFS?
 
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The PzKfw III was a genesis leading to the IV, without it's existence, the Heer would not have been able to arrive at the IV's design (which was a winner, tbh).

The StuG III/IV (built on a PzKfw III chassis) was a beast, too - it's original mission profile evolved from assault gun to deadly anti-tank platform. It's contribution to the war effort was quite significant.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I'm clearly incompetent in communications today, below I didn't mean there would be no Pzkw III, but that "as soon as possible" drop the III and switch over entirely to the IV.
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Agreed - only PzKfw III types that should have remained after late '41/early '42, was the StuG III, Flammpanzer III and Ostwind/Flakpanzer III.
 
SaparotRob said:
I'm surprised the PzKfw III doesn't get better press.
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In the late 1990s I had a pc tank game, I can't recall the game, but my favourite tank was the 5 cm KwK 39 armed Panzer III. With this gun the late war models could kill anything up to a T-34 or Churchill at reasonable ranges. Good vid here showing the features of the III when most other tanks were two or one man turret affairs.

 
That is pretty much what they did (as far as the Pz III goes)

The IV F with L/43 cannon didn't start production until March 1942. Only about 175-200 built until July 1942.
It took from May of 1942 to June of 1943 to build almost 1700 IV Gs

The III L started production in June of 1942. It took until Dec 1942 to build about 650 of them.
M III production ended with about 700 Ns armed with the old short 75mm gun. Some off these were tanks undergoing overhaul. There is some debate about the number IIINs that were equipped with old short 75mm guns from overhauled MK IVs.

It took about 8-10 months to change over from the MK III with 50mm gun from when the long barreled MK IV showed up to ending MK III battle tank production ( the MK IIIN support tank production lasted a little longer).

Now please note that the IIIL was being built in 7 different factories.
Henschel and Diamler-Benz both dropped out of the production schedule during the end of 1942 leaving 4-5 factories to build the remaining III M & N models.
There had only one factory building IVs until the F model. Then they had 3 factories.
None of the MK III factories were changed over to MK IVs?


Please note that the MK III Stugs were built in two factories, one of which built the majority of Stugs.

In the summer through winter of 1942 shutting down factories to retool may not leave you with anywhere near enough tanks.
 
Shortround6 said:
In the summer through winter of 1942 shutting down factories to retool may not leave you with anywhere near enough tanks.
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The Germans usually had enough tanks. What they desperately needed was spare parts and fuel to keep those tanks they had running. In many of the largest tank battles half or more of the Germans tanks were inoperable but reparable if spares are on hand. That's why I say stop the Pzr III and go to only Pz IV with no cats so that parts can be universal and more available. Swap those factories to making spares and 6x6 trucks.
 
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