Lancaster as an escorted, daylight bomber ala B-17/24?

[wuzak]

Very tough airframe after looking at pictures and havent seen most of those before

The Manchester, from which the Lancaster was developed, was designed to be launched by catapult at maximum take-off weight. That would probably account for the strength in the Lancaster's airframe.

 

[gruad]

For various reasons I would challenge that interpretation of statistics. edited G gruad

1 They weren't flying the same missions, The Lancasters first mission was the longest low level daylight raid of the war, if you get hit at low level you dont bale out.
2 The Lancaster was the weapon of choice of 617 squadron, raids on the dams and canals were also at low level and many others involved crossing the coast at low level, you dont survive incidents at that level.
3 As the war progressed raids became longer range, the Stirling and the Halifax were progressively removed from the longest raids, so Lancaster crews were the ones who had furthest to fly back with flack or nightfighter damage.
4 Hitler issued a directive that "terror fleigers" should be killed on sight by the civilian population, this applied mainly in Germany itself and at that time in the war most were Lancaster crew. Statistics only record the crew that baled out and then survived the war, some were executed in between.
5 Harris worked by different metrics. If dropping ten tons of bombs on Berlin requires 1 Lancaster 2 Halifaxes or 5 Stirlings for the same effect you will lose 2 times as many Hallifax crew members and 5 times as many Stirling crew. (these aren't literally exact ratios, just an illustration of a principle).
6 When on the same mission Stirlings and Halifaxes were more likely to be shot down anyway.

Yes, you are going to use your best aircraft on the most dangerous missions, but 617 and 9 squadron were the exception rather than the rule.

BC evened things up for the Halifax by putting it in the middle of the stream with a much lighter bomb load 30 to 50% of the Lanc.

Again there were deaths from the German population killing baled out crew, but the Luftwaffe were keen to protect crews as they wanted reciprocal treatment.

The Lancaster was a much better aircraft than the Halifax with one flaw, the escape hatch was too small. A young lad took on this problem and eventually got a larger hatch installed but too late for the end of the war.

 

[SaparotRob]

Someone was on the wrong side of the taxi-way.

 

[special ed]

I have read accounts of both pilot and co-pilot requiring the strength of them both to control a damaged aircraft, as well as accounts of injuries to pilot/copilot requiring one's arms and the other's legs to fly the aircraft.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I have read accounts of both pilot and co-pilot requiring the strength of them both to control a damaged aircraft, as well as accounts of injuries to pilot/copilot requiring one's arms and the other's legs to fly the aircraft.

I'd be really interested in reading those accounts, Ed, if you have any links handy.

The other night my son showed me a Youtube vid he'd found of two -17s, mid-air collision, they converged vertically and got stuck. The two bombers had between them seven working engines, but the lower plane had lost most of its crew. The pilot of the upper bomber realized he couldn't make it back to Merry Olde, so turned back to the Continent to give those left of the crews a chance to bail out over land.

Not only did he manage to turn the Frankenstein around and get to the European coast, allowing six crew to hit the silk, the pilot and co-pilot of the upper bomber stayed with the flying wreckage, and both survived the crash landing. I don't know how many in the lower plane were killed on either air collision or impact.

Here's the computerized vid he showed me. I don't know how accurate the details are.

 

[pbehn]

What about a photo with damage to both ...

View attachment 619819

Is this called "Harry meets Meghan"?

 

[pbehn]

I have read accounts of both pilot and co-pilot requiring the strength of them both to control a damaged aircraft, as well as accounts of injuries to pilot/copilot requiring one's arms and the other's legs to fly the aircraft.

So have I. However it also happened in Lancasters and Halifaxes, other member of the crew helped, they don't have to be pilots. Having two navigators may have helped, we don't know how many didn't make it back because the navigator was killed, same with engineers and wireless operators. In well over half of cases of a plane being lost no one got out, so that is a huge number of extra pilots lost for the few times having two got the plane home. US daylight operations needed two pilots, the forming up process took a long time so missions were longer and flying in close formation is mentally and physically tiring.

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's a detailed account of the collision between the two B-17s:
Bizarre B-17 Collision Over the North Sea During World War II

 

[pbehn]

Yes, you are going to use your best aircraft on the most dangerous missions, but 617 and 9 squadron were the exception rather than the rule.

BC evened things up for the Halifax by putting it in the middle of the stream with a much lighter bomb load 30 to 50% of the Lanc.

Again there were deaths from the German population killing baled out crew, but the Luftwaffe were keen to protect crews as they wanted reciprocal treatment.

The Lancaster was a much better aircraft than the Halifax with one flaw, the escape hatch was too small. A young lad took on this problem and eventually got a larger hatch installed but too late for the end of the war.

I was just pointing out reasons why the stats are not correct. The cases of Lancasters hitting the ground doing things that Halifaxes were never asked to do are part of it, as are the cases of crews abandoning perfectly good aircraft because they couldn't find an airfield in fog prior to FIDO being used.

Evening things up for the Halifax is why Harris hated it. I don't know that being in the middle of the bomber stream is safer, what I do know is if the Halifax carries half the bomb load, then you are using twice the air crew in Halifaxes as you are in Lancasters and also losing more.

The LW and German military were not involved in the instruction to kill "terror fliers". I have just read a book on Lancaster crews. One crew all bailed out over Germany and were captured, they were taken to a barn to be executed but two escaped the other five were killed. At approximately the same time a Lancaster crashed and two crew survived, protected by the resistance they were handed over to the Allied forces in Paris after liberation. Out of those two crews, 14 men, only two will appear on the stats of "parachuted safely" though 7 did and in total 4 survived.

 

[RCAFson]

There are images but not so many, I don't know whether that means they didn't return with damage (actually they certainly did) taking photos was generally frowned upon.

Not having a co pilot on daylight raids probably would increase losses, if forming into a box formation was needed, simply because the raids were so much longer.

The Lancaster was designed so that the pilot had a reduced work load over equivalent USAAF aircraft:

"The cockpit compartment, like earlier British heavy bombers,
is arranged for a single pilot and a flight engineer, the engineer's
station being directly behind the pilot while the usual co-pilot's
position is primarily a passageway to the bomb aimer's "greenhouse" in
the nose but is provided with a folding jump seat. The layout has been
fully planned for arrangement and simplification that is so desire
able for night operations. All controls fall readily to hand and are
easily identified. The trim controls operate in the correct plane and
are conveniently located. Many automatic features add to the simplicity
of operations of the Lancaster. The engine radiator shutters are
automatically positioned and the mixture controls have been eliminated
completely by using automatic carburetor settings selected from boost...

D. - Recommendations.

1. The vision qualities, automatic features, bomb-bay arrangement,
and other excellent items of this airplane should be closely studied by
our engineers for possible improvement of our own equipment."
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Lancaster/Lancaster_Eng-47-1658-F.pdf

 

[pbehn]

On the previously discussed Nuremberg raid of 31 March 1944.
572 Lancasters were used 64 were lost =11.2 %
214 Halifaxes were used 31 were lost =14.4%

A difference of 3.2% may not seem significant but it is, because it applied to every mission, if you have a 3.2% bigger chance of being shot down on one mission, on a tour of 30 missions your life chances are massively reduced and as far as Harris is concerned they are dropping half as many bombs so you can double the wastage of life.
As can be seen by March 1944 the ratio of Lancasters to Halifaxes was 2.7 to 1 on this long range raid, The ratio increased until all were Lancasters because the Halifax just wasn't up to the job, even if you had a better chance of getting out of it, you had a much better chance of surviving the war on Lancasters.

 

[pbehn]

The Lancaster was designed so that the pilot had a reduced work load over equivalent USAAF aircraft:

"The cockpit compartment, like earlier British heavy bombers,
is arranged for a single pilot and a flight engineer, the engineer's
station being directly behind the pilot while the usual co-pilot's
position is primarily a passageway to the bomb aimer's "greenhouse" in
the nose but is provided with a folding jump seat. The layout has been
fully planned for arrangement and simplification that is so desire
able for night operations. All controls fall readily to hand and are
easily identified. The trim controls operate in the correct plane and
are conveniently located. Many automatic features add to the simplicity
of operations of the Lancaster. The engine radiator shutters are
automatically positioned and the mixture controls have been eliminated
completely by using automatic carburetor settings selected from boost...

D. - Recommendations.

1. The vision qualities, automatic features, bomb-bay arrangement,
and other excellent items of this airplane should be closely studied by
our engineers for possible improvement of our own equipment."
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Lancaster/Lancaster_Eng-47-1658-F.pdf

When they started putting grand slams on the Lancaster, the radio operator was taken out with his equipment, but radios had moved on, other equipment was carried to allow the pilot to do pretty much the same job.

 

[33k in the air]

. . . if you have a 3.2% bigger chance of being shot down on one mission, on a tour of 30 missions your life chances are massively reduced . . .

At a constant mission loss rate of 5% of the attacking force, a crew would have about a 60% chance of surviving 10 missions, a 37% chance of surviving 20 missions, and a 21% chance of surviving 30 missions. Of course, in reality loss rates were never constant, but fluctuated over time.

A 5% loss per mission, while sounding small, is actually a huge. Assuming a starting force of 100 bombers, losing 5% of the bombers sent each mission would see that attacking force reduced to 63 bombers after just 9 missions.

When they started putting grand slams on the Lancaster, the radio operator was taken out with his equipment, but radios had moved on, other equipment was carried to allow the pilot to do pretty much the same job.

The nose and dorsal turrets were removed and the crew reduced to five in order to lighten the aircraft as much as possible. That helped allow the takeoff gross weight to reach 72,000 lbs on the Lancasters modified to carry the Grand Slam bombs.

 

[pbehn]

At a constant mission loss rate of 5% of the attacking force, a crew would have about a 60% chance of surviving 10 missions, a 37% chance of surviving 20 missions, and a 21% chance of surviving 30 missions. Of course, in reality loss rates were never constant, but fluctuated over time.

A 5% loss per mission, while sounding small, is actually a huge. Assuming a starting force of 100 bombers, losing 5% of the bombers sent each mission would see that attacking force reduced to 63 bombers after just 9 missions.

Exactly. The Nuremberg raid of 31 March was catastrophic for a big raid, but the difference in loss rates with the Halifax was a constant, for many reasons. An average loss rate of 4% was the maximum that could be sustained by the RAF and USAAF, the difference between the Lancaster and Halifax was almost that in itself, and as I said it frequently carried half the bomb load.

 

[Milosh]

Gee, I know of a Halifax that carried 10000 lbs of conventional bombs. Does that mean the Lanc carried 20,000 lb of conventional bombs?

 

[33k in the air]

An average loss rate of 4% was the maximum that could be sustained by the RAF and USAAF, the difference between the Lancaster and Halifax was almost that in itself, and as I said it frequently carried half the bomb load.

The Halifax III (and later VI and VII) were considerably better than the II and V. The Halifax III could carry 8,000 lbs of bombs to Berlin to the Lancaster's 10,000 lbs. At short ranges, the Halifax III could lug 13,000 lbs to the target and the Lancaster 14,000 lbs.

 

[gruad]

I think what you have there is the statistical opposite of survivor bias. The statistics are for crews surviving bailing out. If any member of the crew is killed, the pilot can fly the rest home, if the pilot is killed the rest have to jump out if they can.

The pilot's low chance of survival was down to him having to hold the plane steady while the rest of the crew bailed...

 

[JDCAVE]

Survivability by crew position:

Lancaster

09.6% = pilot
13.8% = navigator
11.9% = wireless operator
12.4% = flight engineer
13.2% = bomb-aimer
08.5% = mid-upper gunner
08.0% = rear gunner

10.9% = overall

Halifax

20.8% = pilot
36.2% = navigator
32.5% = wireless operator
34.0% = flight engineer
31.4% = bomb-aimer
27.3% = mid-upper gunner
23.4% = rear gunner

29.0% = overall

Wellington

14.6% = pilot
21.0% = navigator
18.5% = wireless operator
18.5% = bomb-aimer
14.6% = rear gunner

17.5% = overall

Source:
Bomber Command Headquarters, 'An examination of the emergency escape arrangements from Bomber Command operational aircraft,' 19 May 1945, DHist 181.003 (D4598)

One of the issues with the Lancaster was the position of the "Main Spar" through the centre of the fuselage. Evidently this contributed to the low survivability of crews. Dad mentioned that the escape hatch above the pilot's seat was the escape route for ditching only. The pilot could not escape from this hatch as he would fly back into the mid-upper turret and tail fins, etc. He said escaping from the bomb aimers station was next to impossible as "George" (the auto pilot) was unreliable and he never used it. I suspect the main reason for the overall low survivability had to do with the bomb-load and fuel tank issues, as well as the strength of the aircraft, relative to other types. As quoted above, there were various ORS studies on these issues, and while they tried to come up with fire suppression systems, and other measures, these could only achieve so much.

So why have the main spar go through the centre of the fuselage? One advantage of this arrangement was it provided for a long, continuous bomb bay. Conventional Lancasters could carry, 4,000 lb , 8,000 lb and 12,000 lb HC bombs. Note that the 12,000 HC bomb was 3 cookies put together, i.e. not the Tallboy. The Lancaster was the only aircraft in the European Theatre which could carry bombs of this size.

Jim

 

[JDCAVE]

The following excerpt from Target Berlin by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price may be of interest (p.29-30):

The weather forecasters expected aircraft above 23,000 feet to leave condensation trails; these would make it more difficult for bombers to hold formation and easier for German fighters to find them. To avoid this nuisance bomber formation leaders were ordered to stay below 21,000 feet.

This may have been a consideration by the USAAF. As I have said I am quite unfamiliar with this command. What I stressed was, I have never seen any wartime documents that relate to this being a consideration in RAF Bomber Command. As I have said I have examined many of the documents from the Bomber Command "Operations Research Section" and have not come across any discussion of vapor trails being in consideration when detailing routes. You need to examine the wartime documents, as you can easily be misled with assumptions and errors express by other authors.

Jim

 

[JDCAVE]

The Lanc was used as a daylight escorted bomber for raids supporting the Normandy Invasion in June 1944. Oddly enough, when they got past the range Spitfires could handle they were escorted by Mosquitoes.

I don't have details on 11-Group, (fighters), as to what date they became equipped with Mustangs. They may not have been so-equipped with this aircraft in June, 1944. The Bomber Command Day Raid Sheets record that 11 Mosquitos from 100-Group accompanied the force on the daylight raid to Bergen, October 4, 1944. The weather was really terrible in the north of England and Scotland that day and "day fighters" may not have been able to participate on this raid. There was a particular daylight, I believe in January 1945, where the entire Bomber Force was recalled because the fighter escorts were grounded owing to weather conditions. By late February, 1945, Mustangs were the principal escorts on the daylight operations I have studied, and these were from 11-Group.

Edit: I notice that 7 squadrons of Mustang and 14 Squadrons of Spitfires from 11-Group accompanied the force on the Raid to Munster, November 18, 1944, rendezvousing with the force at 5 degrees 30 minutes, E. on Track.
Jim