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

[Koopernic]

Ahhh, the joys of statistics that don't match people's pre-conceived notions. Lancasters successfully operating in daylight? Impossible!

The question is where and when. Operating over France in post D-day Europe, the skies swarming with 16000 allied fighters with air dominance doesn't count as much as Ploesti. Nor does bombing a few German cities in 1945 when the Luftwaffe is out of fuel and their best pilots lost to the 8th Airforce escorts in 1943 and 1944 and most cities such as Dresden had been completely depleted of their FLAK batteries (set up as anti tank batteries).

So yes, statically it had been proven that the Lancaster could opperate successfully in daylight attacking defenceless cities without FLAK and without fighter defences.

Put them over Ploesti or Berlin in day in 1943 to early 1944 it would look like Wilhelmshaven. Maybe 50% attrition, twice what the Americans suffered at schweinfurt. Escorted missions would also be worse as they came in range of FLAK and the German fighters came down in altitude from 25000ft where they were asthmatic.






Europe

 

[buffnut453]

The question is where and when. Operating over France in post D-day Europe, the skies swarming with 16000 allied fighters with air dominance doesn't count as much as Ploesti. Nor does bombing a few German cities in 1945 when the Luftwaffe is out of fuel and their best pilots lost to the 8th Airforce escorts in 1943 and 1944 and most cities such as Dresden had been completely depleted of their FLAK batteries (set up as anti tank batteries).

So yes, statically it had been proven that the Lancaster could opperate successfully in daylight attacking defenceless cities without FLAK and without fighter defences.

Put them over Ploesti or Berlin in day in 1943 to early 1944 it would look like Wilhelmshaven. Maybe 50% attrition, twice what the Americans suffered at schweinfurt. Escorted missions would also be worse as they came in range of FLAK and the German fighters came down in altitude from 25000ft where they were asthmatic.






Europe

Clearly you didn't read Glider's post so I'll quote it again, covering the period 1 Jan 42 thru 30 Jun 43:

just to clarify by a daytime sortie is considdered one in which the aircraft is dispatched at returns in the same day, and so for this period the lanc did 382 daytime sorties for 13 aircraft lost, believe it or not but AGAIN that comes out to a loss rate of 3.4%

So that wasn't 1945, and the Lancaster loss rates were identical to the B-24. Just because you want the "asthmatic" Lancaster to fail doesn't mean that it did, and the stats broadly align with the fact that it could operate in daylight. You can hypothesize all you like about engagement times for German AAA or make unfounded claims that 50cal guns forced German pilots to engage at longer ranges than 303s....but the loss rates don't back up your assertions.

 

[Peter Gunn]

I fail to see why the Lancaster wouldn't fare any better or worse than the B-17/B-24 would in daylight bombing, especially once the MUSTANG/Lightning/Thunderbolt trio are watching over them. I would imagine it would give good service in that capacity with pretty much the same loss rate.

 

[glennasher]

I fail to see why the Lancaster wouldn't fare any better or worse than the B-17/B-24 would in daylight bombing, especially once the MUSTANG/Lightning/Thunderbolt trio are watching over them. I would imagine it would give good service in that capacity with pretty much the same loss rate.

That might be the case, IF the Lancasters were equipped with .50s, but with only .303s, the interceptors could get a LOT closer and do a lot more damage. I'm not at all sure that would be a wise or prudent thing to do. I think the losses would be somewhat worse, if nothing else because of those big .50s. Even with escorts, a determined interceptor could so more damage to the Lancasters while incurring less damage to his aircraft, assuming the machinegunners knew their business (admittedly a low percentage thing).

 

[Koopernic]

I fail to see why the Lancaster wouldn't fare any better or worse than the B-17/B-24 would in daylight bombing, especially once the MUSTANG/Lightning/Thunderbolt trio are watching over them. I would imagine it would give good service in that capacity with pretty much the same loss rate.

Because the P47, P-38 turbochargers only give them superiority significantly above 20,000ft and the P-51s advantage is reduced. In fact the P51 has no advantage to the Me 109K4. 20,000ft brings the Lancaster well within the numerous 8.8cm FLAK 37.

The imperfected Lancaster VI with two stage Merlins with the altitude performance of a B24 but not B17 standards would perform better so long as a 1000-1500lb of armour were added and 50 caliber guns replaced some of the 303.

 

[buffnut453]

What evidence is there to suggest that bomber defensive armament affected the range at which intercepting fighters engaged? The Luftwaffe fighter pilots were defending their homeland, perhaps even their own town or city. Are we really suggesting that having 50cals vs 303s would make ANY difference to the ferocity of the defending fighters? Particularly when a fair proportion of those 50cals on American bombers were single pintle-mounts that had more chance of hitting another bomber in its own formation than it did of any incoming fighters.

Let's put the boot on the other foot...during the campaign through France and into Holland and Germany, is there any evidence that Allied fighters opened fire at longer range when engaging trains that were defended by flak guns? Those flak guns were much larger calibre than the 50cal carried by US fighters so I'd really be interested to learn if US fighter pilots suffered from the same target avoidance concerns that you all seem to think were so prevalent in the Luftwaffe.

If defensive armament was of such importance in the minds of the fighter pilots, then surely target fixation would never happen?

 

[pbehn]

I fail to see why the Lancaster wouldn't fare any better or worse than the B-17/B-24 would in daylight bombing, especially once the MUSTANG/Lightning/Thunderbolt trio are watching over them. I would imagine it would give good service in that capacity with pretty much the same loss rate.

You could also argue that German defences shot down as many as they could, if the RAF doubled the bomber numbers in the same area on a daylight raid, total losses of the two would not have been much higher. For the same reason the USA escorts would find it almost impossible to protect a single bomber.

 

[buffnut453]

You could also argue that German defences shot down as many as they could, if the RAF doubled the bomber numbers in the same area on a daylight raid, total losses of the two would not have been much higher. For the same reason the USA escorts would find it almost impossible to protect a single bomber.

The other factor that's being entirely forgotten about here is that the RAF and the USAAF used entirely different tactics. Even when engaged on daylight ops, the RAF did not practice large box formations. The large formations adopted by the USAAF drew concerted, massed responses from the Luftwaffe. The RAF tactics, with aircraft flying in stream in smaller groups or individually, would likely have drawn a very different response because there was no large mass of bombers to attack. The simple fact that RAF bombing continued over an individual target for a much longer timeframe than was the case for USAAF operations would present challenges for the defending fighters and would reduce the probability of flak hitting an individual airframe.

 

[pbehn]

The other factor that's being entirely forgotten about here is that the RAF and the USAAF used entirely different tactics. Even when engaged on daylight ops, the RAF did not practice large box formations. The large formations adopted by the USAAF drew concerted, massed responses from the Luftwaffe. The RAF tactics, with aircraft flying in stream in smaller groups or individually, would likely have drawn a very different response because there was no large mass of bombers to attack. The simple fact that RAF bombing continued over an individual target for a much longer timeframe than was the case for USAAF operations would present challenges for the defending fighters and would reduce the probability of flak hitting an individual airframe.

There are many factors, some obvious some not, neither the allied forces nor the Germans were fools. Mistakes were made and tactics and equipment evolved, it is very hard to make any general statement that is always true or completely false.

 

[Simon Thomas]

It was quite an interesting post you did. The claim that the Lancaster lost all of it turrets when the port outer engine failed is common, in fact as your picture shows it is only the tail turret. The question now is was there a cross connection or a hydraulic motor-pump to power this system from another engine.

US aircraft tended to have electrical power for their turrets (say dorsal) that could easily be cross connected though some turrets might be electro hydraulic such as the sperry ball turret. Electrical systems don't bleed out and can easily be isolated by circuit breakers and cross connected.

The extract from the Lancaster Manual I posted.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Because the P47, P-38 turbochargers only give them superiority significantly above 20,000ft and the P-51s advantage is reduced. In fact the P51 has no advantage to the Me 109K4. 20,000ft brings the Lancaster well within the numerous 8.8cm FLAK 37.

I'm not sure I can agree with that, P-51's seemed to be able to shoot down Bf-109's of any marque at any altitude, I've never read an encounter report where the Mustang driver said that he "didn't engage because a 109K was attacking the bomber stream at 20,000 feet so... no joy, you guys are on your own".

Also the B-24's operating at roughly the same altitude, so referencing an earlier post, both the Lanc and the Lib had a 3.4% loss rate if I'm not mistaken, so... ?

The imperfected Lancaster VI with two stage Merlins with the altitude performance of a B24 but not B17 standards would perform better so long as a 1000-1500lb of armour were added and 50 caliber guns replaced some of the 303.

I can see your point about adding some armor perhaps, but was the Lanc so flimsy it needed an extra half ton or so of it? Still not sold that the .303 would need to be replaced but perhaps so, I don't have a good enough frame of reference for that to make a judgement.

Buff makes a good point in the difference in tactics betwixt the USAAF and the RAF, which if we're talking a switch to escorted daylight bombing, the RAF may have to rethink it's position on the BOX v STREAM point.

 

[ClayO]

It's possible that this is the wrong way of looking at it. A post-war USAAF paper based on Luftwaffe analysis combat records/films showed that the Fw190 was over five times as effective as the Bf109 in destroying US bombers.

The majority of this discrepancy is attributed to the increased toughness of the 190 over the 109 -- and the subsequent determination it granted 190 pilots. This superior determination is indicated by the average ranges each fighter type did most of their shooting.

Fw190: Range inside of which +50% of firing was done: 460 metres​

Bf109: Range inside of which +50% of firing was done: 1000 metres​

So it's possible that the armour didn't necessarily have that large of an effect on making the 190 bullet-resistant -- but it seems to have greatly increased the number of enemy bombers destroyed. It's possible that this greatly increased aggressiveness even caused more 190s to be shot down than would have otherwise.

The study points out the data's main weak point is the fact that a destroyed Luftwaffe fighter results in no film or combat report.

That's interesting data. I would have thought that the 190 would have fired from a longer range, since in general the 190 was more heavily armed than the 109.
I wonder if these numbers are affected by a higher proportion of 190's being used later in the war, as pilot training was decreasing, so the pilots were taught to fire from closer range? I tried to dig up some data that would prove or disprove that theory, but so far I've come up short.

 

[fastmongrel]

If the RAF bombs in daylight I think the Lincoln appears earlier.

 

[Glider]

The question is where and when. Operating over France in post D-day Europe, the skies swarming with 16000 allied fighters with air dominance doesn't count as much as Ploesti. Nor does bombing a few German cities in 1945 when the Luftwaffe is out of fuel and their best pilots lost to the 8th Airforce escorts in 1943 and 1944 and most cities such as Dresden had been completely depleted of their FLAK batteries (set up as anti tank batteries).

So yes, statically it had been proven that the Lancaster could opperate successfully in daylight attacking defenceless cities without FLAK and without fighter defences.

Put them over Ploesti or Berlin in day in 1943 to early 1944 it would look like Wilhelmshaven. Maybe 50% attrition, twice what the Americans suffered at schweinfurt. Escorted missions would also be worse as they came in range of FLAK and the German fighters came down in altitude from 25000ft where they were asthmatic.






Europe

Yet the Daylight raid to the Ruhr I think in May 1944 escorted by Tempests which had zero losses tends to be overlooked. They were of course lucky, no one would have expected zero losses but the Ruhr was a heavily defended target and clearly it's flak defences would have been alive and well.

The German fighter defences were capable of inflicting serious damage and didn't

 

[pbehn]

Put them over Ploesti or Berlin in day in 1943 to early 1944 it would look like Wilhelmshaven. Maybe 50% attrition, twice what the Americans suffered at schweinfurt. Escorted missions would also be worse as they came in range of FLAK and the German fighters came down in altitude from 25000ft where they were asthmatic.

This is fantasy, when did anyone attack Berlin in daylight in 1943? The Ploesti raid in 1943 was completely unsustainable, as was Schweinfurt Regensburg, speculating that the same raids with Lancasters would be even more unsustainable is nonsense. Lancasters were bombing places like Berlin at night and had caused severe damage on the Ruhr and Hamburg, they weren't grounded pending the arrival of long term escorts which is what was essential for daylight raids, even with a Mosquito.

 

[Milosh]

30th January 1943 was the tenth anniversary of Hitler's rise to power.

To coincide with the commemorative rallies, the first daylight raids over Berlin took place on that day when Mosquitoes carried out two attacks timed to disrupt speeches being delivered by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göering and Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich's Propaganda Minister, at the main broadcasting station.

The first, in the morning, comprised three Mosquito B Mk. IVs from 105 Squadron, which carried out a low-level attack on the Haus des Rundfunks, headquarters of the German State broadcasting company, at 11:00, when Göering was due to address a parade commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis' gaining power. It was an hour before Göering could finally take to the lectern, reportedly "boiling with rage and humiliation". The mission gave the lie to Göering's claim that enemy aircraft would never fly over the Reich. In the afternoon of the same day, three Mosquitoes from 139 (Jamaica) Squadron went to Berlin to attempt to interrupt a speech by Goebbels, and once again bombed at the exact time he was meant to start speaking, 16.00, although this attack was not quite as disruptive as the earlier one.

Only one aircraft was lost during these raids. Mosquito DZ367 GB-J, of 105 Sqn, flown by Squadron Leader D.F. Darling was shot down near Altengrabow, with both Darling and his navigator, Flying Officer William Wright, being killed.

Göering was not amused:

" In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy.

The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again."

— Hermann Göering, January 1943

 

[pbehn]

30th January 1943 was the tenth anniversary of Hitler's rise to power.

To coincide with the commemorative rallies, the first daylight raids over Berlin took place on that day when Mosquitoes carried out two attacks timed to disrupt speeches being delivered by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göering and Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich's Propaganda Minister, at the main broadcasting station.

View attachment 618685

The first, in the morning, comprised three Mosquito B Mk. IVs from 105 Squadron, which carried out a low-level attack on the Haus des Rundfunks, headquarters of the German State broadcasting company, at 11:00, when Göering was due to address a parade commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis' gaining power. It was an hour before Göering could finally take to the lectern, reportedly "boiling with rage and humiliation". The mission gave the lie to Göering's claim that enemy aircraft would never fly over the Reich. In the afternoon of the same day, three Mosquitoes from 139 (Jamaica) Squadron went to Berlin to attempt to interrupt a speech by Goebbels, and once again bombed at the exact time he was meant to start speaking, 16.00, although this attack was not quite as disruptive as the earlier one.

Only one aircraft was lost during these raids. Mosquito DZ367 GB-J, of 105 Sqn, flown by Squadron Leader D.F. Darling was shot down near Altengrabow, with both Darling and his navigator, Flying Officer William Wright, being killed.

Göering was not amused:

" In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy.

The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again."

— Hermann Göering, January 1943

All true, it was a spectacular success. But 1 aircraft from 6 is a 17% loss rate. The first raid had no losses, it was a complete surprise attack, the second raid had 1 loss which is 33% on that actual raid, we can only speculate what would happen if surprise raids like this became the norm. The actual radio station building was only nominally in Berlin, the defenders had a problem figuring out where the actual attack was going. Like attacks on Gestapo buildings and prisons which weren't previously considered to be important targets. Losses of 17% are unsustainable, losses of 33% are a disaster, like the Dambusters raid which wiped out many of the UKs best crews.

 

[Shortround6]

Th importance of the American .50 cal guns may be over stated.
Yes they were longer ranged than the British .303s.

On the other hand the German 20mm mine shells, the 13mm MG 131 ammo, the 30mm MK 108 mine shells were not particularly long range stuff.
The Germans may have to get within range of the .303s (or at least be pulling out out of the firing run) in order to get a decent shot with their own guns.

A 400mph fighter closing on a 200mph bomber (numbers just for explanation) is closing the range at 100yds a second. not a lot of time to fool around with taking pot shots at favorable ranges for one's own guns and staying out or range of defensive guns.

Germans figured the effective range of most of their guns was 400 meters, Aside from the shorter range 7.9mm guns most of the exceptions were rather rare.

 

[pbehn]

Th importance of the American .50 cal guns may be over stated.
Yes they were longer ranged than the British .303s.

On the other hand the German 20mm mine shells, the 13mm MG 131 ammo, the 30mm MK 108 mine shells were not particularly long range stuff.
The Germans may have to get within range of the .303s (or at least be pulling out out of the firing run) in order to get a decent shot with their own guns.

A 400mph fighter closing on a 200mph bomber (numbers just for explanation) is closing the range at 100yds a second. not a lot of time to fool around with taking pot shots at favorable ranges for one's own guns and staying out or range of defensive guns.

Germans figured the effective range of most of their guns was 400 meters, Aside from the shorter range 7.9mm guns most of the exceptions were rather rare.

Further complicated by the fact that a fighter closing head on with a bomber doesn't have its guns pointed at the bomber, the plane and the bullets intersect for a fraction of a second, when they are close to collision, one reason some LW pilots attacked inverted.

 

[Shortround6]

Forgot that the numbers I gave were for closing from 6 oclock on the bomber, from head on the closing wound be at about 300yds per second.
You are quite right, a fraction of a second at the correct distance to actually get hits.