wuzak
Captain
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.
Lancaster as an escorted, daylight bomber ala B-17/24?
- Thread starter IdahoRenegade
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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.
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
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Someone was on the wrong side of the taxi-way.
special ed
1st Lieutenant
- 7,094
- May 13, 2018
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
Colonel
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.
Is this called "Harry meets Meghan"?
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
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
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
Bizarre B-17 Collision Over the North Sea During World War II
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Staff Sergeant
- 1,356
- Jan 31, 2021
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.
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.
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.
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,356
- Jan 31, 2021
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.
The pilot's low chance of survival was down to him having to hold the plane steady while the rest of the crew bailed...
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
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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
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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
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