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

[eagledad]

I wonder how the 24 would behave when trying to ditch it with 1 or 2 engines out, no flaps, and with holes in the wings or fuselage? The point I want to make is that it was one to ditch an aircraft with everything operational, and another with a battle damaged ship.

just my 2 cents worth.

eagledad

 

[gruad]

From his book on the subject, Arthur Harris. 1947. Bomber Offensive.

"The Lancaster was so far the best aircraft we had that I continually pressed for its production and at the expense of other types; I was even willing to lose nearly a year's industrial production from the Halifax factories while these were being converted to produce Lancasters."

Page 103.

Jim

Thankfully Harris respected Operational Research and didnt implement his preference.

Admittedly this decision was not as critical as him deciding not to follow the directives against Oil and Transport that could have ended the war 4 to 6 weeks early

 

[JDCAVE]

Thankfully Harris respected Operational Research and didnt implement his preference.

Admittedly this decision was not as critical as him deciding not to follow the directives against Oil and Transport that could have ended the war 4 to 6 weeks early

For some reason, there is an oft repeated statement that Harris did not attack oil targets. Nothing can be further from the truth and in fact attacked these targets as he could do so. I'm not going to go through the evidence in this short post but I intend to do so in the coming days, probably in a separate thread, because the oil targets that Harris actually attacked can easily be summarized. I will lay out my argument for this in a forth coming post.

jim

 

[33k in the air]

For some reason, there is an oft repeated statement that Harris did not attack oil targets. Nothing can be further from the truth and in fact attacked these targets as he could do so. I'm not going to go through the evidence in this short post but I intend to do so in the coming days, probably in a separate thread, because the oil targets that Harris actually attacked can easily be summarized. I will lay out my argument for this in a forth coming post.

The British Bombing Survey has this to say about the tonnages of bombs dropped on oil targets by Bomber Command, 8th Air Force, and 15th Air Force. Figures are shown in that order.

1943 = . . . . 61 --- . 1,514 --- . . . . 0
1944 = 48,285 --- 62,297 --- 45,552
1945 = 52,117 --- 19,879 --- . 8,602

Percentage of total tonnage dropped against oil targets by year.

1943 = 03.9% -- 96.1% -- 00.0%
1944 = 30.9% -- 39.9% -- 29.2%
1945 = 64.7% -- 24.7% -- 10.7%

Clearly, in 1944 Bomber Command was dropping its fair share of tonnage against oil targets, and in 1945, it dropped the majority directed at such targets.


Going further, I would say there is the idea that the only thing Bomber Command did was incendiary raids on urban areas. That too is not borne out by the data. While it is true that Bomber Command did much more of it than the USAAF, in reality the peak year of incendiary bomb usage against urban areas, both in terms of actual tonnage dropped and percentage of total tonnage dropped, was 1943.

Tonnage of incendiary bombs dropped against urban areas by year. The figures in parentheses is the percentage of total tonnage dropped against urban areas.

1942 = 18,759 -- (47.0%)
1943 = 72,928 -- (49.5%)
1944 = 60,611 -- (29.7%)
1945 = 22,414 -- (30.7%)

 

[33k in the air]

Admittedly this decision was not as critical as him deciding not to follow the directives against Oil and Transport that could have ended the war 4 to 6 weeks early

Oil has been addressed already, but in terms of railway targets, there too Bomber Command did its fair share in 1943 and 1944. Tonnage of bombs dropped against transportation targets in the order of Bomber Command, 8th Air Force, and 15th Air Force.

1943 = 003,223 -- 005,098 -- 00 156
1944 = 105,440 -- 123,738 -- 47,582
1945 = 027,342 -- 117,158 -- 53,256

Percentage of total tonnage dropped against transportation targets.

1943 = 38.0% -- 60.1% -- 01.8%
1944 = 38.1% -- 44.7% -- 17.2%
1945 = 13.8% -- 59.2% -- 26.9%


If you want to pick on Harris for abandoning a campaign that could have shortened the war, look at Bomber Command's 1943 campaign against the Ruhr. This is documented in Adam Tooze's book The Wages of Destruction, which explores in detail the German economy prior to and during the war. Citing German records, the attacks against the Ruhr actually had a huge impact on German war production. Armaments production, as measured by Speer's ministry index of such production, essentially stagnated for about nine months afterward, from June 1943 through February 1944. It doesn't begin exhibiting a sustained climb until March of 1944 (and peaks in July of that year, and thereafter drops rapidly). There was a critical shortage of vital subcomponents for months after the Ruhr campaign.

Had Harris continued the Ruhr attacks, it could have been decisive in crippling German production. (Although to be fair losses were considerable due to the heavy defences of the Ruhr area.)

 

[33k in the air]

I bet it really depended on where a -24 was hit. An 88 in the wing would stand a good chance of being fatal. In the fuselage, possible but less-likely (especially after bombs had been dropped).

There is famous newsreel footage of a B-24 in the PTO being hit by flak during a raid.. It was struck in the left wing near the wing root. It immediately bursts into flame and the wing buckles. It looks on first viewing that the aircraft was struck by bombs dropped from above it, but if one watches carefully that was not the case.

B-24 Liberator Bomber Shot Down In Carolines Raid In WWII (1945)

 

[SaparotRob]

I've read both versions, flak hit or bomb drop. I'll take a good look at that now that I have the tech to pause the the film.

 

[pbehn]

The oil plan was one of many, as was transportation. There were all issues to do with the battle of the Atlantic which took priority. There was support for D-Day support of the breakout from Normandy. Attacks against V weapons. Laying of mines, pretending to lay mines to trigger Enigma signals. Glider towing, destroying dams battleships ports engine factories, steel plants. Harris didnt run the RAF, there were people above him giving him a never ending list of high priority targets.

 

[SplitRz]

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

Taken from BBC - WW2 People's War - Experiences in Bomber Command - Part 2 (packed with fascinating stuff) - recollections by Brian Soper on Lancaster Operations

"It was a clear moonlit night as we were climbing to bombing height. We realised that we were all showing heavy vapour trails. Most of the weather forecast, including wind-speed, was apparently wrong. There were many night fighters about and we saw several aircraft blow up. Because it was so light we also saw aircraft where the crews were bailing out. We had seen Lancs blow up before, but never in so much detail. The pilots changed height several times to try to lose the vapour trails because the night fighters were just sitting above and picking them off from the vapour trails. ...."

Didn't their met briefings also include expected heights for vapour trails...? :/

Interestingly, given the earlier discussion (row!) about the relative merits of Halifax versus Lancaster, he had this to say:

"Although we felt sorry for them, we were happier when Halifaxes & Stirlings were also flying. 'Halis' rarely got above 18,000ft, which we felt took some of the flak: this was really only wishful thinking. However, later when some of the Halifaxes were fitted with radial engines, the roles were reversed & they could get higher than we could...."

(note, the above recollection may relate to Halifax IIIs with reduced bombloads mentioned earlier?)

 

[33k in the air]

I've read both versions, flak hit or bomb drop. I'll take a good look at that now that I have the tech to pause the the film.

Go frame by frame. The bombs can clearly be seen passing behind the bomber. At normal speed it's hard to spot.

 

[ThomasP]

The only Halifax variant that could get above the Lancaster on a regular basis was the late war Halifax B Mk VI (Hercules 100 engines) which had a Vmax of 312 mph at 22,000 ft. (Data from Air Ministry ADS dated 1945)

 

[33k in the air]

The oil plan was one of many, as was transportation. There were all issues to do with the battle of the Atlantic which took priority. There was support for D-Day support of the breakout from Normandy. Attacks against V weapons. Laying of mines, pretending to lay mines to trigger Enigma signals. Glider towing, destroying dams battleships ports engine factories, steel plants. Harris didnt run the RAF, there were people above him giving him a never ending list of high priority targets.

Bomber Command percentage of total tonnage dropped by major target type for 1943, 1944, and 1945 (in that order), according to the British Bombing Survey.

01.1% -- 03.9% -- 00.6% = Aircraft targets
05.6% -- 02.3% -- 08.7% = Dock and port areas
01.0% -- 15.8% -- 12.7% = Military installations
01.1% -- 12.8% -- 00.0% = Long-range weapon installations
00.0% -- 08.5% -- 26.2% = Oil targets
04.5% -- 02.3% -- 01.1% = Industrial targets
83.5% -- 35.7% -- 36.8% = Towns
01.8% -- 18.5% -- 13.8% = Transportation targets
01.5% -- 00.1% -- 00.1% = Miscellaneous

Aircraft targets includes aircraft factories, airfields, and radar installations.
Dock and port areas include harbours, shipping, U- and E-boat bases, and the shipbuilding industry.
Military installations include army HQs and barracks, hutted camps, military and government buildings, Gestapo HQs, and towns destroyed as part of battle (i.e. to cause road blocks, etc.).
Oil targets include oil plants and equipment and fuel dumps.
Industrial targets include ball-bearing plants, ordnance targets, power targets, steel and coke, and other industries.
Transportation targets include railway centres, bridges and viaducts, waterways, etc.

 

[SaparotRob]

Go frame by frame. The bombs can clearly be seen passing behind the bomber. At normal speed it's hard to spot.

You're right.

 

[gruad]

For some reason, there is an oft repeated statement that Harris did not attack oil targets. Nothing can be further from the truth and in fact attacked these targets as he could do so. I'm not going to go through the evidence in this short post but I intend to do so in the coming days, probably in a separate thread, because the oil targets that Harris actually attacked can easily be summarized. I will lay out my argument for this in a forth coming post.

jim

Ok, I should say Harris did attack the directed targets but not in the intensity that he should have done.

When BC attacked the oil and transport targets it was very effective having larger bombs than the US and the low level marking worked really well.

If the precision attacks had been the main focus then the Nazi capacity to wage war would have been disabled. Of course there conditions when area bombing had to be used.

The irony was that when BC had become a precision force for D Day targets, Harris wasted those skills by returning to his obsession of area bombing effectively disobeying orders.

Portal nearly fired Harris for insubordination but feared public opinion.

 

[33k in the air]

Ok, I should say Harris did attack the directed targets but not in the intensity that he should have done.

Harris was an ideologue, wedded to the prewar theories of air power. He really should have been replaced by the fall of 1944, if not perhaps sooner. But the political will to do so didn't exist.

When BC attacked the oil and transport targets it was very effective having larger bombs than the US and the low level marking worked really well.

Had the Ruhr campaign been continued in 1943, instead of switching to flattening Hamburg (more on that in a moment), and later, Berlin, that could have been decisive in itself.

Regarding Hamburg, that came the closest to realizing the idea that national morale could be broken by aerial attack. The initial reaction to the destruction of Hamburg was shock. It scared a number of the leading Reich officials. Speer, for one, said that had Bomber Command been able to do to another half-dozen German cities what it had done to Hamburg, war production would have collapsed, as the population gave up. But firestorms such as the one which devastated Hamburg could not be created at will (indeed, there were perhaps only two more in Europe during the rest of the war), and so the fighting went on.

The irony was that when BC had become a precision force for D Day targets, Harris wasted those skills by returning to his obsession of area bombing effectively disobeying orders.

The peak year against area targets, in terms of percentage of total tonnage dropped, was 1943, according to the tonnage figures listed by the British Bombing Survey.

 

[BiffF15]

Didn't their met briefings also include expected heights for vapour trails...? :/

They are called meteorologists due to their training, and pilots sometimes call them weather guessers from experience. I don't know how many times I received a weather brief at base operations, by a weatherman, and it's like he never looked outside. Contrails altitudes are a guess even today. Generally enroute to the airspace we would send number 4 up to check the con level. As soon as one of us noticed and called "marking", he would reply with altitude and rejoin the formation. On low moon illumination nights this was almost worthless until the advent of NVGs. Then it was only slightly above worthless as the goggles weren't that great. On high illum nights it was something good to know.

Also realize that one doesn't have to go far to cross a weather boundary / or front, and the weather can vary from marginally to drastically different. Launching in the UK to go several hundred miles deep into enemy territory, via a round about route, could see a crew go through several weather fronts prior to dropping.

Cheers,
Biff

PS: I would tease my weather buds that they could be continuously wrong about the forecast and still get promoted.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The narration also says to land along the waves in high seas, but doesn't say why. I suspect that having the waves not smash into the bomb bay was a factor.

I would imagine also that concern about landing into a rising swell factored in as well, especially in a -D model with greenhouse nose. At 8.35 pounds per gallon and virtually no compressibility with water, landing into a wave at landing speed (into the wind as the narrator advised) would put a lot of water at the front of the plane, right below where the crew was assembled. Whatever wasn't smashed would be weighed down by water and make egress more difficult.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

There is famous newsreel footage of a B-24 in the PTO being hit by flak during a raid.. It was struck in the left wing near the wing root. It immediately bursts into flame and the wing buckles. It looks on first viewing that the aircraft was struck by bombs dropped from above it, but if one watches carefully that was not the case.

B-24 Liberator Bomber Shot Down In Carolines Raid In WWII (1945)

I've seen that footage, it's in so many doccos about strategic bombing. The speed at which the wing fails catastrophically is stunning.

I'd imagine that lower wing-loading would help the wing be more resilient (due to less forces operating upon it), but mind all, I'm not an engineer of any sort and my opinion must be qualified by that ignorance.

 

[ClayO]

I've seen that footage, it's in so many doccos about strategic bombing. The speed at which the wing fails catastrophically is stunning.

I'd imagine that lower wing-loading would help the wing be more resilient (due to less forces operating upon it), but mind all, I'm not an engineer of any sort and my opinion must be qualified by that ignorance.

It's all tradeoffs. To lower wing loading, they needed to reduce the weight (payload) or make the wings bigger, and for an airplane designed for long range, that means longer, so the plane would have been even less maneuverable. They could have made the wings stronger, but that would have meant more of the weight would go into the airplane and less into the payload.

There's a good discussion of wing aspect ratio and the tradeoffs in this article.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's all tradeoffs. To lower wing loading, they needed to reduce the weight (payload) or make the wings bigger, and for an airplane designed for long range, that means longer, so the plane would have been even less maneuverable. They could have made the wings stronger, but that would have meant more of the weight would go into the airplane and less into the payload.

There's a good discussion of wing aspect ratio and the tradeoffs in this article.

Much appreciate the link, I'll dig into it after I unwind a little from work.

I figure, comparing the wings of the two American bombers, the -17 has a wider chord, shorter span, and probably more metal between engines no. 1 and 4. Again, not an engineer, but that spells, to me, better torsion resistance, meaning it's more durable. But I'm pretty sure a direct hit from an 88 (I don't know what Japanese gun fired the shot) between engine 2 and fuselage (as the famous B-24 shootdown footage shows) would probably kill any bomber of the era.

ETA: nice, short article, clear explanations, thanks. If you've ever watching pelicans hunting offshore, you can see them tucking wing as well for a quick turn-and-dive onto their prey. This helps make sense to a layman. Thanks!