Mosquito better than B-17?????

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Chiron

Airman 1st Class
104
4
Feb 17, 2005
As far as I know, it seems that, in terms of speed and of crash rate, Mosquito
had much beeter record than all other bombers, including the famous B-17.

So, why Allies decided to choose B-17 over Mosquito?
and why B-17 is QUEEEN of Bombers?
 
Huh ?

The B-17 is a large Bomber, and the Mosquito is a Bomber-interceptor or nighfighter !
 
B-17 isnt Queen of Bombers, B-29 is :D Well the Lancaster was better than both in the real world :D

Well the Mossie was British, and The B-17 was American, and it would make more sense for the USAAF to use their bomber rather than the British. Besides, Mosquito's were very good at other roles besides bombing and were being used for other duties (nightfighting, recon etc), and nearly twice the amount of B-17's were built compared to the Mossie and were more readily available. I agree using the Mossie would have made more sense but it wasnt the practical thing to do.


Welcome to the site as well :D
 
Soren, the Mossie could carry almost the same load as the B-17 normally carried the same distance, and much faster :D
 
Well the B-17 could carry good load more bombs !! Thats why it was used more for bombing than the Mossie !
 
Yep, B-17 normally carried 8000lbs to Germany, right? The Mossie could do the same with 6,000lbs, but much faster :D

Yes, in terms of maximum the B-17 could carry 17,600lbs, but not very far. ;)
 
Yes thats right. I just thought you meant they had the same bomb load, wich they certainly havent :!:

:)
 
"Mossie could carry almost the same load as the B-17 normally carried the same distance, and much faster"

Ya, I too found that statement from some website regarding of Mossie's bomb load. But, it seems unbelievable. I meant, B-17 was a HEAVY bomber and equiped with 4 engines, whereas Mosquito had only two.

Here is what I found from RAF History on Mosquito:

"An example of the tremendous accuracy achieved by Mosquitos can be shown by comparing figures for the attacks on the V-weapons sites. The average tonnage of bombs required to destroy one of these sites by B-17 Flying Fortresses was 165; for B26 Marauders it was 182 tons and for B25 Mitchells 219 tons. The average for the Mosquito was just under 40 tons!"

So, from this view, does it means that Mosquitor was much superior and technological advanced to any other bomber in WWII? Since Mosquito already qualifies several components of modern bombers: fly with high speed, solo mission, long distance, and most importantly all, the precise bombing.
 
B-17 was a HEAVY bomber and equiped with 4 engines, whereas Mosquito had only two.

but remember the mossie was much lighter so didn't need more engines..........

and the B-17 was a heavy but very rarely carried heavy payloads...............
 
"and the B-17 was a heavy but very rarely carried heavy payloads......"

I agree. And it seems also that whereas B-17 suffered tremendously in air until the arrival of P-51, the Mosquito was capable of conducting solo operation without accompanying fighters to safeguard itself from enemies' planes.

(MM.......something tells me that B-17 wasnt a good plane after all....)

In comparison with Mosquite's bombing record, how effect was B-17's role in strategic bombing?
 
You are really comapring apples to oranges. Yes, the mosquito did fly solo missions against small targets, but large industrial targets required a large formation of aircraft with a large amount of bombs.

Realistically, how do you think the Mossie would have faired if they had had large formations of them attacking large targets? Because of their relative size, they would obviusly be more manueverable against fighters, but with a full bomb-load, they would be heavy and slower to manuever as well.

The roles that the aircraft were designed for are different. You have a right to the opinion that the B-17 was "not so good", but fo rthe role it was designed for, it did a good job.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back