Mosquito vs The Rest

[Aozora]

The kind of woods the Mosquito was built, were not readily avaliable for the Germans.

I take it you have definitive information confirming this, because I know that Germany had more indigenous forest available during the 1940s than just about any other West European country, not to mention wood from Finland and all the other occupied countries. As for the types of wood:
http://www.ecotec-energiesparhaus.d...nd-wood-industries-in Germany at-a-glance.pdf

Germany's forests consist of 72 tree species. Of these, 26 non-coniferous and 7 coniferous tree species are used economically. The most important main tree species in this respect are spruce, pine, beech, and oak. Among the coniferous trees, larch and Douglas-fir play an important role in forestry in general, while the silver fir is important in Southern German

The main wood types used in the Mosquito were spruce and birch, and different thicknesses of plywood - European Federation of the Plywood Industry - What is plywood? Possibly the only wood Germany might have had trouble getting was balsa

Even if they had been, the wooden construction is labour-intensive, while the Germans were doing everything possible to reduce the labour needed to produce their aircrafts.

Doesn't really make much odds; Britain had large numbers of experienced wood workers who were quite capable of mass-producing wooden components with the same skill level, and in about the same amount of time as metalworkers could supply metal components. One reason the Germans needed to reduce the labour required was the increased need to use slave workers as the war progressed.

Perhaps because the "myth" has authoritative support

Well let's see the "authoritative support".

...and is based on some fairly simple observation. Pieces of aluminum can be directly printed by a press. Each piece of wood and / or plywood must be sawn and / or bent into the right shape by a worker. Furthermore, at the end of assembly, the aluminum should be just painted, while the plywood must first be covered with glued fabric, another work that must be done by hand (and that, thereafter, makes repairs more difficult).

"simple" observation is right; I guess you haven't seen a woodworking factory or noted that shaping wood with templates can be done as a mass production process no more time consuming or difficult than stamping metal. Somehow the British, Canadians and Australians managed to build over 7,800 Mosquitos, in spite of the poor, hard-done-by workers having to use manual labour.

 

[stona]

Obviously you haven't seen the photos of the mass production lines.....

He obviously hasn't.

I believe one of the concrete formers over which the fuselage sections were moulded turned up recently in High Wycombe (???)

It was mass production and used some very sophisticated techniques.

Cheers

Steve

 

[OldSkeptic]

Totaly agree
Have felt for a while an anti British has developed in these sort of threads.
Any British design is dismisssed and Lufwtwaffe development projects promoted as being able to be put into production at a moments notice.

I believe the Mosquito would have done very well for the Luftwaffe but think they might have done just as well ditching numerus projects and concentrating on the Ju88, like the Mosquito another outstanding aircraft

Though the Ju-88 was no Mossie. The Germans were (correctly) very interested in the schnellbomber concept, they just never managed to pull it off.
Likewise the fast heavy twin fighter and again (with the exception of the TA-154) they never managed to pull it off (then again nobody else did either except DH).

There are good reasons why the 109, 190, Spit, Mustang and Mossie are considered by nearly all as exceptional designs for their time. The design and development teams just got it right.
Oh none were perfect, but overall they were superior to everything else (except their immediate competition of course).
Though unlike the singles, the Mossie didn't really have a competitor.

Note one great success didn't mean future ones.
North American did it with the F-86, then went down the tubes.
Supermarine never did again.
Messerschmitt did it again with the 262, after a lot of duds though.
Kurt Tank did it again (Ta-154 and Ta-152), did that man ever design a bad plane? Germany's Mitchell, not only in his technical skills, but because he could (like Mitchell) lead and inspire a great design team.
De Havilland did it again (Hornet and Vampire), though the loss of Geoffrey basically ended the line.

So producing great planes is as much an art form as anything else. Look at Lockheed, from rubbish, to tragic, to great, to superb and back to tragic and rubbish, several times over. Though you can't help but think that post Kelly Johnston days (excepting the F-117) their glory days are over (imagine what he would say abut the F-35....).

 

[Aozora]

Fact: when introduced, the Mosquito had twice the loss rate than other ordinary twin engined bombers. Doesn't seem to me its speed was such a great defense. In the end, it had to employ the same tactics as other RAF bombers: to hide in the dark and avoid LW's SE day fighters completely.

Okay, let's see the data instead of...oh, hang on I'm being ignored...

Fact: it achieved marvelously low loss rate when nobody was flying to intercept it, i.e. at the end of the war.

Again let's see your data rather than have your blather...darn it I'm still being ignored 8)

Fantasy vs reality is not relevant

Have noticed this with many of your posts. Guess I'm still on "ignore"...*sigh!*

 

[DonL]

To me all this anti Mossie arguments are nonrational.

The Mossie was all the RLM had dreamed of the ME 210 and was feed with promises from Messerschmitt.

Nightfighter, fast recon, fast "light" Bomber, heavy fighter (especially over the oceans) , the only thing it didn't had, was dive breaks and to my opinion dive bombing is overestimated, especially of the german RLM.

History proved the success of the Mossie and the disappointment of the ME 210. Nobody can argue rational against this.

I'm not for nothing a die hardcore fan of the combination FW 187 and Ju 88, because from the real-life development at Germany,they represent all this dutys (plus some other goodies) in two a/c's. But also with some disadvantages, because the FW 187 had not the range and load of the Mossie and the Ju 88 not the speed.

So if germany could produce a Mossie since 1940/41 it would be without alternatives from a technical viewpoint.

Anyway I have still the question, if it is possible for a Mossie to carry "Schräge Musik"?

 

[wuzak]

Anyway I have still the question, if it is possible for a Mossie to carry "Schräge Musik"?

I don't see why not.

 

[pattle]

I don't see the point in arguing over the Mosquito as the hard proof is there on the table for everyone to see, end of chat!

 

[Shortround6]

I hear you, but to be totally honest I also believe a reaction has set in as well. The flip side to all this "British Bashing" is the total trashing of things German.

We all need to develop a litle respect for viewpoints that are not in alignment with our own, and act a little more maturely when it comes to respecting other peoples beliefs.

I count myself in that need to rethink.

In some cases people want "their" favorite to be "better" when for practical purposes it was just different. Two routes or paths to same goal.

Both the English and the Germans ( and most other countries) were quite capable of making very good pieces of equipment and they could also make stuff that was absolute rubbish. Both in design and build quality.

And the argument that just because item "A" was good does not mean that item "B" was also good is a false one.

 

[Shortround6]

I take it you have definitive information confirming this, because I know that Germany had more indigenous forest available during the 1940s than just about any other West European country, not to mention wood from Finland and all the other occupied countries. As for the types of woodnly wood Germany might have had trouble getting was balsa.

and that was pretty much the key.

from Wiki;

"Balsa trees are native to southern Brazil and Bolivia north to southern Mexico."

" but is now found in many other countries (Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Thailand, Solomon Islands)"

"Ecuador supplies 95 percent or more of commercial balsa. In recent years, about 60 percent of the balsa has been plantation grown in densely packed patches of around 1000 trees per hectare (compared to about two to three per hectare in nature)"

Germany had no hope of getting large supplies of Balsa and England did NOT make Mosquitoes because they had "wood" in England.

 

[Aozora]

and that was pretty much the key.

from Wiki;

"Balsa trees are native to southern Brazil and Bolivia north to southern Mexico."

" but is now found in many other countries (Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Thailand, Solomon Islands)"

"Ecuador supplies 95 percent or more of commercial balsa. In recent years, about 60 percent of the balsa has been plantation grown in densely packed patches of around 1000 trees per hectare (compared to about two to three per hectare in nature)"

Germany had no hope of getting large supplies of Balsa and England did NOT make Mosquitoes because they had "wood" in England.

The lack of balsa might have been a problem had the Germans used the same construction techniques as de havilland, but the Germans had long had experience of building all wood monocoques without the need to use balsa, and were surely clever enough to develop techniques which could compensate for the lack of balsa. The big difference was that de Havilland had at least a decade of experience in the construction techniques used for the Mosquito, with the likes of the Comet and Albatros being used to prove the technology which was further refined for the Mosquito. AFAIK Focke-Wulf were working from scratch to design the Fw 154.

 

[OldSkeptic]

and that was pretty much the key.

from Wiki;

"Balsa trees are native to southern Brazil and Bolivia north to southern Mexico."

" but is now found in many other countries (Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Thailand, Solomon Islands)"

"Ecuador supplies 95 percent or more of commercial balsa. In recent years, about 60 percent of the balsa has been plantation grown in densely packed patches of around 1000 trees per hectare (compared to about two to three per hectare in nature)"

Germany had no hope of getting large supplies of Balsa and England did NOT make Mosquitoes because they had "wood" in England.

Funnily enough Kurt Tank had no problem getting around that with the TA-154. Maybe not as cheaply, maybe not as easily .. but he (and his team of course) did that.

I've just found myself in the strange position of arguing for another 'maybe' German 'uber' aircraft, an approach I have always criticised
Then again I am using it to answer the usual complaint of "the Luftwaffe could have done it (building the uberplane that would sweep everything from the sky and only cost 50 cents a plane) if we had more time,. or we could have done it if we had the materials, or the fuel, it was all ready to go .. honest".

 

[stona]

The Balsa used at least initially in Mosquito construction is described as "Ecuadorean", whether it was from Ecuador or that is a type of balsa I know not.
The Birch came from Canada.

All this is irrelevant to my original hypothetical question. When the Germans did attempt wooden construction they had mixed results to say the least. Incidentally a typical Mosquito was also held together by about 50,000 screws!

49 of the original short nacelle Mosquitos entered service in the summer of 1941, long before the Me 210.

The Mosquito was used effectively for photo-reconnaissance and as a bomber, a fighter-bomber, a night-fighter, an intruder, a trainer, a pathfinder, a target marker, a torpedo-bomber, a U-boat killer, a minelayer, and a target tug. It could even be fitted to carry a "bouncing" mine. I've probably missed something.
The Mosquito was the fastest aircraft in Bomber Command until May 1951 so they got something right!

Cheers

Steve

 

[DonL]

You all should consider, that the german industry developed a process 1942 to reclaim aluminium out of shut down or destroyed planes. (all enemy and german planes they could find)
So the german war economy had no real problems with the supply of aluminium and didn't investigate so much of alternatives.

 

[Dogwalker]

Obviously you haven't seen the photos of the mass production lines.....

The photos of Mossie's mass production lines show wooden spars and plywood panels come out, hundreds of pieces per hour, by a press, and the fabric covering be laid by industrial robots? Otherwise obviously you haven't understood a word of what I wrote.

I think you have one of those pictures in your mind of a bunch of cabinet makers,

I think you have very little knowledge of what "capital intensive" and "labour intensive" means. The fact of seeing many planes lined up in various stages of completion, on an assembly line, do not say anything about the relative capital-intensity of a production. It tells you just that they are coming out of an assembly line. The assembly line is used to optimize the amount of labor and capital used, but different productions in assembly line have different capital-intensity.

 

[OldSkeptic]

Anyway I have still the question, if it is possible for a Mossie to carry "Schräge Musik"?

Your other comments are well said.

As for for "Schräge Musik", no need. For defence as a night fighter is was up against light bombers like Ju-88s or Me-210s and 410s ... or FW-190s.
One book about John Cunningham tells the story about closing on a 190 with a 1,000kg bomb, getting close to identify it then slowly dropping back and firing ...

As an an Intruder it was up against other Luftwaffe night fighters, like the Ju-88, Me-110 and so on .. easy meat.
Classic (from Braham's and other stories) tactics were to trawl around, pick up the radar from the Luftwaffe fighter, then quick turn, use their own radar to close and kill.

His (and others) story was that they were relegated to the Beaufighters, which could could not catch a 110 or 88 of the time, plus they didn't have enough range to really help the bombers.
When they finally got Mossies, they were all old clapped out IIs, which killed a lot of crews with engine failures.
I do criticise the Germans for their silly priorities at times.
But no one, not anyone of any side in the air war, was so absurd in their priorities as the RAF's Bomber Command in 1943 up to late 44.

Moskito Panic was not a propaganda name, it was something that German night fighters felt all the time post mid 44 (once the British finally pulled the finger out and you would be amazed at the official RAF opposition to having night fighter support for the, ever more slaughtered, bombers).

 

[DonL]

As for for "Schräge Musik", no need. For defence as a night fighter is was up against light bombers like Ju-88s or Me-210s and 410s ... or FW-190s.

"Schräge Musik" is an attack weapon not to defend. The "Schräge Musik" was developed to go under the bomber and shoot right in to the wings and engines and it was very successfull. So to be a german nightfighter it would be good to carry "Schräge Musik".

 

[wuzak]

"Schräge Musik" is an attack weapon not to defend. The "Schräge Musik" was developed to go under the bomber and shoot right in to the wings and engines and it was very successfull. So to be a german nightfighter it would be good to carry "Schräge Musik".

They installed a turret in one of the fighter prototypes. I don't think that installing "Schräge Musik" would have been such a problem.

 

[Dogwalker]

I take it you have definitive information confirming this, because I know that Germany had more indigenous forest available during the 1940s than just about any other West European country,

Yeah, huge forests of balsa and douglas fir, both required for the Mossie.

The lack of balsa might have been a problem had the Germans used the same construction techniques as de havilland

And that's the key, since the initial question was: "If, in 1940, after the flight of the Mosquito prototype, the Germans had been offered the type would they have been wise to take it and abandon all the rest?". The type De Havilland could offer in 1940 requires balsa ("Hagg created a light, strong, very streamlined structure by sandwiching 9.5mm Ecuadorian balsa wood between Canadian birch plywood skins that varied in thickness from 4.5mm to 6mm" balsa was not an element of secondary importance in Mossies' construction) and douglas fir. We already know that the Germans have not made a redesigned Mosquito using different woods (unless you consider that the TA-154, and then we know what could happen trying to build a Mosquito with different woods).

Doesn't really make much odds; Britain had large numbers of experienced wood workers...

But who said a word about Britain? The question is about a German production.

I guess you haven't seen a woodworking factory

Infact. owning a furniture store from three generations, what can I know about woodworking?

Canadians and Australians managed to build over 7,800 Mosquitos, in spite of the poor, hard-done-by workers having to use manual labour.

Have you a clue about what labour-intensive and capital-intensive production means? It has nothing to do with "hard", "poor", "primitive", or whatever you are saying. It just means that even in order to do the same thing at the same price in the same time, it may take an hour of work, with a tooling of a certain value, or two hours of work, with a tooling of another value.

 

[stona]

If you look at the relatively small aircraft like the Bf 110 and Fw 189, into which the Germans very ingeniously installed upward firing weapons I can't see the British having any difficulty in developing something similar for the Mosquito. They just never felt the need for such a system. They engaged larger four engine aircraft in the traditional manner.
Mosquitos claimed 44 He 177s but I've no idea how many they actually shot down.
Cheers
Steve

 

[stona]

requires balsa and douglas fir.

Are you sure? I've always read that the composite was birch-balsa-birch but I'm not a carpenter. I believe Fir was one of the woods used in the stringers that ran within the skins (particularly those of the main plane) but Birch was also used for this. Spruce was also used in small amounts.

Cheers

Steve