Mosquito vs The Rest

[wuzak]

From the fact that they really could not, in 1941. Bombers were not ready, fighter could not, PRs obviously could not - yet. The whole point of this thread wheater its feasible or not to have the Mosquito replace equivalent German twins - which again, in 1941 were bugged, but at least could do that.

That is a function of priorities.

The RAF wanted PRs first, then long range fighters and night-fighters (F.II NF.II) before they wanted the bomber. There is no reason why the bomber version cold not have been the first to be developed, apart from Air Ministry priorities.

The RLM may have opted for the bomber version first up. But knowing teh RLM, they would have probably wanted the design modified with forward facing guns and remote controlled defensive barbettes like the Me 210.

FWIW, wiki says that the Me 210 didn't go to operational units until 1942. So how many bombs did they drop in 1941? Probably as many as the Mosquito did. In 1942? Probably less than the Mosquito did.

 

[altsym]

Found this interesting bit of information for victories over the Moskito.

 

[nuuumannn]

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. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set - then at least I'll own something that has always worked."

– Hermann Göring, 1943.

And here's what he thought his epitaph should have read; "He would have lived longer but for the Me 210"

I think the issue was a matter of timing; as unlikely as it was, if the Germans had the Mosquito from late 1940, I think they would have gladly put it into production, all things considered. The Bf 110 would have been the likely airframe for replacement by the Mosquito (or Moskito), rather than the Ju 88, but of course some roles would have merged between both types. The Germans didn't miss a trick and were likely to have rewarded the designer with a production contract based on its performance alone, although you can guarantee that changes in priorities and meddling from the RLM might have meant that its career might not have been as stellar as it was in reality. With the issues surrounding the development of the Me 210, if something came along that proved more straight forward in development that offered better performance, it's likely that it would have been put out of its misery sooner.

Test pilot Fritz Wendel had this to say about the 210; ""The Me 210 was the greatest miss-construction beside the He 177", and "Even the totally new designed Me 410 could not fulfill all of our expectations."

I agree, Wuzak, the issue that held up Mosquito development to begin with was perception of the concept by the Air Staff. Even before the prototype had flown, the RAF insisted on changes to the aircraft's armament or lack thereof and requested that a production contract would only be issued if it was fitted with a rearward facing gun turret. GdeH argued the loss of performance and he was allowed to produce the unarmed variant as a concept aircraft alongside the turret armed prototype. Freeman's intervention saw that the turret armed Mosquito was not built. This cautious approach still remained even after the prototype had flown, despite its excellent performance and it took some convincing the Air Staff of the feasibility of a high speed unarmed bomber, or a "Speed Bomber", as Ludlow-Hewitt put it.

 

[mhuxt]

Found this interesting bit of information for victories over the Moskito.

Thanks for posting that - is it from a book, or something on the web? The list has to be taken with a very large chunk of salt indeed - pretty much all of those Welter night claims are (see above), there's stuff in there that was not credited by the LW authorities, etc etc.

Will have a trawl through it though, see if there's anything new.

 

[Aozora]

In fact the first 210A-0 was in operational trial with Erprobungsgruppe 210 in 1940

Total nonsense - the only aircraft type flown operationally by this unit in 1940 was the Bf 110. The 210 V-9 which was a test prototype for the forthcoming production models did not fly until 19 December 1940 - when tested against a 110E-1 the 110 was found to have far superior flight characteristics.

probably before the Mosquito prototype was even flown (Nov 1940). The pre-production of Me 210 was in series production of 94 five months after (in April 1941) and two months before the first series of Mosquitos were even order by the British Air Ministry. It was bugged plane, sure, but it was there.

More than "bugged" it was positively dangerous to fly and could not be used on operations until its major, deadly problems could be designed out of it:

The first fighter Mossie could no more than about 360 mph, which was good, but not outstanding, merely a couple of miles faster than ME 110 or 210.

In fact the Mosquito II was capable of 378 mph - the only factor that reduced its speed was the useless RDM2 "Special Night" finish applied to early Mk IIs which cut speed by between 15-26 mph. Otherwise as a nightfighter, which was its role, it was far faster than the 110 and 210 because it was not lumbered with the huge drag producing aerial arrays required by Lichtenstein radr equipment.

There were no bomber Mosquitoes in service until the end of 1941. In fact, the bomber prototype did not flew until September 1941, after it was decided to build a whole TEN of them in the first series. They did not flew a single operational mission until mid - 1942. Checking the details I have found that Bomber Commands Mosquitoes dropped ZERO tons of bombs in 1941. They received a SINGLE Mosquito first, W4064 in November 1941, but spent the next six monts "working up" what were essentially custom build pre-production planes and probably issued very, very slowly to operational units. They did not fly operational missions until May 1942, and they dropped something like 250 tons of bombs in the whole year, which was again marginal impact at best.

The first truly worthwhile operational 210s, with heavily modified structures, did not even reach an operational unit until August 1942, after which its impact was very small - no bombs dropped over Britain, no effect on the air campaign in Tunisia.

 

[Greyman]

Eric Brown on the Me 410:

 

[altsym]

@ mhuxt; Book, just can't remember which one. In regards to Kurt Welter, only three of the Mosquito kills coincide with RAF records. Then again, I havn't seen the complete record of damaged or missing Mosquitos during the time period of Welter's claims.

 

[mhuxt]

@ mhuxt; Book, just can't remember which one. In regards to Kurt Welter, only three of the Mosquito kills coincide with RAF records. Then again, I havn't seen the complete record of damaged or missing Mosquitos during the time period of Welter's claims.

Thanks for that. I know there were a couple of Mossies which came home with damage from Berlin, I believe one of them was a Mossie night fighter which was hit in the nacelles. That type of thing is where the Nachtjagd War Diaries books will be useful.

Have been through the first scan - Green = there's a match, red = no match (in some cases I know which Mossie or other aircraft was involved), brown = my db has a LW kill which the scan doesn't list, yellow = maybe, insufficient info to tell for certain.

 

[fastmongrel]

Take one 2 foot by 1 foot sheet of 3/8" marine plywood Lloyds of London BS 1088 grade and place it on 2 bricks at the short edges. Take one sheet of 2 foot by 1 foot Duralium of the exact same weight as the plywood and place it on 2 bricks at the short edges. Actually the Duralium was very slightly slighter but was all we could find.

Then take it in turn to stand on the two sheets. Oops whats happened to the Duralium oh no its not very well. The plywood well if your a big fat chunk like me there is some creaking and possibly a crack or two in the bottom lamination but its still in flyable (well floatable) condition.

Test 2 stamp on the Duralium to roughly flatten it out and prop it up against a wall, do the same with the plywood. Take one old but still in beautiful condition BSA Martini single shot .22 rifle firing Pivovar .22 LR and from 25 yards shoot the Duralium and then reload and shoot the Ply then reload and shoot the ply because you just missed

The Duralium has a neat hole in it with some bulging at the rear. The Ply has a ragged hole in the front and a bulge at the rear with 2 laminates splintered but the .22 round has not penetrated all the way through.

Of course this test means nothing absolutely nothing and was utterly unscientific but it shows plywood despite what some people say is not weak. It did however prove that shooting things is fun

 

[OldSkeptic]

Brilliant fastmongral, in the true spirit of the Mythbusters

 

[fastmongrel]

Thanks OldSkeptic, unfortunately that was all done in the pre digital camera and mobile phone era or I would have some pictures to show the results. Later on that same day we proved that 3 idiots drinking beer can make a ricochet go through a car windscreen with the same .22 rifle. Very funny till you sober up the next day and realise you have to get the windscreen repair fella out.

Still got the rifle though it is no longer used as it needed some gunsmithing doing on the Martini block and as its around a 100 years old I decided it was best to deactivate and hang on the wall.

 

[OldSkeptic]

And from this wonderful experiment we can conclude that the Mosquito was totally immune from attacks by .22 Martini rifles ... bet the same can't be said for a Me-210 or 410.

 

[fastmongrel]

The 410 would have exploded in a giant Hollywood style ball of flame if hit by .22 everyone knows that. The Mossie on the other hand could be hit by a V2 rocket and it wouldnt even spill the pilots tea.

 

[OldSkeptic]

The 410 would have exploded in a giant Hollywood style ball of flame if hit by .22 everyone knows that. The Mossie on the other hand could be hit by a V2 rocket and it wouldnt even spill the pilots tea.

Only if it managed to catch him though ... might just if he was only on one engine

 

[OldSkeptic]

Some more lovely shots of KA 114. Do you know the wings and fuselage were built by a New Zealander farmer as a hobby.

Have a look at his portfolio at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151123003449713.447150.265224834712&type=3

 

[Aozora]

Some more lovely shots of KA 114. Do you know the wings and fuselage were built by a New Zealander farmer as a hobby.

Have a look at his portfolio at
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXdgaGpCJMs

 

[Ascent]

It's been briefly mentioned but what kind of performance penalty would you expect in a Mossie fitted with a German NF radar set with all those aerials hanging off the front?

 

[Milosh]

http://www.airhistory.org.uk/dh/_DH98 prodn list.txt

Mosquito production list with fate.

the first few Mosquitoes from the list:
Serial Mk Units Fate
--------------------------------------------------------------
W4050 P AAEE/Mkrs/R-R SOC 18.3.44 Mosquito Museum London
W4051 PRI AAEE/PRU/1PRU/521/540/8OTU SOC 22.6.45
W4052 NFII Mkrs/AAEE/FIU/Mkrs SOC 26.11.46
W4053 TIII Mkrs/16OTU Engine caught fire on approach Barford St John 1.7.45
W4054 PRI Mkrs/AAEE/1PRU/540 Missing from PR mission to Trondheim 28.3.43
W4055 PRI 1PRU Missing from PR mission to Trondheim 4.12.41
W4056 PRI 1PRU Missing from PR mission to Trondheim 2.4.42

 

[mhuxt]

The Mossie on the other hand could be hit by a V2 rocket and it wouldnt even spill the pilots tea.

From the believe it or not file:

"Two aircraft went to Hundson to carry out an Intruder to N.E. Germany. (Pilot – W.O. Wieczorek N.Rad. W.O. Ostrowski, H). in the first aircraft were airborne from Hundson at 20.00 hrs but after 6 minutes the aircraft was hit while climbing through clod at 3.000 feet by a flying missile believed to be part of an A4 (ed. = V2) rocket. This missile carried away the upper third of the fin and rudder and the pitot head, also making a large hole in the port side of the fuselage near the tail. The pilot succeeded in flying the aircraft back to Hundson but the war-head of the rocket had in the meantime already fallen on the airfield rendering the lighting u/s. Inspite of this added setback the pilot made a successful landing. The second aircraft, which had been waiting to take off, was unable to do so owing to failure of lighting and overheated on the end of the runway. Consequently neither aircraft managed to carry out the intended operation. (Polish Air Force Operations Record Books 1940-1947 » 1944-12 - No. 307 Squadron - F540)"

 

[Dogwalker]

The Cant 1007 was built of wood, and if the Italians were able to build a large three engine bomber from wood then the Germans surely could have managed to build something along the lines of a Mosquito.

Certainly they could if they wanted to but, just as obviously, in 1939-40, they were not interested in wooden construction. On the other hand, even the Italians were not in the same years. The Cant Z.1007 was built by the Cantieri Riuniti as an independent project outside of ministerial competitions, had flown in 1937, and imposed itself on the basis of its performances alone. But, for his designed successor, the Cant Z.1018, whose wooden prototype flew at the end of 1939, the Regia Aeronautica requested the metal construction for the production series.