Mosquito vs The Rest

[mhuxt]

Compared second scan to my db.

As suspected, as one gets later in the war and a certain pilot and unit appear more often, so the number of red lines increases.

I'm done for the day, my eyes are shot. I imagine the third scan will be mostly red lines.

Final note: There's some brown lines on there, between one date and another. Signifies a LW victory over a Mossie not noted on that list - mostly versus strike fighters over Norway, the occasional return fire from a bomber.

 

[cimmex]

The Germans saw biggest threat in the daylight bombing by the US heavy bombers and therefore made great efforts to get a successful bomber killer instead of a Mosquito hunter. The damage made by the Mosquito was small compared to that was done by the heavy 4-engined bombers. Of course this fast and hard to catch plane scratched the Ego of the Luftwaffe leaders and especially Goering. There was no Mosquito panic in general but of course the night fighter crews feared this plane a lot because many were shot down during landing.
Cimmex

 

[tomo pauk]

What to say - another thread that that 'escaped' from petty arguing into posting the data and analysis. Great stuff, many thanks.

 

[Dogwalker]

Take one 2 foot by 1 foot sheet of 3/8" marine plywood Lloyds of London
...
the .22 round has not penetrated all the way through.

http://www.doghematerassi.it/shop/images/cat/rete_a_doghe_singola_acciaio_metallo_ferro_at_large.jpg
Many years ago, when plywood slats bed like this were still a novelty, my father (about 90kg), to demonstrate to dubious customers that it would stand their weight, often walked on the slats. But this is multiple layers bheech plywood. The birch-plywood / balsa / birch-plywood structure of the Mosquito, would not surprise me if it could be passed through by a nail pushed with the thumb (not surprisingly, to reinforce the joints, were used screws, not nails, to distribute the stress throughout the entire thickness of the sandwich, rather than only on the outer skin) its strength was given by the fact that the fuselage behaved like a monolithic structure, not by the impenetrability of the single square inch of plywood.

 

[fastmongrel]

Didnt realise the shell was so thin.

From wiki "The shell halves were made of sheets of Ecuadorean balsawood sandwiched between sheets of Canadian birch, but in areas needing extra strength— such as along cut-outs— stronger woods replaced the balsa filler; the overall thickness of the birch and balsa sandwich skin was only 7/16 in (11.11 mm). This sandwich skin was so stiff that no internal reinforcement was necessary from the wing's rear spar to the tail bearing bulkhead

I have tapped on the fuselage of a Mossie fuselage that used to be kept outdoors at a museum inside Fort Perchrock in New Brighton near Liverpool. It made a hollow thunk noise much like the noise you get when you tap the middle of a double glazing unit.

 

[fastmongrel]

The birch-plywood / balsa / birch-plywood structure of the Mosquito, would not surprise me if it could be passed through by a nail pushed with the thumb (not surprisingly, to reinforce the joints, were used screws, not nails, to distribute the stress throughout the entire thickness of the sandwich, rather than only on the outer skin) its strength was given by the fact that the fuselage behaved like a monolithic structure, not by the impenetrability of the single square inch of plywood.

Surely if the shell was so soft as to allow a nail to be pushed through with a thumb it would be so soft the fuselage would end up full of dents where it was handled. After all I couldnt even push a nail through a 6mm Gyproc board with my thumb and that stuff dents if you look at it sideways.

This great youtube video doesnt show the fame workers being particulary gentle with it.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7cVvYdLeek

 

[Shortround6]

There are a lot of different kinds of strength. Take an ordinary sheet of typing/copy paper.

Grab it at each end and try to pull it apart in a straight line, that is Tensile strength. there are several types of or conditions of Tensile strength.

hold it horizontal between one set of fingers and watch it bend, that is bending strength.

Now tear or cut it with scissors, that is shear strength.

Now make a series of accordion folds or roll it in a tube and place it on end, folds or tube opening perpendicular to to a table top and balance a book on it, that is compression strength ( don't over do the book, large dictionaries and the like

Now how strong is paper?

And don't get it wet while doing these tests.

Aircraft need strength in lot of different directions at the same time, they need enough strength at the least weight. Some of it they get from the material and some from the shape of the material. Go back to our piece of paper and hold at both ends with thumbs under and four fingers over and then curve the paper. You can increase or decrease the curve very easily but trying to bend the paper at 90 degrees to the curve just got a bit tougher (it is just paper) because you are now trying, at the same time, to compress part of the paper (the upper part of the curve ) and pull apart the paper ( the bottom part of the curve).

Wood can provide a lot of strength for weight but at some point it hits it's limit. Just like there is a limit to how long you can make a wooden ship there are limits as to how big ( or how big and fast, aerodynamic loads go up with the square of the speed) you can make a wooden airplane.
Other materials have lower limits. Trying to make a hang glider or ultra light aircraft structure out of steel isn't going to work very well. By the time the parts have enough strength to support themselves ( or take any abuse) the structure has become too heavy.

Glued wood gets hard to figure out (pun partially intended). Does the glue just hold the wood together or is the wood a substrate for the glue? Acting something like the glass matting in fiberglass? OF course at that point quick and easy fixes in the field by a carpenter are pretty much out of the question. Some 'wooden' aircraft structures or parts needed several hours under pressure in an autoclave (large oven operating at higher than normal atmospheric pressure) in order to cure (set up) properly. An item not easily found at forward air fields.

I figure the engineers who actually designed, built the airplanes knew an awful lot more than I ever will about the materials and processes they were using.

 

[Aozora]

The Germans saw biggest threat in the daylight bombing by the US heavy bombers and therefore made great efforts to get a successful bomber killer instead of a Mosquito hunter. The damage made by the Mosquito was small compared to that was done by the heavy 4-engined bombers. Of course this fast and hard to catch plane scratched the Ego of the Luftwaffe leaders and especially Goering. There was no Mosquito panic in general but of course the night fighter crews feared this plane a lot because many were shot down during landing.
Cimmex

Mosquito raids themselves might have been "small beer" compared with the strategic bombers, but you are overlooking aspects of Mosquito operations such as precision marking, using OBOE and H2S, which led to heavy damage by strategic bomber forces, precision raids which destroyed small but important targets, nuisance raids in which Mosquitoes were able to drop 4,000 pounders on Berlin, return to Britain to pick up a new crew and bomb then return to Germany in one night, and the fact that many nightfighters found themselves under attack while trying to penetrate a bomber screen - Mosquitos weren't just a threat when the fighters were landing. Compare this with the performance of Luftwaffe bombers during the Baedecker raids, where many were shot down by Mosquitos, for very little effect and part of the source of Goering's irritation becomes clear

 

[Juha]

The Germans saw biggest threat in the daylight bombing by the US heavy bombers and therefore made great efforts to get a successful bomber killer instead of a Mosquito hunter. The damage made by the Mosquito was small compared to that was done by the heavy 4-engined bombers. Of course this fast and hard to catch plane scratched the Ego of the Luftwaffe leaders and especially Goering. There was no Mosquito panic in general but of course the night fighter crews feared this plane a lot because many were shot down during landing.
Cimmex

One important element in Mossie raids were the diversion raids, which hampered, sometimes critically LW efforts against the BC Main Force attacks, e.g. during the Peenemünde raid. After Mossies began to drop 4000lb cookies, it became very difficult to immediately distinguish a diversion from a main attack.

Juha

 

[mhuxt]

As others have noted, the Mosquitos were something of a "force multiplier", especially in terms of their Oboe marking efforts, and helped the main force not only by attacking night fighters but also by "spoofing" them away from the bomber stream.

Harris himself told dH in early '43 he thought the Mossies were invaluable as markers - no doubt he felt the line to the defeat of Germany was shorter and straighter from target indicators burning inside the Krupp works than from 500 lbers bursting in the Paderborn marshalling yards.

As for the Germans simply not being interested in the Mosquito, the creation of two units specifically to combat them suggests otherwise.

 

[Juha]

A number of things have been said in this thread about what the Mossie could not do, despite the statements being demonstrably wide of the mark.

I've mentioned this report before, have attached it below. (Sorry about the quality, that's how it came out of N.A.)

The other encounter worth noting is the closest thing I've come to a "Knights of the Air" 1 vs 1 encounter - Mossie and 190 met at low level on reciprocal headings over France, ended with the 190 and its unfortunate pilot in pieces on the ground after losing a turning battle against the Mossie.

Thanks for that!

The most recent Mossie fighter kill I have come across was the following: 16.12.43 FW 190A-2 5495 12./J.G.5 Uffz. Willi Sürth Killed W of Gossen a/f shot down by Mosquito VI HP862/O from No. 333 Sq. B-Flight. Pilot: P/O Andreas H. Wyller, navigator kvm. Baard K. Benjaminsen.
And there of course the Biscaya actions against the Ju 88 fighters from V/KG 40 / ZG 1.

Juha

 

[mhuxt]

Heya,

Yes, there's that one too. I don't have the full combat report for this one, but the brief summary in the squadron ORB read: "Time 09:43. In position 6252N 0638E saw two Fw 190s on a course of 260', which turned away. O/333 followed nearest and shot it down. Pieces flew off E/A and it spiralled down into the sea."

I've also had a look at the third scan of claims for Mossies shot down. Again, take this with a large grain of salt. The lack of consistent and full info from the German side make it very difficult to make a judgement in many cases, especially when there are multiple NJG 11 pilots claiming Mossies on an evening when only one was lost. Black lines are generally where a Mossie came down hundreds of miles from Berlin, after having been there. Brown lines are generally claims against strike fighters near Norway.

I'm taking Roekker's kill on faith, I believe the Nachtjagd War Diaries says this was a 613 Sqn aircraft, but I don't have the book. The second edition should clear up much of the late war / jet stuff. Glogner's first claim was actually RTB, can't find any info to support the second one.

 

[wuzak]

There are a lot of different kinds of strength. Take an ordinary sheet of typing/copy paper.

Grab it at each end and try to pull it apart in a straight line, that is Tensile strength. there are several types of or conditions of Tensile strength.

hold it horizontal between one set of fingers and watch it bend, that is bending strength.

....

I figure the engineers who actually designed, built the airplanes knew an awful lot more than I ever will about the materials and processes they were using.

If you take your piece of paper and try to pull the ends apart, that is a tension. As you have noted a sheet of paper is strong in that direction.

If you take your piece of paper and try to push the ends together, that is compression. But the sheet of paper doesn't hold its shape under this loading. It fails under buckling.

As you noted, it is easier to bend the page in one direction than the other. That is because of the bending stiffness of the paper's section - it is very low in one direction and (relatively) high in another.

However, in bending the paper in the plane of the paper it still fails. The paper buckles there too.

So, this is the same problem as for the plywood skinning of the Mosquito. It is strong in tension, but because it is thin it is prone to buckling when under bending or compression. That is where the balsa comes in. It stabilises the sheets of plywood and stops buckling. The glue and screws ensure that the skin stays connected to the balsa and prevents localised buckling.

The formers are there, obviously, to keep the shape of the skin, but they also add some to the stiffness.

The role of the balsa could be performed by any wood. But the reason balsa was chosen is its low density, and thus light weight.

The skin of the Mosquito takes almost all the loads.

Similarly in metal skinned aircraft, the skin takes most of the loads. The skin requires stiffening ribs to prevent it from buckling too. To make the skin thick enough to resist buckling would make it extremely heavy.

 

[altsym]

For wood that's pretty good.. I'm surprised that 737's 747's A-320's, C-130's, F-18's/22's/35's, Cessna's, aren't all made from wood. What are ultralights made from again

I don't know how true this is, but somebody told me once the Moskito was easier, faster to build from wood VS metal. Again, I don't know how true that statement is. The British had unique ways of doing things.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

For wood that's pretty good.. I'm surprised that 737's 747's A-320's, C-130's, F-18's/22's/35's, Cessna's, aren't all made from wood. What are ultralights made from again

I don't know how true this is, but somebody told me once the Moskito was easier, faster to build from wood VS metal. Again, I don't know how true that statement is. The British had unique ways of doing things.

Wood is difficult to repair and maintain in the field as larger repairs have to be done under controlled environments.

I don't believe one could make an accurate comparison for construction time when comparing the Mossie to a metal aircraft - in the end, metal planes were the way to go as advances were made in aviation. Although some homebuilders still make wood airplanes, in the end metal airplanes were the way to go in the post war years - until composites came along.

Almost 35 years in aircraft maintenance, IMO flat out, wood sucks!

 

[wuzak]

Mosquito repairs didn't seem to need "controlled environments".

W4050 was damaged during testing, with a hole in the port fuselage. It was repaired with a patch. In the field.

Replacing parts of damaged wings involved sawing off the damaged section and butt-joining a new section of wing.

The Mosquito's construction wasn't a simple wood structure. It was a composite wood structure.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Mosquito repairs didn't seem to need "controlled environments"..

Err, try doing a scarf patch in blowing wind with dust and debris all over the place. Can you apply glues in sub-zero temps? No.

 

[nuuumannn]

The birch-plywood / balsa / birch-plywood structure of the Mosquito, would not surprise me if it could be passed through by a nail pushed with the thumb

Well, I've spent a bit of time around Mosquitoes, static and flying and I can vouch for the fact that the skin was/is not that soft. Refer to my earlier post; a picture of a section of Mosquito fuselage.

I also would say that the Mosquito had a near true monococque structure (French for single shell) and required less in the way of internal stiffening than the average ali airframe. This is because of its inherent strength as a unit. As for the merits and disadvantages of wood as a structure, yep, metal was the way to go and as far as the Mosquito was concerned it wasn't designed to be any advance over metal structure, but an aside in case of shortages of the supply of aluminium in Britain. De Havilland made it work, but not in competition with metal, but to suppliment it. The Mosquito proved that with careful engineering the use of a predominantly wooden structure could survive successfully in a world of all metal structures.

Those beautiful images were taken by a local lad named Gavin Conroy, he's a bit of a whizz with a camera. I was at the airshow ehere the Mosquito made its public debut and have posted pictures on this site somewhere; very exciting. I can't wait to see others' pics of it once it makes its flying debut in the States.

 

[nuuumannn]

Just as an aside to my post; the Mosquito was unique in WW2, in a large part because of its wooden structure; the press coined the term 'Wooden Wonder' for good reason, (well, it was better than 'Spruce Goose'!) the aircraft was truly remarkable as a piece of engineering and also because of its impressive performance and subsequent operational history. This is not to diminish the other brilliant aircraft of WW2, such as the Fw 190, Spitty, P-51 etc, but to emphasise why the Mosquito is so highly regarded; in concept and reality it had no equivalent elsewhere and its wooden structure was a large part of why.

 

[Shortround6]

Flyboy is right about longevity. It takes a lot longer for aluminium to corrode than for wood to rot/go bad.

Aluminium usually corrodes from the outside in so if you can get a good visual on the parts (all sides or close to it) you have a good (not perfect) answer. Wood can start to rot at the surface or on the inside. The inside rot being really treacherous.

How impregnating the wood with various phenol-formaldehyde or phenol-vinyl resins in autoclaves affects the way rot sets in I have no idea. The people promoting the processes claimed it made the wood rot proof and immune to various common chemicals. They said that about fiberglass too. Fiberglass will decay, it just takes a really long time.

The US banned wood spar wings for commercial ( passengers for hire) aircraft back in the 30s.

Wood can be used very well for smaller aircraft from a strength point of view. EVERYTHING in aircraft is weight related. What gives the best performance for It's weight. A number of aircraft have used steel spars. Steel is much heavier than aluminium. BUT if the loads you expect to have to deal with are large enough, and since steel IS stronger than aluminium ( in general, there are a lot of alloys of both) a steel part MAY provide more strength than an EQUIVALENT WEIGHT aluminium part. Same for wood depending on the loads involved, the size of the parts, and the type of wood.

I would note that the Pitts Specials used wood spars for quite some time if they are still not using using wood spars.

For a brief chart on the later see: Balsa Weight for Various Densities - RF Cafe

While Balsa is very strong for it's weight if the loads get too big you need way too much Balsa. As in you simply can't fit enough balsa inside the desired wing shape.
Also please note that while Oak makes nice furniture and even boat/ships it is a lousy wood to make airplanes out of.
Also please note that aircraft wood has to be straight grained and knot free. Which sometimes rules out some types of wood, you can't get enough big, long pieces that are knot free and straight grained to make aircraft out of on a production basis. And even for a one-off the cost of such wood becomes astronomical.

Wood has limitations and the limitations get bigger the bigger the airplane becomes. But I believe that only aeronautical structural engineers who are familiar with wood ( in it's various forms/glues/resins) could really tell us if the Mosquito had exceeded the size/stress regime where wood was inferior to metal. From an empirical stand point it doesn't seem so but perhaps it was 50-200lbs over weight compared to metal, or more.
The trouble is few of the wooden planes of WW II used the same methods of construction as each other (Ta 154 didn't use Balsa) so even trying to compare other wooden aircraft is difficult.

The Japanese tried to make both wooden and steel Ki 84s but since few details seem to be around (aside from the wood one gaining 600lbs weight) we are still lost. Western books not giving much in the way of details for the Wood Ki 84 in the way of types of wood, thicknesses, type/s of glue or any special treatment of the wood ( resin coated or impregnated), etc.