Mosquito hands down.
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(G/C) Lionel Mandrake said:RG_Lunatic wrote:
You really need to take off your blinkersUmmm... where do you get that figure from? First off, of the approximately 500 B-17E's bulit most were deployed to the Pacific, though about 45 were given to the RAF, designated the "Fortress IIa", and they did indeed complain the bombload was insufficient.![]()
I'm stating a comparison between a un-armed two engine- two man aircraft, against a heavely armed four engine- ten man crew bomber....That carried the same bomb load. Do the sums. That's why the Mosquito is good.
It was said that the 2 man twin engined Mosquito could carry the same bomb load to Berlin as the 4 engined Flying Fortress with its crew of 11. It also did it quicker and used less fuel.
Some of the most famous raids were due to the precision bombing by the Mosquito from roof top height. Among these were raids on the Gestapo Headquarters in Oslo, the Central Registry in The Hague, Shell House in Copenhagen, and Amiens Goal. They were expected to hit a single enemy building in the middle of a city with minimum harm to the civilians. In many cases they did not achieve all they set out to do but the effect on enemy morale was devastating.
http://www.home.gil.com.au/~bfillery/mossie01.htm
(G/C) Lionel Mandrake said:Well, if it couldn't dive bomb, it was sure accruate.
The campaign lasted into the fall of 1944, and statistics compiled later showed that the Mosquito destroyed one site for each 36.4 tonnes (40 tons) of bombs dropped, as opposed to 150 tonnes (165 tons) for USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, 158 tonnes (182 tons) for Martin B-26 Marauders, and 200 tonnes (219 tons) for North American B-25 Mitchells
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!
http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/mosquito.html
Berlin comes into it, because the bomb-load for both bombers on a mission to Berlin is approx 4,000Ibplan_D said:I never said it couldn't go to Berlin. I said that the Mosquito could carry as much as the B-17, if the B-17 was going on a long run and the Mosquito was going on a short run. Where Berlin came in, I have no idea.
The 2 Mossies lost (1 to fighters and one to flak) were not the high speed bomber marks, but the slowest of the Mossie marks(380mph), the armed (4x20mm, 4x.303MG, 2,000Ib bombs ) fighter-bomber FB IV's of the 2nd TAFI simply state that a Mosquito was lost during the Amiens raid - as a fact - and there's a big rant and rave about how it got lost. Yes, in short, it was lost because a swarm of -190s got it.
RG said:But to compare the Mosquito to the B-17, you have to focus on large scale brute force daylight attacks, which the Mosquito was not well suited to accomplish
the lancaster kicks ass said:Its incorrect to say that the Mossie was too fast to be intercepted.[=RG]
But to compare the Mosquito to the B-17, you have to focus on large scale brute force daylight attacks, which the Mosquito was not well suited to accomplish
what makes you think the bomber that was too fast to be intercepted wasn't suited to the hundreds of daylight raids it carried out??
it would be more correct to say it was difficult to intercept.
The top speed of the bomber version of the Mossie was approx 408mph. The top speed of the Fw 190 was also approx 408mph, and some marks of the Bf 109 were faster.
This made the Mosquito difficult to catch, but not impossible.
Small scale raids which were difficult to track, made it difficult for the Luftwaffe ground controllers to place their fighters in a favourable position to intercept. With large scale raids they would not have this problem, and Mossie losses as a result would have been high.
From 42-43 when Bomber Command used its mossies mainly on small scale long range daylight raids (before their transfer to nights as pathfinders and as part of 8th Group) their loss rate was 6.5%, at a time when the loss rate for the heavies at night was 5%.
I thought you and the others would like to know some of the facts behind the lossplan_D said:What is everyones problem with going on about the Mosquitos lost at Amiens? Is it an attempt to try and defend their loss or something? They were LOST end of story.
Not quite, it depended on the range. At long range the mossie had the advantage.Again, the B-17 could carry more than the Mosquito - end of story.
Gradually, as more bomber Mosquitos fitted with the oversized bombbay doors to carry Cookie bombs came into service, the LNSF's "diversionary" raids turned into effective attacks of their own. The B.IV didn't really have the horsepower to carry the Cookie well, but the B.IX and the B.XVI, with two-stage engines, were fairly comfortable with the load. The B.XVI, built standard to carry the Cookie, entered service in early 1944, at about the same time that the LNSF started dropping Cookies on the Germans in earnest.
Th B.XVIs became very energetic in the late stages of the war, in particular performing about 170 strikes on Berlin, reaching a peak on the night of 21 March 1945, when a total 142 Mosquitos hit the city in two attacks. The crews hit Berlin so often they called it the trip the "Berlin Express".
http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avmoss2.html#m4
the lancaster kicks ass said:what makes you think the bomber that was too fast to be intercepted wasn't suited to the hundreds of daylight raids it carried out??
the lancaster kicks ass said:and as a night bomber the B-17 wouldn't be much good, the americans just didn't have the tactics or proper escorts..............
The B-17 was a great bomber, and so was the Lanc,( I don't want to take sides in this issuethe lancaster kicks ass said:and as a night bomber the B-17 wouldn't be much good, the americans just didn't have the tactics or proper escorts..............