wuzak
Captain
From a similar discussion on the www.warbirds.com forum some time ago:
It was best summed up in the book 'Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45', in which my co-author Emmanuel Gustin wrote the following:
"Soon Mosquito bombers became a vital part of the night operations too. In early 1944 a bulged bomb bay was introduced to hold a 4000 lb 'cookie,' doubling the bomb load. The combat introduction of the high-altitude B.XVI version, which was even harder to intercept, was in March. A paper by the Ministry or Aircraft production calculated that, before the aircraft was lost, a Mosquito could be expected to drop an average of 1690 kg of bombs in 92 sorties. A Lancaster would drop 3370 kg on an average sortie, but survived on average only 28 sorties, and cost 2.8 times as much as a Mosquito. It could be concluded that the material cost per ton of bombs dropped was at least four times lower for the Mosquito than for the Lancaster. And the Mosquito had only one-fourth of the crew of the Lancaster, so its use also reduced the loss of life. Evidently, such figures are dependent on time, tactics, and circumstances, but they were nevertheless evidence that the Mosquito had advantages that had to be exploited. The "Light Night Strike Force" became an important part of Bomber Command's No.8 Group; its operations included 170 attacks on Berlin."
Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: CANNON, MACHINE GUNS AND AMMUNITION
There is an interesting late-war study carried out by the RAF in the PRO files (reference AIR 2/5487, minutes of meeting held 20 April 1944 to consider future bomber needs). This was called to discuss potential super-heavy bombers, but the discussion included much questioning of the need for such planes. A mathematical proof was included of the superior efficiency of a large number of small bombers rather than a small number of big ones (unfortunately, this was before the days when digital cameras were allowed and I didn't have the patience to copy it all). However, from memory it compared the construction cost, bomb loads and survival chances of big and small bombers and demonstrated that the small, fast unarmed bomber (read: Mosquito) was a more efficient bomb delivery system than the big slow one (read: Lancaster).
Yes, the Lanc could carry the super-heavy bombs, but frankly such attacks were more effective at hitting the headlines than they were at shortening the war.
Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: CANNON, MACHINE GUNS AND AMMUNITION
