8 Lancasters = 56 crew lost, major targets destroyed.
60 B-17s lost = 600 crew lost, major targets severely damaged
Losses % is not always a good metrics.
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I agree Wuzak I was just pointing out that although these missions were hailed as a great success the losses in most cases were on par with Schweinfurt Regensburg which were considered a disaster, the same applies to the dambusters raid with 8 from 19 Lancasters lost. An increased use of Mosquitos would use different strategies, their is no defensive field of fire so no need to be in a big group. As a what if, what if 600 mosquitos with 600 mustangs went in pairs to 600 different destinations, but all change direction twice when in range of radar?
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I agree S/R.The Mosquito was an excellent aircraft.
However many people only look at some of the performance specifications and/or the results of a few rather specialized raids and try to change the policy/strategy.
The Mosquito was later in timing than the B-17/B-24/British heavies and would require much work in building/tooling up factories to be thrown out and redone. The American bombers also stayed almost frozen in time, once you had the late 1941/early 42 versions improvements came at a glacial pace and mostly consisted of hanging more guns/turrets on them. The engines were essentially unchanged for most of the war. The Mosquito got engines that were uprated from time to time, first with higher boost limits and then with the 2 stage superchargers. SOmewhere around 2/3ds of Mosquito bombers got 2 stage superchargers and that started in 1943 when The US had 8 factories making the two 4 engine bombers.
Mosquitos were, especially in the beginning, flown by elite crews on special missions that had lots of preparation. They weren't being used on a schedule of flying a raid every decent flying day there was. Open to correction on that (1942 early 43). Granted with European weather even the big bombers had numerous and sometimes long gaps between missions. But they weren't being used the same way.
Both the big bombers and the Mosquitos alos changed in capability over the years in navigation and in accuracy. When making suggestions as to what plane the Powers That Be should have picked please don't compare pathfinder mosquitos of late 1944 to the nearly blind heavy bombers of 1942.
Please note it took until 1944 for really large and effective raids to happen using the 4 engine bombers even though the planning started back in 1940.
In some cases the PTB did make mistakes or follow a path a bit too long. But using data/information from a year or two in the future was not a luxury they had.
Only two of the three were damaged, and the people in the RAF were elite pilots and crew. who had spent a long time training.8 Lancasters = 56 crew lost, major targets destroyed.
60 B-17s lost = 600 crew lost, major targets severely damaged
Losses % is not always a good metrics.
There are several snags with this idea.
1. RR had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Packard deal. That's why the British government ( and I believe the US government after taking over the contracts) payed RR a whopping three to four thousand dollar per engine royalty.
I guess it is a question of respect for the enemy and the operation, from what I have read Typhoon fighter bombers routinely had an escort of Spitfires on cross channel operations, not only for air defence but also for AA suppression.Going back to an earlier post about using fighter bombers in Europe I remembered an old thread on The US Navy attacking Japan in the closing weeks of the war.
In about 3 days of operations the US had 102 aircrew lost and 133 planes. This was staring on July 28th of 1945. I would venture to say that the Japanese AA was NOT as good as the German AA and Japanese pilot ability, in general/on average, in the summer of 1945 was not equal to the Germans pilot ability in 1942/early 1943, due to training times during the different years. No reflection on nationalities intended.
I am not seeing using fighter bombers as a subsitute for heavy bombers even if you keep them on the edges of German Territory.
There are several snags with this idea.
1. RR had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Packard deal. That's why the British government ( and I believe the US government after taking over the contracts) payed RR a whopping three to four thousand dollar per engine royalty.
2. It wasn't designing the superchanger but redesigning the accessory section to accommodate a larger, and preferably, two speed superchanger that was the major herdle. The magnesium alloy accessory section was an important structural part of the engine. Any changes need to be thought out carefully.
3. The Allison was never the favored engine of the AAF. The interest in it largely revolved around the fact that it was a high temperature liquid cooled engine designed with turbo supercharging in mind. It's dominance in fighter designs at the end of the 1930s was largely because it was the only available liquid cooled engine.
4. As it was, the last AAF clean sheet fighter design intended to be V-1710 powered was the P-47 and the last intended production model up to this time ( summer 1940 ) was the stopgap P-40D. It was expected that production of the would be over by the end of 1941. Now of course this didn't happen but the point is that their prospects for future orders looked bleak at the time.
5. 1940 was a whole mess of technical, operational, and organizational problems brought about by the extremely rapid growth in size of both the armed services and the aircraft industry.
6. There was political controversy over the Allison at this time. Partly do to the delays in getting the V1710-33 into production and the perceived lack of power in comparison to foreign types.
Given the above circumstances I don't think it was a "no brainier" at all. Really how is a fairly minor improvement, in comparison to the engines it was competing with, going to garner more order. So your "1000hp" class engine can now generate that power a few thousand feet higher. That's still a few thousand feet and a few hundred hp less than the 1500-2500hp engines the AAF was interested in could do. Well at least what they could do in theory.
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The reports I've seen were to the effect that the diffuser for the V1710's compressor was poorly designed, significantly reducing efficiency. Mechanically, the Allison was quite sound. Interestingly, the V-1710 started as an airship engine. The USAAC got the "V-12s are way better, dudez" too late to get any other ones in service.
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USAAC was the proponent of V12s in late 1920s/early 1930s.
Rolls Royce had its original production facilities at Ormanston, not suitable at all for mass production. First at Derby planning/construction started 1936, then Crewe starting May 1938, Glasgow June 1939. Manchester (Ford UK) May 1940. An agreement was made with Packard in September 1940. There is little time between the summer of 1939 and September 1940 but it covers the outbreak of war through the abandoning or postponing of British engines like the Vulture and Sabre.I believe RR contacted Ford to produce Merlins before Packard was approached; perhaps they were kicking and screaming, but that fight wad lost before Packard.
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In the inter war years the Italians also had promising V12 designs, if the Schneider trophy is credited with Merlin development then the Italians also had the chance.The trouble was that with the small funding of the time Curtiss and Packard didn't have enough money between the two of them to fund a really good R&D program. Engine design was changing fast and the Radial makers cut into the market. The Civilian market changed to aircooled radials pretty quick.
With planes like this
View attachment 489029
It doesn't really matter if you use V-12s or radials and the air cooled engines had one less thing to go wrong. They were also lighter for the same take-off power so you could carry more payload and still get out of the same sized airfield.
Off course in just a few years monoplanes with retracting landing gear became all the rage (British were convinced it was a fad) and while V-12s might have shown their stuff it was too late. Packard had already closed their aircraft engine division ( already in trouble after chief designer died in a crash) and Curtiss made a last gasp with the engines in the P-30.
View attachment 489030
However the engine dated back to 1926 and weighed as little as 770lb for a 1570 cubic in engine. It had been designed for no supercharging and an max rpm of around 2400-2500rpm and was showing it's limits by 1933-34. The Engines for the P-30 were the end of the line.
The Curtiss-Wright corporation being perfectly happy to sell R-1820 Cyclones.
The Navy had made it clear they weren't going to buy liquid cooled engines except for airships and that was a limited market. The Army wasn't going to use liquid cooled engines in ground attack planes and perhaps low altitude recon planes. The civilian market wasn't interested.
That doesn't leave much of a market without government (army) assistance.
I wasn't suggesting those engines, like the Fiat AS.2 were viable engines in WW2, just that at one time V 12s were under development in many places and for various reasons were let go.There are reasons that the early Merlin and Allison weighed between 1300 and 1400lbs. The other, older engines might have been able to be souped up to high power and last for a few hour race but longer lasting engines were wanted and engines with more potential were also wanted.
Many of these old engines used separate cylinders, that is each cylinder had it's own water jacket, sometimes a cylinder head was used that was 6 cylinders long, sometimes not. An engine that encased all 6 cylinders in one large casting, even if separate from the parts that held the crankshaft, had more bending resistance (strength ) than the separate cylinder engines. it also had less potential for leaks as there could be a lot less coolant lines/connections.
The Russians were one of the very few companies/nations that redesigned a separate cylinder engine into a cast block engine, just about every body else just started over.
The older engines often used longer strokes compared to bores which limited RPM. The small bores also restricted valve size. The light weight also meant light crankshafts and light connecting rods. Some of the older engines either had no counter weights or minimal counter weights as they ran at a low enough rpm (most of the time) that the vibrations were not a big problem.
Trying to make do with older engines was not a good option, please see Hispano V-12 and the Russian VK-105 series. The French Hispano didn't have good overhaul life and as the Russians dragged more power out of it even adding weight it sure didn't get any better.
I wasn't suggesting those engines, like the Fiat AS.2 were viable engines in WW2, just that at one time V 12s were under development in many places and for various reasons were let go.
Great post S/R but you are pointing to why things developed and how they developed, there were many engines/organisations at the starting point and for various reasons they gave up. As for radiators, aviation is always ahead of automotive technology. I have had 4 cars in my life that had radiator problems and leaks, none at all in the last 30 years.They were let go for very similar reasons. The early liquid cooled engine installations suffered from frequent leaks. If it wasn't the engine it wsa the radiator/s and the piping leading to and from. Those engines were NOT sewing machine smooth and the resulting vibration shook a lot of things loose. it also took a while to learn how to route pipes to fight this
View attachment 489038
Just about all 1920s liquid cooled engines used water and did not use pressurized systems. This meant draining systems overnight in cold weather, it meant the system was heavy and engine and radiator were heavier than an air cooled engine.
In the early 30s they went to Prestone (Glycol) and this allowed for smaller, lighter radiators and higher boiling temperatures. It also solved the freezing overnight problem.
This is where my frustration with discussions about the Merlin comes from, the Gloster Gladiator was bought by the Chinese, 36 in total, that was the sort of order people dealt with. Even an order of 600 spitfires in the mid 1930s was, by comparison huge.A lot of it was markets.
I believe that the Italian Air Force at some point in the 30s announced that it would only buy air cooled engines from that point on. SO unless the Italian engine companies could convince them to change their minds they had no viable market for liquid cooled engines.
The market for Italian commercial planes being too small to to support a specialized engine line.
Perhaps one or more companies kept development going at a trickle just to keep up with other nations but that was a risky business proposition. Engines were getting more and more expensive to develop and nobody could sell enough engines to overseas customers to recover the R & D costs of a high powered engine. Keeping an old engine in the catalog was another story. Many smaller European countries were buying aircraft by the dozen in the 1930s and not by the hundred. Africa was buying nothing and South America, if they were buying much of anything were buying things like military Waco's
View attachment 489039
China may have been the best military market up until the Spanish civil war started. But neither one offered enough to design and build new engines for.