This is the way it should have been from the beginning....

Glider said:

Remember that the two HMG in the nose were a lot slower firing due to the prop, the Italians estimated it halved the ROF.
The Bf109 F2 with the 15mm was very lightly armed proven by the fact that any pilot with influence had the 15mm replaced by a 20mm . The first F2 captured by the British had already had the gun replaced.

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I'm saying, compare a Russian fighter with a slightly dodgy 1,180 hp Klimov engine and a cannon thru the spinner, slightly underpowered and wheezing during climbs, vs. the same fighter with a 1,480 hp Merlin XX and only two heavy machine guns but ... (not sure how to estimate this precisely but I'm going to say...) accelerating and climbing much faster and with a 20 or 30 mph faster top speed. Assuming you are a Soviet pilot and can't have it all, which would you prefer?

For that matter would you rather fight in North Africa or the Russian Front in 1942 with a Bf 109E-4 with two 20mm cannon +2 machine guns or a Bf 109F-2 20 mph faster but only the 15mm cannon and 2 mg?

Anyway, is there some reason why they couldn't figure out how to put a cannon to shoot through the prop spinner in a Merlin the way they did a DB 601?

The topic seems to have wandered off my original intent - aircraft that evolved into something that they could have been from the start. The example in the OP is the P-61A/B vs the P-61E. It would have been quite possible for the P-61 to be built with a 2 man crew and without the turret from the beginning.

tomo pauk said:

Mosquito is too late to replace Wellington, Whitley, Stirling, Halifax, it can't haul more than 2000 lb bomb load until late 1943, it can't haul combined bomb load (cookie + incediary) until late 1943.

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The Mosquito could carry a combined load of 2 x 500lb MC + 2 x 500lb SBC in 1942. It can add 2 more 500lb stores under the wings when the universal wing is put into production (late 1942?).

The Mosquito could only carry the cookie with incendiaries if the latter were carried on the wings. IIRC, the first version to allow a 5000lb capacity (1 x 4000lb + 2 x 500lb) was the B.XVI in early 1944.

The cookie carrying Mosquito could carry different 4000lb stores - the 4000lb HC "cookie", the 4000lb MC and a 4000lb incendiary bomb.

Schweik said:

Again, keep in mind - I am not suggesting they should not have dropped any bombs, it's more by what kind of aircraft would drop the bombs, and against what targets. Rather than "de-housing" however many million German, Belgian, French, Italian and other Western and Central European civilians, and incinerating a lot of nice Medieval architecture in the process simply because your bombers are too vulnerable to fly during the daytime and can't hit anything from 30K' anyway, send in precision bombers (by WW2 standards) i.e. Mosquitoes and anything else you can find or build with equivalent speed and accuracy, and use a ton of fighter bombers.

Fast bombers like Mosquitos and Fighter bombers, my theory goes, seem to do a better job than the big 4 engine heavies for most strategic, operational and tactical purposes.



This is a poor excuse for incinerating scores of cities. And more importantly, the same result is achieved by a massive fast-bomber and fighter bomber campaign. For example, instead of building 19,256 B-24's, you could put Consolidated to work making 25,000 mosquitoes (or Pe-2s) and still have enough engines left over to make 15,000 Corsairs. How would that benefit the war effort?

I can promise you the Ploesti raid would go a lot smoother.

(Plus you could still make the 1,256 remaining B-24's which you would actually have a use for in maritime patrol.)



I'm sure they could find some useful equivalent somewhere in the Americas, for example basswood



Agree with the first part, but I think the reason is "because it's Commie" not because the A-20 was just as good - Pe-2 was 40 mph faster for one thing, right?

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You are assuming an awful lot. Like V-12 engines and radials being interchangeable.
The factories that built the B-24s and the engines for them were being built a year and half before the first mission of a Mosquito bomber. Trying to change them over at that point is going to take months, many months.

and again, if the allies stop with the high altitude big bomber raids the Germans stop making big AA guns and make a crap load of 20mm and 37mm guns.
Corsairs make crappy planes for attacking Germany unless you have bases in France or Low the low countries.

Basswood, on average weighs 26lbs per cubic foot while Balsa, on average weighs 9lb per cubic foot. It would add hundreds of pounds to the airframe weight.

The Pe-2 has a bit of an overblown reputation. and 40mph faster than than an A-20??? only if it has a rocket strapped to it, a big rocket.
Most sources say the PE-2 could do 530kph at best altitude. (Wikipedia is wrong or quoting an experimental engine) or about 330mph.
A-20s could hit about 340 or over depending on model, they could run at over 300mph at max continuous at 12,000ft.
The PE-2 carried six 220lbs inside, while heavier bombs could be carried outside that kills the speed.
A-20 could carry 2000lb inside. (and 2000lbs outside on really short missions)
Range gets debatable depending on speed/load but an A-20G could fly over 1000 miles at 264mph true at 12,000ft
The PE-2 isn't any faster, it carries less, and has no more range. It has nothing to do with being "commie" it just isn't as good.

Schweik said:

My theory, though i realize this is a larger and entirely different discussion, is that fighters and fast attack aircraft (you could classify Mosquito as either) made for much better bombers. I don't think the mass-civilian bombing was effective or a good idea for a bunch of reasons. If you want to say, knock out German oil industry (best target) or even something more iffy like V-2 factories or ball bearings, neither the US day bombers or British night-bombers are very effective. Same if you want to destroy enemy tanks etc.

For the former use Mosquitoes or A-26 Invader, just more of them, for the latter use fighter bombers like Corsair, P-47, Tempest / Typhoon, or any Soviet fighter.

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A-26 Invader doesn't turn up until mid 1944.

The Lancaster was the best bomber for destroying oil plants - could carry 1 x 4000lb, plus multiple 500lb MC bombs and incendiaries. Or it could carry a 8000lb or 12000lb bomb. No messing around with little bombs.

I would note that soviet fighters are really crappy at trying to take out tanks.
The rockets are terribly inaccurate (so were the American and British rockets) the Russian 20mm gun isn't that good at penetrating armor (significantly worse than the 20mm Hispano) and the usual bomb load of soviet fighters was a pair of 220lb bombs which require a closer miss distance than 500 or 1000lb bombs.
That was a big reason for the IL-2. They needed something for ground attack and their fighters just weren't good enough.

Shortround6 said:

You are assuming an awful lot. Like V-12 engines and radials being interchangeable.
The factories that built the B-24s and the engines for them were being built a year and half before the first mission of a Mosquito bomber. Trying to change them over at that point is going to take months, many months.

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So substitute another fast bomber - or just take the Merlins for the Mosquitoes from Hurricanes and useless Fulmars and so on. Making 19,000 B-24's was a huge waste of resources.

and again, if the allies stop with the high altitude big bomber raids the Germans stop making big AA guns and make a crap load of 20mm and 37mm guns.

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Let me get this strait, you are saying 26,000 casualties from the 8th AF and an astounding 55,573 KiA from RAF Bomber Command, not to mention 500k+ civilians killed was worth it because it forced the Germans to build 88mm AA guns? I think the destruction of the Luftwaffe could have been done more effectively, and I thought how I was saying it could have been done was obvious but let me spell it out more clearly...

Corsairs make crappy planes for attacking Germany unless you have bases in France or Low the low countries.

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The idea is not for Corsairs to make deep Strategic bombing raids into Germany in 1942. The idea is for Corsairs, and P-47s and P-38s and Beaufighters and P-51s and P-40's and Typhoons and whatever else was effective and available would be used for operational interdiction of communications and tactical bombing at or near the front, as well as attacking the Luftwaffe at every opportunity, while faster bombers like Mosquitos, de Havilland Hornets, A-26s, even P-61s per the OP for that matter, could do the long range night intrusion and Strategic bombing missions. If Mosquitos could hit Gestapo HQ in multiple countries, then I think they could hit Romanian Oil Fields, aircraft factories, V-2 factories and so on.

Sure, I can see that there would be some targets for which you need to drop massive bombs, so make a few Lancasters or B-29's for that one stubborn sub pen. Make 377 Lancasters instead of 7,377. But since we know that the majority of the 4 engine strategic bombing missions missed most of their targets, I'm saying that faster and much more precise bombers could have done a better job with far fewer casualties among Anglo-American servicemen as well as vastly fewer civilian casualties.

Basswood, on average weighs 26lbs per cubic foot while Balsa, on average weighs 9lb per cubic foot. It would add hundreds of pounds to the airframe weight.

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I'm sure the US could source balsa if the UK could, or a find an equivalent. Do you really doubt that? Somebody already pointed out the Canadians made 1,000 Mosquitoes. I'm not an expert on wood so i won't debate the finer points of basswood vs. balsa.

The Pe-2 has a bit of an overblown reputation. and 40mph faster than than an A-20??? only if it has a rocket strapped to it, a big rocket.
Most sources say the PE-2 could do 530kph at best altitude. (Wikipedia is wrong or quoting an experimental engine) or about 330mph.
A-20s could hit about 340 or over depending on model, they could run at over 300mph at max continuous at 12,000ft.
The PE-2 carried six 220lbs inside, while heavier bombs could be carried outside that kills the speed.
A-20 could carry 2000lb inside. (and 2000lbs outside on really short missions)
Range gets debatable depending on speed/load but an A-20G could fly over 1000 miles at 264mph true at 12,000ft
The PE-2 isn't any faster, it carries less, and has no more range. It has nothing to do with being "commie" it just isn't as good.

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This sounds like another interesting debate for another thread! I'll make one ...

S

Shortround6 said:

I would note that soviet fighters are really crappy at trying to take out tanks.
The rockets are terribly inaccurate (so were the American and British rockets) the Russian 20mm gun isn't that good at penetrating armor (significantly worse than the 20mm Hispano) and the usual bomb load of soviet fighters was a pair of 220lb bombs which require a closer miss distance than 500 or 1000lb bombs.
That was a big reason for the IL-2. They needed something for ground attack and their fighters just weren't good enough.

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I'm not sure I buy that, but for sake of argument Ok, give them AP ammo for their P-39's, have them make better rockets or just produce more Soviet fighters with 37 or 45mm cannon etc. ala Yak 9 T / TK / K, Yak 3 K etc.

I am also fine with Sturmoviks - they did destroy a lot of German AFV, but the Soviets lost so many of them initially, I think they could have used more good quality fighters instead. I also think while armor is good and you need it in a ground-attack aircraft, speed is a better defense against AAA.

They also definitely should have but the defensive gun on the Il2 much sooner and some armor for the gunner.

S

wuzak said:

The topic seems to have wandered off my original intent - aircraft that evolved into something that they could have been from the start. The example in the OP is the P-61A/B vs the P-61E. It would have been quite possible for the P-61 to be built with a 2 man crew and without the turret from the beginning.

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Do you really think the P-61E was effective as a day fighter? What was the top speed? Did it have compressibility issues like the P-38? Engine difficulties?

Schweik said:

Let me get this strait, you are saying 26,000 casualties from the 8th AF and an astounding 55,573 KiA from bomber command, not to mention 500k+ civilians killed was worth it because it forced the Germans to build 88mm AA guns? I think the destruction of the Luftwaffe could have been done more effectively, and I thought how I was saying it could have been done was obvious but let me spell it out more clearly...

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The point he is making is that the production of the AA guns reduced or prevented the production of other weapons.

I believe the 88mm AA gun was a derivative of, or was the same as, a field gun, which was also used in tanks. Each one pointed at the sky was one not being used against the Soviets on the Eastern Front.

Schweik said:

The idea is not for Corsairs to make deep Strategic bombing raids into Germany in 1942. The idea is for Corsairs, and P-47s and P-38s and Beaufighters and P-51s and P-40's and Typhoons and whatever else was effective and available would be used for operational interdiction of communications and tactical bombing at or near the front, as well as attacking the Luftwaffe at every opportunity, while faster bombers like Mosquitos, de Havilland Hornets, A-26s, even P-61s per the OP for that matter, could do the long range night intrusion and Strategic bombing missions. If Mosquitos could hit Gestapo HQ in multiple countries, then I think they could hit Romanian Oil Fields, aircraft factories, V-2 factories and so on.

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Hornets won't be available until 1946. A-26s, P-61s not around until 1944.

Mosquitoes could not do the Ploesti mission in 1943. The range was too far - hence the use of B-24s with small bomb loads.

It may have been possible to launch the Mosquitoes from carriers in the Med, but they would have to be relatively close.

The 1944 raids from bases in Italy would have been possible, these having been conducted by P-38s.

The Gestapo headquarter raids were comparatively short ranged missions.

Schweik said:

Sure, I can see that there would be some targets for which you need to drop massive bombs, so make a few Lancasters or B-29's for that one stubborn sub pen. Make 377 instead of 7,377. But since we know that the majority of the 4 engine strategic bombing missions missed most of their targets, I'm saying that faster and much more precise bombers could have done a better job with far fewer casualties among Anglo-American servicemen as well as vastly fewer civilian casualties.

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It is possible that the bomber war could have been conducted more efficiently/effectively.

But you still need the heavy lift capabilities that the heavy bombers give, particularly the Lancaster.

The B-29 was more important in the Pacific, due to the ranges involved.

Schweik said:

Do you really think the P-61E was effective as a day fighter? What was the top speed? Did it have compressibility issues like the P-38? Engine difficulties?

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No.

My argument is that the P-61 night fighter should have been in that format, without the turret and without the 4 x 0.50" HMGS in the nose of the P-61E.

Schweik said:

The FAA debacle with the Tirpitz could have been handled some other way, see the US destruction of the entire Japanese Pacific fleet and it's much more powerful battleships (i.e. Yamato and Musashi)

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The Yamato and Musashi were not in a confined area with AA installations around the hills, with heavily armed ground based fighters near by or covered by an effective smoke screen and anti-torpedo nets.

Schweik said:

So substitute another fast bomber - or just take the Merlins for the Mosquitoes from Hurricanes and useless Fulmars and so on. Making 19,000 B-24's was a huge waste of resources.

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The Mosquitos used two speed superchargers, the Fulmars did not. Now Please note that for the British some of the shadow factories tended to build one or the other. They are not 100% interchangeable. And please note that planing and allocations of materials were often done a year or more before aircraft were actually built.

Let me get this strait, you are saying 26,000 casualties from the 8th AF and an astounding 55,573 KiA from bomber command, not to mention 500k+ civilians killed was worth it because it forced the Germans to build 88mm AA guns? I think the destruction of the Luftwaffe could have been done more effectively, and I thought how I was saying it could have been done was obvious but let me spell it out more clearly...

The idea is not for Corsairs to make deep Strategic bombing raids into Germany in 1942. The idea is for Corsairs, and P-47s and P-38s and Beaufighters and P-51s and P-40's and Typhoons and whatever else was effective and available would be used for operational interdiction of communications and tactical bombing at or near the front, as well as attacking the Luftwaffe at every opportunity, while faster bombers like Mosquitos, de Havilland Hornets, A-26s, even P-61s per the OP for that matter, could do the long range night intrusion and Strategic bombing missions. If Mosquitos could hit Gestapo HQ in multiple countries, then I think they could hit Romanian Oil Fields, aircraft factories, V-2 factories and so on.

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Problem is there was no front for all those fighters to do "operational interdiction of communications and tactical bombing" until June of 1944. (Italy excepted and there is only so much you can do on a peninsula about 100 miles wide.) The bombing campaign, in part, was to appease "Uncle Joe's" demand for a 2nd front.
You really need to check up on the dates of your aircraft too. There were no Hornets operational during WW II, the A-26 didn't show up until 1944 (although that could have/should have been changed) P-61s were an awful expensive way to get to get a pair of 1000lbs behind enemy lines, P-38s would have done it a lot cheaper. The 4 under wing stations don't show up until the B-10 production batch.

If you want to hit Romanian oil fields you need bases to operate from. If the B-24s had to modified to use fuel tanks in the fuselage/bomb bay I doubt that the Mosquito, excellent plane that it was, could have flown the distance.
As to the 88mm guns, it wasn't just the 88mm AA guns, it ws the 105mm guns, the 128mm guns, teh millions of larger AA shells and the 10s of thousands of men used to man them, the search lights, the radar stations and so on.

I'm sure the US could source balsa if the UK could, or a find an equivalent. Do you really doubt that? Somebody already pointed out the Canadians made 1,000 Mosquitoes. I'm not an expert on wood so i won't debate the finer points of basswood vs. balsa.

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I do really doubt there was an equivalent. The British weren't importing the stuff from Honduras if they could get it from anywhere in the British Isles. The Canadians imported it, they didn't use a substitute. Sophisticated wood construction requires specific woods, you are not making cheap war time gun stocks where a few ounces difference on a ten pound rifle would go unnoticed. The Balsa was sandwiched between the inner and out layers of the thin plywood over the entire fuselage and some of the wing? There were hundreds of square feet of the stuff per airplane.

wuzak said:

The point he is making is that the production of the AA guns reduced or prevented the production of other weapons.

I believe the 88mm AA gun was a derivative of, or was the same as, a field gun, which was also used in tanks. Each one pointed at the sky was one not being used against the Soviets on the Eastern Front.

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I'm well aware of the point he was trying to make - I just very strongly disagree with it. 88mm AA guns are great against high altitude aircraft and tanks (it was originally the same gun but they made an AT variant) but also pretty vulnerable to fast moving fighter bombers and not particularly good at shooting them down.

My point is that neither of you have made a case that there was anything particularly efficient (in terms of winning the war) about forcing the Germans to build heavy AA guns, at the cost of 70+ thousand Anglo-American aircrew and 500k + civilians, not to mention incalculable loss of cultural and architectural treasures which had previously lasted 5 or 6 centuries or more.

In the scenario I outlined, they would still have to commit a lot of resources, especially aircraft. I think it's basically a consensus that the major achievement of the Strategic bomber offensive (aside from eventually getting the oil) was the destruction of the Luftwaffe, mainly by American daylight bombers and their escorts.

Hornets won't be available until 1946. A-26s, P-61s not around until 1944.

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I don't know that much about Hornets, but I know both the A-26 and P-61 first flight were in 1942 and both development and production could have been accelerated if they had shifted emphasis away from the 4 engined heavy bombers. My point in general is that if you de-emphasized the 4 engine heavies (which in the US for example had priority for turbocharger development among other wasteful things) you could have had a lot more fast twin engine bombers like the Mosquito and of the types they later developed, as well as a lot more good quality fighters much more quickly. And I think winning air superiority over the front, whether that was in North Africa or Italy or Russia, was more important than incinerating people in Hamburg.

Mosquitoes could not do the Ploesti mission in 1943. The range was too far - hence the use of B-24s with small bomb loads.

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I don't buy that. They could have flown from Palermo to Ploesti is 1,900 km according to Google. Cairo is 1,700 km. Range of a Mosquito XVI with a "full weapons load" is 2,400 km per Wikipedia. It says a Mosquito Mk IX had a range of 4,540 km!! That is more than enough.

Just like with the B-24's, who were straining their range by flying at low alt, the Mosquitos may have had to carry a light bomb load, but they certainly could have done it and would have had fewer casualties. With the higher survivability rate you could have done multiple missions.

It is possible that the bomber war could have been conducted more efficiently/effectively.

But you still need the heavy lift capabilities that the heavy bombers give, particularly the Lancaster.

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You need some heavy lift capacity, arguably (though Mosquitos did reach the ability to carry a 4,000 bomb which is pretty big even by today's standards). You don't need 7,000 Lancasters and 19,000 B-24's.

S

wuzak said:

No.

My argument is that the P-61 night fighter should have been in that format, without the turret and without the 4 x 0.50" HMGS in the nose of the P-61E.

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Ah, I see gotcha. Maybe with some 'schrage musik' guns pointing up at an angle instead like the European night fighters.

"The complete fuselage is made up as a balsa-plywood sandwich, the 0.437-in balsa being compressed between two 0.062-in 3-ply spruce or birch skins. Since balsa wood varies greatly in weight — from 5 to 30 lb per cu ft — it must be carefully selected. Weight of that used in the Mosquito averages about 9 lb per cubic foot. With a large volume used, this is an important item in the final weight of the ship.


From LiTOT: Mosquito design analysis

There is no Balsa in the wing.

Schweik said:

I don't buy that. They could have flown from Palermo to Ploesti is 1,900 km according to Google. Cairo is 1,700 km. Range of a Mosquito XVI with a "full weapons load" is 2,400 km per Wikipedia. It says a Mosquito Mk IX had a range of 4,540 km!! That is more than enough.

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Palermo was not available in 1943 when the B-24 raid occurred.

The 1944 raids originated in Italy and were performed by P-38s.

Shortround6 said:

Problem is there was no front for all those fighters to do "operational interdiction of communications and tactical bombing" until June of 1944. (Italy excepted and there is only so much you can do on a peninsula about 100 miles wide.) The bombing campaign, in part, was to appease "Uncle Joe's" demand for a 2nd front.

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Impressing Stalin is another bad reason for that huge waste of all those resources and lives, IMO.

And there was a front.

I think if you had that much more air power with that much more of a qualitative edge, it cold have made a big difference. I know North Africa / Med as a Front tends to get dismissed as irrelevant for some reason, but it wasn't. Vital supply route for the English, if the Germans had been able to keep it it could have been an even more vital source for oil for them.

Imagine this scenario if you will. Double the quantity of effective fighter bombers and bombers in North Africa. Place heavy empahsis there. Use mosquitoes to attack the Germans everywhere you can reach from the UK, while overwhelming them in North Africa. Invade Sicily 6 months or a year earlier. Capture Naples by early 1943. Now you have not only Romania, but most of Central Europe in range for fast, effective intruder bombers like Mosquitos and I daresey, A-26's, not to mention increasing pressure from allied fighter bombers all along Southern Europe. Destroy their communications to the East, and thereby really help Uncle Joe. Blow up all their gas.

Recapture Crete, recapture Norway. Tighten the noose.

At the very least this should put just as much pressure on the Germans as the Strategic bombing did, for a much lower all around cost.

I do really doubt there was an equivalent. The British weren't importing the stuff from Honduras if they could get it from anywhere in the British Isles. The Canadians imported it, they didn't use a substitute. Sophisticated wood construction requires specific woods,

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Per Wikipedia Balsa wood is native to Brazil, Bolivia and all the way up to Mexico. Are you really suggesting this would be hard for the Americans to secure as a Strategic material? Breh!

wuzak said:

Palermo was not available in 1943 when the B-24 raid occurred.

The 1944 raids originated in Italy and were performed by P-38s.

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Palermo was captured in July 1943. How long does it take to set up / clean up an airfield during an invasion on that scale? Gerbini was flying A-20's from August 1943.

S

" It says a Mosquito Mk IX had a range of 4,540 km!! That is more than enough."

If you are going to stage a bombing raid it helps if the planes actually carry bombs.


Range 1870 miles with a 500lb bomb under each wing and 121 IMP gallons in the bomb bay and flying at 245mph at 15,000ft which hardly makes you immune to interception.