USAAF Attack & Light Bombers: Needs & Desires

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What planes did the RAF use for the fighter/attack/reconnaissance roles and the fast-attack bomber?

Off memory based on the aircraft the RAF had in their inventory, I get

  1. Fighter/Attack/Reconnaissance
    • Hurricane
    • Spitfire
    • P-40's
    • Typhoon
  2. Fast Attack-Bomber
    • Beaufighter
    • Mosquito
Miss anything or get anything wrong?
 
Mustangs of various types.
 

I would separate them like this:

Fighter
  • Hurricane
  • Spitfire
  • P-40
  • Typhoon
  • Tempest
  • Mustang

Night Fighter
  • Mosquito
  • Beaufighter

Fighter/Bomber
  • Hurricane
  • P-40
  • Typhoon
  • Mosquito
  • Beaufighter

Reconnaissance
  • Mosquito
  • Spitfire

Fighter/Reconnaissance
  • Mustang
  • Spitfire

Light/Medium Bomber
  • Mosquito
  • A-20/Boston

Some aircraft appear in multiple categories. Even the Spitfire did fighter/bomber duties, though I didn't put it there.
 
The British received around 800 P-47s used in the far east as fighter bombers.
 
I would separate them like this
I just used the categorization the Desert Air Force used for its criteria. Regardless, it does appear that you end up ultimately with the following planes fitting these categories...
  1. Hawker Hurricane
    • Fighter
    • Fighter/Bomber
  2. Supermarine Spitfire
    • Fighter
    • Fighter/Reconnaissance
    • Reconnaissance
    • Fighter/Bomber (rarely)
  3. Curtiss P-40
    • Fighter
    • Fighter/Bomber
  4. Douglas A-20
    • Light Attack/Bomber
  5. Bristol Beaufighter
    • Fighter/Bomber
    • Night Fighter
  6. Hawker Typhoon
    • Fighter
    • Fighter/Bomber
  7. North American P-51
    • Fighter
    • Fighter/Reconnaissance
  8. De Havilland Mosquito
    • Light Attack/Bomber
    • Fighter/Bomber
    • Night Fighter
  9. Republic P-47
    • Fighter/Bomber
  10. Tempest
    • Fighter
    • Fighter/Bomber
I would have thought the Beaufighter would have been used as a light attack-bomber to be honest, but I'm also surprised that the P-47 wasn't generally used in the fighter role as it was fast and could fly at considerable altitude.
 
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Regarding Single-Engined Attack/Bombers

I honestly thought the A-36 was kind of a bureaucratic jiujitsu move to help shove the P-51 program along?
an Army Board convened in early 1943 . . . recommended that MC 'cease and desist from developing slow battlefield attack aircraft.
Interestingly, it would appear that MC was able to develop the XA-41 was able to fly in early 1944.

While developing aircraft without sufficient speed, that was probably smart: I'm not sure it was totally smart to abolish all single-engined bombers to be honest. Generally, I subscribe to an attitude that if one engine does the job, that's fine; if two engines do the job: Go for it.

As an interesting piece of information, when the English Electric Canberra began development: It was originally to be a single-engined aircraft. The design admittedly started off as a fighter-bomber (that said, some of the RAF's fighter-bombers were light-bombers that could maneuver well enough to mix it up with fighters and live) that would be an effective jet-fighter replacement for the Mosquito (the FB variants), but evolved into a light-bomber design outright.

The reason for the switch from a single-engine to twin-engines seemed to be volumetric related (they wanted to use an enlarged development of the RR Nene which didn't leave enough room for fuel and bomb-load) than adequate engine power for speed. They weren't averse to using a single-engined design on principle.

And ultimately, that led down the road to the F-105.
 
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I was thinking about something here regarding the differences between our fast-attack bombers, namely the A-20 and De Havilland Mosquito is that the Mosquito was faster and more agile. With both having enough speed to be useful, the agility seems to be the dominating variable. Though I don't know what the normal-rated load-factor for wood is, the ultimate load factor was 8g, and the A-20's ultimate load-factor was around 4.5 to 6g with a normal-rated load-factor of around 3-4g.

The A-26 which replaced the A-20 had a normal-rated load-factor at design weight of 4.27g (IIRC) and, while I don't know what the expected performance of the XA-43 was to be in terms of normal L/F, the XA-45/XB-51 was rated for 3.67g under said conditions. The Canberra was nominally rated to 5g.
 

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