What if America built De Havilland Mosquitoes instead of the B-17 Flying Fortress?

[Donald Johnson]

Students need to have a wealth of information that spans the spectrum of the issue in order to use critical thinking to draw a conclusion.
Telling them what to think does no good.

I could not agree with you more, here. Students are now routinely being told what to think which is why my methodology veers more to Discovery Approach in that I, as the teacher, should present controversial material, not tell them what conclusions to draw. I should be facilitating their learning, not steering them toward a desired outcome through censure.

The debate over collateral casualties is controversial, but the deliberate targeting of civilian targets is less so. Slaughterhouse Five crystallizes this point with the bombing of Dresden and Catch-22 does a great job of ridiculing military thought. Bringing together such readings with factual historical accounts does more to develop such discussions than any current textbook (Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs, and Steel" comes close). As a journalism major, I insist that objectivity should be the goal of history teachers, allowing the students to reach their own conclusions, but challenging those on either side that lack logic and factual merit.

I'm not here to assert that I'm "right" about any point about Mosquitos, just to see how you, the well-versed refute them. Thank you for doing so.

 

[SaparotRob]

As a former student of the Caidin School, it seems pretty refuted to me.

 

[ThomasP]

Hey Snowygrouch,

Thank you very much for posting the documents concerning the perceived value of the Mosquito and the ability to ramp-up the production program. From my time in production, procurement, and bidding for various projects I always figured that the Mosquito could have been produced in far larger numbers. But without original source material it has been difficult (effectively impossible) to persuade others of the potential.

 

[Donald Johnson]

Hey Snowygrouch,

Thank you very much for posting the documents concerning the perceived value of the Mosquito and the ability to ramp-up the production program. From my time in production, procurement, and bidding for various projects I always figured that the Mosquito could have been produced in far larger numbers. But without original source material it has been difficult (effectively impossible) to persuade others of the potential.

Yes, this was not available to me, either.

 

[Koopernic]

lol...if one actually read the entire ww2 podcast instead if cherry picking to prop up a defense, this would have been seen:

"So if we take theoretical "thousand bomber raid" of Lancaster bombers, they could deliver a staggering 9,821 tons of explosives. It would take five thousand, five hundred Mosquito's to deliver that amount.

One thousand Lancaster's would have a crew of 7,000 men, five thousand, five hundred Mosquitos would need 11,000 men!

On the face of it that justifies the use of the heavy bomber by utilising fewer aircrew. But what about accuracy?

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! ((raf.mod.uk))​

Where does that leave us?

Perhaps it was actually best employed in the role it was so often used, as part of the RAF Pathfinder Force. Flying ahead of the main bomber stream with their speed and accuracy they were ideal at marking targets for those that followed."

I'm no expert on the Lancaster but if 1000 of them are delivering 9,821 tons then each on of them would be carrying 9.8 tons, essentially a grand slam each time. Not sure if the above claim is short or long tons. I would say realistic Lancaster loads are 12,000-14000lbs. IE more like 6-7 short tons or 60% as much claimed.

On the other hand the Mosquito could carry 2 short tons in the form of the 4000lb cookie.

So the difference is more like 3000-3500 mosquitos.

Mosquitos can and did often conduct 2 raids per night due to their speed.

Also how did the mosquito achieve its accuracy? Was it use of oboe or GEE-H or low level bombing. Individually aimed attacks might be more accurate. GEE-H as micro-h was available to US 4 engine bombers

 

[pbehn]

More Mosquitoes would mean fewer V-1's, right? (Interesting side-note on how they perfected methods of taking then down in flight before the Typhoons. More Skeeters would have meant fewer V-1s hitting London, right?)

That would be interesting if you included all the details of differences between types and their use. The Mosquito was the slowest of the planes used to take down V1 but that was its only disadvantage. The V1 was very small and fast, it was difficult to hit and even more difficult to hurt, MGs bounced off its fuselage and didnt damage the wings if you hit them. The Mosquito had 4 fuselage mounted cannon which was by far the best set up. However the biggest advantage, as I am sure you know but didnt say is that they worked at night. The V1 had a huge plume of fire behind its pulse jet making it visible before launch at night but by day needed radar guidance from UK.

 

[pbehn]

lol...if one actually read the entire ww2 podcast instead if cherry picking to prop up a defense, this would have been seen:

"So if we take theoretical "thousand bomber raid" of Lancaster bombers, they could deliver a staggering 9,821 tons of explosives. It would take five thousand, five hundred Mosquito's to deliver that amount.

One thousand Lancaster's would have a crew of 7,000 men, five thousand, five hundred Mosquitos would need 11,000 men!

On the face of it that justifies the use of the heavy bomber by utilising fewer aircrew. But what about accuracy?

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! ((raf.mod.uk))​

Where does that leave us?

Perhaps it was actually best employed in the role it was so often used, as part of the RAF Pathfinder Force. Flying ahead of the main bomber stream with their speed and accuracy they were ideal at marking targets for those that followed."

Regarding the point in bold the superficial argument is not fully stated. It isnt just comparing 11,000 lives with 7,000. A Lancaster crew had a pilot, navigator, bomb aimer front gunner, flight engineer, radio operator and two gunners. The pilot and co pilot in a Mosquito between them performed the duties of the first five on that list, you needed 11,000 people who were both more capable and more highly trained.

 

[pbehn]

I have a book here, "Lancaster" by Walter Thompson DFC that asserts Fighter Command did far too little to assist Bomber command with its night missions:

>>Finally, in response to the pressure upon Bomber Command, the Air Staff allocated a single squadron of Beaufighter IV's to the task of engaging German night fighters over their own territory. Not the far superior Mosquitoes, not an aircraft equipped with the latest night fighter radar...The best night fighters, several excellent Mosquito squadrons were in existence, but they must be kept for the defence of Britain.<<

.

You are throwing in factoids to support an argument which you consider case closed. When was that decision made? The RAF were tasked with protecting the UK as first priority. What was the new radar fitted to the Mosquito, how was it better than that fitted to the Beaufighter? You may think it sensible to use your best equipment over enemy territory rather than protecting your own, others may disagree.

 

[drgondog]

I could not agree with you more, here. Students are now routinely being told what to think which is why my methodology veers more to Discovery Approach in that I, as the teacher, should present controversial material, not tell them what conclusions to draw. I should be facilitating their learning, not steering them toward a desired outcome through censure.

I'm not here to assert that I'm "right" about any point about Mosquitos, just to see how you, the well-versed refute them. Thank you for doing so.

So, as a self proclaimed academic expert in teaching by facilitation, can you not 'facilitate examples' to lead a student to consider all the variables, draw conclusions and prove their thesis?

Teacher, educate thyself. Pull out the factual data and tables for the Mosquito of choice for the mission profile(s) that you believe favors the Mosquito. If you propose medium to high altitude strikes against strategic targets, also bring your CEP data for potential Bomb Damage Prediction, as well as proposed sighting methods for bomb aiming. Those data artifacts are useful in combination with Combat Radius data as a function of payload, cruise speed and altitude.

Do the math.

If you propose that rational War Planners were interested in defeating Germany through airpower, gather sourced references of persons of authority and responsibility for the War Plans when considering the mission tasking for the Mosquito - and lead us through THEIR deliberations to explain why their considered opinions were wrong if they didn't recommend deployment of the Mosquito (any version) for the mission profiles you believe were overlooked.

As Dana Bell essentially opined 'Why not gather facts as they existed, with documented and sourced technical and political issues, attributed to the existence and known performance and availability of the Mosquito type you propose'.??

You have done nothing regarding setting forth a logical framework based on facts - to support your 'notions'. Absent such presentations, how may you represent yourself as a competent Teacher?

 

[pbehn]

The debate over collateral casualties is controversial, but the deliberate targeting of civilian targets is less so. Slaughterhouse Five crystallizes this point with the bombing of Dresden and Catch-22 does a great job of ridiculing military thought. Bringing together such readings with factual historical accounts does more to develop such discussions than any current textbook (Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs, and Steel" comes close). As a journalism major, I insist that objectivity should be the goal of history teachers, allowing the students to reach their own conclusions, but challenging those on either side that lack logic and factual merit.

I can crystalize the debate and ridicule any piece, book or article written criticising the Dresden raid. They all mention the beauty and history of the place, and when they do they lose the plot and the argument. While the good people of Dresden were living and producing munitions in its historic and elegant surroundings people were being killed on forced marches and by starvation in Bergen Belsen, I have been to both. London is a far more historic city than Dresden and the Nazis developed 3 V weapons to attack it in addition to the bombing that started in 1940 and ended when end was forced on the people doing it. You are not being objective at all, you are choosing factoids that support your argument and ignoring all others, your aim is for people you interact with to discover your own pre determined "truth".

Edit: The last V1 launched at London was almost exactly one month before the Dresden raid. January 1945.

 

[pbehn]

While I agree your primary statement of 'failure' (in 1943), the concept of destroying key German industry from the air was not flawed - it failed in 1943 because a.) the force was not large enough to repeatedly attack The Critical industry (Ball Bearings before decentralizing after August 1943) and b.) a few other 'critical industries' such as Chemical (not just powder/munitions but Fertilizer essential to feeding German population) and Central Power grids, as well as Petroleum/Synthetic Fuel refining.

The three barriers to success in 1943 were lack of high performance long range fighter escort, precision radar mapping/targeting technology to assist precision strikes in bad weather, and adequate inventory of bombers and trained crews. Additional issues included inadequate intelligence for critical target group selection and wrong bomb selection - most attacks should have made the 1000 pounder the absolute Minimum bomb, with 2000 pounders more appropriate..

In all pre war planning for a strategic campaign and post war analysis of why things didnt work quite as well as expected there is the assumption that the enemy would stop fighting. Some thought civilian morale could bring about surrender, others thought the inability to fight or loss of will to fight in a hopeless situation would do it. It could be argued that Germany's position from the start was hopeless, or when UK didnt surrender, or when Moscow and Leningrad werent taken, or the Battle of the Atlantic was lost, Stalingrad or D-Day. Was there any thought ever given to the possibility that Germany couldnt surrender until Hitler himself was dead and that meant actually surrounding him in a Berlin bunker? Hitler was told by Speer that the war as far as machines and industry was over in January 1945, so it was actually over some time before that. This didnt bring about surrender, neither did the loss of the airforce or lack of fuel or anything else, so long as one group had rifles and panzerfausts around the bunker some would continue to fight which I cant see was ever thought about or really planned for.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Some British tried to jump in exactly that fashion... and whats more, other than the major error of thinking it would work in the Pacific, just about everything else in these
pages is absolutely correct.

Would it ever have really happened ? Probably not, but if I could go back in time with hindsight, who in their right mind would have wasted even one rivet on a Manchester, Hampden Wellington or Stirling lieu of a Mossie?

(I think probably its just dreaming to imagine the USA would have ever done it, but ought the British to have ditched their 4-engien heavies ? that, is a REALLY serious and genuine question). In my view just about all British heavies were pathetically armed death-traps which cost tens of thousands of airmen their lives. I dont think (Britain) needed them, really, I dont.


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As for the American view of the plane, the files bring forth interesting commentary.

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Meant to comment on this way earlier, got distracted with all the other "noise." Great documents! A question - with regards to your statement "In my view just about all British heavies were pathetically armed death-traps which cost tens of thousands of airmen their lives. I dont think (Britain) needed them, really, I dont." Was it your opinion that the RAF bombing campaign "could have" been done with just the Mosquito or was it matter or better arming the 4 engined bomber? Again, thanks for posting this.

 

[Shortround6]

If you are going to "accuse" war planners of wrong doing, like profiteering, the standards have to be pretty high. Not just that they picked or didn't pick certain aircraft or weapons. You better have a pretty good idea of how the contracts worked too.

Without a crystal ball or time travel mistakes were going to be made. Mistakes were made.

If you have preconceived agenda you can find all kinds of "stuff" to support it if you don't look deep.

The US could and did shift priorities around but since the US working at a pretty high capacity finding spare capacity was going to be difficult.

Chris-Craft has been mentioned several times. They did good work, Won "E" for excellence in production a number of times in three different plants.

Very good web site. Chris-Craft in World War Two.

part of The US / American Automobile Industry in World War Two - WWII

Chris-Craft made 13,283 boats during WW II, of which 12,935 were landing craft.

Perhaps they could have helped with an American Mosquito, perhaps not, or perhaps they could but but somebody else would have to make some of the landing craft.

It is also easy to be critical when the time line is kept fuzzy. "They should have done.........................." without saying when they should have done it. As shown above (and in other threads) the Mosquito of 1941/early 1942 was not the Mosquito of 1944. The B-17s had not been used in Europe yet. you would have the planners swap an unknown for an unknown and blame them because they got it wrong in your view.

If you want the students to be critical thinkers they need to research what an alternative could really mean.

 

[Donald Johnson]

Hi Donald,

One last try before I give up on you.

Please, as a teacher, you must understand the differences between secondary sources and primary research.

Second, stop confusing strategic bombing with tactical bombing. You talk about Mosquito bombers taking out Crossbow sites - NO MOSQUITO BOMBERS ATTACKED V-1 SITES! The aircraft were Mosquito fighter bombers, which trained for and excelled at tactical missions. More FB.VIs were built than any other variant. However, FB.VIs didn't attack strategic targets.

The Eighth Air Force did a terrible job against tactical targets - they concentrated on, and trained for, strategic objectives. Their record against tactical targets was so poor that Eisenhower took away their tactical aircraft (A-20s and B-26s) and created the Ninth Air Force to improve tactical support prior to Overlord. And the B-25s were all RAF aircraft - again, none of the tactical bombers performed long-range daylight strategic missions.

You have a point of view, an opinion, that you'd like us to recognize and accept. But your point of view is not based on a solid study of the evidence - you shouldn't be surprised that so many disagree with you. Sit down with Craven and Cate for a month and get a better, albeit secondary, understanding of the AAF's air war from 1941-45.

Cheers,



Dana

Much of what you posted here has not been heretofore available to me, steeped on Caidin and Jablonski as I am. But I do maintain part of my argument is still valid, that which suggests that decisions made then on who and what to bomb yet reverberate as our procurement procedures which are heavily criticized. My objective is to make at least part of this process accessible to students and you don't do that by suggesting they search archives. They have to have motivation, and an unresolved argument that may apply to a current political reality just might do that.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Much of what you posted here has not been heretofore available to me, steeped on Caidin and Jablonski as I am.

Jablonski - yes, Cardin - no, many BS stories found through out his works.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

that which suggests that decisions made then on who and what to bomb yet reverberate as our procurement procedures which are heavily criticized. My objective is to make at least part of this process accessible to students and you don't do that by suggesting they search archives. They have to have motivation, and an unresolved argument that may apply to a current political reality just might do that.

Well you have yet shown us a real example, it seems you didn't understand how the US military procurement process works, in WW2 and through today!

Yes, the system has it flaws and very poor decisions have been made over the years, but before you try to comment about it, don't you feel it's best to first UNDERSTAND the process as well as the commodity procured, in this case combat aircraft, or do want to continue to ignore "the nuts and bolts of this"?

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Meant to comment on this way earlier, got distracted with all the other "noise." Great documents! A question - with regards to your statement "In my view just about all British heavies were pathetically armed death-traps which cost tens of thousands of airmen their lives. I dont think (Britain) needed them, really, I dont." Was it your opinion that the RAF bombing campaign "could have" been done with just the Mosquito or was it matter or better arming the 4 engined bomber? Again, thanks for posting this.

Thanks for the good questions !

I need to go and re-read some other docs I have on bomber armament. As I recall, basically (during the war) there was a LOT of discussion on getting 50cal and even 20mm cannon into RAF bomber turrets.

Essentially the broad conclusion was something like, its possible, but it adds so much weight that the bomb-loads were reduced to some level someone decided was unnaceptable (I think there was some "metric" about how many missions you need to drop a certain tonnage, and if you have losses of so many airmen per raid, it will become uneconomic at a certain point and so on).

So whilst people argue about B-17 having (on average) a much lower bomb load than a Lancaster, thats basically because the B-17 went down the road of heavy armament and good armour plating, and the Brits went down the route of "how can we get MAXIMUM bombs on the target in the fewest possible missions", which basically means, minimum armament and armour. I dont think there was a dramatic difference in the loads each plane could take, but once you factored in how each air force chose to kit them out, that has a big impact. So the philosophies of each air force are I think, at least as important as the basic airframe layouts I think. In other words, if you up gunned a lancaster and put in more armour, it would probably not be a million miles away from a B-17 and visa versa (very, very roughly - I know the aircraft have a lot of fundamental differences too).

Personally, I really do think the RAF could have done everything it needed to with Mosquitos. There is a point for debate here, because you probably cant do something like annihlate entire cities with a managable Mosquito force, but I would take the view that with the much better survivabilty, and accuracy of the Mosquitos, you dont need to use tactics like that anyway, but thats a huge argument in itself, (I`m just not fundamentally a big fan of area-bombing civilian areas really). So I dont think you could have an air force with exactly the same mission capabilites, but I think we could have had one more able to destroy German industry, with a lower crew loss rate, if we had said no to the 4-engine area bombing. However, this is all with hindsight, and in 1939 they had no navigational radar, and no organized pathfinder scheme, so being fair to them, I can understand why it all ended up as it did.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Thanks for the good questions !

I need to go and re-read some other docs I have on bomber armament. As I recall, basically (during the war) there was a LOT of discussion on getting 50cal and even 20mm cannon into RAF bomber turrets.

Essentially the broad conclusion was something like, its possible, but it adds so much weight that the bomb-loads were reduced to some level someone decided was unnaceptable (I think there was some "metric" about how many missions you need to drop a certain tonnage, and if you have losses of so many airmen per raid, it will become uneconomic at a certain point and so on).

So whilst people argue about B-17 having (on average) a much lower bomb load than a Lancaster, thats basically because the B-17 went down the road of heavy armament and good armour plating, and the Brits went down the route of "how can we get MAXIMUM bombs on the target in the fewest possible missions", which basically means, minimum armament and armour. I dont think there was a dramatic difference in the loads each plane could take, but once you factored in how each air force chose to kit them out, that has a big impact. So the philosophies of each air force are I think, at least as important as the basic airframe layouts I think. In other words, if you up gunned a lancaster and put in more armour, it would probably not be a million miles away from a B-17 and visa versa (very, very roughly - I know the aircraft have a lot of fundamental differences too).

Personally, I really do think the RAF could have done everything it needed to with Mosquitos. There is a point for debate here, because you probably cant do something like annihlate entire cities with a managable Mosquito force, but I would take the view that with the much better survivabilty, and accuracy of the Mosquitos, you dont need to use tactics like that anyway, but thats a huge argument in itself, (I`m just not fundamentally a big fan of area-bombing civilian areas really). So I dont think you could have an air force with exactly the same mission capabilites, but I think we could have had one more able to destroy German industry, with a lower crew loss rate, if we had said no to the 4-engine area bombing. However, this is all with hindsight, and in 1939 they had no navigational radar, and no organized pathfinder scheme, so being fair to them, I can understand why it all ended up as it did.

Excellent and thank you for the response and your participation in this forum!!!!

 

[special ed]

My thoughts, insignificant as they are, is Mr. Johnson should teach military philosophy rather than than pure history. This discussion brings to mind an incident I read where an elderly German woman told an RAF officer in the newly created British zone, "All this could have been avoided if you had only surrendered in 1939."

 

[pbehn]

The situation with defensive armament on British bombers was clouded by the "conventional wisdom" of the time. Many believed that opening fire at night would draw more night fighters attention to you, and since you are in the dark you may well be firing on a friend. Post war, German nightfighters said they were put off by bombers that opened fire and looked for another that wasnt so alert. Whether they opened fire or not most aircraft that a gunner saw were other bombers in the bomber stream and the main job was as look out to avoid collisions.