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

[Schweik]

I think Dave's right, you've got it in your head, Schweik, that the Mosquito was invulnerable to interception and totally accurate, which simply was not the case.

That would be yet another case of you inventing an argument that I haven't made, so that you can declare yourself the winner of the debate.

 

[nuuumannn]

The point is, the accuracy improves. Evading defenses is a separate issue, but it's one the Mosquito excelled at. Compare the loss rate for Mosquitos to Lancasters.

Again, it depends, you still haven't acknowledged that during the low altitude raids that were carried out caused civilian casualties - over 100 during Carthage alone (how many civilian casualties are considered "acceptable" to you). These raids were flown by crew especially trained in low altitude ops. It is very difficult to compare the different operations between the different commands.

Again, loss rates are commensurate to the operational profile. Far more Lancasters were used in a given night bombing raid than Mosquitoes and again, you are advocating that Mosquitoes might have been able to do the same thing by comparing them to Lancasters? How do you know loss rates wouldn't be the same if there were as many Mosquitoes as there were Lancasters doing the Lancasters' jobs?

 

[nuuumannn]

That would be yet another case of you inventing an argument that I haven't made, so that you can declare yourself the winner of the debate.

Let's not put words in my mouth. I'm not trying to "win", Schweik. I don't agree with you so I'm arguing against you. It's that simple (if you wanna know what I really think, I think this is a lot of fun and I learn a shit ton by engaging in debates like this, I really enjoy it, it gets the books off the shelf and the grey matter working!)

And, yes, you are claiming that Mosquitoes are invulnerable and are accurate, you've made that point repeatedly.

 

[33k in the air]

As an aside, I cam across this mission report:

View attachment 649697

12 x 1,000lb. Is that a mistake?

My understanding is the maximum was 8 x 1,000lb inside the bomb bay. Could they have been using the external racks to carry 2 x 1,000lb under each wing?

Only six 1,000 lb GP could fit in the bomb bay; it could hold eight 1,000 lb SAP (as these were narrower than the GP).

If I had to guess, I'd say it's supposed to be 12 x 500 lb, with some of the bombers instead carrying the 100 lb incendiaries. (Mixed loads were uncommon in the B-17, as far as I have seen.)

 

[wuzak]

How can you guarantee that? Again, even during precision raids like Carthage Mosquitoes missed the targets.

Only after on hit the top of a building and crashed. The target was obscured for the following Mosquitoes and a few bombed in the wrong place. I believe the later bombers were warned and compensated accordingly.

The irony is that the extra bombs would probably been overkill for the target if they had all been dropped correctly.

School kids were killed during Carthage.

Which was a tragedy.

How many school kids were killed across France and Germany during 8th AF attacks?

 

[33k in the air]

The wildcard is how would the Germans have adjusted, and we know they would have done. It would have changed the whole course of the Air War. And it could have gone badly, if the Anglo-Americans started shifting production to more Mosquitos (and similar planes), it could be a gamble that didn't pay off. But I suspect it would have gone better than what we had, on several different levels. The B-17, as Wuzak noted, is almost a one trick pony. It can do maritime recon etc., but as a Strategic bomber, it only has one option - high and slow. If you have thousands more fast strike aircraft, they can do a lot of different kinds of things.

There is one aspect that is being overlooked: all those high-flying formations of B-17s and B-24s of the USAAF hitting German targets forced the Luftwaffe to come up in defense, and once the USAAF had the fighters with the range to escort the bombers and they were unleashed from staying close to the bombers, the Luftwaffe day fighter force began taking heavy losses. This ultimately resulted in daytime air superiority for the Allies.

That doesn't happen with swarms of low-flying twin-engine bombers.

 

[wuzak]

This is all hypothetical, of course. Mosquitoes could be and were tracked by enemy radar. Let's remember that they weren't invulnerable to interception or flak. They can't attack any kind of target.

Yes, Mosquitoes were tracked by radar, less so if they flew at very low level.

B-17 missions were tracked while they formed up over the UK.

A Mosquito's bomb bay wasn't big enough to carry all types of bombs the Allies fielded.

Nor were the B-17's or B-24's.

 

[Graeme]

The target was obscured for the following Mosquitoes and a few bombed in the wrong place

This would be a low-level problem for all large Mossie missions?
The photos (high altitude of course) are 5 minutes apart. Down below - conditions would have been horrendous.

 

[33k in the air]

Nor were the B-17's or B-24's.

The only U.S. bomb they couldn't take into the bomb bay was the AN-M56 (the 4,000 lb). The B-24 could carry four 2,000 lb GP bombs internally; the B-17, only two.

In this regard the capacity of the British heavies was substantially larger.

 

[Graeme]

Treetop flying negated flak defenses.

A myth?
Mossie pilot Charles Patterson...

 

[Schweik]

Again, it depends, you still haven't acknowledged that during the low altitude raids that were carried out caused civilian casualties - over 100 during Carthage alone (how many civilian casualties are considered "acceptable" to you). These raids were flown by crew especially trained in low altitude ops. It is very difficult to compare the different operations between the different commands.

No, excuse me. You act like everything I post is in a foreign language then you make up points I haven't made to knock down. I have pointed out over and over that REDUCING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ISN'T THE MAIN GOAL OF USING MOSQUITOES. It is just a happy side benefit.

That said, when Graugeist brought this up as a challenge, I went ahead and compared civilian casualties with all the Mosquito gestapo HQ raids and a few other small raids, with the big heavy bomber raids at Hamburg and Dresden. I guess you missed that post too? Here it is again - LINK

Again, loss rates are commensurate to the operational profile. Far more Lancasters were used in a given night bombing raid than Mosquitoes and again, you are advocating that Mosquitoes might have been able to do the same thing by comparing them to Lancasters? How do you know loss rates wouldn't be the same if there were as many Mosquitoes as there were Lancasters doing the Lancasters' jobs?

There is a difference between loss rate and total numbers. The rate doesn't necessarily change. If anything, you can see with a lot of the Mosquito raids they lost 1 or 2 aircraft, and the rate went down as the number of bombers in the strike went up. Lancasters or B-17s had no such luck.

I know the losses wouldn't be the same because I know that in spite of trying very hard to do so, the Luftwaffe was unable to destroy them in anywhere near the kinds of numbers they were getting of the heavies.

 

[wuzak]

The role of heavy bombers is to put lots of bombers carrying lots of bombs over a given target and to saturate the target.

That is how they were used, basically carpet bombing.

You keep using the term "heavy bomber" when you should be using the term "strategic bomber".

What height it's done at depends of course and as we all know accuracy diminishes with height, so that's why you need lots of bombers with lots of bombs, to compensate for predicted misses while providing defence against enemy anti-air assets.

Using lots of bombs tends towards smaller bombs.

Small bombs are useful for things like rail yards and houses. Not so effective against industrial and oil targets, though.

What I'm stating is that there is no guarantee that if Mosquitoes were used in the same way as heavy bombers were that they'd be any more accurate and there'd need to be more of them to deliver an equivalent load to an equivalent number of bombers, and conversely that if they were used differently, i.e. doing the same mission profile at low altitude and high speed that they could achieve the same results, when that means you need to fly more operations, increasing the probability of greater loss rates to enemy air defences to guarantee a given number of bombs over the target area.

It would be foolish to think a small, unarmed bomber should be used in the same way as a large, heavily armed bomber.

I doubt the Mosquito would be more accurate bombing from the same heights as B-17s when the two are bombing individually.

However, B-17s didn't bomb individually for most of the war, even though it was a more accurate method.

The USAAF used the Norden bomb sight, which required a long, straight approach at a steady speed. When used individually, the B-17s were over the target longer and that gave flak gunners time to line up the bombers. The bomb-on-leader tactic was developed in response to that - it was to reduce losses rather than improve bombing.

It is not certain that more bombers would be required to get the same results. Results meaning the damage or destruction of the target.

If you double the accuracy and have an aircraft with half the bombs then you require the same number of bombers. If you improve the accuracy further, less bombers are required, or you can do more damage.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I've pointed out already a couple of times, 'scorched earth' in and of itself is not a guarantee of victory. See the Korean War. See many other wars going back to antiquity.

You keep bringing up the Korean War and try to make a comparison to what happened over Europe - Different War, different scenario, different targets. I don't know where you're getting this "scorched earth" assumption. This is a great account of how the B-29 was used in Korea and despite the opposition by MiGs, made a good account of itself.

B-29 in Korean War

 

[Schweik]

This would be a low-level problem for all large Mossie missions?
The photos (high altitude of course) are 5 minutes apart. Down below - conditions would have been horrendous.

View attachment 649709

I think that means you don't strike that target after the place is burning, you hit a different target. You don't need 700 bombers on one raid when you are bombing at low level and during the day, the accuracy goes up a lot. If you have 700 bombers that means maybe hit 14 different targets.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I think that means you don't strike that target after the place is burning, you hit a different target. You don't need 700 bombers on one raid when you are bombing at low level and during the day, the accuracy goes up a lot. If you have 700 bombers that means maybe hit 14 different targets.

That's you're assumption - so many variables throws that statement out the window.

 

[33k in the air]

That said, when Graugeist brought this up as a challenge, I went ahead and compared civilian casualties with all the Mosquito gestapo HQ raids and a few other small raids, with the big heavy bomber raids at Hamburg and Dresden. I guess you missed that post too?

Two points on those:

(1) The mass casualties in those was due to the unusual and rare circumstances of a firestorm, something that could not be created on command.

(2) Bomber Command's frequent (though certainly not exclusive) focus on area raids is due to the ideological prejudices of Harris. He never bought into the idea that raids against specific economic nodes could cause major issues for the enemy. While Harris certainly helped forge Bomber Command into a potent striking force, its power was arguably not used to its best possible effectiveness because of his devotion to the prewar theories of air power.

 

[Schweik]

That's you're assumption - so many variables throws that statement out the window.

It's in the historical record, including USAAF postwar analysis

 

[nuuumannn]

You keep using the term "heavy bomber" when you should be using the term "strategic bomber".

No, I specifically mean "Heavy bomber", not just strategic bomber.

I doubt the Mosquito would be more accurate bombing from the same heights as B-17s when the two are bombing individually.

Pretty much my argument from day one.

It is not certain that more bombers would be required to get the same results. Results meaning the damage or destruction of the target.

Yes, but if you have more bombers then the likelihood of successful hits on the target increases.

f you double the accuracy and have an aircraft with half the bombs then you require the same number of bombers. If you improve the accuracy further, less bombers are required, or you can do more damage.

Again, accuracy is relative and applies to different scenarios differently.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

It's in the historical record, including USAAF postwar analysis

and hindsight is 20/20....

 

[33k in the air]

I think that means you don't strike that target after the place is burning, you hit a different target. You don't need 700 bombers on one raid when you are bombing at low level and during the day, the accuracy goes up a lot. If you have 700 bombers that means maybe hit 14 different targets.

On the other hand, a big formation of heavy bombers means the German day fighters will be drawn to that force; either that, or they let that force smack whatever its target was for that day. Those big formations of heavies draws the Luftwaffe up, where it is then pounced upon by escorting Allied fighters. The eventual result is daytime air superiority for the Allies.