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

[FLYBOYJ]

As a retired teacher, I do not think it is always productive to take an absolutist view of an historical point, rather to mention the multiplicity of factors that may have been involved. History should be presented in school, not preached. Valid points must be acknowledged, not destroyed summarily. By presenting history as a series of choices based on information then available, I hope to generate more interest than the current textbooks which too often present it as irrefutable facts, dry and propagandized.

Then also understand when discussing aircraft design, manufacture, performance, deployment and operations, there are many on this site who have studied these subject areas intensely, some putting decades into that study, with some actually maintaining and flying some of these aircraft or have immediate family who participated in actual operations. When you see, feel and operate the machine or discuss with those who have, there tends to be "an absolutist view."

 

[FLYBOYJ]

>>From November 1943 to March 1944 Berlin was repeatedly bombed, the loss rate of the heavy bombers (predominantly Lancaster's) was 5.1%, for the Mosquito it was 0.5%.<<

How many Mosquitoes were deployed and how many missions when compared to the Lancaster during the same time period? Also you're comparing two different types of aircraft in two different types of operational roles, totally apples and oranges.

The Mossies outran their fighter escorts.

For the most part irrelevant unless you're betting whos' getting to the pub first!

 

[Donald Johnson]

How many Mosquitoes were deployed and how many missions when compared to the Lancaster during the same time period? Also you're comparing two different types of aircraft in two different types of operational roles, totally apples and oranges.



For the most part irrelevant unless you're betting whos' getting to the pub first!

If we're considering the aspect that the greatest damage inflicted by bombing raids was actually a by-product of sucking up the Luftwaffe opposition, then this is not a bad thing. Once the Mosquitoes absconded, the fighters were free to pursue targets of opportunity.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

If we're considering the aspect that the greatest damage inflicted by bombing raids was actually a by-product of sucking up the Luftwaffe opposition, then this is not a bad thing. Once the Mosquitoes absconded, the fighters were free to pursue targets of opportunity.

Again, do you have specifics of this? Yes, operationally this was the status quo taken by the 8th AF to destroy the Luftwaffe, but in the case of the Mosquito conducting escorted tactical raids, do you have examples of this? What were the escorts?

 

[pbehn]

The Mosquitoes followed road and railroads when low, and a very high reminder was put on navigators. Flak would be ineffective if th
we're talking an exceptional pilot and navigator, that's all. The Mossie had by far the best survivability rate of the war, therefore you're not losing crews.


>>From November 1943 to March 1944 Berlin was repeatedly bombed, the loss rate of the heavy bombers (predominantly Lancaster's) was 5.1%, for the Mosquito it was 0.5%.<<

That is the most selective of selective stats. You are discussing massed precision daylight raids and quote statistics from individual high altitude night time raids. Invariably when a Mosquito was dropping a can of explosives at random on Berlin there were hundreds of Lancasters and Halifaxes dropping many more cookies and bigger ones somewhere else.
Operation Carthage Copenhagen Gestapo HQ 18 bombers 6 lost =33%
Operation Jericho (Amiens) 18 bombers (9 turned back or recalled) 2 lost 22% or 11%
Aarhus raid Gestapo HQ Denmark 24bombers + 1PR 1lost =4%
Oslo raid Gestapo HQ 4 bombers 1 lost = 25%
The highly effective raids to shut down Goering's radio transmission involved 2 flights of 3 aircraft, the first suffered no loss, the second suffered 1 loss which is 33%. You can take whatever you like from "stats", one thing is a surprise raid is just that, no guarantee you can repeat it. If you look up the details of those raids they werent as precise as expected and a lot of civilian deaths were incurred.

 

[pbehn]

The Mossies outran their fighter escorts.

You cannot outrun your opposition on the way to the target, neither can you out manoeuvre a single engined fighter in a bomber with a full fuel load at low level. The Mosquito pilot shot down by an Fw 190 on the Amiens raid thought he was hit by flak.

 

[GrauGeist]

Aparently Donald has never heard of Kurt Welter and his Me262...

 

[wuzak]

You cannot outrun your opposition on the way to the target, neither can you out manoeuvre a single engined fighter in a bomber with a full fuel load at low level. The Mosquito pilot shot down by an Fw 190 on the Amiens raid thought he was hit by flak.

The Amiens raid was escorted by Typhoons.

Two Mosquitoes and two Typhoons were lost in the raid.

One of the Mosquitoes crash landed after being hit by flak, the pilot survived but the radio operator didn't.

The leader of the mission, Group Captain Pickard, was shot down by an Fw 190 after loitering in the area to observe the aftermath of the attack.

 

[wuzak]

Operation Carthage Copenhagen Gestapo HQ 18 bombers 6 lost =33%

Operation Carthage was also an escorted mission - Mustang Mk.IIIs being used. 4 Mosquitoes and 2 Mustangs were lost in that raid.

One of the Mosquitoes crashed after hitting a lamp post.

 

[GrauGeist]

Going by memory, there was a single Mossie bombing mission to the Politz oil refinery in Poland. It was escorted by 4 P-51Ds. Don't recall dates other than it was conducted in winter.
Reason I recall this, is because they were jumped by Me262s and narrowly escaped.

 

[Donald Johnson]

USA making Mosquitoes is a good thing in general. We might 1st know the goal post: is it being made instead of B-17, or instead of B-24, or instead B-25 or/and B-26? Or a combination? Perhaps something not listed should be axed instead?

Before all of that - timing is the crucial issue here, and before it is well defined we're unlikely to arrive at plausible scenarios.

Why would anything have been halted until the Mosquito proved itself?

My problem here is that six engineers summarily dismissed it. Why was there not even a limited production run? De Havilland had a name and good track record, certainly better than some American brands. The DH4, after all, was a biplane standard.

It is crucial that we determine the selection processes involved since this has a way of Institutional ensconcing. The factors involved in procurement decisions had their historical precedent in the Civil War and I'm asserting that direct lines can be traced from Mallory (who approved radical Monitor concept) to the present. Congress is tasked with funding the military, therefore political bookmarks can spur or block a project. The idea of an unarmed bomber is what seems to have disturbed the Brass which had locked onto the faulty idea that a big bomber can defend itself. To that dogmatic end, they did not hasten the development of fuel drop tanks which could have enhanced fighter protection much sooner.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

My problem here is that six engineers summarily dismissed it.

As mentioned - it wasn't THEIR design, their company wasn't given a contract to produce it and it was British. That simple

It is crucial that we determine the selection processes involved since this has a way of Institutional ensconcing, the way procurement decisions were made then had their historical precedent in the Civil War and direct lines can be traced from there to the present.

Have you ever worked on a government contract? Bid a government contract or was part of a bid process, or is this the way you perceive the procurement process works?

Congress is tasked with funding the military, therefore political bookmarks can spur or black a project. The idea of an unarmed bomber is what seems to have disturbed the Brass which had locked onto the faulty idea that a big bomber can defend itself. To that dogmatic end, they did not hasten the development of fuel drop tanks which could have enhanced fighter protection much sooner.

Is this your opinion or can you provide historical references to back this?

 

[Donald Johnson]

Aparently Donald has never heard of Kurt Welter and his Me262...

As I understand it, Hitler was so incensed by the audacious Mosquito raid on Berlin that he demanded the Me 262 be converted to a bomber, thereby delaying its development.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I go with Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Not that staying with American designs and doctrine was stupid, just saying that assuming nefarious intent in procurement decisions seems unsupported.

Changing doctrine, training, and factory tooling imposed difficulties each taken alone, much less all taken together. That explains it as easily without appealing to undemonstrated motives.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

As I understand it, Hitler was so incensed by the audacious Mosquito raid on Berlin that he demanded the Me 262 be converted to a bomber, thereby delaying its development.

Not true - from the time he saw the Me262 fly in 1943 he envisioned it as a "Schnellbomber" and it could be debated that this insistence of the 262 being deployed as a bomber actually sped up it's introduction.

 

[GrauGeist]

As I understand it, Hitler was so incensed by the audacious Mosquito raid on Berlin that he demanded the Me 262 be converted to a bomber, thereby delaying its development.

The Mosquito had nothing to do with the development of the Me262 - Hitler was obsessed with "schnellbombers".
The Ta154 and He219 were in theory, supposed to be an answer to the Dh Mosquito.

Back to Kurt Welter: he was the scourge of the night intruder Mossie - downing 33 of them with his Me262. The Mosquito was not invinsible.

 

[Dana Bell]

Hi Donald,

I'll try one more time, and I'm not usually this frank. You have stong opinions, and you may even be a good writer. But you don't have a strong bacground in the AAF's decision-making process. You mention the fine record of the D.H.4, but if you had read Arnold's Global Mission you'd know that turning the D.H.4 into the DH-4 was one of the reasons that Arnold didn't wish to pursue Mosquito production in the US. Converting the British standards into American standards was a nightmare that Arnold had no wish to repeat.

Arnold's pre-War trip to the UK exposed him to everything the Brits had - but he only asked for enhanced engineering data on four items, and the Mosquito was one of them.

Please take the advice of one who has written a few books over the years - write what you know or risk watching your project turn into a disappointment. Chipman's story is a great story; tell it well and your readers won't be distracted by wild interpretations of things that are easily documented.

Best of luck!



Dana

 

[Shortround6]

things changed very rapidly in the late 1930s and very early 40s.

Going from 87 octane (PN 68.?) fuel to 100/130 allowed for an increase of about 85% in cylinder pressure without detonation, assuming the engine was strong enough to withstand the beating and could handle the extra thermal load.

Flaps went from simple split flaps (air brakes) in 1935/36 to the double slotted Fowler flaps used on the A-26 in 1942.

alloys and structures also advanced.

The US also built thousands of wooden airplanes (not including the gliders) during WW II. Just about all were trainers and the few large planes didn't turn out well (less said about the XP-77 the better).

Beech was building these in 1942.

which was primarily wood.
The Famous Stearman PT-17 used a steel tube fuselage with fabric covering but the wing structure was wood and fabric covered.


Cessna built over 5000 of these

The wing structure was built around laminated spruce spar beams, truss-style spruce and plywood ribs, and plywood wing leading edges and wing tips.

There were a number of other aircraft and construction methods.

Unless you have access to the reasoning behind the decision/s you may be dealing with a lot of supposition and armchair quarterbacking.
There is a lot of stuff in books and on the internet that just ain't so.

Here is a link to the mission records of the 303rd bomb group. 364 missions from Nov 17th 1942 to April 25th 1945. (planes carried ten 500lb bombs each to Pilsen Czechoslovakia) that show that the B-17 carried more than 4000lbs to Berlin.
303rd BG Combat Missions and Reports

 

[ThomasP]

I think that the often heard average B-17 load of ~3800 lbs to Berlin is because of the usual mix of HE bombs and Incendiaries. The Incendiary part of the load was less dense than the HE bombs so the overall weight carried was less.

 

[Donald Johnson]

As mentioned - it wasn't THEIR design, their company wasn't given a contract to produce it and it was British. That simple

Have you ever worked on a government contract? Bid a government contract or was part of a bid process, or is this the way you perceive the procurement process works?
Is this your opinion or can you provide historical references to back this?

Elliott Roosevelt, (a drinking buddy of Vance Chipman) campaigned for this according to a Wikipedia article:

>>Elliott (with a pilot) flew the first U.S. reconnaissance missions over the theater in a borrowed RAF de Havilland Mosquito. This led to a long campaign for the U.S. adoption of this British aircraft, as Elliott held the American counterparts (modified Boeing B-17Cs and early Lockheed P-38s) to be inadequate and unlikely to survive in contested airspace.<<

No, I do not fully understand the procurement process, an essential element in deciding priorities then and in the future.

I had a college professor assert that at the beginning, wars are always prepared for with the last war's tactics. It's the transition from peacetime, backwards thinking to futuristic projection that determines the rate of innovation. Did we have some stumbling blocks? We need to know.