What was better, the A-26 or Ju88?

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Are there recorded instances of Me-262s attacking A-26s? If so I suspect they were few and far between.

A-26 entered combat so late in WWII that flak was probably the primary threat and remained the primary threat during Korea and Vietnam. Hence my question about crew protection against ground fire.

For that matter Soviet AA fire probably killed more Ju-88 dive bombers (i.e. not counting recon, weather aircraft, night fighters etc.) then any other weapon system.
 
Body armour

" The A-26 armor was an original feature of all A-26s. It is made of a hardened Duralumin product that was originally designed to stop a .50 cal bullet at 500 yds.
It surrounded the cockpit, it ran along the sides to protect the control cables and it covered the bottom of the fuel tanks between the fuselage and nacelles. There are also armored access doors on the bottom of each nacelle.
Some of armor panels are removalable on sides of cockpit. Some is built into the frame, around back of cockpit from above wing to wing behind cockpit. There was also some under floor as well, inside nose wheel well, forward of instrument panel in nose section.

Much of the skin around the cockpit was 3/8" or 5/16" thick Dural. It was an integral part of the airframe and not an add-on. It was intended for "deflection protection from angular machine gun fire". Standard armor plate was also installed internally in certain select areas for additional protection of the crew and critical systems.

The insulating blankets were not bullet proof. These blankets were intended to provide some thermal insulation and noise suppression. A WWII pilot told me that the difference was like driving your car with and without the internal door panels."

 

I know davebender I was just giving some context, the Ju88 was the LW main threat in 1939/40 the A26 was just a very competent twin prop multi role plane in 1944, jet fighters were in service as was radar guided ground fire and proximity fused munitions, no doubt the A26 was better but the world had moved on.
 
Was A-26 the first American light bomber to feature such crew protection?

Might be worth comparing A-26 with Me-410B light bomber since introduction date was about the same. Not many produced though since decision to tool Henschel Ju-88 plant for Me-410B and Ostmark engine plant for 1,900hp DB603G was reversed before mass production began.
 
The B-26K was just optimized to meet the needs of the theater. It didn't have to be improved to be effective, but when improved, was able to carry 12,000 pounds of ordnance. That is 50% more than the Ju-388.
 

And don't forget, the B-26K's flying out of NKP also resulted in the pretty neat song "Holy ****!", by Dick Jonas.

"In an ancient warbird, built in 43, still fighting onnnn….from NKP"

T!
 
pbehn said:
A staggering level of losses and they didnt end in the USA. There were more loses training in UK. I believe there were questions asked in Congress about it.
Click to expand...

I am not sure the numbers for the A-26 is exceptionally high, but, it is, I would suspect the reason, as I have stated before on discussions on the early B-26s, is poor AAF training adaptation to the increasing wing load associated with higher performance aircraft. The A-26B has a gross weight wing loading about 65% higher than the A-20A and B-25A and over 40% higher than much maligned B-26A (which was later re-winged to reduce). Safe operation of high wing loaded aircraft is not rocket science but is a function of proper training as practically any modern high performance pilot (which include most military pilots) can affirm.
 
Losses for the A-26 in training may have been lower. They certainly had several years to figure out the training problem and give pilots more time on twin engine aircraft before sticking them in the high performance/high speed bombers.

The Flap system on the A-26 was quite a bit different and an A-26 at 31,000lbs had only about a 5-10mph higher stalling speed than a Martin B-26 at 30,000lbs.

Depending on weight the single engine flying speed may actually be in favor of the A-26 (manual says 135mph but weight not given and says that is for engine out on take-off but doesn't say if flaps and gear are down, B-26 says 140mph, flaps and gear up at 28,000lbs and 150mph at 32,000lbs).
 
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