Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainDoggles
Got a source? Lancasters could land on just a single engine, and maintain altitude with just two.
B-17s could carry something like 18000 lbs of bombs. IIRC the Mosquito carried less than a quarter of that.
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Regarding the Lancasters, it was stated in terms of things like in-flight fires, behaviour in crash landing and how easy/difficult it was to get out of the plane. It was in the Lancaster focus article on a quarterly aviation publication (world air power review), but i don't remember which issue. If i remember about it tomorrow, i'll have a look around the house and see if i can dig it up.
As for the mossie and B17, yes, my statement was a bit simplified because a lot depends on range vs payload. The B-17s usually carried 6000lbs to achieve the needed range on most of their missions. The mossie could do that (i think the "cookie" block buster bomb alone was 4000lb) but i doubt the usual load in a mossie would be 6000lbs for the same reasons.
However, it was probably still cheaper (especially in terms of crew losses, it's almost as fast as a fighter and if it goes down only 2-3 crewmen are lost instead of 7-10) and just as accurate to put extra mossies in the air to get the same amount of explosives raining on a target.
Mossies were among the main pathfinder aircraft and they were fast enough to operate in daylight if they went in at a high altitude. I'm theorisizing a bit here, but i suppose that having a few hundred of them bombing on command of 1-2 dozen lead ships equipped with pathfinder gear would do the trick just as good as the heavies. Less bombs (hence less bomb spread) per aircraft, cheaper to put more of them in the air to get the same total tonnage, accurate bomb release regardless of weather conditions and time of day (thanks to the pathfinder lead ships), etc.
It certainly is an interesting prospect and if any of the CoD sequels ever get to modeling the bomber offensive over Europe and the electronics of the time, it will be among the first things i will try out
