"Eunometic" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 3, 7:41 am, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:
"Eunometic" wrote in message

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Essential and Dispensible WW2 aircraft.
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I've created a list of aircraft of WW2 that were essential to that
side and also others that were dispensible in the sense that their
place could easily have been taken by other aircraft or that were so
ineffective that they were not needed at all.

A great deal of effort was spent on aircraft that did not perform and
were 'war loosers' while there was also a great deal of duplication of
effort on aircraft that added nothing special and detracted from gains
in production.

United Kingdom

Essential:
Hurricane; had to be avialable in numbers for battle of britain
Spitfire; had to provide quality fighter throughout the war an
amenable to all rolls.
Mosquito; night bomber, night fighter, fast day bomber and most
importanty reconaisance aircraft par excellance.
Lancaster; easy to fly, devastating war load.
Wellington: Britains Medium bomber and an important coastal command
aircraft.

Non Essential:
Beaufighter; not a useless aircraft as it could take damage but its
roll could have been taken by others. It kept bristol busy.

I strongly disagree. It played an essential role both as a nightfighter
and
in the shipping strike role in the ETO and their long range made
them extremely valuable ground attack aircraft in the far east

It's contemporary the the Mosquito could also do that job, and much
better at that.

The Beau was in service a full year before the Mosquito and with its
twin air cooled radials was much more resistant to damage in the
low level strike role. I knew a coastal command pilot who flew
both types and he reckoned the Beau was the better choice for low
level shipping strikes, one hit in the cooling system on the Mosquito and
you could lose an engine

What I don't like about it was that if confronted by german airforce
day fighters it was
in deep trouble. It needed an escort; whereas the mosquito coastal
command aircraft actualy took on Fw 190.

And lost if the German pilot knew his business, the Mosquito
was outclassed by German single seat fighters and the coastal command
version

If given a choice of choosing between 1000 extra Mosquito vs 1000 less
beaufighter?



Timing old boy, in 1942 and 1943 there simply were not the Mosquitos
available,
the first FB VI didnt fly until June 1942 but the Beaufighter Mk IC entered
service in May 1941 and played a vital role in the shpping strikes from
Malta that devastated the logistics of the Afrika Corps. It was also
much more suitable for use in the Far East where the Mosquito was to suffer
from severe problems due to its wooden construction




Hampden;
Halifax; a good aircraft but Lancaster was better.
Stirling; a waste of time although a saluatory lesson.
Tempest and Typhoon: These aicraft had very poor high altitude
performance and the typhoon had handling difficulties, was not
particularly fast due to its thick wing and its airframe tended to
snap of at the tail

It could and did however make an excellent ground attack aircraft
and played a vital role in the western campaign attacking the
Wehrmacht

I don't deny it. It was kind of successful, napier and tail breakages
aside but as far as I can see the Mk XII Griffon spit could do a
better job and was available at the right time.

Immagine putting the engineers who were working on the the Typhoon/
Tempest and the Sabre to work on things more essential
such as a B-29 class bomber using the centaurus or a fast medium
bomber.


B-29 type bombers were neither needed or affordable and the policy
was to buy US made medium bombers. The Tempest was needed to
counter the V-1 and FW-190 raids on the south coast and the Typhoon
replaced the Hurricane IID in the ground attack role, both were essential
roles.


Generally the British (air ministry, raf etc) had the knack of
abandoning loosing designs and making pragmatic choices.


Just so, they decided NOT to pursue the Victory bomber design by
Barnes Wallis for exceedingly pragmatic reasons, this was indeed a
British aircraft designed for the same high altitude role filled by the
B-29.

Keith