John Halliwell wrote:

In article , Keith Willshaw keithNoSpa
writes
In daylight they would have suffered excessive losses. The Mosquitoes
of Bomber Command were excellent night bombers but unless
you have long range fighter escorts they would not have survived
over Germany in 1943.

I was assuming long range fighter escort as that was the only way
daylight bombing was ever going to work. Without it, losses would be
high as they were with all other types.

Not really. Discarding the waist gunners and fairing over the positions
would have saved several hundred pounds and cruising at 30,000 ft
the B-17 would have been a tough target for German nightfighters.

On that basis, removing the waste guns (of questionable use anyway) and
fairing over might have been a better idea for daylight ops.

No real need to fair over the waist hatches, as they either already have
removable hatches (pre-B-17G) or fixed windows with the ball mount for the
..50 installed in it. As I noted in another post, removing the waist guns
and/or gunners was done from mid-44 on in the ETO. ETO B-24s, about the
same time, removed the ball turret and the gunners were sent to the MTO.
the other advantage of removing guns/gunners aft of the wing was that it
allowed the Cg to move back forward, closer to where it was supposed to be.
Like most a/c, weight had been constantly added, and it usually seems to be
added behind the Cg. This was a problem with both the B-17 and B-24, making
them less stable and more difficult to fly in formation/on instruments.

Guy