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#141
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"John Halliwell" wrote in message ... In article , Guy Alcala writes No, I'm saying that _if_ you followed US practises etc., the Lanc's performance would be within a few % either way of the B-17's. But why drag the performance of an aircraft down by using it in a way that is clearly inefficient? All this discussion has confirmed to me is how inefficient the big box formations actually were. Dragging the performance of a heavy bomber down to the point where it is carrying a similar load to a Mossie, whilst remaining considerably vulnerable (and with a crew of ten), doesn't make much sense to me. Its a good job they didnt do that then isnt it ? A couple of Mossies with a light load, perhaps 2,000lbs each start to sound more and more promising. Small, fast formations may have been very effective. 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. The Mosquito's that were used in daylight raids were mostly the FB variety typically carrying 1000lb bomb loads and making relatively shallow penetration raids into France and the low countries Nowhere did I say that you had to do so, but that is the variable that is always left out of the Lanc vs. B-17 threads, so that they wind up comparing apples and oranges. The B-17 bomb bay was not the best arrangement for carrying large loads. As such had it been used in night ops, the range/payload may not have been able to be improved to compensate for lighter fuel (or fewer guns/crew) loads. On that basis, it's easier to drag the Lanc down by hampering it with US practises than boost the B-17 by using RAF practises. 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. Indeed bomber command used Fortress III's (B-17G) in 214 squadron in the Radio countermeasures role. Their operational loss rate was 1.1% Keith |
#142
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"Joe Osman" wrote in message ... Peter Stickney wrote: In article , Guy Alcala writes: Cub Driver wrote: SNIP That sounds about right. The B-47 had the advantage of peacetime development, but its engines were so slow to spool up that the plane had to land under power with a parachute. Lacking the power, it would crash if it had to go around. This is not accurate. However, I once saw a British-produced video dealing with the Comet/Nomrod in which this canard apparently first appeared. The narration suggested that US jetengine was so deficient that the B-47 NEEDED JATO assist for ALL takeoffs, and confused the use of drag 'chutes for reduced landing distances with a lack of power for a go-around. The B-47 used six engines approximately the same as the four used for supplementary power on B-36s; as fas as spool-up times are concerned, in the typical useage by the B-36, the pilots would start and bring the four engines up to speed even as the a/c was in its takeoff roll under the power of its six piston engines. By the time the B-36 reached takeoff speed, all four jets were at maximum thrust. Not a long spool-up time at all. |
#143
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Subject: #1 Jet of World War II
From: Guy Alcala Date: 7/24/03 12:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: ArtKramr wrote: Subject: #1 Jet of World War II From: Guy Alcala Date: 7/23/03 7:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: bombs and dropping from higher up, but it's by no means certain that's the case (unlike some on the NG, I don't rule out the possibility, but the only way to find out for sure would have been to actually try it, and that didn't happen). I guess it is possible to destroy Berlin one house at a time, But that isn't the best way to get the job done. I see the analogy sauled way over your head unrecogniosed for what it was. s a practical matter the U.S. stopped worrying about doing area bombing with the heavies from the fall of 1943 on to the end Stopped worrying? What does that ,mean exactly? of the war. If we could see to bomb visually, great; otherwise, we'd bomb by radar or other radio navaids with a 2 or 3 mile CEP, which is area bombing by anyone's standard. Of course, even when the heavies could bomb visually, 'precision' was relative. Here's Elmer Bendiner, a B-17 Nav. in the 379th BG(H), talking about the June '43 mission against the I.G. Farben synthetic rubber plant at Huls, in the Ruhr. Writing some 35 years later, he says: "Our losses, including those of the main and diversionary forces, amounted to 20 planes, two hundred men, roughly ten percent. Nevertheless, our superiors were pleased with us because we had dropped 422 tons bombs and, according to the reconnaissance photos, only 333.4 tons had been wasted on homes, streets, public parks, zoos, department stores and air-raid shelters. This passed for precision. "Actually Huls might have been put out of comission permanently if there had been a follow-up. After our mission the city went almost unscathed right to the end of the war. We had devastated buidlings and shaken morale, but tire production, although on a limited scale, was resumed within a month. Synthetic-rubber production suffered perhaps six months but soon was reaching new peaks. I have searched the records and find no explanation for our failure to return and finish the job. The Germans were astonished at the time. After the war American scholars of our air strategy were surprised, but nobody nitpicks a victory. A cold analysis of the balance sheet at Huls indicates that the lives lost that day Huls raid was considered by us at the time to have achieved excellent bombing results. IIRR, "Impact" devoted an article to the mission. Guy You seem to miss the point of the air war over Europe. Let me explain ., It was to hit he enemy and hurt him all the time every time. In good weather and bad. With high losses or low losses. But never ever stop the raids. Some were more successful than others. Some were more accurate than others. But never the less the missions would be flown, the losses taken and we would never stop. Your petty backbighting criticism made up of 100% hindsight takes no recognition of the determinantion we had to erase Germany. And in all the missions you criticise with such contempt I doubt if you could have doe any better than we did under the circumstances. In fact there is no evidence that you could even have made the cut as aircrew at all. So replace your attacks on our performance and just say thank you and let it go at that... Arthur Kramer Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
#144
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Subject: #1 Jet of World War II
From: Guy Alcala Date: 7/24/03 10:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: No, the point of the war was to fly the missions at a cost we could afford (preferably the lowest cost to ourselves) and the highest co You live in a dream world of unreality. Many missions had to be flown no matter what the cost. And we flew them. And paid the price. Arthur Kramer Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
#145
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ArtKramr wrote:
Subject: #1 Jet of World War II From: Guy Alcala Date: 7/24/03 10:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: No, the point of the war was to fly the missions at a cost we could afford (preferably the lowest cost to ourselves) and the highest co You live in a dream world of unreality. Many missions had to be flown no matter what the cost. And we flew them. And paid the price. Whatever, Art, I'm not going to waste any more energy arguing with you. Guy |
#146
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#147
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In article ,
"Lawrence Dillard" writes: "Joe Osman" wrote in message ... Peter Stickney wrote: In article , Guy Alcala writes: Cub Driver wrote: SNIP That sounds about right. The B-47 had the advantage of peacetime development, but its engines were so slow to spool up that the plane had to land under power with a parachute. Lacking the power, it would crash if it had to go around. This is not accurate. However, I once saw a British-produced video dealing with the Comet/Nomrod in which this canard apparently first appeared. The narration suggested that US jetengine was so deficient that the B-47 NEEDED JATO assist for ALL takeoffs, and confused the use of drag 'chutes for reduced landing distances with a lack of power for a go-around. The B-47 used six engines approximately the same as the four used for supplementary power on B-36s; as fas as spool-up times are concerned, in the typical useage by the B-36, the pilots would start and bring the four engines up to speed even as the a/c was in its takeoff roll under the power of its six piston engines. By the time the B-36 reached takeoff speed, all four jets were at maximum thrust. Not a long spool-up time at all. The B-47 did have, as they say today, some "issues" with taking off and landing. The airplane was entirely opimized for cruising at 'bout 500 kts/35,000', with all other considerations being very much secondary. This meant that it had a pretty small wing/high wing loading, very low drag, and even more than most other early jets, was seriously underpowered at low speeds. It didn't matter what the engine spoolup times were (About 8-12 seconds, IIRC). The biggest probelm were wer getting the thing to speed up at all at low speeds, or takeoff, and getting it to slow down. (The bicycle gear, which meant that you couldn't adjust AOA on takeoff or landing didn't help, either.) A B-47 certainly could take off withoug JATO, it just took, for a B-47E, about 10,500' of ground run to do so. the JATO buttle cut about 3500' off of that. (Standard day, don't try it in the summer.) The lack of drag was a problem in the approach and landing. The airplane didn't respond well to power changes. You could haul the throttles all the way back, and it just kept going. Maintaining proper speeds in the pattern (And, with that bicycle gear, you only landed at the exact right speed - too fast, and you'd either glide the length of the runway or bounce it off the nose truck) made things rather tough. The solution was to carry and stream an "Approach Chute", a 16 diameter parachute that added enough drag that it would actually slow down when you chopped the throttles. The Braking Chute was a 32' job. (Ground roll was 4600' without the Brake Chute, and 2600' with. If you could take it off from a field, you could land it. (All numbers from the B-47E-IV SAC Chart, Feb. 1966) The difficulties of getting a B-47 off of, and onto the ground, and the very dicey takeoff behavior of the Comet I (A Comet I had to be rotated to an AOA of 10 degrees at exactly the right spot in the takeoff run. At 9 degrees, it wouldn't fly from any runway known to Man, God, or Republic Aviation (Who knew a lot about long ground runs) At 11 degrees, you generated so much induced drag that you'd never reach takeoff speed. Most of the COmet accidents were takeoff crashes, not the two in-flight breakups. (Nearly half the Comet I/IAs wer written off) U.S. airlines rather suspicious of jet airliners in general. It took live demonstrations of tbe Boeing 367-80 to convince the airlines that a jet airliner that flew like an airliner was possible. That being said, it does sound like the Brit Documentary makers were waxing a bit hyperbolic. Not that USAnian documentarists are any better. -- Pete Stickney A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster |
#148
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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 |
#149
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On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 00:11:48 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote: As to that, I've seen loads like a cookie plus a 4,000 lb. incendiary cluster being a fairly typical load. The standard area-bombing load throughout most of the war as one 4,000 lb HC "Cookie" and various Small Bomb Containers making up the rest of the useable bombload, mostly with 4 lb stick incendiaries. On the low-level daytime Lanc raid on Augsburg in 1942, admittedly an unusual case, the a/c apparently only carried 4 x 1,000 lb. bombs each. I think they were still playing around with the maximum all-up weight. Mason in his book on the Lanc quoted a 44 Sqn pilot who lost the wing-tips and had to perform a crash landing when carrying six 1,500 lb mines in that period after the all-up weight had been raised to allow that load, which prompted Chadwick himself to turn up and question the crew before beginning correctional airframe strengthening. One thing Middlebrook or maybe it was Max Hastings noted was that at some point during the Battle of Berlin, the bomb loads were increased. They seem to be for some groups. 1 Group certainly took advantage of a further increase in all-up wieght (to 65,000 lbs IIRC) to hang yet more bombs on their Lancs, to the detriment of the handling, performance and inevitably the attrition rate as a consquence. The Jagdwaffe noticed this because there was an immediate increase in the shootdown rate, presumably because the a/c were cruising at lower altitudes and/or were less maneuverable and more highly stressed, making them easier pickings. I think this is what Bennett's criticism of Cookies being jettisoned over the North Sea, which he saw with his own eyes, refers to. Having said that, 5 Group's loads remained relatively stable at the lower AUW, but their losses also increased over the period. So the German defences were adapting to the Hamburg era tactics and improving over time (more SN-2 sets becoming operational, Stirlings disappearing with their ability to soak up the easist initial interceptions, etc) but there's no doubt increasing the bombload at that stage carried too big a performance penalty, with a consequent increase in losses and decrease in morale. Gavin Bailey -- "...this level of misinformation suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." - 'Poll shows errors in beliefs on Iraq, 9/11' The Charlotte Observer, 20th June 2003 |
#150
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