WWII Fighter Bombers

In article ,
"M. H. Greaves" writes:
I read a book recently about a fighter group who flew with one under wing
tank, and a bomb under the other, with P51's, the drag must have been
hellish!
The U.S. used the P47, and the P38's to great advantake for ground attack,
the RAF used the typhoon, the tempest, the beaufort, these are the most
prominent ones i can remember.

Not a whole lot of Beuforts used as Firgter-Bombers or Light Bombers.
They were tasked as Torpedo Bombers, for antishipping work. (As were,
in fact, most Beaufighters) By mid '44, the usual RAF Light Bomber was
the Mosquito FB.VI.

The P51's mainly carried two under wing tanks, which they used first, them
when the time came to dog fight, they would let them go; they had a big fuel
tank in behind the pilot to fall back on.

A little bit oof there. For P-51s with the aft fuel tank, the
sequence was to burn the fuel in the aft tank first, then the drops.
A full aft tank moved the Center of Gravity to the extreme back end of
its allowable range, and caused a tendency to overshoot in pitch
(pulling G, for instance) that wasn't acceptable in combat. Return
fuel would have been in the normal wing tanks.

Any fighter bomber that had say small bombs would execute their primary
objectives first,i.e. drop the bombs first because to dog fight with a bomb
under neath could be too risky, the drag, extra weight, and the damger of
the bombs being hit while still attached., they would not be required to go
any great distance with the bombs; this was the medium, and heavy bombers
task, if the fighters carried a bomb or two they would be used to soften a
target with aswell as others straffing, and perhaps those doing the
straffing would cover thos carrying the bombs.

It perhaps should also be pointed out that the bombs were the
fighter-bomber's most effective weapons, so naturally they'd be used
first. Bombs are pretty inseneitive to damage from things like
bullets & fragments. That's why they require special fuzes and
booster charges (Which are in the fuze wells in the center of the
bomb) to set them off. The danger of a hung bomb comes from two
sources - if the arming wire's been pulled, allowing the vanes onthe
fuze to turn, moving the firing mechanism into alignment, then it can
go off with a sufficient impact in the right direction. If the rack
didn't release all the way, or if one lug has released and the other
hasn't then the bomb could fall of its own accord at just about any
time, and if it doesn't release cleanly can casue severe damage to teh
airframe. USAAF firghter-bombers, (And RAF Mustangs used as
fighter-bombers) were quite wide-ranging. The first RAF fighter over
Germany were Mustang Is (Allison engines, and no fuselage tank) flying
Armed Recce missions past Kiel in early 1942. (Brit built fighters
just never had much in the way of range, carrying bombs or not).

Ta answer the previous poster's question (And this is why Top Posting
is abhorrent - it breaks up the flow of the conversation):

It depends on the situation. If the fighter-bombers are being
escorted, and the escorts can handle teh attackers, then they'd
probably keep the bombs and press on to the target. If the attacking
fighters don't have enough of a performance advantage to be able to
catch the fighter bombers in good time - tail chases are slow - then
it would be a jusdgement call. The drag of bombs was about the same
as that of an equivalaently sized drop tank.

"zxcv" wrote in message
...
Would a fighter plane (say a P-51 or P-40 for example) that was on mission
to drop some tactgical bombs and encountered some any fighters generally
drop its bombs before engaging the enemy? or just try to run away? or
fight
with them still hanging on (sounds pretty dangerous to me with the extra
weight and the BOMBs hanging under their wings)?



--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster