The Revolution Will Not Be Televised wrote:

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 19:37:14 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

snip

Even moving the
tips out for greater wing area is going to leave it struggling with
poor engine output at altitude and serious airframe weight issues.

The engine output should be no worse than the Halifax III, but I grant you
the weight issues. OTOH, the Stirling seems like it was quite strong, so a
boost in MTOW may have been possible.

Actually, reducing the weight might have helped more to raise the
ceiling, and you won't be getting many Hercules XVI engines until 1944
as the Halifax production will eat them up. You might as well stick
to using them pretty much as is as an interim type, and get another
ten squadrons to increase the short-penetration supporting missions
along with the six-eight squadrons of 2 Group. They can then re-quip
with the B-24 over time, after gaining daylight experience during the
supporting ops.

Assuming we can get the B-24s. Otherwise it's likely to be Halifax IIIs, in which
case we might want to take another look at those extended-tip Stirlings again.

snip

[B25 bombload]

Personally, I wonder if your source that claimed 2 x 1,000 'and' 4 x 500
should have read 'or', as that would fit better with the claimed bomb bay
capacity in several sources. It wouldn't be the first time that has
happened.

Agreed, and I will check the Squadron ORBs when I get the chance. Any
American stats to compare with this?

Not yet, but I've got a bunch of B-25/B-26 books on order from various libraries,
so hopefully they will have something useful. I've also been reading Alfred
Price's "Spitfi A Complete Fighting History," which has some interesting info
on Mk. V fuel burn, range, Spit drag, etc. I'll cull that and try to post the
more interesting stuff for your and Pete's benefit.

Guy