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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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45-Shooter       1/21/2013 4:18:49 PM

    There are a host of other technical issues as to why the US and UK bomber and fighter forces evolved differently. Beam attacks and head on firing passes from German cannon firing fighters became possible, when you MUST provide an all around defense with multiple machine guns. Drag KILLS, because it robs you of speed and altitude. The American wartime propaganda claimed a virtue of this necessity, but Boeing, Martin and Consolidated aircraft designers knew the Germans were right about SPEED. The B-17 was supposed to be a 300 knot bomber at 27000 feet. It was a 200 knot bomber at 22,000 feet. (Corection; it was a 240 MPH bomber at 25-30,000' bomber!) Lots of DRAG. No wonder the Lancaster was a more efficient bomb truck as far as payload and crew. THREE TONNES of ammunition, life support, additional men and guns went into each Flying Fort, that a Lancaster did not carry or need. Note that IN SPITE of all that extra weight, the Empty Equipped Weight of the B-17F/G was over 300 pounds lighter than the EEW of the Lancaster and several hundred to 1,000 pounds lighter than the other Heavies from England! See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... PLUS; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...  36,135 to 36,457 pounds!) That's a lot of gas and bombs not carried.


 



The main reasons why the Average bomb load of the Lanc was heavier than that of the B-17 were they flew at lower altitude, which was certainly THE SINGLE most significant reason and they had more powerful engines to make up for the higher drag of their less refined airfraim. As a side effect of these facts, they also flew as an AVERAGE, shorter missions than those of the B-17s. Note I said AVERAGE, not signular! How many shuttle sortees to Poland etc, did they fly in Lancs?

 
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oldbutnotwise       1/22/2013 2:49:51 AM

ere are a host of other technical issues as to why the US and UK bomber and fighter forces evolved differently. Beam attacks and head on firing passes from German cannon firing fighters became possible, when you MUST provide an all around defense with multiple machine guns. Drag KILLS, because it robs you of speed and altitude. The American wartime propaganda claimed a virtue of this necessity, but Boeing, Martin and Consolidated aircraft designers knew the Germans were right about SPEED. The B-17 was supposed to be a 300 knot bomber at 27000 feet. It was a 200 knot bomber at 22,000 feet. (Corection; it was a 240 MPH bomber at 25-30,000' bomber!) Lots of DRAG. No wonder the Lancaster was a more efficient bomb truck as far as payload and crew. THREE TONNES of ammunition, life support, additional men and guns went into each Flying Fort, that a Lancaster did not carry or need. Note that IN SPITE of all that extra weight, the Empty Equipped Weight of the B-17F/G was over 300 pounds lighter than the EEW of the Lancaster and several hundred to 1,000 pounds lighter than the other Heavies from England! See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... PLUS; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...  36,135 to 36,457 pounds!) That's a lot of gas and bombs not carried.



 







The main reasons why the Average bomb load of the Lanc was heavier than that of the B-17 were they flew at lower altitude, which was certainly THE SINGLE most significant reason and they had more powerful engines to make up for the higher drag of their less refined airfraim. As a side effect of these facts, they also flew as an AVERAGE, shorter missions than those of the B-17s. Note I said AVERAGE, not signular! How many shuttle sortees to Poland etc, did they fly in Lancs?
the Lanc airframe was fine in fact as it was the samebasic airframe that was used in the Lincoln and shackleton it had a far longer suervice life than the B17
Yes how many did it make? how many time did the RAF bomb scheinfurt? the info is out there


 
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oldbutnotwise       1/22/2013 2:58:29 AM





Could someone, (B?) possibly do the following, (I think it might be a better way of establishing a basis for debate.)

List some points that explain in broad terms what are, in your view the key differences between RAF Bomber Command's strategy and those of the USAAF and their respective effects. I find this debate very interesting and think it would help anyone reading (now or in future) to understand the key arguments. 

(((( Personally I think a lot of the criticism of Harris is justified - much more generally I think a lot of these apply to an awful lot of what the RAF/Army and RN did when compared to the US forces - British wartime innovation seems to me to be mainly technological in nature (which includes code-breaking and RADAR) with wartime strategy being slow (and stubborn) to adapt to the new reality that the Germans created - IMV a lot of that is explained by the manner in which many key figures in the war were given (and managed to retain) their commissions, a legacy of our bizarre class system in which the aristocracy managed to seamlessly secure high-command throughout irrespective of ingenuity or success. ))))



 


I know that you are right about this part highlighted in yellow above.
Harris was intent on punishing the German People for the atrossities of the Blitz as anyone who has read any of the various sources at the time knows. His intrangience at the time about changing targets from city bombing to more strategically realivant targets like oil and aircraft industry is all the evidence I need to prove the point.
But having said that, city bombing was a strategic idea that DID help to win the war! The displacement and killing of workers forced the reduction of NAZI production of vital war materials. My problem with Harris is one of failure to adopt new targets when it was prooved that they had a MUCH LARGER effect on the War than his city attacks.

 
did you read he bit where it states that Harris did all the Oil raids requested of him? or that he actually was carrying out more oil raids than the USAAF by late 44 ?

you have no evidence as you fail do ANY research even when its handed to you, yes Harris was commited to city bombing he was of an era that taught that air bombing could win wars, he say what Coventry and the East End blitzs did (some thing you Yanks were fortuneatly saved from) so he would have little sympathy for the German civilians, he was employed to carry out these attacks and had to force them though dispite horrendous losses, do you think that you could do that? do the will of yous superiors lossing all those crews and not convince yourself that you were right? and according to Speer he was damn close to achiving his objectives, in facthad he been given the amount and type of bombers he wanted when he wanted them he might have achived it


 
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Reactive       1/22/2013 11:58:18 AM
As Speer himself said - the main detriment of Area Bombardment to German wartime production was the requirement for thousands of 88mm guns (and gunners) that were employed as AA - given the effectiveness of the 88's against Soviet (and allied) armour an additional several thousand guns and the crews and ammo that were tasked to them might have made some considerable difference in the East. As to the effects of Area Bombing the German workers - not particularly effective - Germany had an abundance of manpower for factories and in any case continued to increase output. Is it honestly your view (OBNW) that the (near singleminded) destruction of cities was really justifiable in the later stages of the war, especially given the costs to British wartime production elsewhere and the >40K aircrew KIA? Surely it's not
 
Was this an organisation that had much more interest in the lives of its servicemen than the WW1-era army? Did it display the same characteristic ruthlessness that comes from having sociopathic leaders picked from a narrowly-defined spectrum of 'leadership material', that for example, convinced themselves that they would mirror Hitler's objective of bombing a population into submission despite the questionable evidence (even at the time) that it was effective, despite the fact that it had failed in the case of Britain and despite the fact that even today the statistics indicate highly questionable effects in terms of German war output.
 
Some good quotes from the following videos:
 
"The night bombing could never be accurate enough to be particularly harmful, the damage we did to the Germans was roughly half of what it cost us to build the airplanes, it was clearly a waste of resources as far as we were concerned apart from the 40 000 young men that got killed in the planes and 400 000 on the ground. So it was a total tragedy." 
 
 "By January/February of '44 it was clear that we'd failed, if we couldn't make a firestorm in Berlin then what was the point of the whole thing, we certainly weren't hitting the factories and the German weapons production was going up constantly all through those times, and so we became completely aware of this by, I think, March '44 and so from then on my job was to save the lives of the bomber-crews and that was all I could do"
 
(although his pleas to widen the escape hatches on the Lancs were more or less disregarded, similarly his idea of removing the ineffective weight of the machine-guns (and 2 crew) were also disregarded despite the ~50mph speed boost and altitude boost this could have given - from his book disturbing the universe:
 
All our advice to the commander in chief [went] through the chief of our section, who was a career civil servant. His guiding principle was to tell the commander in chief things that the commander in chief liked to hear… To push the idea of ripping out gun turrets, against the official mythology of the gallant gunner defending his crew mates…was not the kind of suggestion the commander in chief liked to hear. 
 
 
 
 
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Reactive       1/22/2013 12:16:34 PM
^^ Note on the above videos, despite having the same thumbnails they are in fact different excerpts from a series of video interviews hosted at :
 
webofstories.com/play/4343?o=M... 
 
And one footnote, I'm not suggesting that it's a matter of nationality to defend or criticise the actions of those fighting WW2 - but what I can say unequivocally is that the young aircrews that lost their lives in the tens of thousands deserved better, hindsight enables us to scrutinise whether their enormous sacrifice was worthwhile in terms of the broader war-effort, my own view is that even at the time they were sent to die with gay abandon for an objective that was not sound even in theory (area bombing), with little evidence to support the notion that it would lead to a German surrender, at a time when resources would have been better spent in terms of CAS and Armour. 
 
 
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JFKY    No   1/23/2013 6:19:08 PM
The aerial bombing campaign diverted 600,000 German troops and thousands of guns and aircraft.  And it DID destroy thousands of a/c and panzers, either directly or indirectly.  So it was a valuable tool of attrition.  It simply matters whether you measure the RAF/USAAF versus their goals or against their achievements.  They achieved much, just not as much as Douhet, Harris, Spaatz and the like postulated.
 
I don't know if the "cost" would have been more or less without it....sure no one would have died over Schweinfurt or the Ruhr, but they would have died at the hands of the Pzkw IV's and V's  and the Wehrmacht ground forces that would have to have been defeated by that increased armour and CAS.
 
So the choice is die at the hands of Panzer Lehr, near full strength, in the bocage or die over the Ruhr destroying some of those Panthers that would otherwise be awaiting you in the bocage
 
Should the RAF/USAAF have on "oil" sooner, yes, but that doesn't mean that the attacks on Germany were wasted, merely less effective than they could have been.  And some of that is 20/20 hindsight. 
 
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45-Shooter       1/23/2013 7:01:20 PM


  Could someone, (B?) possibly do the following, (I think it might be a better way of establishing a basis for debate.)
List some points that explain in broad terms what are, in your view the key differences between RAF Bomber Command's strategy and those of the USAAF and their respective effects. I find this debate very interesting and think it would help anyone reading (now or in future) to understand the key arguments. 
(((( Personally I think a lot of the criticism of Harris is justified - much more generally I think a lot of these apply to an awful lot of what the RAF/Army and RN did when compared to the US forces - British wartime innovation seems to me to be mainly technological in nature (which includes code-breaking and RADAR) with wartime strategy being slow (and stubborn) to adapt to the new reality that the Germans created - IMV a lot of that is explained by the manner in which many key figures in the war were given (and managed to retain) their commissions, a legacy of our bizarre class system in which the aristocracy managed to seamlessly secure high-command throughout irrespective of ingenuity or success. ))))

I know that you are right about this part highlighted in yellow above.
Harris was intent on punishing the German People for the atrossities of the Blitz as anyone who has read any of the various sources at the time knows. His intrangience at the time about changing targets from city bombing to more strategically realivant targets like oil and aircraft industry is all the evidence I need to prove the point.
 
But having said that, city bombing was a strategic idea that DID help to win the war! The displacement and killing of workers forced the reduction of NAZI production of vital war materials. My problem with Harris is one of failure to adopt new targets when it was prooved that they had a MUCH LARGER effect on the War than his city attacks.
did you read he bit where it states that Harris did all the Oil raids requested of him? or that he actually was carrying out more oil raids than the USAAF by late 44 ? Yes, I did read that. I also read the time line involved and how Harris delayed bombing the oil targets. War is like a massivefootball game. Doing more of something later is not like doing less of something sooner.

you have no evidence as you fail do ANY research even when its handed to you, yes Harris was commited to city bombing he was of an era that taught that air bombing could win wars, he say what Coventry and the East End blitzs did (some thing you Yanks were fortuneatly saved from) so he would have little sympathy for the German civilians, he was employed to carry out these attacks and had to force them though dispite horrendous losses, do you think that you could do that? do the will of yous superiors lossing all those crews and not convince yourself that you were right? and according to Speer he was damn close to achiving his objectives, in facthad he been given the amount and type of bombers he wanted when he wanted them he might have achived it Interesting? Really?






I did read the entire article. Did you? I made several points, the ones above based o n both your own st atements and those of the author of that article.
 
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45-Shooter       1/23/2013 7:15:37 PM


  
The main reasons why the Average bomb load of the Lanc was heavier than that of the B-17 were they flew at lower altitude, which was certainly THE SINGLE most significant reason and they had more powerful engines to make up for the higher drag of their less refined airfraim. As a side effect of these facts, they also flew as an AVERAGE, shorter missions than those of the B-17s. Note I said AVERAGE, not signular! How many shuttle sortees to Poland etc, did they fly in Lancs?

the Lanc airframe was fine in fact as it was the samebasic airframe that was used in the Lincoln and shackleton it had a far longer suervice life than the B17 This is absolutely true, BUT is is realitive to the discussion? What does length of service after the War have to do with an OBVIOUSLY obsolite aircraft, have to do when it was new and not as obsolite?

Yes how many did it make? how many time did the RAF bomb scheinfurt? the info is out there
I did not mention Schweinfurt. I asked about Poland.





I made two points;
1. That the primary reason why the Lancaster had a LARGER AVERAGE bomb load than the B-17 was because it flew at lower altitude.
2. That the B-17 was the more aerodynamic of the two planes.
It is not possible to make a RATIONAL argument that these two facts are not true!
I have supported those arguments with many facts, such as the B-17 was SLIGHTLY lighter EEW by a few hundred pounds out of ~36,500 and had a longer range at equivalent weights. Also that with slightly to much less power, the B-17 was faster than the Lancaster at the same weight.
To this point in time, I am not aware of any rebuttal of these supporting facts, or rational arguments about the PRIMARY CLAIMS above.
 
 
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45-Shooter       1/23/2013 7:23:11 PM

^^ Note on the above videos, despite having the same thumbnails they are in fact different excerpts from a series of video interviews hosted at :

webofstories.com/play/4343?o=M... 
And one footnote, I'm not suggesting that it's a matter of nationality to defend or criticise the actions of those fighting WW2 - but what I can say unequivocally is that the young aircrews that lost their lives in the tens of thousands deserved better, hindsight enables us to scrutinise whether their enormous sacrifice was worthwhile in terms of the broader war-effort, my own view is that even at the time they were sent to die with gay abandon for an objective that was not sound even in theory (area bombing), with little evidence to support the notion that it would lead to a German surrender, at a time when resources would have been better spent in terms of CAS and Armour. 
 
You are so very right!

 
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45-Shooter       1/23/2013 7:30:04 PM

The aerial bombing campaign diverted 600,000 German troops and thousands of guns and aircraft.  And it DID destroy thousands of a/c and panzers, either directly or indirectly.  So it was a valuable tool of attrition.  It simply matters whether you measure the RAF/USAAF versus their goals or against their achievements.  They achieved much, just not as much as Douhet, Harris, Spaatz and the like postulated. I would postulate that part of the combined campaign was not a valuable tool at all. I would also stipulate that most of the guys mentioned above were wrong. I would state that city bombing was a waist, regardless of which AF did it. But the Day light bombing campaign has very great results in three areas, oil, weapons production, and the destruction of the Luftwaffe. I don't know if the "cost" would have been more or less without it....sure no one would have died over Schweinfurt or the Ruhr, but they would have died at the hands of the Pzkw IV's and V's  and the Wehrmacht ground forces that would have to have been defeated by that increased armour and CAS. So the choice is die at the hands of Panzer Lehr, near full strength, in the bocage or die over the Ruhr destroying some of those Panthers that would otherwise be awaiting you in the bocage
Should the RAF/USAAF have on "oil" sooner, yes, but that doesn't mean that the attacks on Germany were wasted, merely less effective than they could have been.  And some of that is 20/20 hindsight. 

Note that I have only replied about the highlighted parts above.

 
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