Lancaster verses Boeing

[antarmike]

Whilst singing the praises of the Mosquito, let us not forget The DeHavilland Hornet.

Built with the same principles it was ( I beleive) the faster Piston engine Fighter ever to be built (at 472 Miles per Hour ) They were the last piston engine fighters to serve with the RAF, being withdrawn and replaced by Vampires in early 1956 and as bueautiful as the Mossie

[antarmike]

Whatever they were designed for, they ended up doing much the same job, daylight heavy bombing..., Maritime patrol... Surveying,... air sea rescue duties ( both with a lifeboat fitted under the fuselage )... Converted to transport aircraft...Electronic counter measures etc so I think comparison is perfectly valid...

 

There was however no equivilent role for the Lanc to the YB40 variant of the Fortress, The Escort fighter version (bristleing with up to 30 0.5" machine guns, which was probably just as well because these were planned to fly amongst the bomber stream to provide extra fire power against fighters.

 

Fine on the outward leg where the speeds of the Fighter and the bomber versions were broadly similar, but on the return leg the YB40 were still carrying the weight of 30 brownings and extra gunners, and could not keep up with the now unladen bombers. They had to defend themselves alone in the sky, and unfutunately a large number were shot down, and the whole idea was dumped after a few missions...

[ArtistsRifles]

Whilst singing the praises of the Mosquito, let us not forget The DeHavilland Hornet.

Built with the same principles it was ( I beleive) the faster Piston engine Fighter ever to be built (at 472 Miles per Hour ) They were the last piston engine fighters to serve with the RAF, being withdrawn and replaced by Vampires in early 1956 and as bueautiful as the Mossie

 

 

Well said sir. The Hornet was indeed another masterpeice!!

 

http://www.designermax.com/pictures/hornet3.JPG[/img]

[Jessie The Jeep]

Whilst singing the praises of the Mosquito, let us not forget The DeHavilland Hornet.

Built with the same principles it was ( I beleive) the faster Piston engine Fighter ever to be built (at 472 Miles per Hour ) They were the last piston engine fighters to serve with the RAF, being withdrawn and replaced by Vampires in early 1956 and as bueautiful as the Mossie

 

 

And just a tad slower than the P-51, another great war winning aircraft.

 

Steve

[antarmike]

I have the Mustang at 437 Miles per hour... Thats quite a bit slower...

[antarmike]

oops Mustang P51-H 487 MPH

[antarmike]

There are other obvious comparisons to be made between similar aircraft built by the british and the Americans with a view to deciding which was best.

 

In the ground attack role one could obvously compare the P47 Thunderbolt to the Hawker Typhoon.

 

But neither the Thunderbolt nor the Typhoon was conceived as a ground attack Aircraft.

 

Both were air superiority fighters, and the Thunderbolt was excellent in this role. Unforfunately for those trying to defend British Aircraft, the Typhoon was pretty disaterous as a fighter, and it took The Hawker companies next aircraft , The Tempest to come up with an excellent fighter.

 

Never conceived as a ground attack Aircraft it took a Maverick RAF pilot, to keep pestering his superiors to let him take his typhoons on a Rhubarb mission to see what they could acheive. It took many requests before permission was granted, but that Pilot saw what the Air Ministry couldn't, that the Typhoon was a truly excellent, stable gun platform, ideal for attcking ground formations and armoured columns, or simply targets of opportunity.

 

Since the P47 was an excellent Fighter and Ground attack, but the Typhoon was only excellent in this one role, I would argue the P47 was a far better aircaft.

 

( Is anyone going to argue the Typhoon (Eurofighter) verses the Mirage, which is better debate?)

 

 

[antarmike]

Personally I prefer the Hornet with this tail

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q208/antarmike/08-01-2008004956.jpg[/img]

[Degsy]

There are other obvious comparisons to be made between similar aircraft built by the british and the Americans with a view to deciding which was best.

 

In the ground attack role one could obvously compare the P47 Thunderbolt to the Hawker Typhoon.

 

But neither the Thunderbolt nor the Typhoon was conceived as a ground attack Aircraft.

 

Both were air superiority fighters, and the Thunderbolt was excellent in this role. Unforfunately for those trying to defend British Aircraft, the Typhoon was pretty disaterous as a fighter, and it took The Hawker companies next aircraft , The Tempest to come up with an excellent fighter.

 

Never conceived as a ground attack Aircraft it took a Maverick RAF pilot, to keep pestering his superiors to let him take his typhoons on a Rhubarb mission to see what they could acheive. It took many requests before permission was granted, but that Pilot saw what the Air Ministry couldn't, that the Typhoon was a truly excellent, stable gun platform, ideal for attcking ground formations and armoured columns, or simply targets of opportunity.

 

Since the P47 was an excellent Fighter and Ground attack, but the Typhoon was only excellent in this one role, I would argue the P47 was a far better aircaft.

 

( Is anyone going to argue the Typhoon (Eurofighter) verses the Mirage, which is better debate?)

 

 

 

 

 

The pilot was Roland Beamont who later became chief test pilot for English Electric on the Canberra and P1 Lightning and I can thoroughly recommend his book 'Against the Sun'

[ArtistsRifles]

( Is anyone going to argue the Typhoon (Eurofighter) verses the Mirage, which is better debate?)

 

 

 

A better argument would be the EuroFighter/Typhoon against the Saab Gripen - which it would appear to be a carbon copy of...... :whistle: :whistle:

[Jessie The Jeep]

I know that modern jets have very clever avionics to spot the enemy and ground targets, but I'm highly amused about the Euro Typhoon pilots inability to see forwards and down! The designers cleverly placed the canard foreplanes just in the right place to be the wrong place for visability!!!!

 

I met some of the Typhoon pilots at the Sunderland Airshow after show party a few years ago. They wouldn't tell me who it was that almost smacked the Display aircraft into the runway at a major show that year. He levelled off from a pull out at about 30~40 feet. I don't believe he should have been that low!!

 

Steve

[Larry Hayward]

Antarmike's comment concerning the P-47 is valid, as I have been in contact with many P47 pilots over the years who confirm how well it stood up to punishment from German light Flak. One pilot said that his aircraft was hit by flak or enemy fire on about half of all the missions he flew in NW Europe but he always returned to base!

 

The P-47 first flew in 1941 and the P-47D onwards could carry 2x 1000lb bombs and enough fuel to range all over NW France down to Brittany. That compares very well with a lot of the two engined light bomber types that were in use up to that time. If fact after WW2 the USAF concluded correctly that it was far better to have single seat fighter bombers to give pin point close support to ground troops than multi engined aircraft like the Boston or Marauder, and this is pretty much standard throughout the world's airforces now. Apart from bombing accuracy the multi engined types could not fight as fighters after dropping their bombs and if they got the chop from flak it meant the loss of more men!

 

On a similar note I once read that during WW2 there was very serious thought by someone in the AM or Bomber Command to replacing most of the heavy bomber fleet with Mosquitos in that they were faster, only carried two crew and only two Merlin engines, thus reducing losses. Apart from the use of Lancs etc for dropping the bigger bombs, I think that it would have been a good strategy. By saving crew training it might have been possible to mount 1,000 aircraft raids with just 2,000 crew and by using just two Merlins per aircraft the number of aircraft could have increased. After all the Mossie could later carry a 4,000 lb cookie and in the majority of cases it was not the amount of bombs each aircraft carried that mattered it was the weight of bombs dropped on the target that counted. Just like the T-34 or Sherman it often proves decisive to have quantity not just quality - but with the Mossie the RAF nearly had both.

[Jessie The Jeep]

Aircraft like the B-17, B-24, P-47, Mk II Lancaster, Some Halifaxes, etc also had radial engines which were much better in combat than liquid cooled engines for damage resistance. One flak splinter through a coolant line and a liquid cooled engine was stuffed. Radial engines could have who cylinders blown off and stay running, which often happened. This was especially useful in ground attack where the aircraft were subject to small arms fire. Probably one reason why the 56th Fighter Group wouldn't change to the Mustang when all other 8th Airforce groups converted. Their kill list suggests they were probably correct. The P-47's 8 x .50's could saw the wing off an enemy fighter with a very short burst of fire!

 

Steve

 

 

[ArtistsRifles]

Probably one of the biggest mistakes the Air Ministry made in the late 1930'swas to use the .303 Browning's rather than the .50 version. It can now only be speculated how different the Battle of Bitain and the Bomber Offensive might have been had the alternate proposal to arm Spitfires, Hurricanes & bomber turrets with the .50 calibre weapon and it's greater hitting power....

I recall reading somewhere an assessment by an officer serving at the time that if the RAF's fighters had carried 4 x .50 instead of the 8 x .303 weapons more of the number of Luftwaffe aircraft that "got away" damaged would have been confirmed kills. Damned if I can remember where I read it now though.. :-(

[Jessie The Jeep]

I've read that somewhere too, so you aren't just imagining it!

 

Steve

[antarmike]

Some of the british single engine fighters mounted 12 not 8 0.303" Brownings in an attempt to increase their punch The Hawker Hurricane from 1941 ), but being wing mounted all the guns were aimed in a converging cone, so all guns only hit the same point at one range,

 

By the contrast the Mossie Fighter with four Machine guns and four cannons all mounted in the nose and aimed to fire parallel had a much more massive and effective punch,

[Jessie The Jeep]

That was the same reasoning for the P-38 Lightning design. The pilot, four .50's and a 20mm cannon were mounted in the centre pod, with the engines and booms outboard. Shoot where you point!

 

Steve

[antarmike]

But you didn't need two engines to see the wisdom, The Me 109 had a cannon firing through the spinner, and two machine guns lying in the fuselage above the engine, firing ( with interupter gear) through the prop.

[Degsy]

, The Me 109 had a cannon firing through the spinner,.

 

 

 

I'm sure I read somewhere that this was one of the oft repeated myths of WW2 although there was a hole in the centre of the spinner it was not for a cannon.

[AlienFTM]

 

I'm sure I read somewhere that this was one of the oft repeated myths of WW2 although there was a hole in the centre of the spinner it was not for a cannon.

 

 

I just went googling for:

 

+bf +109 +coaxial +cannon

 

I got a lot of hits. The first that caught my eye led me to:

 

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=7874

 

This thread talks an awful lot of techie stuff that suggests they know what they are talking about. It also lists a few other aircraft that had a cannon that fired coaxially through the propellor.

 

None of my search results suggested it was urban myth. In fact amending the search string to:

 

+bf +109 +coaxial +cannon +"urban myth"

 

reveals just five hits, none of which looks like it relates to the Bf109.

 

(I searched for Bf109 rather than Me109, because, although obviously built by Messerschmidt, the 109 (and 110) predated the standard whereby the two characters indicated the manufacturer, instead indicating that they were built at the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, the Bavarian Aeroplane Factory). I figured that this would give me a better proportion of people who knew what they were talking about.

[ArtistsRifles]

Some of the british single engine fighters mounted 12 not 8 0.303" Brownings in an attempt to increase their punch The Hawker Hurricane from 1941 ), but being wing mounted all the guns were aimed in a converging cone, so all guns only hit the same point at one range,

 

By the contrast the Mossie Fighter with four Machine guns and four cannons all mounted in the nose and aimed to fire parallel had a much more massive and effective punch,

 

 

Only experienced pilots had the 8 brownings set in a converging cone and this was done by the squadron/airfield armourers. As they came from the factory the 8 guns on both Spitfires and Hurricanes were set in a "fan" pattern on the basis there was more chance of the pilot actually hitting something!!! The theory might have been sound but what it did in reality was dilute the hitting power of an already weak (in comparison to the 109) weapon system....

[Jessie The Jeep]

Harmonisation started out at 400 yards, which still didn't help a great deal as aircraft movement and gun vibration still spread the bullets around. Harmonisation was later reduced to 250 yards, giving a far better concentration of strikes. The big problem was that many pilots misjudged their range when they came in to fire, over-estimating the distance they were, and sometimes firing from 6~800 yards.

 

Steve

[antarmike]

The Bf 109 definitely had an engine mounted MG FF 20mm (0.79") cannon firing through the propellor hub. (But not on all models)

The Bf 109 E-3 carried the engine mounted Cannon as well as two 7.92mm (0.31") mg 17 machine guns mounted above the engine, firing through the propellor arc, and two further wing mounted MG 17 machine guns.

Complaints against this arrangement led to the deletion of the nose mounted cannon and the BF 109 E-4 had it replaced with two wing mounted Oerlikons

[antarmike]

I can't find recorded the nature of the complaint, but it may have been the different tragectories of the cannon and the machine guns.

 

This was the nature of the complain against the tail turret of the B29 Super Fortress,. It was designed with one 20mm Cannon and two 0.5" machine guns, but the cannon had a much greater range, with the machine gun bullets falling to earth on a much more curved trajectory.

 

I beleive the cannon was deleted from later marks, (but i can't find that in print, it might just have been the machine guns that were taken out, No doubt someone will tell us)

[Jessie The Jeep]

On the B-29, it was the cannon that was deleted due to the different trajectory.

 

Steve