Joe
> There was one other difference between the 4 engine bombers and the British
> light bombers. The Americans in the heavy bombers flew during the daytime.
> There is a slight chance that this is the reason we lost so many crews.
As far as I have read, Mosquitos were used both day and night. All their
most famous missions were in daylight eg Amien? prison breakout and
Oslo? Gestapo HQ (surgical removal of a single building in the city
centre).
> On the other hand, your idea of using all light bombers (two engines) is the
> same one Germany used in the Eastern Campaign. They decided that lots of
> twin engine bombers would be better than half as many heavy bombers. This
> concept didn't work out too well for them in Russia.
Sorry, but disagree, you are overlooking one important point. The
Germans
used medium bombers eg He-111, Ju-88 and Do-17, all were slow. The
Mosquito could out run most fighters barring those I listed and those
types were not exactly plentiful.
> We would have needed an airbase in Germany in order to run bombing raids
> with fighters. The limiting factor is called endurance.
The Mosquito was a high speed bomber that was also made in a fighter
variant. Lets ** LOOSELY ** compare it to a F-4 Phantom or Thud
circa Vietnam with the B-52's being the equivalent to the B-17s and
Lancasters.
I don't have my reference books to hand to look up the data.
But as I recall, Leonard Cheshire (Dambuster CO) used to do Pathfinder
missions using a Mosquito and these were over Germany, though it is so
long since I read all this that I don't remember if he went as far as
Berlin or if he was flying something special.
You will note that the lesson was learnt, although slowly. Heavy
bombers only have a chance of surviving in a total air superiority
environment eg Desert Storm and are now almost extinct (not that I
would knock back a ride in any given half a chance).
A look at crew and aeroplane loss figures in both ETO and PTO shows
this.
Regards
Doug
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Armoured Vehicles Collector
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M8 Ferret
dgrev@ruralnet.net.au
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