WesWorld

Quoted

I could base them in Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Burma, Malaya, Hong Kong. The RAF is not confined to just UK bases although I agree on the conflict.

They're not the sort of environments that suit themselves to the Mosquito's wooden construction and some are a bit out in the sticks for short/medium range aircraft. I'd see the fast bomber and Blenheim replacement being the same aircraft. The Beaumont or Buckingham fits the bill nicely. On the other hand, Bristol would be fairly tied up with Manchester production... There's also the danger of having too many different types of aircraft.

Germany likes the idea of the "schnellbomber", but the Do-17 is now no longer regardable as "fast" in relation to contemporary fighters, and the Ju-88's service design as a dive bomber has slowed it considerably from the original design. The Do-217 work that Dornier is doing isn't really a fast bomber, either, it's more of a medium bomber that's faster than the current medium bombers in the Luftwaffe inventory. There's some thought being given to a Bomber "B" request for proposals within in the Luftwaffe and the RLM, but that is currently on hold until there's more information on whether there are going to be engines in the 2500+ hp range available in the future

I'm really not sure that the dive bombing slowed the Ju-88 that much. The addition of 200-300lb of strengthening doesn't mean that much extra drag. Probably only a few mph difference. Now, having to externally carry most of the load adds up to a lot more difference.

Isn't the He-177/277 sort of a schnellbomber? The Ar 240 and Ju 288 are better fits but only achieve their speed by reducing wing area which rather limits altitude performance.

Agreed, it's not so much the weight per se as putting all of the useful bomb load under the wings that's the problem in the Ju-88. Clean, it's pretty fast, but its clean load is so small and limited that it's nearly pointless. Putting the bombs under the wings makes sense on a dive bomber, much less sense on a level bomber.

The He-177 isn't really thought of as a schnellbomber, though it's top speed is pretty good, because it's cruising speed isn't all that high (though it's a good deal faster than a B-17 at cruise), and because it's expected to carry a fairly substantial defensive armament. A true schnellbomber doesn't need a lot of defensive weapons, because it's hard to catch and hard to engage.

Without improved bombsights (radar or otherwise), extreme high altitude operations for bombers aren't seen as very useful, too little chance of hitting the target. Now, that changes with guided bombs, but even then you have to see the target….. (Of course, this assumes you're trying to hit a target smaller than, say, a city.)

The Dutch believe the G.1B can manage the fast attacks seen in South America. The need for a dedicated fast bomber...they are not sold on. Instead they took away the lesson that bombers are simply to vulnerable overall.

However, they also question the concept of a fast bomber as fiscally viable. The Hawker Hart was a fast bomber. It rapidly became rather slow.

Given the rate of engine advances, it would be extremely expensive to field a large force of currently up to snuff bombers, while the older ones would lack any defensive capacity.

Further recent work with detection of reflected radio waves, detection and interception vectoring look far more viable, eroding the value of pure speed.

Quoted

However, they also question the concept of a fast bomber as fiscally viable.

You say that but the fast bomber became more and more efficient as aircraft speeds increased. Even if you are slower than fighters it still presents a much greater problem to intercept as the defender really needs about a 50% speed advantage. With 5-10% you're limited to a long stern chase.

The fast unarmed bomber is massively cheaper than slow heavily armed bombers in cost and manpower and can deliver greater weapon loads for fewer losses.

Bombing accuracy is rather a problem, and will remain so. For area targets (factories etc.) you probably want to be below 10,000ft. For point targets (buildings) around 100ft. Cruise at high altitude, dive to low level over target and zoom back up to higher altitude on the way out.

A theoretical fast bomber build just a couple years ago WW time would already be outdated and 'slow'.
Engine advances have led to drastic increases in fighter speed and climb rate.

Also , there is that bomb sight issue you mention which requires the bomber to go lower...and slower to achieve results. Even if you can't get them inbound, you can bounce them going out.

Anyhow, we're just not sold that speed alone is worth it, and they are vulnerable enough that heavies look not worth it. A mid-high speed medium with some defenses seems better rounded and less prone to rapid obselesence.

Germany, having seen exactly the impact that KK is talking about on the Do-17, is torn: the idea of the schnellbomber, too fast to be effectively intercepted, is tantalizing, but the reality has been that a bomber that is fast enough one year is not two years after that. Certainly speed is good, it limits the time an adversary has to respond to the bomber and affects how the interceptors can maneuver and how well, if at all, they can make follow-up passes, but focusing totally on speed to the exclusion of other defenses may not work well in the long run.


Actually, if Germany does build a propellor-driven medium bomber after the Do-217, it will probably be the Ju-288B or the Fw-191A (though the armament on this last will be rationalized a bit, probably limited to chin, dorsal, and ventral turrets each with 2 11mm MG-111s).

The problem is also that a bomber built a few years ago has extremely little armament, probably 2 or 3 7.7mm machine guns in unpowered turrets. Really you need powered turrets to be effective against the faster fighters. They're about 1000-1200lb each for a quadruple 7.7mm or twin 0.50" and very draggy. A Mosquito with a quadruple 7.7mm dorsal turret was 40mph slower and had half the bomb bay taken up. I'm no convinced on the effectiveness of the 0.50" myself and neither was the RAF which gave rise to quadruple 20mm turrets. Effective defensive firepower but with a massive cost to performance, pretty much the entire aircraft being built around the turrets.

The trend is, on smaller bombers ditch the useless manual-aimed LMGs, on bigger bombers bigger turrets with bigger guns even going to remote-controlled barbettes.

Guns on small bombers are useless, a lght bomber flying at 270mph is dead meat whatever the rear-gunner is firing. 370mph gives a fighter a run for its money and if height is on your side immunity.

What does fiscally viable mean? A speed bomber requires two crew, thus can be smaller, no expense on turrets etc, needs two V-12 engines which you have for fighters anyway, needs a decent sleek fuselage which needs some research in a wind tunnel. Less equipment carried should also reduce costs and reduce development time. I see no expensive problems if it carries more bombs further and gets them on target.

"Dead meat" is historically over-stating the case, though it's not necessarily clear in WW yet. How risky, armed or unarmed, a raid is depends a lot on how deep into enemy-observed territory a bomber has to go: a raid that only crosses 60 miles of enemy-observed territory to it's target is much less dangerous to the bombers than a raid that crosses 500 miles of enemy-observed territory.

Twin .50s are about the heaviest armament that can be fitted in a turret without seriously affecting the rest of the plane (unless you're talking about monster aircraft like the B-36, which reminds me….). Is it a sufficient armament to reliably kill an attacking fighter if the gunner gets it on target? Not necessarily, though the nose-on aspect of most attacking fighters will make the .50s a better choice than they might otherwise be. But history shows that twin .50s are quite good at damaging attacking fighters, which is usually good enough.

Yeah but it doesn't have quite the punch my quadruple 20mm turrets have...

Look at most single-engined light bombers like the Fairey Battle and the newer Balmoral (a land-based Barracuda), slow and easy meat for a determined fighter (or flak), they just don't have the speed nor manoeurvability to last in combat. The slower the target the easier the AA gunner's task too. The Blenhiem at 200-odd mph is too slow. The RAF needs to modernise her fleet, Germany on the other hand has a good multi-purpose fleet with some excellent types in prospect, as does Italy.

Also how often are the defensive guns needed? Most of a sortie the gunner is excess weight until he gets over enemy territory or in areas where enemy fighters patrol. If he hasn't the guns to properly damage or destroy an attacker he has no useful role. Even a determined fighter pilot might press home his attack if his fighter is damaged and lets not forget the increasing numbers of 20mm cannon make an impact too on the range the fighters can open fire.

Build a speed bomber with a battery of MGs in the nose for strafing and one that can be flung around the sky like a fighter then the enemy fighter might get a surprise too!

Heh, no, but a twin .50 turret is a LOT lighter, and so is the ammunition in the amounts you'll want. Germany isn't planning anything heavier than perhaps some twin 20mm mountings for larger aircraft, the US isn't planning anything heavier than twin .50 turrets except for the B-36, the P-61, etc.

.Single-engined bombers should be special-purpose units, in the main, like dive bombers. While a twin-engined bomber may be faster (in some cases), it's also a bigger target than it's single-engined cousin. Germany is planning a single-engined successor to the Ju-87, but it doesn't expect it to escape from enemy fighters unscathed (and the design ditches the rear gunner from the Stuka, who gets left home on heavily loaded missions anyway).

Germany has a slight advantage in starting from scratch, there's less things to replace.

I disagree on the 20mm increasing the range: they don't really increase range at all, because of the problems of getting hits at range and limited ammunition supply. A 60 round drum doesn't give you much chance to spray fire at over 500 yards, and very few pilots could get hits at long ranges anyway.

Hey, are you talking about my Bf-110s? J

The twin 20mm turrets used on some Lancasters didn't weigh appreciably more than twin 0.50" turrets. There was also the ultimate version with twin 20mm dorsal and ventral turrets remote controlled from the rear gunner position with blindfire gunlaying radar.

Depends if you want to drive off or shoot down fighters as well. With larger and heavier armoured fighters you need the extra punch of the 20mm.