[Guest]

Lancaster:
Range
Payload

B-17:
Armament
Durability
Handling
Ceiling
Speed

Without escort the B-17 reigned supreme, but with escort the Lancaster was the best... Unfortunately, escorts were often un-reliable during the war.

[Phas3e]

Handling?...Lets see a b17 Corkscrew


Also Im pretty sure they were very close in the speed aspect too

[Guest]

Let's see a Lancaster being flown by a crew of farmers... My point by handling was that the B-17 had a reputation for being an easy plane to fly, for anybody... The B-17G had a 7mph advantage over the Lancaster, not much, but its there.

[Rjel]

Let's see a Lancaster being flown by a crew of farmers... My point by handling was that the B-17 had a reputation for being an easy plane to fly, for anybody... The B-17G had a 7mph advantage over the Lancaster, not much, but its there.

They didn't exactly shovel everyone and anyone into the pilot seat of the B-17 or any other U.S. plane in WWII. The washout rate was incredibly high. It does a disservice to those who flew it to think otherwise.

[Guest]

Look, what I meant is that the B-17 was meant to be flown by pilots who only a few months before were farmers with no flight experience. The training was rough, but it didn't require the pilots to be veterans for success like other planes did. For example, the B-24 was very difficult to fly and needed a veteran pilot at the wheel.

[Phas3e]

Oh and RAF crews were all 'toffs' who ate their powdered eggs with silver cutlery? They werent Farmers from New Zealand or shearers from Australia..

All I'm seeing from you posts is USA>*

[Bobsqueek]

OK, I'll bite...

Deac, you're over-simplifying, to put it mildly. You're looking at in terms of "X plane is better than Y plane" rather than in terms of two different doctrines that pre-date the introduction of the Lancaster and B-17 to the bombing campaign, and have their origins in the pre war years.

Your argument to me looks like "because the B-17 was better, it fought during the day. Because the Lancaster wasn't, it fought at night"

Now I don't want to get into the relative merits of the two aircraft, because that's pretty much subjective. I think what you're ignoring is that the RAF commenced night-time operations almost 2 years before the Lancaster became operational. Also another thing to consider was that it was in RAF doctrine from it's very inception in 1918 to be able to strike at day and night and aircraft were designed with this in mind. Now, due to various pre-war political and economic factors crew training and equipment wasn't exactly at it's best at the start of the war, and there was still a painful switch to night operations, obviously due to the dangers of navigating halfway across Europe in the dark. So i'd be wrong in saying RAF aircrew were expert night-flyers from the start as the accuracy statistics wouldn't support me, but what i'm trying to say is the RAF had resources and training with night operations in mind.

The switch was obviously prompted by the daytime losses of unescorted and obsolete bombers attempting to penetrate German airspace during 1939-1940. Those tactics proved to be unworkable and unprofitable as the RAF couldn't support that kind of attrition rate in it's bomber force for very long. Night time ops seemed the to be only choice.

Daylight operations with Lancasters and Halifaxes did commence during 1944-45 when it was safer to do so.

Enter the USAAF in 1942, who believed that greater accuracy meant total destruction of more targets in a shorter time. An they'd be right as it stands to logic. However it's all well and good saying that while you're cruising over a bombing range in the desert without a cloud in the sky and all the time in the world. But throw in the poor European weather, smoke screens, flak and fighters and things change rapidly. The US were experiencing the same thing that the Luftwaffe had experienced in the BOB and the RAF had experienced over Germany during the "phony war" However the USAAF stuck to their guns.

It's my understanding that the US didn't have the capacity for night bombing operations, the crews weren't trained extensively in night flying/bombing and the same navigational aids that the RAF had. Not that i'm trying to be unfair to the USAAF crews and say they were inferior, it just wasn't part of USAAF doctrine to bomb at night, as I understand it. Another thing to add is that the USAAF had escort fighters in the form of P-38's and P-47's with the range to protect the bomber formations at least part of the way. Something that the RAF lacked during 1939/40. The USAAF experimented with night bombing for a couple of months during 1943 (possibly in light of the horrific losses over Schweinfurt) and found it to be unworkable. Another thing to consider is that even if the USAAF wanted to re-train it's pilots in night bombing it couldn't. The tempo of operations couldn't slow down as the the Germans would repair the bomb damage and give them time to redistribute their factory complexes rendering all previous bombing raids useless. That was why the same targets were bombed multiple times. The strategic bombing campaign was a massive cat and mouse game with the USAAF/RAF trying to get a stranglehold on the German economy.

I don't want this to turn into a "who's air force is better than the other's" pissing contest, as we're off-topic enough, but I just wanted to highlight that the differences in tactics have their orgins way deeper than "teh B-17 is l33t".

[Guest]

No, I meant that the B-17G had alot more lasting power than the Lancaster. It could fly higher, take more damage, and out-shoot the Lancaster. I honestly love both, but I would take up the B-17G over the Lancaster for any day run and the Lanc over the Fort for any night raid. The Lanc could go deeper into Germany and drop more bombs on it than the Fort. Overall, if I had to take one into combat alone without escort, I'd take the Fort simply because I'd be more likely to get home. Don't give me any of that you're just for America crap either... If I thought the Lanc was all-around bomber, then I would say so, but I don't. Oh yeah, you want to hear a little bit about the RAF night ops. Look at the Defiant... It couldn't hack it during the day so it was relegated to night. Planes that didn't do well under heavy fire went up during the dark. This is something of a religious debate, but that's the way I see things. The bomber that can carry the bombs to the target and bring back it's crew after getting blown to hell is alot better than one that goes farther and carries more bombs but is less likely to make it home.

[Bobsqueek]

No, I meant that the B-17G had alot more lasting power than the Lancaster. It could fly higher, take more damage, and out-shoot the Lancaster. I honestly love both, but I would take up the B-17G over the Lancaster for any day run and the Lanc over the Fort for any night raid. The Lanc could go deeper into Germany and drop more bombs on it than the Fort. Overall, if I had to take one into combat alone without escort, I'd take the Fort simply because I'd be more likely to get home. Don't give me any of that you're just for America crap either... If I thought the Lanc was all-around bomber, then I would say so, but I don't.

And I'd agree with you up to the point of "take more damage" as it's hard to quantify accurately as there's probably record of both aircraft sustaining massive amounts of damage and returning home, and on the other hand aircraft going down after taking one bullet. I'm not trying to be overly argumentative, just saying that it's quite a bold statement that's hard to quantify. Both the B-17G and the Lancaster were optimised for their respecitve theatres of operations, yes, so if I had to make the same choice I'd probably choose the same, although I wouldn't rate my chances either way. I believe the loss rates were comparable.

And i'm sorry if you think i'm "giving you that you're just for america crap" as I said in my original post that's not my intention. You seem to have missed the point of my post. Some thing I'll pick up on later.

Oh yeah, you want to hear a little bit about the RAF night ops. Look at the Defiant... It couldn't hack it during the day so it was relegated to night. Planes that didn't do well under heavy fire went up during the dark. This is something of a religious debate, but that's the way I see things. The bomber that can carry the bombs to the target and bring back it's crew after getting blown to hell is alot better than one that goes farther and carries more bombs but is less likely to make it home.

I'm aware of the Defiant and you make a valid point. There were many aircraft that when found to be obsolete were relegated to night duties, some, like the Defiant did rather well in their new found role. The Defiant is the poster-child for all the "bomber-killing" dead-ends of the inter war years such as the Grigorovch I-Z and Bell Airacuda. As an aside, when the turret was taken off, it was found to handle rather well and have a comparable top speed to the spitfire Mk1. I believe there were investigations and mutterings about turning it into a fast ground attack aircraft but it came to nothing as the typhoon has just entered service.


But anyway, that's going even further off-topic. What I want to clarify is the point of my original post because I think it's been missed. The idea that I was challenging was:

Why on earth do you think the Lanc's were relegated to night bombing opps? They couldn't hold their own during the day against fighters. The Fortresses and Liberators could... That's why the Americans took up the day runs.

What I was trying to say was, it wasn't "relegated" to night duties, it was designed with them in mind because that was RAF strategic bombing doctrine established 2 years before the Lancaster was introduced. Whether it could hold it's own during the day or not will never be known as the lancaster wasn't used during the day until the end of the war. The USAAF took up day bombing because that was their doctrine. While I fully agree with you that USAAF bombers may have been better suited to daylight ops, they could in no way "hold their own". The horrific loss rate backs that up. By the time it had become apparent that daylight bombing was proving costly it was too late to really do anything about it. The tempo of bombing had to be maintained to make sure their targets stayed destroyed.

To repeat the point of my first post. It wasn't about the B-17 bombing during the day because the B-17 was a 'better' aircraft, the B-17/B-24 and Lancaster/Halifax bombed when they did because that was how it was decided they would bomb before they entered the war. Once the allies had started down this route it was almost impossible to stop because if they did the factories would be repaired, the luftwaffe would regroup and they'd have to start from scratch all over again.
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