[Murph]

The Lanc was a great bomber but it had no defensive armament to deal with an attack from below. Every WWII aircraft had is good and bad points, some more than others. It seems we will eventually have a Lancaster for Il2. I wish they had'nt given up on the B26 though- this was the bomber that had the most missions flown and the greatest total tonnage of bombs dropped in Europe.
I do think there were more B24s built than B17s. Willow Run was turning them out at the rate of about one per hour at peak.