Could the Mosquito Really Replace the B-17? 

it is the context you have to look at B-17 was a air-ea bomber where only 5% of bombs came with in 5 miles of any target and this is from USAF reports the Mosi was a prostitution targeting bomber with a 75% on target hit rate RAF reports but to compere them with each other is wrong as they both did to different jobs plus the B-17 had about 90% of planes made to be bombers the Mosi only about 40%(more like 35%)was made up with bombers what you have to remember the Mosi would be called to day a multi roll plane witch no one would in there write mind would the B-17

@@marktaylor3727 1,284 mossies built as unarmed bombers minus conversions to photo/recon. BAE Mosquito page About 1/6 of wartime production, the rest of you comment has the same level of accuracy.

Hello Greg, if you revisit the Mustang could you shed some light on how much input the British had in its design ? I occasionally see ridiculous claims that conveniently ignore or forget Spitfire wing was developed with data from NACA and then there is the Bendix Stromberg "origin" claim that it was designed by the British and "given" to Bendix, adopted by RR then SU "redesigned" it and made it better. Thanks

@@nickdanger3802 the accuracy is for the RAF were about a 1/3 of all mosis was bombers but there main job was to distract the Germans witch was highly successful because they put more and more of there time into stopping the mosis this is not new it is a documented facted from both sides

plus BAE was not around in ww2 it was made by Hawker

No , not even in WT , in WT it has only 2x500 lb bombs

It's like when chubby shutins who play World of Tanks think they can shut down actual veterans who worked in the vehicles regarding what the tank could and could not do.

Better for air rb cus it can be played as a support fighter

Or HoI players?

No... we would say... a duel Mustang????? Thats cool... now where's my duel P47!!!!! And once that's done... stack three on top of each other for the ULTIMATE TRI-PLANE!!!!!

Oh, and I forgot the..."and do it twice a day" thingy.

I wonder what percentage of the "average" WW2 pilot could handle a Mosquito.

The Mossie bomb bay was two small for 4 x 1,000 lb bombs. However 2 aircraft could carry 8 x 500 lbs bombs to Berlin at much greater speed

The arguments about bomb load are a bit beside the point: the Mosquito could have put its bombs more accurately on target, so fewer needed. And while RU-vid loves the "Mossie could replace B-17" thing, that's just the big American audience. Now you have to make a video explaining why the Mossie could not replace the Lancaster and Halifax. The haymaking reason (along with the need to shoot down Luftwaffe fighters), the Mosquito could not replace heavy bombers is as follws. It had a low loss rate specifically because the Luftwaffe had to optimise its fighters to kill heavy bombers. That made them a very poor choice to stop Mosquitoes. If the bombers were ALL Mosquitoes, then the Luftwaffe would have optimised its fighters for opposing them and hacked them down. Greg, please at least caveat the idea the RAF murdered civilians at night while the USAAF dropped bombs on production lines. Plenty of USAAF bombs hit houses. PLENTY.

@@lllordllloyd A lot of what you say is true, but the Mossie still had a lot going for it, very fast small target and it was stealthy. The Mossie hardly showed up on German WW2 radar. They would not have needed to fly in formation or need escorts. The 8th Air Force was notorious for poor bombing accuracy, especially when bombing in support of Allied troops. It was known as the "8th Luftwaffe"

Exactly, and that's one reason so few Mosquitoes were set up to carry it.

The Blockbuster is a different bomb, essentially two Cookies coupled together, end to end. It was possible to have three together, but there was no name change. In reality, there were some detail differences between two Cookies and a Blockbuster. There were also different variants of Cookie (slightly different dimensions, tails, fusing).

Glad someone had pointed out the correct use of a Cookie. Also not mentioned was the fact that 500 lb bombs were pretty useless at destroying heavy industries. It would knock down the building but seldom did serious damage to heavy plant - in many cases the Germans just cleared away the debris and carried on. Don't think the Mossie would have operated at low level at night either - in fact the Night Fighter Mossies operated at medium level like the Bomber Stream and German Night Fighters.

@@wbertie2604 thank you, I forgot this. That being said, it was always designed as a high explosive device, for use in conjunction with incendiaries.

@@Pete-tq6in yes, it had a particular role along with the Blockbuster

Well in practice the Lanc carried way more bombs than a B17 in practice.

You have to remember the influence of sir Arthur Harris who was obsessed with the Lancaster above all other aircraft.

@@peterregan8691hear, hear it’s an examples of doctrinal politics in Harris’ case!

you would think so. Churchill liked to mess with war planning. Removing Dowding and replacing him with Mallory. Mallory also famously killed off the long range spitfire project. A super genius move. So no - just because it seems logical, does not mean the british are going to follow up on that. Also no. Also the lanc's could carry loads of bombs and maybe hit within a 20 mile accuracy. The RAF promise to sweep all before away with raids before d-day also missed the targets. They did manage to kill 1000s of french though. The mosquito on the other hand - carried less, also had a good chance of actually hitting required target. Also a good chance to come home.

@@mickvonbornemann3824 Yes, but in practice the Lanc was pretty much a sitting duck when used on daylight missions. If they were to do the missions of the B17s they would have needed heavier calibre guns and more gun positions and more crew, adding weight which would have reduced bomb load. Plus the different tactics for daylight missions would have required more fuel so again more weight, less bomb load. Basically you would end up with Lancasters carrying similar bomb loads to the B17.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🥃👍🏻

why not both?

@@alexandervapnyar3979 Arlington Cemetery has no respawn....

No, the biggest tragedy in human history was the creation of gods. This one act slowed humanity's development.

@@neiloflongbeck5705 Religions appeared in many different places independently, so that's hardly one single tragedy.

I have never seen a picture/image of a B17 carrying external bombs. Did this happen?

I believe he has a video on the B-17 vs British heavies as to why the Brits could have a heavier bomb based on the fact that the bay lay outs on each bomber. I believe he lays out the fact based on wings , engine and removal of armor to levels of brit bombers the B-17 could carry heavier loads in certain configurations.

@@paulcaine2603 I've seen one, but I think it was just for testing

Right. The Lancaster could carry a 22,000 lb bomb load but only as a single Grand Slam and only because of its unitary bomb bay and still only because it could fly without bomb bay doors.

@@ethelburga total of 32 Lanc's heavily modified to carry one 12,000 lb Tallboy OR one 22,000 lb Grand Slam, first use of Grand Slam was March 1945. BAE Lancaster page

Oh, that's a good point.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Do not entirely agree. Partially but not entirely. Armament had nothing to do with it, in fact the heavy armament of the B-17's over Europe did precisely nothing to blunt the truly hideous casualty rate during those first months when they operated unescorted. The courage of those crews, who knew their chances of surviving a tour, was frankly outstanding, but all those guns did very little in reality. Hell the 'gunship' variants actually had a higher casualty rate because unlike the pure bombers they did not shed all the bomb weight over the target, so ended up slower than the rest of the bomber stream on the return trip, and tended to get isolated..... Does not matter how many guns a B-17 has, if its isolated and on its own, its toast..... Now the STURDINESS of the B-17, that's a different mater entirely. For all its faults it was a tough aircraft, and I could absolutely understand a movement to more specialist anti bomber armaments in many Luftwaffe fighters in response to that factor. specially once escorts were brought in as the Luftwaffe fighters would only have a very limited window to engage the Bombers before the escorts were all over them like a bad rash! So they would want to inflict as much damage as possible in that limited time window. So absolutely agree in the case of the aircrafts sturdiness, I do not think the armament made a blind bit of difference to how the Luftwaffe armed their fighters though.

@@alganhar1 yes it did, the LW tried to arm their "anti bomber" fighters with weapons they could use outside of the effective range of the 0.50 cal and fit more and heavier weapons to make the engagement time as short as possible as the fighers couold not loiter around at leisure to pump all of their ammo into a bomber. Also they tried to armour their planes to an extent against 0.50 cal hits. The FW 190"s built or modified for the anti bomber role doubled the weigth of armour carried over the standard plane. An unescorted B 17 could perhaps not defend itself from figther attack, but they forced the LW to penalise their fighters for trying to bring them down. And ti was those penalties that made the LW fighers much more vulnarable once escorts were introduced, the heavily armed and armoured FW 190's needed escorts themselves at that point. Increasing the number of fighers needed for an interception.

@@annadalassena5460 In this case, we're talking not about normal LW fighter squadrons but specialist units raised for the single purpose of attacking bomber formations. The Sturmbocke Fw190-A8 is not just a regular A8 armed with MK108 cannons. It was specifically up-armoured to withstand .50 machinegun rounds at closer ranges AND the pilots manning these 190s were trained and dedicated to getting into dangerously close ranges IN ORDER to guarantee a bomber kill. Luftwaffe aircraft production was high enough to just about cover the losses of airframes (barely), so there was room to build specialised bomber destroyers (single or twin engineed) and when not hit by escorts, these attacks were deadly. The problem was that the USAAF fighter squadrons were better equipped, better trained on average and more numerous. The use of twin-engineed Zestroyer fighters was not doctrinally centred on anti-bomber operations. Pre-war, the concept of the Destroyer was to be a far-ranging, fast and heavily armed fighter. By 1943-44, the Destroyers had long since shifted over to ground attack roles (Me 410s were heavily used at Salerno to attack shipping) because the LW recognised these types were no survivable in fighter missions. Some airframes were upgraded to the bomber-destroyer role and, again, were used by dedicated squadrons.

@@alganhar1 Then you know nothing of Luftwaffe pilots, tactics & discussion. Both components were a concern, only a foolish German aviator hung on the six long enough to take a face full of .50s.

Exactly, the losses on the Eastern front just don't compare. It wasn't the Soviets who broke the Luftwaffe, although they did contribute.

I don’t think Soviet great ground offensives of 1944-45 - operation Bagration, Corsun-Shevchenko, Vistula-Order etc - would have been so successful if Luftwaffe could fully concentrate on the Eastern front.

Strategic bombing was a way for the US and UK to attack Germany before they were ready to open a western front. The Soviets did not have the option of waiting. I've never read about a Soviet strategic bombing campaign against Germany, but I'd guess they were focused on tactical support for the Red Army troops that did most of the fighting against the Wehrmacht.

@@alexandervapnyar3979honestly wouldn’t have made a difference as the Luftwaffe was a beaten force by then

I am reminded of the Luftwaffe ace who transferred from the Eastern to the Western front. His initial response was 'Oh cool, tons of targets to rack up kills against!' followed not long after by 'that's a lot of things shooting at me...'

Thanks.

I just watch for the quality. It's a piece of history now, although with a few ex-combatants still living and I no longer know any of them. Once there were six, .

​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I would need to check with some decent sources but after the channel dash didn't gunisenau hit a mine, probably German off the coast that put it somewhat out of action? I may be a bit off on that, the general trend of the channel dash was however as you put that major German surface forces got to a safer port via the channel, with little cost to the Germans. Major muck up with British interservice coordination didn't help at all as there were options to go after the force properly but none were taken in time just a desperate rush of swordfish which aren't suitable for use around 109s and 190s in daylight.

I'll summarily disregard any "argument" (wild opinion) that just throws a bunch of Max Numbers into the equation. Anyone quoting actual performance curves for possible bombload vs. range vs. altitude vs. speed, are starting to be worth listening to, anything else is pointless.

​@@Zoroff74agree. You need to be talking about typical missions not outliers.

_"You can argue validly that the USAAF notion of self-defending bombers was in error and the weight of armament led to poor bomb loads"_ Except you can't argue this because the numbers for both are already available.

@@GeneralJackRipper I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Bomber losses without escort were far too high, so large amounts of defensive armament were not providing protection from losses, but escort clearly did. Thus, unescorted raids were an error of judgement. At the start of WW2 the RAF had also attempted unescorted raids and had abandoned them in daylight. The numbers are indeed available and indicate it was a flawed strategy. Given that unescorted bombers were vulnerable, even with heavy defensive armament, there is an argument for reducing the defensive armament given that it would have the following effects: fewer crew required, thus lower crew losses; at a given bomb and fuel load, the ability to fly higher or faster, making interception harder; at a given all-up weight, a greater bomb load, requiring fewer sorties per target. All would result in fewer crew losses, and two fewer aircraft losses. The RAF came to a similar conclusion for night bombing but didn't implement it. Le May did implement it over Japan. There is probably a minimal level of armament you want for heavy day bombers, though.

The Mosquito could easily have replaced the heavy bombers and done a better job: precision bombing and stealth were as valuable then as today, maybe more so. But these planes were made out of wood, in particular Sitka Spruce, which is not as common as some types of fir. If more places had had that wood, or if other designs could have been developed that were non-metal and readily available in materials, they'd had probably switched in minutes. We have switched to smaller payload, lighter aircraft made with stealthier materials today. That is the Mosquito's real legacy: think outside the box and build fewer, better planes. If you want to be fast and less visible to radar (and thus anti-air and night fighters) then do so. The truth is that the Allies were in a hurry and could see victory in sight within months of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. They didn't have the time or patience to develop these planes until later. Which is what the F-35 is today. Today's Mosquito.

It is based on a premise not fact. Mosquito may have shortened war instead of lengthening.

Lancasters were not awful, unlike horribly obsolete B-17s

@@Aspeer1971 even de Havilland didn't think it could do that and proposed a larger aircraft with three crew and Sabres and a default 4000lb load.

​@@ZealothPL the same b17 that managed to maintain its abilty to fly in the light while the lancaster was relegated to bight bombing? So terrible it could actually defend itself? So terrible most of the luftwaffe was geared towards combating its type and its type alone? Sure buddy. Ignore reality

@@casematecardinal That also isn't entirely reality. The B-17s did not fare much better than the Lancaster while flying at daytime without escort. It's worth mentioning that RAF bomber command was committed to night raids over Germany by the time the Lancaster entered service so it was inevitable that it would fly at night(of course they did a daylight raid early on and it was a disaster(of course had it been B-17s the result would've been the same lets be realistic)) and it is also worth mentioning that the Lancaster did have it's advantages, including it's high bombload, among others. My point is that the Lancaster isn't "bad" because it was "relegated" to night bombing, while the B-17 isn't some sort of "good" hero aircraft because it could actually "defend itself", it couldn't, surely that's why the whole escort thing is such a big deal, and at times I believe the Lancaster flew escorted daylight raids later in the war. Also there are some pretty famous Lancaster raids using various Barnes Wallis weapons, like attacking V-weapon sites, U-boat anxd E-boat pens etc... which are pretty impressive

@@imperialinquisition6006 I never said the Lancaster was bad. Just pointing out that the supposedly entirely inferior b17 could maintain a more useful role through the entirety of the war because of its design characteristics. So evidently saying the b17 was bad is silly. Also the Lancaster only ever came out durring the day for raids of opportunity with low air cover such as attacks against turpitz or uboat pens later in the war.

I lost my confidence in him when he claimed '20 percent within 1000 ft'. That was a lie told by a few power-hungry military officers in the pre-war era. It has ben retold by bomber fans, and debunked by historical records so many times it's not even funny anymore. Actual accuracy was a few percent with in a 3 km radius.

The Russians DO deserve full credit for what they did and suffered in grinding down the Wehrmacht. Nobody whines about the number of British soldiers killed on the Western Front in the SECOND World War because the Russians were doing the heavy lifting on land (on their own soil) for the better part of three years, and all the Brits who wrung their hands over the Somme and Passchendaele and berated their own generals as butchers and bunglers said nothing about the huge Russian losses, less-than-optimal tactics and advance-or-die attitude because someone else was doing the dying this time. Someone, I forget who, calculated that the British lost approximately the same number of people from their officer class (educated middle to upper class) in both wars, the difference being that in the second war, most of those losses were as bomber crews rather than infantry officers.

Russians suffered fatalities in massive numbers. Estimates around 20,000,000. The US lost around 600,000. Work smarter, not harder.

Add lend lease to that as well.

Plus all those 500,000 troops held in the west to combat the RAF and USAAF. They would have helped in the easter front.

@@fredericksaxton3991 What WAS the division of resources in the Reich between the emergency needs of the five fronts (France, Italy, Russia, Air, Naval) ? Who got the stuff they needed first? I have read numerous accounts of trains going to the front having less priority than trains to the concentration camps.

I'd love Greg to cover that: it's not a "superprop" as in high speed, but it is in terms of payload per engine. I'd like to know how it compared to its WWII ancestors.

A-1 Skyraider is one of the coolest propeller planes ever. It's a tie for my favorite, alongside the Corsair.

But couldn't carry 10,500 lb any serious distance

A1 range is 2000 kilometers. And wikipedia does not tell, if that range is for max load.

@@tokul76 it's not for max load. With max load range was about 300 miles, so with a reserve for the mission, radius was about 120 miles, IIRC.

That's true, the idea of sending in Mosquitos in a formation just doesn't work. The whole point of the formation is to allow for massed defensive firepower. It would also make them much easier to intercept as they would all be in the same place.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles and if you make one long stream heading for the same target, you give time for the enemy to organize a defense.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Another point is that a formation of geographically and aerodynamically same aeroplanes drops bombs the same way, more or less. 🙂

Send a stream and you would have fighters attacking you along most of its length.

Not certain about the supposed huge decrease in time over flak zone. Accuracy decreases exponentially for both speed and altitude so for the supposed better accuracy they are not going to be able to go 300MPH, twice the speed of a 17. Because the DH98 was as clean as it was possible for a bomber to be, open bomb bay doors were probably close to throwing out an anchor. IMHO

And he was being kind. I am offended when accused of being smart enough to be stupid.

This also shows George Carlin's lack of understanding of 'average'. His joke fails because what he describes is the 'median', not the average.

​@@Zajuts149I still laughed although I am aware of definitions of Average. Don't forget the Mode and keep the curve in mind.

@@Zajuts149 You are missing the point. Which how prevalent ignorance is. I only know I know nothing. That goes for me and everyone else. Including you.

@@Nickrioblanco1 and yet, you rest your arguments on broken reeds.

Cool! My Dad was stationed at Gander in WWII, the main aircraft deployment base for Mossies and other aircraft flying to UK. There he fell in love with those very same Mossies, and eventually conveyed that love to me, even bought me a Mossie model set to build when I was a kid.

Once Chuck Norris was born they had no hope.

@@jayartz8562 And what chance does the vest have now that steven seagull has gone over to the dark side?

​@@owenoneill5955😟 We're doomed!

@@jayartz8562 I heard Chuck Norris drove his parents home from the hospital the day he was born

Chuck Norris Lunch with Chuck ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lQ3vNftrQHk.html

Canada doesn't get mentioned because everyone else is jealous they couldn't have a Sir Arthur Currie of their own. Canada has always been the tip of the spear.

He would not have. Because, like everyone else except the armchair few who make stupid comments like equating B17 and Mosquito, or indeed "what worked" without qualifying the comment, he understood that they were different aircraft, optimised for different missions. Each, and like the Lancaster and Liberator and B-29, could do things the others could not. The B-17 could not have done the hyper-accurate high-speed low-level raids the Mossie could; and the US was quite happy to leave pissing off the gestapo and much else to the Brits, who wrote the book on it. In turn, no other aircraft, even the Liberator, could have ground down and demoralised the Luftwaffe day air defences, and wiped out so many of their pilots and airframes, the way the B-17 with their Mustang escorts did.

No chance. US first. It was fight to get Merlin into p51.

I know, it's depressing how many alt-historians and youtubers seem to think they could have done the whole thing better than the guys who did it.

I'm a fan of the P-38 and P-47 but the Mossie could carry internally which was a huge advantage for flying into the target faster and with less fuel burn. The P-38 also had a 4000lb loadout, if my memory is right, but was of course entirely external and caused significant drag. I generally say that however good the Mosquitto was, the P-38 was at least as good, and better at high altitude, and a year or more earlier, and didn't require Merlins that were in such short supply. That said, my argument does require some "if-only" dreaming, eg, that if there had been a need for a fast 2-engine bomber, a P-38 could be developed with no guns, the canopy forward, and bombs internally and well-balanced loaded or empty.

@@sergeipohkerova7211 with a heavy bomb load, the P-47 was slower than the Mosquito. It also lacked a bombsight and electronic aids so would be inaccurate as a level bomber.

@@lqr824 the "droop snoot" is what you are suggesting. With external bombs, it would have been relatively slow and likely more vulnerable than the Mosquito at 4000lb. With two 1000lb bombs for 2000lb total load it would be closer, though. The USAAF was keen to have Mosquitos and the fact that very few glass nose P-38s were built suggests it wasn't a good option.

​@@wbertie2604 sure but the p47 was capable of glide bombing which is more accruate and given is superior handling at high speeds it could more easily perform even dive bombing manuevers than the mosquito. It was also faster and far more durable and well armed/suited for fighting so it was a more well rounded aircraft. Its use in cas proves its viability in the fighter bomber role as opposed to a bomber fighter role.

@@casematecardinal the Mosquito was capable of very accurate level bombing. Glide bombing, without a sight, needs to be at a significant angle and to get comparable accuracy needs to take you quite low, meaning significant risk from flak.

Very true, One of the problems being the type of person who can't grasp the nuances of the issues and has a "top trumps " attitude. Some actually believe that WW2 aircraft could make maximum speed all the way to Berlin and back. There's no hope for them.

That just flying a lot more tonnage to do a lot less of anything useful. The Lancaster is no more to be applauded than the Mosquito. You are flying a long way just to strike a lot of nothing most of the time.

Also the Lancaster could carry the 8,000lb HC and 12,000lb HC bombs (larger diameter than the 4,000lb HC), and the 12,000lb Tallboy with some modification of the bomb bay doors. To carry the 22,000lb Grand Slam teh bomb bay doors were removed, and the bomb bay faired in, with the front and upper turrets removed.

And to the aircraft as a whole (front and mid upper turrets gone, more powerful versions of the Merlin fitted). There's a reason the Tallboy and Grand Slam droppers were designated as B Mk1 (Special). Depending on the source, you can sometimes find raw poundage of bombload for the Short Stirling that is higher than that for an _unmodified_ Lancaster. However, this is strictly for VERY short range missions, and is almost exclusively limited to smaller bombs (500lb or at most 1000lb); the Stirling never had the flexibility in its bomb bay that was a feature of the Lancaster.

​@@Ensign_CthulhuA 500lb bomb is more than enough to remove a roof to let the 4lb incendiaries in. Maybe they could have designed two-piece bombs which separate on the way down.

​@@20chocsaday they used SBCs (small bomb containers) which although usually containing incendiaries, could carry many HE bombs too, typically with delay fuses. The Cookie and Blockbuster were considered much more effective than 500lb bombs at removing roofs, hence their use.

Because by destroying industries related to aircraft production dual purposes could be served. Forcing the Luftwaffe to defend those facilities, then if they fail also destroying the facilities. The fighters were only loosened up after the Luftwaffe's numbers went down post early 1944, and also when it became clear the bombing itself wasn't going to win the war.

"Did the bomber mafia and the guys flying the missions in heavies understand that their mission was to destroy the German Air Force? " They were directly ordered to do that (as was the RAF) at the early 1943 Casablanca conference but it took until January 1944 before either the RAF or USAF's bomber guys took that order seriously - and then only after a furious row with their respective army commanders (who were understandably worried about D-Day). Just as Harris stayed with "morale bombing" far too long so did Spatz stay too long with "unescorted daylight precision bombing".

The answer to your question is simple: striking power. The Lancaster could carry 10,000 lbs of bombs to Berlin; the Halifax III, 8,000 lbs. The Mosquito with bulged bomb bay doors could carry 4,000 lbs, consisting of a single 4,000 lb bomb; the regular Mosquito only 2,000 lbs. To replace a single Lancaster would require at least 2.5 Mosquitoes, and each Halifax III at least 2 Mosquitoes. Such replacement would require more Mosquitoes for heavy bombers alone than the entire production run of all Mosquito types built during the war.

@@primmakinsofis614 Worse than that!!! A 50 Squadron Lancaster based in Lincolnshire could get 9,800lb of droppable load to Berlin. One 4000lb Cookie, plus 5,800lb of Incendiaries (a mixture of 4lb Magnesium and 30lb phosphorus / Oil bombs) all carried in Small Bomb Containers. SBC's were not part of the aircraft and were not dropped, but brought back for reuse. Figures for how much they weighted are not readily available, but the 250lb version which was the first version weighted in at 44lb empty and by 1942 could carry 90 x 4lb Incendiaries. Bomber command had a modified enlarged version come into service in 1943 which could carry up to 150 x 4lb Incendiaries (600lb) or 12 x 30lb Incendiaries (360lb). I don't think the big ones fitted in a Mosquito unless you put one the mount for the Cookie and you could only get two of the smaller ones in the front of a Mossie. So the maximum Incendiary load using a SBC on a Mossie was between 600 and 720lb. The RAF did start using Incendiary Cluster Bombs from late 1943 onwards in three sizes, 350lb, 500lb and 1000lb. The Mosquito could only carry 2x500lb Incendiary Clusters on the front two 500lb stations in the Bomb Bay. The total bomb load in the 500lb cluster was 104 x 4lb Magnesium Incendiaries giving a total load of 832 lb. You could get 4 x 350lb Incendiary Cluster bombs into a Mosquito bomb bay, but they only held 72 x 4lb and in June 1944 were still under development. This would give a loadout of 1,152lb of 4lb Incendiaries. At best it would have taken 6 Mosquitos to do the job of 1 Lancaster and the Lanc can dump its complete bomb load of Cookie and Incendiaries in one place, where the 6 Mosquitos couldn't!!!

@@richardvernon317 According to the weight tables for 44 Squadron, the fully loaded weight of SBCs: 60 x 4-lb = 291 or 312 lbs, implying an empty weight of 51 or 72 lbs 90 x 4-lb = ??? 8 x 30-lb = 266 lbs, implying an empty weight of 66 lbs 150 x 4-lb = 676 lbs 16 x 30-lb = 476 lbs 12 x 30-lb = 376 lbs The implied empty weight for all three of the above is 76 lbs. Note that the 30-lb incendiary actually weighed 25 lbs. I don't know of any 350-lb class cluster projectile (cluster bomb) for incendiary bombs. Period ordnance manuals list the following (500-lb, 750-lb, and 1,000-lb classes): No. 4 = 14 x 30-lb J-type No. 14 = 106 x 4-lb No. 15 = 158 x 4-lb No. 16 = 235 x 4-lb Bomber Command also used the U.S. AN-M17 aimable cluster (110 x 4-lb). According to the monthly ordnance reports, the No. 4 was first used in April 1944 and last used in Nov. 1944. The No. 14 was used from Jan. 1944 onward; the No. 15 from Oct. 1944 onward; the No. 16 from Feb. 1945 onward; and the AN-M17 from Oct. 1944 onward. SBCs continued to be used up to the end of the war. A small number of the U.S. 500-lb AN-M76 incendiary were used in April 1944.

Really? It seems like I hear it every day here in the comment section.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles That's insane. I would personally almost put that into the same category as "What if the Me262 came into service earlier and saved the germans". Well, maybe not that bad, but they are two vastly different categories of aircraft. Btw, thank you for all your great in depth videos. If I may ask, do you have any more WW1 content in the works? Not many other creators are covering WW1 aviation.

Actually this myth is everywhere there's a B17 post. I am a Brit and I still get annoyed.

@@ericadams3428 I really had no idea that was such a prevalent myth. I'm seeing all of this for the first time.

This is a concept that relies on at least some understanding of the operational use of the B-17, so it’s much more likely to have come from a misunderstanding of stats in a book or documentary. If someone was getting their information solely from War Thunder (I’m not sure anyone actually does that, but hypothetically speaking) they’d be well aware that the B-17 could carry a higher payload.

The thing is this myth has its origins in war times strategists. There were British officers pushing for unarmed fast bombers to replace the gun heavy bombers using the statistics of the mossie as one of the corner stones of the argument.

@@matthiuskoenig3378 It's the British take on the shnellbomber concept, and has the same flaws. The schnellbomber in the 30s/40s is to aerial strategy what the 1800s Jeune École was to naval strategy-- attractive-sounding but ultimately flawed in practice. (Although, ironically, a spin on both concepts are becoming viable in the drone age.)

What moron would say such a thing?

Yes, but it wasn't the damage they were doing, it was the embarrassment the Mosquito was causing.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles yeah he didn’t say that specifically but it IS what he was driving at the sheer bloody nuisance of mosquitos fits the name, but the point on IF their were more mosquitoes then they would be more important for resources to be spent on, still stands Such a shame no airworthy mosquitos here in England, my fav none jet aircraft of all time!!!

Mosquitoes did major damage. They did minor in appearance. But you knock out a powerplant you just killed a huge area. A damn there goes an aquifer.

​@@osmacar5331 This, even more than embarrassment, their ability to penetrate and hit almost anything made the damage they caused more significant. They may not be able to flatten half a city but they can get where you don't want them and cause chaos.

@@dzzope in war, the surgical win. however like surgery, some cases bones must be broken. to win war one must understand its surgical nature. to use the scalpel, or the sledge.

The B-17 was built with the same theory in mind. When it first appeared, it flew higher and faster than its possible opposition.

​@@jaym8027 that was the b10 Im pretty sure. The b17 always had a pretty decent level of defense.

@@casematecardinal Yes, I agree. However its turbosuperchargers allowed it to fly high and fast. Remember, it was designed and flown pre-radar. The fighters of the day had little chance of intercepting B-17s at 25,000 feet and moving fast. The Condor Legion was using JU-52s, later supplanted by He-111s and Do-17s at the time. The B-17 was a quantum leap. One that the bomber mafia assumed would be capable of independent operation.

Imagine the B-17 as a nightfighter😂

As I recall, mossies also saw significant use as a precision bomber and anti-sub weapon system. I think it might have even been mossies that managed to bomb open a POW camp without hurting many (if any) of the prisoners. Very useful aircraft, not a replacement for heavy bombers.

@@reaganharder1480 Operation Jericho. 60 mile penetration into Northern France with Typhoon Fighter Escort. Done in awful weather in February 1944. 19 Mosquitos and 14 Typhoons launched. 18 Mosquitos with bombs and one Camara ship to make a propaganda film. Four Mosquitos had to abort as they got lost from the rest of the Formation, plus a couple of the Typhoons. Two Mosquitos were lost (10% lost rate), one getting a 20mm Flak shell exploding in the Navigator's chest from a zero deflection AA shot (badly wounded pilot managed to crash land the aircraft and survive) while the other had the Raid Leader have his whole tail get blown off by a Fw-190 which resulted in the aircraft bunting into the ground killing both crew. One Typhoon was also shot down and one crashed in the channel, the later pilot being killed. 100 plus Prisoners were killed by the Mosquito's bombs as well as 50 German and French guards.

@@NielsenDK-1Why?

Not really an anti sub aircraft, the Molins version may have sunk one U boat and rockets were found to be more effective. The prison attack was Amiens (not a POW one) and of the 700 French prisoners, 102 were killed in the raid and 258 managed to escape . The Mosquito was a fine plane but lets not give it super powers it didn't have

lol, that's one way to look at it.

​​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobilesI wonder what the B-17 crews thought of that purpose. Being sent over Germany so that P-51s got targets. At least beaters raising grouse don't normally get shot at.

More like irresistible bait for the trap than a decoy but they did manage to do a lot of damage to the rail system in the mean time.

A bombers primary job is NOT to be a 'decoy'.

@@20chocsaday ...something something Dick Cheney something something...

That book is brain rot. I've been meaning to do a video tearing it apart, but it is telling this was Forczyk's first book on Bomber Command because he got pretty much everything wrong.

@@kellyshistory306 Glad to see I'm not the only one who got that impression. It is really, really bad.

@@kellyshistory306 Awesome channel by the way, subscribed

Hi, Doc. Yes, it was LeMay who said that, although he was referring specifically to the "Fire bombing" of Japanese cities by B-29s

yes I thought that curious. If what was required was an enlarged bulged bomb bay doors and fairings and suspension fit, thats almost a retrofit. The point was they could take 4000 lbs of ordinance to the target, and probably have an easier time getting in and out. By wars end Mossies had the lowest loss rate in Bomber Command service of the war, but were called on for many very difficult missions.

If the US had lost the war against Japan, everyone would have been beheaded regardless of virtue. It was total war. Napalm and nukes were standard fare. No modern revisionist can comprehend the uncertainty and panic from fighting a manic suicidal foe. I'm not talking about just kamikazes. But soldiers, their wives, and even their kids would suicide by grenade to take out a US marine. An excellent story on a grand scale is Dan Carlins Hardcore History, Supernova.

Although I suspect it might come to the conclusion this video has, I think a more interesting dissertation could be entitled "How might the Mosquito have been used as an alternative weapon for targetting the Luftwaffe'. You could then have discussed low level daylight pinpoint raids, with (as was done) P51s providing cover to a plane that was no sitting duck for fighters especially once it had dropped its bombload. The relevance of being able to fly a mission in half the time of a four engine heavy could then have been discussed, also the better intel gathering that might be done at low level, the reduced collateral damage to civilian populations that can result in greater resolve in the enemy etc etc. It'd be an interesting dissertation whatever the conclusion.

@@TheJustinJ Nobody asked you to bend over backwards to defend war crimes.

The Mosquito was a good night fighter.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Did they ever mount radar on them?

@@bengunderman5382 Of course. The radar and aerials were installed in the nose, replacing the 4 x .303 MGs and ammunition.

The Hawker Tempest was also highly effective at that.

@@bengunderman5382 Yes, the NF.II was an early version into service using A.I. Mk IV radar from Jan 1942, and then later versions with better radars continued in service as RAF night fighters until the Vampire NF.10 came into service in 1951

Physical size is misleading. B-17 104' span, 74' long Mossie 54' span, 44' long F-4 Phantom 38' span, 63' long The F-4 could carry 18,000 pounds of bombs.

@@grizwoldphantasia5005 The phantom was a generation later (so more efficient aero, stronger construction and a jet). Physical comparisons only work when you're dealing with things that are roughly technologically equal, such as the 17 and the mosquito. Even then they can be misleading, but when the comparison is simple volume vs volume like for bomb loads it is fairly reliable.

Good bit of history there. Things are always deeper than one thinks. Full points to your uncle for his patience and care.

I think the reason Merlins were used in such large numbers is that Packard and British Ford were allowed to redesign the engine for parts interchangeability and production speed. Those were, like Rolls, automakers and the Merlin was still more like a car engine than a radial. I don't know if there were as many contractors out there who could have done the same with radials.

YEAH but a mossie only needs 10% of the warload for the same effect measuring tonnage dropped is not the measure its bombs ON TARGET that counts you'd need LESS mossies than B-17's and a stream of mossies all traveling, aiming and dropping independently would be far more effective than a box formation of B-17 dropping when the lead bomber does and post-war German fire-fighters agreed the fires from a bomber stream get established, do more damage, and were harder to fight

You need to learn more. Up until January 1944 US doctrine was indeed unescorted daytime precision bombing - and the B17 was a definite failure at that (modern fighters were too good at shooting them down if they had no fighter cover, and the Nordern bombsight under combat conditions was nowhere near as precise as believed). But with the arrival of good escort fighters the strategy became "tethered goat" - the B17s acted as the tethered goat to bring the Luftwaffe up to battle where the P51s could shoot them down, often by just following them back to their airfield. This was spectacularly successful.

@@boydgrandy5769 Also, they used completely different manufacturing techniques. Every furniture and piano manufacturer in England were already building Mosquitoes. I don't think they could have built more.

Production Numbers: A20 7385. B25 9816. B26 5157. A26 2449. USAAF Statistical Digest.

@@martinricardo4503 Yeah but none of those were made of wood. You needed different kinds of manufacturers with a totally different skill set to make the Mosquito than the planes you listed. Maybe we could have recruited furniture and piano makers in the US to join the war effort by building Mosquitoes, but I have no idea how to gauge if that would be enough to match the sheer quantity of metal airplanes they'd supposedly be replacing.

@@boydgrandy5769 half Mosquito production, roughly, were pure bombers. It's 500 that had bulged bays.

@@boydgrandy5769 the Mosquito could operate above 25,000ft with the cookie. If I pull out my books I can tell you exactly what speed was possible, but from memory it was only about 15mph reduction compared to a 2000lb load.

Is it though? Considering how useless the B-17s were in reality I'm not really surprised people came up with that idea

Whilst losses would have been higher for the Mosquito than they were had they replaced the B-17, the B-17 was quite vulnerable without fighter escort even with heavy armament. With high speed, the Mosquito was very hard to catch and a shoot down attempt at high altitude was largely restricted to a single pass. So even used en masse, Mosquito losses would likely have been lower than the B-17 given the fighters the Luftwaffe actually deployed. But with such a hypothetical, it would be reasonable to assume that Germany would have prioritised aircraft with better high altitude performance. It would be hard to predict the result in such a very hypothetical situation.

Consideration was given to mounting some defensive armament on Mosquitos - Vickers K in the engine nacelles firing reward as scare guns. A turret fighter with 4 20mm cannon was mocked up but the turret was optimistic and it wouldn't necessarily have had any capacity for bombs in such a configuration. The experience of the Ju-88 suggests adding defensive armament would have been s mistake

It's easy to be accurate when the target is 10 miles wide.

@@GeneralJackRipper RAF targets were not necessarily 10 miles wide. That's a myth. The RAF regularly attacked non-area targets such as factory complexes (e.g. BASF at Ludwigshafen, Peenemunde, synthetic oil plants). Target marking was on point targets (for Dresden it was a sports stadium) which frequently achieved accuracy of around 200 yards. In 1942, prior to the Pathfinder Force and other improvements, accuracy could be poor (although the BASF attack was in 1942) but it was more the adopted strategy of area bombing (and the origins of that in the UK can be traced back to Baldwin in 1932) meant that the criterion for success was quite relaxed and that aligned with the outcome of the Butt report. However, when asked to bomb much smaller targets, the RAF demonstrated an ability to do so.

Only the Mosquito intruders and night fighters could shoot back; the bomber variants could not, and the armed variants could not carry the cookie.

The Mosquitos armed with Cookies lost little speed, but they lost a lot of their ability to manoeuvre. But one of the reasons that Mosquito bombers had a low loss rate on high altitude missions was that fighters concentrated on the larger number of Lancasters and Halifaxes with their much larger bomb loads as that was a much more effective strategy. On a very brutal calculus, one Lancaster downed typically meant six crew (of the seven or sometimes eight aboard) lost and about 10,000lbs of bombs not dropped, and twice the loss of war production for a target easier to find and shoot down.

@@Ensign_Cthulhu Well, yeah. But I said exactly that. "Also, all of the guns".

@@wbertie2604 Yes. But the premise of the video is "Could the Mosquito really replace the B17?". That would mean hundreds of B Mk IV Mosquitos with no gun armament arriving over Germany with fighter escort. They would, presumably, carry a mix of 4000 pound cookies, a 4000 pound non-historical aerodynamic bomb and non-historic 4000 pound semi-aerodynamic cluster munitions. To achieve the same amount of raw explosive, that would be 1.5x the number of B17s more-or-less. And the German fighters would not have to gimp themselves with heavy armour and 30mm guns to shoot a Mosquito down. Better or worse? No idea here. Another important thing is that Allied four-engine bombers carried radar and communications jammers. 'Airborne Cigar' and 'Mandrel' being examples. Even if some of the Mosquitos were dedicated to those roles and carried no bombs, they would be less effective.

@@onenote6619 I'm aware of the premise. But often people ask why all heavies weren't replaced by Mosquitos. Mosquitos with the various electronics were capable of at least carrying circa 2000lb of bombs. In terms of bomb load, in theory the bulged bay Mosquitos could carry 6 500lb bombs internally on an Avro carrier, although I've seen zero evidence that it ever happened. In fact my books say it didn't. I'm sure that SBCs could have adapted. In theory later Mosquitos (based on wing not mark) could carry one 500lb bomb under each wing but it wasn't often done as usually they carried additional fuel tanks there. But I suppose for short missions you might be able to carry 8 500lb bombs. Building 1.5 times as many Mosquitos as B-17s wasn't a likely prospect, though. Maybe if in 1939 the heavies had been abandoned and in 1940, North American had agreed to build Mosquitos as well as Mustangs.

Thank you very much, I really appreciate that.

Are there reliable stats on how effective aerial gunners really were? There must be ways to correlate large mission with Luftwaffe loss records.

Sorry, but that's nonsense Michael. The stats show that aerial gunners were notoriously ineffective. You've been watching too many war movies.

more rear waist gunners taken out vs one pilot one plane

@@narabdela Actually no. I was commenting on the stats discussed in the video. I would like to see a detailed analysis of the subject. So, no. Not nonsense or Hollywood.

@@ronhudson3730 He literally showed a chart of Luftwaffe fighter losses in the video.

So nice to hear from an actual "expert" who was there.

They did what they were supposed to do...they forced the luftwaffe to engage.

Goring "But in the beginning, we had not fully assessed the possibility of daylight bombers. Our fighters could not cope with them. When we were able to do so, there was a pause and then you sent them out with fighter escort. The Flying Fortress, for example, had more than we had anticipated. Our estimate was incorrect."

The B-17 was used correctly from the time it took to the air. The arrival of escorts did not change it's mission or usage at all.

Oh, and just FYI, not one single mass bombing raid was ever stopped by enemy defense during WW2, on either side.

I'm not sure I would say they were just bait, but yes the idea was to kill the pilots, the bombers were in a sense bait, but bait that bites back. If the Germans ignored the bombers they would have had an easier time destroying German industry.

Also, it wasn't the strategy the 8th started with, so it's not like it was their main purpose for the entire war. But when they switched to that strategy, it's the one that ultimately won the war.

It's basically an evolution of British 'Circus' raids early in the war. Where a small force or bombers would fly with a very large fighter escort. The bombers were essentially bait, with enough of a sting that they couldn't really just be ignored

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles the catch 22 of the luftwaffe command.

While the thought of crews as 'bait' is certainly attention-grabbing, the destruction of German aviation industry and infrastructure was also critical, and justifiable for crippling the Luftwaffe.