Small B17 bomb bay and bomb load

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

The normal Mosquito bombload was up to 4x500lb, or half that of a normal B-17. Some modified aircraft could (and regularly did!) carry a single 4000lb bomb, but the aircraft was overloaded and unstable.

Would say that the 400 B MkXVIs built were more than 'some'. Mossies also could, and did, make 2 missions to Berlin in one night using seperate crews. B-17s needed at least, at a minimum, a day, but usually more between missions.

The B-17s bomb load is something like this:

load 1 - 12 x 500lb
load 2 - 6 x 1000lb
load 3 - 24 x 100lb
load 4 - 10 x100lb + 6 x 500lb

Only load 2 had much chance at damaging/destroying machine tools which are much harder to replace than a roof.

George, BC, at least in Nov '44, dropped more bomb tonnage on oil targets than the 8th AF.