Small B17 bomb bay and bomb load

[Jon]

Thanks Vinman.

You failed to mention if the B17 carried its full bomb load each time....the answer is no it didn't....so as i stated the LANCASTER CARRIED FAR BIGGER BOMB LOADS THAN THE BI7

Any chance you could answer my original question !!

Cheers.

[George Hopp]

There has never been any doubt that the B-17 carried a smaller bomb load than the Halifax and Lancaster. So what? And, Bomber Command dropped great quantities of bombs on the German refineries in the last few months of the war, after the German early warning system had been destroyed, and the refineries had already been mortally wounded by the USAAF. Again, so what? Reading the official histories clearly shows that while the British were burning cities and killing civilians, the USAAF was decimating the German fighter arm, destroying the German war-making capacity, bringing transportation in western Europe to a virtual standstill, and making D-Day possible. They all enforce the perception that it's not the size of the bomb load, but how intelligently the bomb load is used.

[Vinman]

Hello George,
Excellent post! My thoughts exactly, you couldn't have said it better.
Vinman.

[Jon]

Still waiting for an answer to the question !


Jon

[Jon]

Oh! and one other thing.

As you Canadians flew with us Brits i assume when you say British killing civilians...you mean WE were killing civilians. Not nice from a country that has never been on the wrong end of a bomb!

Tally ho!

[Smudger Smith]

Dear George & Vin,

I have taken an hour or so before I attempt to reply to your posts, I have had to read your posts a few time’s just to make sure I was not hallucinating

I have never heard such rubbish;

Bomber Command had no involvement in the disruption of the transport and railway networks in occupied Europe pre and post D-Day. ?

Bomber Command did not attack oil targets or war producing factories. ?

Bomber Command only attacked German cities killing “innocent” civilians. ?

Unbelievably naïve, and rather sad when one considers the magnificent contribution of the Canadian No.6 Group, RAF Bomber Command.

The contribution of the US 8th & 15th Airforce was without doubt massive and decisive; the destruction of the German fighter arm was in no small measure the result of the US Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightings. However you so casually belittle RAF Bomber Commands contribution. Both worked together towards victory, side by side sharing the same dangers. It’s rather unfortunate that people such as you wish to run-down the contribution of Bomber Command because it suits your political stance. I humbly suggest you read a number of books on RAF Bomber Command, yes the command made mistakes, and should have perhaps change it’s bombing policies sooner. That’s me being objective and rational, you both might want to try it.

Smudger

[Juha]

Smudger, I again agreed with You. I'm also puzzled with George's message.
George, BC was an active participant in transport plan before D-Day and it began again attack oil targets on night 12/13 June 1944 with a successful attack on Nordstern synthetic-oil plant in Gelsenkirchen. It should be mentioned in the Official History, Vol. IV, p. 322. My source is Middlebrook and Everitt's The Bomber Command War Diaries (ISBN 0-670-80137-2) p. 527.

Juha

[Smudger Smith]

George Wrote :

Reading the official histories clearly shows that while the British were burning cities and killing civilians, the USAAF was decimating the German fighter arm, destroying the German war-making capacity, bringing transportation in western Europe to a virtual standstill, and making D-Day possible.

It is because you make such an unsupported and obviously incorrect generalisation I replied to you above post. It’s the type of statement I expect from the present day PC brigade tabloids.

My opinion of Bomber Command was clearly recorded on post 17. I stand by it.

It’s obvious that we do not read the same histories, I could the record the number of times the US bombers bombed targets over cloud, but I want, this is not the place to go over the same old ground.

[Jim Oxley]

There is indeed a very misguided belief that the 8th AF (and 15th for that matter) only attacked military targets and did not target, or bomb, cities.

It is of course far from the truth.

That's not to say that there was not a very basic divergence by RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF on strategic bombing at the very highest level. There was. It part it was due to the fact that Britain had had it's cities bombed, America had not. There was definitely a revenge element involved on the part of the political leaders of Britain, from Churchill down. And it should be noted that the policy of night bombing of Cities was well in force before Harris came to control Bomber Command.

The difference in bombing philosphy had much to do with the aircraft each country fielded. Britain found out very early in the war that it's bombers could not survive in the air against the modern fighters of the Luftwaffe. And so switched to night bombing - as did the Luftwaffe when faced with equally strong opponents in the BoB.

The USAAF believed totally in the powerfully armoured bomber, and that it could penetrate successfully in daylight. And because it could bomb in daylight the 8th had the luxury (if you like) of selecting specifc military targets. Yet still they managed to not only miss their targets, and bomb cities, they even on occasion bombed the wrong country!

Mind you Bomber Command also were guilty of this on several occasions.

Aerial bombing is an emotive subject, let alone whether day or night bombing was preferable. Any judgements must be made based on the moral view that applied in the 40's, not now.

The same applies to the USAAF's indiscriminate fire bombing of Japanese cities in late '44 and '45.

There are a number of very fine books on the subject, however most deal in isolation with either Bomber Command or the 8th Air Force. One excellent book that has recently come out deals with the bombing campaign against Germany as a whole, and draws many interesting findings on the bombing campaign based on the combined effects by both Britain and America.

I thoroughly recommend it, it's title is "The Bomber War, The Allied Air Offensive Against Nazi Germany", by Robin Neillands. ISBN 1-58567-457-5

[Juha]

Hello George

the transportation facilities were being smothered before D-Day and during the summer 44 by both the USAAF and RAF and besides most of the German military supplies got to the front or at least near of it. There were delays, sometimes crucial, but by drasticly curtailing French civilian rail traffic and non-essential German rail traffic most of the essential supplies, troops and equippment got to or near the front. IIRC only after late Feb. - early March 1945 German transport system was in such a chaos that it had decisive impact.

But we are now rather far from the original question. IIRC B-17 was design on a spec which was meant to produce a new bomber. The number of engines was not specificed but the assumption was that the end product would be a twin-engined medium bomber as was the other contender which also got into production, Douglas B-18. I'm not want to downgrade B-17 which was a truly excellent design, only to show how far-sighted the Boeing design team and also USAAC top brass were on this occasion.

Juha