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I disagree. Mosquitoes could be very effective flown by highly skilled pilots and navigators given great latitude to use those skills effectively. But one probl

I disagree. Mosquitoes could be very effective flown by highly skilled pilots and navigators given great latitude to use those skills effectively. But one problem with the war was that it tended to kill those highly skilled pilots and navigators faster than they could be replaced. Even in 1944, after losses had declined, most 8thAF Bomb groups had one or two really good navigators and bombardiers, and had everyone else play "follow the leader," even to the point of having entire bomb groups release their bombs simultaneously, rather than each bombardier making their own independent calculations. Obviously if the leader was shot down, then the next man up would take over, but degrading accuracy. Similarly BC used skilled Pathfinders (in Mosquitoes) to mark a target, and then let all of the rest of the unskilled drop somewhere in the target area. Without the skills to take advantage of the Mosquito, the majority of pilots would have been worse off with less defensive effect, and because it would take more planes- and therefore pilots and bombardiers- to carry the same bomb load, it would have pulled more heavily from the middle and lower levels of pilot skill to put the same bomb loads into occupied Europe.

jabl 8y ago
Why couldn't they have used the leader/pathfinder approach with Mosquito-style aircraft being the bulk that followed the leader? Wrt losses, recall that for the British the Mosquito loss rate was one tenth of the heavies. So much less problems with crews being killed. And Mosquito bomb load was almost as high as the B-17.
- drunken-serval 8y ago
  The Mosquito could only carry half of the bombs of a B-17 and had almost half the range.
  - jabl 8y ago
    Well, wikipedia claims the bomber version of the Mosquito had a range of 2400 km with 1800 kg bomb load (good enough for Berlin and back), and B-17G 3200 km range with 2700 kg bomb load. So 3/4th the range and 2/3rd the bomb load.
- mandevil 8y ago
  So bombing with HE is very different than bombing with incendiaries. Incendiaries want to be spread out across an area, so having everyone drop individually within a specified area is preferred. But that's not necessarily the right choice for all targets: going after factories, in particular, drives you to High Explosive bombs. HE effectiveness will suffer dramatically if you let each bombardier control their own route, given that there are not that many good ones available, which drives you to tight formations so one good bomb run can suffice for many planes. And big formations makes the Mosquito vulnerable, because it means that they can't use their speed and elusiveness. It's hard to turn a big formation, so their location is much more predictable, and big formations can't go at their top speed, because all the pilots have to be constantly adjusting their speed to stay in formation, and stay at the speed of the slowest member of the formation. So a Mosquito isn't as effective as a Lancaster at the "burn down a city" job (much smaller bombload), and isn't as effective as a B-17 at the "blast this factory down" with generic crew quality. This isn't a knock on the Mossie: it was a good airplane. Just not suited to every mission.
  - jabl 8y ago
    > And big formations makes the Mosquito vulnerable, because it means that they can't use their speed and elusiveness Sure they could use their speed. Mosquito economic cruising speed was, depending on altitude, 250-300 knots, compared to 160-190 kn for the heavies. Even if operating alone, Mosquitos couldn't floor it for any significant amount of time, since that would consume fuel too fast (same as any other aircraft). Zipping along at 300 kn made them more or less invulnerable to Luftwaffe night fighters, though not day fighters. But even for the faster day fighters, intercepting a bomber formation going 300 kn at 30k feet is much more difficult and time consuming than a 160 kn formation at 25k feet. But yes, all bombers were very vulnerable during their bombing runs. > So a Mosquito isn't as effective as a Lancaster at the "burn down a city" job (much smaller bombload) Since the Mosquito cost only 1/3 of a Lancaster and usually apparently carried between 1/3 and 1/2 as big bomb load, for the same price it would have been possible to carry about an equal amount of bombs. But yes, this would have required 3 times as many pilots and navigators, which were certainly harder to replace than most crewmen on a heavy. Then again, with a loss rate of 1/10 there wouldn't have been such a big problem with keeping the training pipeline filled with replacements either. That being said, one reason for the much lower loss rate of the Mosquitos was certainly that the heavies presented much easier and juicier targets. So if BC had built a mostly-Mosquito force, then presumably the loss rate would have increased, though it's hard to see it could have reached such appalling rates as it did for the heavies. > isn't as effective as a B-17 at the "blast this factory down" with generic crew quality. I'm not sure I follow this argument. For daylight "precision" bombing, Mosquito would have carried 2/3 the bomb load of a B-17G, so yes, a small advantage for the B-17 there if you consider the navigator/bomber to be the critical resource. But for formation bombing with a leader/pathfinder model, no big difference. And with the better survivability of the Mosquitos compared to the lumbering heavies, skilled crew perhaps wouldn't have been such a bottleneck.

jabl 8y ago

Why couldn't they have used the leader/pathfinder approach with Mosquito-style aircraft being the bulk that followed the leader? Wrt losses, recall that for the British the Mosquito loss rate was one tenth of the heavies. So much less problems with crews being killed. And Mosquito bomb load was almost as high as the B-17.

drunken-serval 8y ago
The Mosquito could only carry half of the bombs of a B-17 and had almost half the range.
- jabl 8y ago
  Well, wikipedia claims the bomber version of the Mosquito had a range of 2400 km with 1800 kg bomb load (good enough for Berlin and back), and B-17G 3200 km range with 2700 kg bomb load. So 3/4th the range and 2/3rd the bomb load.
mandevil 8y ago
So bombing with HE is very different than bombing with incendiaries. Incendiaries want to be spread out across an area, so having everyone drop individually within a specified area is preferred. But that's not necessarily the right choice for all targets: going after factories, in particular, drives you to High Explosive bombs. HE effectiveness will suffer dramatically if you let each bombardier control their own route, given that there are not that many good ones available, which drives you to tight formations so one good bomb run can suffice for many planes. And big formations makes the Mosquito vulnerable, because it means that they can't use their speed and elusiveness. It's hard to turn a big formation, so their location is much more predictable, and big formations can't go at their top speed, because all the pilots have to be constantly adjusting their speed to stay in formation, and stay at the speed of the slowest member of the formation. So a Mosquito isn't as effective as a Lancaster at the "burn down a city" job (much smaller bombload), and isn't as effective as a B-17 at the "blast this factory down" with generic crew quality. This isn't a knock on the Mossie: it was a good airplane. Just not suited to every mission.
- jabl 8y ago
  > And big formations makes the Mosquito vulnerable, because it means that they can't use their speed and elusiveness Sure they could use their speed. Mosquito economic cruising speed was, depending on altitude, 250-300 knots, compared to 160-190 kn for the heavies. Even if operating alone, Mosquitos couldn't floor it for any significant amount of time, since that would consume fuel too fast (same as any other aircraft). Zipping along at 300 kn made them more or less invulnerable to Luftwaffe night fighters, though not day fighters. But even for the faster day fighters, intercepting a bomber formation going 300 kn at 30k feet is much more difficult and time consuming than a 160 kn formation at 25k feet. But yes, all bombers were very vulnerable during their bombing runs. > So a Mosquito isn't as effective as a Lancaster at the "burn down a city" job (much smaller bombload) Since the Mosquito cost only 1/3 of a Lancaster and usually apparently carried between 1/3 and 1/2 as big bomb load, for the same price it would have been possible to carry about an equal amount of bombs. But yes, this would have required 3 times as many pilots and navigators, which were certainly harder to replace than most crewmen on a heavy. Then again, with a loss rate of 1/10 there wouldn't have been such a big problem with keeping the training pipeline filled with replacements either. That being said, one reason for the much lower loss rate of the Mosquitos was certainly that the heavies presented much easier and juicier targets. So if BC had built a mostly-Mosquito force, then presumably the loss rate would have increased, though it's hard to see it could have reached such appalling rates as it did for the heavies. > isn't as effective as a B-17 at the "blast this factory down" with generic crew quality. I'm not sure I follow this argument. For daylight "precision" bombing, Mosquito would have carried 2/3 the bomb load of a B-17G, so yes, a small advantage for the B-17 there if you consider the navigator/bomber to be the critical resource. But for formation bombing with a leader/pathfinder model, no big difference. And with the better survivability of the Mosquitos compared to the lumbering heavies, skilled crew perhaps wouldn't have been such a bottleneck.