Stewart,
Unless you start accepting what you read in books and other published papers, we're going nowhere.
About numbers, you list all Lancs Vs all B-17s. Yet B-17s were used in four theaters of operations and Lancs in only one. There are many reasons why there were <800 Lancs available at any one time. They were built, used and destroyed at such a rate that less than 800 were available at any given time during the war.
Not really an argument about the aircraft there as the superior manufacturing capacity of the USA is known. You're missing my point. When comparing tonnage, you've been talking total bombs dropped by the B17 as a type. The only way to get a true comparison would be to put equal numbers of each aircraft side by side and compare them.
From your post. They were less reliable than the B-17 and had a much lower mission readiness rate than the B-17.
Prove it? In terms of single aircraft, they often flew on far longer - look at numbers of aircraft that got over 50 missions. Or over 100.
Compared against the B-17 and B-24s - where after a couple of their crew did 25 missions they got classed as war weary, painted in funny colours and used as 'Assembly ships' - its no contest.
The typical bombing altitude of American missions varied between 25,000' and 31,000'! Some at almost 35,000'. No mission was ever scheduled to operate at less than 25,000' over the target. This was the minimum altitude considered necessary to avoid the most dangerous Flack. Most Lanc missions were under 17,000' over the target, NONE were at altitudes over 25,000'! Just curious; What was the maximum number of B-17s sent on any single day against the Nazis?
Unfortunately they didn't avoid the flak or the fighters. Reading 91st BG, 303rd BG and various other 8th AF records show bombing heights of around 23,000 ft. None below 25,000 eh? Read on.
The most B17's I can find on one mission was 453 B17's to Cologne in October 1944. Having said that, I don't have specific numbers as I do for the Lancaster.
How does lifting 22,000 pounds to 16,000' relate to the failure to lift any weight to 30,000'? IIRC, the maximum ceiling of the loaded Lanc with 14,000 pounds of bombs up was under 19,000'? So dropping 8,000 pounds of bombs off of the manifest adds 3,000'. The secret is that the fuel for the return flight must be on the plane after it drops the bombs and thus limits the ceiling that can be reached before the bombs are dropped. The Lanc's poorly blown engines is why it has a ceiling more than 10,000' lower than the B-17!
I've pointed out to you twice now - bombing height and ceiling aren't the same. I've found a couple of reference to B17's in the Pacific bombing from 30,000 ft, but no details of the load.
To answer your question though; lifting 22,000lbs to 16,000 ft is related to the B17's attempts to get 17,600lbs to the same height, for substantially less range.
This is a function of three things; Wing Loading, L/D and available power at altitude. The B-17 was the more aerodynamic of the two planes. This is not open to debate. They both had about the same MTO of 65,000 pounds and about the same EEW. They had similar wing spans and areas, yet the B-17 was faster and longer ranged than the Lanc with LESS INSTALLED POWER! Thus it had to have a better L/D.
You've only got to look at the Lanc to realise its not the most aerodynamic aircraft in the world. Its wing isn't designed for speed either, its there to lift a heavy weight at low speed... something it did quite well into the 1990's.
Except that they were fitted with the much more powerful version of the Merlin engine! Most Lancs did not use this engine! In my book that made them "Special"! Could that mission have been flown with the much less powerful type XX Merlin engine? Not on your life!
Apart from the very first batch of Lancasters there were few that had Merlin XX engines... about 900 aircraft out of 7,377. I posted this further back in the thread, this highlights your ignorance. The NFxxx batch were STANDARD BIII AIRCRAFT. "Special" aircraft were designated as such.
Still waiting for you to list how many Lancs were built/retro-fitted with the RR made Merlins, Vs how many were made with American made Packard Merlins? Note that WO the exact numbers in front of me, every book I have, stated that MOST Lancs were built with Packard built Merlin engines, not RRs. Every last one of those was the American Version of the Merlin XX.
Indeed, and you'll notice that Packard never built the Merlin XX, they produced the Merlin 28 which was based on it, and re-engineered. In regards of numbers around 3,030 Packard equipped Lancaster BIII were built, out of 7,377.
Along those lines, except for the 33 "Specials", the maximum bomb load for the rest of the >7,000 Lancasters was 14,000 pounds! The vast majority >8,000 B-17s could carry 17,600 pounds of bombs. ( Winner= B-17)
I posted the Lancasters loads, yet you've ignored them. I also posted the woeful performance of the B17 when given 17,600lbs to carry.
Admittedly the Lancaster regularly carried 14,000lbs. What did the B17 carry on a regular basis?
8,000lbs.
Winner = Lanc.
FINE! B-17s dropped 640Kt to Lancasters 608Kt! In Europe only, the B-17s also dropped 138Kt on Japan. Does that count toward the B-17s score, or do we use only those bombs dropped on Nazi/Axis targets?
Just keep it to a representative number. For example - If I had one aircraft and you had two, and we both sent them out against the same targets at the same time; you'd drop more. If we take one aircraft of mine, and one of yours, it becomes more representative between aircraft rather than operator.
But a much more accurate assessment would be when the owners could afford to replace obviously obsolete equipment with jets!
Find me an available jet that could do the job the Lancaster was doing in Canada in the 1960's, or in the Pacific.
Wrong assessment! The minimum bombing altitude over Europe was 25,000'!
No, I think you need to go read some more. Here's a part of an article by John T Correll, for Airforce magazine.
"Postwar analysis found that accuracy had been about the same in Europe and Asia for day visual and radar precision bombing. Eighth Air Force in Great Britain put 31.8 percent of its bombs within 1,000 feet of the aim point from an average altitude of 21,000 feet. Fifteenth Air Force in Italy averaged 30.78 percent of its bombs within 1,000 feet from 20,500 feet. In the Asia and the Pacific, Twentieth Air Force—45.5 percent of whose sorties were daylight precision despite the emphasis on area bombing in the last months of the war—put 31 percent of its bombs within 1,000 feet of the aim point, although the bombing altitudes were on average 4,500 feet lower than for Eighth Air Force"
Note he says 'average' not 'minimum'.
Summing up?
B17 =
Faster at higher altitude. Comes at the cost of range and payload. Daylight missions required nearly 4,000lbs of payload capacity used by defensive armament, which though substantial is barely adequate.
Lancaster =
Ultimate heavy lifter, only rivalled by the B29. Versatile in terms of bombload, due to uninterrupted 33 feet long bomb bay. Runs out of breath at higher altitude. Poor defenses.
Crews of both aircraft =
Heroes.
Regards,
Rich