The Lancaster regularly carried 14,000lbs. What did the B17 carry on a regular basis?
= 8,000lbs.
Richard I think you are being too kind to the B17 there - for the long range missions deep into germany the bomb load would have been 4,000 lbs.
In the funny 'logic' of the military procurement cycle...one could argue that the B17 was a complete failure at its primary role,on early raids into germany they got mauled by fighters and flak and could only achieve acceptable losses with heavy fighter escort.
So one could argue that the B17's best defensive weapon was (say) the P51 - and once the P51 became operational (late 1943) then (to use Bullshooter45's favourite expression) perhaps the
B17's could have been field modified to remove some of its defensive armament to improve a/c performance!
Please note that I am not grinding an ax(e) about the B17,it was the fault of the military 'planners' - who thought that the bombers could get through unescorted.
Another little facet of the B17 war (perhaps B24 also ?) was that only a small proportion of the a/c (formation/deputy + possibly element leader) used the bombsight...the rest of the bombardiers 'toggled' when they saw the leader drop.
As I said - I dont have any axes to grind here,I have been an aircraft engineer for 40 years so I do not look at any aircraft through rose tinted specs...they are all a compromise engineeringwise.
If I had been a Heavy Bomber pilot in WW2 then there is no doubt I would have chosen these 2 a/c types to fly!
The B17 because she was easy to fly and was a tough bird !!
The Lanc because she was a pilots a/c -the controls were definitely the most ergonomic of the brit heavies.