Mosquito - the alternative strategic bomber?

[White Bear]

From this web site, http://www.2worldwar2.com/mosquito-2.htm.

Some arugments will never be resolved, but this is something I have often wondered about. What might have happened if prodution of the Mosquito had increased to match that of the heavy bombers and used on mass, would it have saved many allied lives, saved significant monies, and perhaps shortened the war?
Any comments?

Mosquito - the alternative strategic bomber
Bomber command used the De Havilland Mosquito to improve the very poor accuracy of the heavy bombers and to reduce their losses, but it refused to consider the alternative, which was finally adopted only after World War 2 and dominates modern air power since. The alternative was to replace the big and slow and expensive heavy bombers with the Mosquito as Bomber command's main bomber. The points in favor of this alternative were also clearly presented by group commander Bennett, as a comparison between the Mosquito and the Lancaster, which was the best British heavy bomber:
Mosquito carries to Berlin half the bomb load carried by a Lancaster, but...
Mosquito loss rate is just 1/10 of Lancasters' loss rate
Mosquito costs a third of the cost of a Lancaster
Mosquito has a crew of two, compared to a Lancaster's crew of seven
Mosquito was a proven precision day bomber and the Lancaster was not.
Bennett added that any way you do the math with those data, "It's quite clear that the value of the Mosquito to the war effort is significantly greater than that of any other aircraft in the history of aviation". In the German side, Erhard Milch, the deputy head of the Luftwaffe, said about the Mosquito "I fear that one day the British will start attacking with masses of this aircraft". But in one of the greatest allied mistakes in World War 2, bomber command persisted with its heavy bombers, and less than 1/4 of the Mosquitoes produced were of bomber types.

Regards,
W.B.

[Conan the Librarian]

Hello White Bear, good to see you getting around :} I read a book on the Pathfinder Force and Bennet's Light Night Striking Force which retold the tale of a female American journalist that was escorted to the flightline by the man himself. He commented that the Mossie carried more payload to Berlin than a B-17 and her reply was to the effect that this was something that the American public "Must never know"

I was lucky to see the BAe Mosquito flying shortly before its' tragic accident. What a wonderful aeroplane.


Conan

[Saab Dastard]

W.B.

Whatever about the relative merits of the Mosquito versus Lancaster / Halifax, the really critical decision was what was bombed, not by what aeroplane.

Both the British and American bomber force commanders had drastically over-inflated ideas of what bombing alone could do (not unlike Goering) - in the case of the RAF, to dehouse and demoralise the civil population; for the Americans, the paralysis of key industries.

However, there is overwhelming post-war evidence that neither of these strategies were decisive, and that the longer the Air Chiefs persisted in their claims, the less they were believed.

The real tragedy is that the Americans (particularly) did periodically cripple German capability by attacking oil-related targets, but this was never consistently followed through. It was not a lack of capability to attack oil targets, but a lack of will.

The creation of a flexible MRCA Mosquito instead of the heavies would have probably been very much more cost effective (assuming the timber could be found). ;) Very possibly Allied aircrew and civilian lives would have been saved - but unless the strategic objectives had also been changed, then it is unlikely that the course or duration of the war would have been significantly altered.

I strongly commend Max Hasting's book on Bomber Command - perhaps the most objective view I have ever read.

SD

[Onan the Clumsy]

...on the other hand, I have often read that one of the problems faced by Zee Shermans was the lack of a heavy bomber force, with talk about the Condor being the only candidate.

To further that position, If you believe the Commando (R) comics, they had a limitless supply of Do17s, HE111s, Ju88s, Me110s etc etc, most of which bear at least a fair resemblence to the Mosquito (ignoring of course the little black crosses).

The Mosquito was certainly no bum, but perhaps after all it was just a twist of fate. If they had called the Lancaster the Leamington Spa for instance or the South Kensington or the Bognor Regis it would not have been so popular and we would all now know if indeed the Mosquito was a contender.

[White Bear]

Conan,
I wonder if the journalist in question was Margret Bourke White?
It must have been the BAe Mosquito I saw flying in 1984? at Duxford. Beautiful aircraft.
A few years later I was lucky enough to see, and later touch, Kermit Weeks’ Mosquito just after it arrived in the U.S. It flew into St Paul with the Canadian Lancaster, and a couple of Mustangs all flying in formation, fresh from Oshkosh. It was glorious to hear all those Merlin’s together.
The Lancaster, and Mossy pulled up side by side on the ramp, the two Mustangs taxied to one side.
I was standing quite close to one Mustang as it shut down. The canopy slid open and the pilot stepped onto the wing, took off the jet style helmet, and blond hair fell to her waist. This twenty something, serious looker, jumped to the ground and walked over to talk with Kermit with the eyes of every red blooded male in the not inconsiderable crowd, following her with a mixture of lust and envy.
Here I was standing in front of two fine and rare examples of British aviation, and my attention was on a blond. Lord help me I thought, right there encapsulated, was a reason I moved to Minnesota!
Regards,
W.B.

[Onan the Clumsy]

Sounds like it was a P51 with an Allison.

[White Bear]

Don't think so Onan, this one had a blower.
W.B.

[Conan the Librarian]

White Bear, you might just be right, although the book in question is holding up the roof in the loft at present and so cannot easily check.

Haven't thought this through as yet though, but had the RAF bomber offensive been largely carried out by the Mosquito, what would the German response have been if they knew that somebody was not going to shoot back, but rely on speed? The Dornier 335, Me163 or 262 might have taken development in a different direction? What would have happened to German force levels if they weren't being hacked down by gunners in every orifice, so to speak? Would the easing of pressure at night, meant that the USAAF took a much bigger pasting by day? Yup, that Is an interesting thought....

Conan

[Onan the Clumsy]

...Allison as in the Elvis Costello song



:{

[Brian Abraham]

this one had a blower.

Hairdryer thingy? :}

[ORAC]

Not a simple question at the time. Could lancaster production have been switched to Mosquito production? Different materials, skills etc. There might have been bottlenecks to stop one ramping up and then unused capacity for the other. Lanc had only one pilot, could pilot training have been ramped up to cover the increased needs of the Mosquito force if it took twice as many aircraft. Did we have the airfields/capacity to handle twice as many bombers?

If it could have been done, I think they would have done it. But considering the number and types of bombers we had I think they probably produced as many of each type they could within the material/skills/production/training ceilings they had.

[Noah Zark.]

I have a copy of "Flight International" magazine, dated w /e 29 September 1984.
On Roger Bacon's page, "Straight & Level", appears the following:
"Nephew John Hodson of Rolls-Royce Inc. wants help in his search for a 1944 Mosquito pilot who, somewhere over England, drew alongside a B-26 piloted by a young USAAF officer called Russ Thayer.
Young Thayer thought he would show the Mossie how to fly, and opened up to full boost. The Mosquito pilot stayed with him, put his undercarriage down, turned on his back, feathered one engine, and then pulled away.
If the Mosquito pilot is reading this, would he please get in touch? Russ Thayer is today (1986) a senior vice-president of Pan-American, and John would like to affect a re-union and perhaps get some help to impress him with some more Rolls-Royce power."

Ah, De Havilland! (and R-R too!)

P.S.
Would love to know if ever that meeting took place.

P.P.S.
Reproduced with the kind permission of the current editor, Murdo. Morrison.

[Conan the Librarian]

I remember reading that edition! The same story cropped up on here somewhere last year, if that helps :}

Conan

[JDK]

Where's my salt?

Mosquito PR.Mk.IX: Top speed - 408mph, cruise 250mph.

Martin B-26B Marauder: Top 317, Cruse 260mph.

So on paper the Mosquito has a 25% max speed excess to the B-26; OK. However, interestingly, there's nothing in it in the cruise.

But what's the details?

Now I don't have a Mosquito pilot's notes to hand, but I'd be interested to know if the undercarriage limiting speed on the Mosquito was above it's cruise, and what engine out speeds might be. Sure, wartime pilots might (did!) bend the rules, but:
- Undercarriage
- Invert
- engine out...

To paraphrase Capone - one certainly, two maybe, three?

A good story - for the bar.

[forget]

From ‘Mosquito’, by Bill Sweetman. ISBN 0 7106 0131 X

It has been argued that Bomber Command could have done far more damage to Germany, with far less loss of life among its own crews and far less wastage of wartime production capacity, had it embraced the concept of the fast unarmed bomber earlier. Certainly, the Command’s post-war policy reflected this experience, with its jet bombers being designed around advanced H2S and electronic countermeasures and relying on speed and altitude for defence.

It takes fairly simple arithmetic to calculate that the Mosquito in its ultimate form could deliver more weapons over the same distance than the typical heavy bomber, when the two aircraft were compared on the basis of crew man-hours, total engine hours and fuel consumption; also, that the average Mosquito could be expected to deliver far more bombs during its far longer life expectancy, and its crew could expect to survive a far longer tour of operations. The only serious weakness of this argument is that the relative invulnerability of the Mosquito was itself indirectly brought about by Bomber Command’s own policies. Because the RAF concentrated on producing the four-engined heavy bombers, the Luftwaffe’s main task was to destroy these; Germany’s aircraft-production chief Erhard Milch accordingly opposed production of the Heinkel He 219 night-fighter, which was faster than the Mosquito, in favour of the slower Ju 88G, which was adequate to deal with the heavy bombers and could be built more cheaply than the He 219. The practical difficulties of a shift to the unarmed bomber philosophy would have been enormous at any stage (including the need to train crews to the high standards demanded for the Mosquito) and would have given the Luftwaffe time to re-equip with the He 219, undoubtedly increasing Mosquito losses.

The final Mosquito bomber version was the B.35, basically similar to the B.XVI but powered by the high-altitude-rated Merlin 114. It remained in front-line service with the RAF until 1953, when the English Electric Canberra replaced it. Even the B.35, however, was restricted to operational weights and loadings in peacetime which were well below those of wartime B.XVIs; the “war emergency” weights at which the B.XVI operated were 4,000 lb (1,815 kg) higher than the peacetime weights, which limited the Mosquito’s bomb-load to 1,500 lb (680 kg). These restrictions could, of course, be lifted in wartime, and were an excellent indication of the abuse which the Mosquito would put up with in the hands of a skilled and dedicated crew.