45 shooter
I suggest you do a little serious research,it will take you 10 minutes of googling to get the info about mid upper turrets.
The standard Lanc had a mid upper turret!generally speaking the MU turret was only removed from the Lancs with 'special' as suffix to mark number.
The Lanc was a v good load lifter,any weight reduction was done by chadwick just prior to service testing to ensure the production contract,the Lanc performance was very satisfactory to the RAF,I agree that it would have benefited from weight/drag reduction but I can assure you that it was not carried out on main force a/c...the crews were happy flying Lancs.
The merlin engined Halifax and the Short Stirling were the a/c with performance problems,and the Halifax 'special' was severely stripped to gain bombing altitude.

rgds LR

In 30 minutes, this is what I could find. My problem is searching through books takes
 

http://www.secondworldwar.org.uk/aircraft/lanc9.jpg
It takes time to search though books. Will continue. PS, did you know about the losses from Schlang muzak because the bottom ball turret was removed for night bombing?

How many pictures can you find with the Ventral ball turret in place?
 

Avro Lancaster Bomber Characteristics

ArmamentTen .303-inch Browning trainable forward-firing machine guns (2 in nose, 2 ventral, and 2 dorsal turrets; 4 in tail turret)CrewSevenNormal bomb load12,000 lbs.; up to 14,000 lbs. on some missionsEnginesFour Packard (Rolls-Royce) Merlin Vee piston engines of 1,460 hp eachMaximum speed275 mph at 15,000 ft.Cruising speed227 mphRange2,530 miles with 7,000 lb. bombloadCeiling24,500 ft.Wing Span102 ft.Length69 ft. 6 in.Height19 ft. 7 in. (with tail down)Weight36,900 lbs. empty; 41,000 equipped; 68,000 lbs. loaded and fueled
Note: Characteristics vary slightly with the Lancaster Mark variant, manufacturing site, and date.

Just by googling 'Avro Lancaster variants' gets you...

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...Cug4n8U5WwYibg

Not definitive I know but looks about right!

I dont know which 'RAF' website you have been looking at but it is not the one I have seen :ok:

Re the ventral turret...yes not the RAF finest intelligence hour vis a vis Schrage musik but as the above link says...some crews did carry a ventral 'scare gun'
I believe the ventral turret was removed because it was 'not very good'

Re ventral guns

The canadians seemed keen on ventral guns...as some RAF crews also were

Interesting that near the bottom, it shows a naked Lanc
 

I find it interesting that near the bottom of the page you linked to, there is a Lanc wo top or bottom turret. My point is not that ALL Lancs had the turrets removed, just that many of them did. Many planes that were used exclusivly for night raids had three of the four turrets removed. These were not specials, just normal bombers used day in and day out.
Some place I read in a flight manual that the best deffense was a desending corkscrew maneuver to loose the attacker at night! (Because there was only the one turret in the tail!)

Such as,

I find that very difficult to believe.

Reason being that I can remember being over North Bay, Ontario, at 45,000 feet on a crystal clear winter night, (in a CF-100), and being able to see Ottawa, Toronto and the lights of Montreal as a glow on the horizon, it was pretty spectacular and still remains in my memory as it did not happen too often. By way of interest, New York and Boston would be 422 and 434 nautical respectively and I can tell you that they were certainly not visible. 600 miles visibility from 20,000 feet, even if it is from fires seems a bit of a stretch.

Take a break! Take my poll in this same section?
 

It's about what you think makes the best fighter plane.

45 shooter
My point is that you are mistaken :)
ALL Main night force standard Lancs had nose + tail + mid upper turrets fitted and manned at all times on ops.
The ventral turret was never fitted to many a/c and soon deleted,replaced by the H2s radar,the ventral gun was difficult to aim in daylight so useless for night ops.
Only a very small proportion of Lancs were designed/modified to have less turrets...it explained the basic marks in the link I posted earlier!

The 'naked' lanc you refer to is a Dambuster 'Special' - ie one of the very few a/c not to have all turrets fitted (didnt have any bomb doors either )

simple calcs for horizon range?
 

20k' = 174 miles, 40k' smoke cloud = 246 miles. 600 miles? I think you are right, seems a bit much, but I wonder where they got the quote from? Wiki is one of those places that ends up re-posting the same BS that is from the original source. I wish I knew what that was!

Go almost to the bottom!
 

There are three or four "Naked" Lancs, only two or three of which are "Specials"! Also the picture I posted was certainly not a "Special"! Note that both the picture you linked to and the one I posted were not specials, but did not have either ventral or upper turrets!
Were you able to find the source of the "Decending corkscrew maneuver" as it relates to unarmed Lancs at night?

Lancaster production by mark

3 prototypes
3,434 B.Mk I.....3 turrets
300 B.Mk II....3 turrets
3,030 B.Mk III...3 turrets
180 B.Mk IV...renamed Lincoln
430 B.Mk X...3 turrets
32 B.Mk I Specials (Converted) Tallboy/grand Slam,usually with tail turret only
23 B.Mk III Specials (Converted) Dambusters - no MU turret

There were probably a few other non standard Lancs,but the great majority of Wartime Lancs had 3 turrets.

So approx 7000 a/c with 3 turrets and approx 60 a/c with some removed.

rgds LR

The picture you posted is post war :)

I am specifically talking about wartime a/c

Please do some reading from reputable sources...the 'corkscrew' was the standard Bomber Command evasive manoever,either the Mid Upper or the Tail Gunner would tell the pilot to ''corkscrew port'' or ''corkscrew stbd''

45-Shooter uses Wiki for everything, ignores any information he doesn't like & draws sweeping conclusions from photographs & information that he likes and / or supports his views.

So it ain't much point debating.

Hi LT...I know...and the strange thing is that wiki does have quite good info on the Lanc marks,I guess it is just a case of reading it !!

rgds LR

45 shooter (Stewart),

First off, do yourself a favour and ditch Wikipedia, as pretty much anybody can edit it. Next get yourself a copy of the Lancaster drawings (internet or ask the people at Avro Heritage nicely), and get a few decent books on the aircraft. I can recommend those by Francis K Mason, Bruce Robertson, and Harry Holmes as excellent reading.

Referring again to your previous post -

1. You missed the point entirely regarding bombloads. Your statement "All other bombs were carried by specially modified planes WO bomb bay doors." is incorrect, and the link I posted to shows this. I'm not debating where the individual shackles are in the Lancaster or the B17, just the variance of load each can carry.

2. The availablility difference is my point, which again you missed.. The fact that the B17 was available in higher numbers at any one time means of course the type is going to drop more tonnage. This is why your average is meaningless. Compare the number of wartime operational Lancs (not the postwar or late batches of Canadian aircraft that never made it over here) to a similar number of B17's if you want a like for like comparison of load carried with any accuracy. Match numbers of aircraft over a matched period of time.

In regards to armour, the original FN20 rear turret had some 9mm armour plate, but no bullet proof glass. The glazing was perspex the same as for the mid upper turret. I've not seen any evidence of seat armour in the rear turret as the seat was little more than a small foam pad. You're right in that the fuel tanks were self sealing, but the oil tanks being armoured?

3. Please provide the figures you have from the pilots notes, or from the manufacturer maybe, that show operating the Lancaster at its service ceiling would cut the payload by more than half. The statement you make on this is your opinion, and nothing more.

What isn't opinion is that a standard Lancaster could and did carry a substantial payload over an excessively long range - the 9 Sqn and 617 Sqn aircraft that attacked the Tirpitz weren't the 'Special' aircraft. This is not opinion, and regardless of number of aircraft used it was done operationally; so we can take this as a measure of what a a fairly standard aircraft is capable of.

4. Engines -

Lancaster BVI Merlin 85 1635hp

Two speed, two stage. Later used in the Lancaster IV, also known as the Lincoln. Do I really have to do all your homework for you just because wikipedia is lacking?

5. There are more than 15 points, depending on which carriers are fitted. Please show me the 12 point version of a Lanc bomb bay, as I can only find the Manchester version which shows 8 points, for 1,000lb bombs, later with the provision for the 4,000lb bomb. You could be refering to the first batch of Lancasters which used Manchester fuselages maybe?

As to fitting the B17's entire 17,600lbs internally - I doubt it, as according to the B17's own notes, nearly half of it is carried externally. Since you asked, here is how it is done on a B17G, according to Boeing, just for you.


Ordnance: Up to 17,600 lb carried in a lower-fuselage weapon bay rated at 9,600 lb, and on two hardpoints (both under the wings with each unit rated at 4,000 lb.), and generally comprising:

• 6x 1,600 lb bombs, or
• 8x 1,000 lb bombs or
• 16x 500 lb bombs carried internally and
  2x 4,000 lb bombs carried externally.

6. Discount all the daylight missions.. Okay. Lets talk USAF night missions and accuracy then shall we? And over which period?

It is generally accepted that at the beginning of the war, accuracy was poor. By the end of the war the concept had been refined so well that the destruction of certain cities is still hotly debated today.

7. Glad we agree on something...

8. Yes! The fuselage didn't require reinforcement to carry the 12,000 Tallboy. It required modified doors. There were modifications to the undercarraige to carry the extra weight of the 22,000lb bomb, modifications which were carried through to subsequent aircraft. The only modifications to the fuselage were fairings, deleted turrets and a false floor.

As I mentioned earlier (and you ignored), the aircraft was significantly over engineered due to Air Ministry specifications calling for it to be capable of being launched off a catapult - or 'stressed for frictionless take-off' as they put it. It was tested succesfully at Farnoborough.

The Air Ministry wrote the spec, liked it, ordered it, and had built 7,377 of 'em. You didn't. Provide evidence to support your claims of modifications, or accept that you're wrong.

"The Lanc's engines were single stage, two speed blowered, WO Turbo-charger! While it was simple, there is no way to compaire it to the Supercharged with turbo-blower used in the American planes."

Explain please? The Merlin engine, and its Griffon engine counterpart lasted in frontline service with several air forces far longer than the B17's efforts. They were also pretty much self contained, not relying on components buried in crevices up and down the span of the wing, which isn't really superior. Lancasters didn't have a habit of blowing their wings apart when the turbosuperchargers got annoyed either.


Regards

Rich

Adding more fuel (ie facts) to the fire.
My father was bombed by three airforces whilst he was a small part in the Normandy campaign during 1944. Attacks by the Luftwaffe were a nuisance but were considered legitimate, as were the occasional bomb from the RAF when the ground forces were moving forward and the front line was confused. However what was unforgivable was being bombed in daylight by main force American bombers when over seven miles behind the front line! (not an isolated instance), yet two nights later the RAF main force supported a joint Canadian and British night advance (Operation Totalize) by bombing German positions 600 yards to either side of the line of advance without any blue on blue incidents.
There was a joke common amongst the troops in Normandy (apparantly started by the Germans) 'When the Luftwaffe comes over the allies duck, when the RAF come over the Germans duck, when the Americans come over EVERYONE ducks.'

Yes, and every schoolboy knows they flew together on both day and night missions. And although the Brits and Yanks initially distrusted each other, in the end they became very very good friends. And it had a happy ending.

Comics never lie. :ok:

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/3544/img499.jpg
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3296/img501w.jpg

You state that every Lanc ever made stayed like that?
 

Are you stating that every Lancaster that was ever manufactured with three turrets stayed that way for it's entire career and that no Lancaster except the ~30 specials ever had some of their turrets removed and plated over? How do you explain the two pictures of Lancs that are clearly NOT specials, one that you posted a link to and the one's picture that I posted, that have both had the top and ventral turrets plated over?

But why bother arguing whether 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 had their turrets removed when the correct question was which aircraft had the superior aerodynamic performance? (With or with out those turrets!)

As I stated earlier...the picture you posted was taken postwar:)

I also stated that during wartime yes all standard main force Lancs retained all their turrets...I was only trying to help with one specific point,but you dont need to take my word for it - the evidence is plain to see for all.
You seem to want to get into a 'which is best' scenario - All a/c are a design compromise and have their good and bad points...no ww2 a/c was perfect.