de Havilland Mosquito (WWII Fighter/Bomber) - what allowed it to strike with "pinpoint accuracy"?

Factual Questions
101

It’s difficult to determine why some weapon became a priority and another weapon lacked support without searching the major players correspondence. If Marshall wanted more Mossies, it would have been a done deal (unless Roosevelt overruled him).

Arnold wasn’t the “head of the US Air Force” at that point in time and it appears he was lucky just to be promoted to major general.

The disfavor shown Arnold by Roosevelt reached a turning point in March 1941 when new Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, a supporter of Arnold, submitted his name with two others for promotion to the permanent rank of major general.[nb 30] Roosevelt refused to send the list to the Senate for confirmation because of Arnold’s nomination, and his forced retirement from the service seemed imminent to both Stimson and Marshall. Stimson and Harry Hopkins arranged for Arnold, accompanied by Maj. Elwood “Pete” Quesada, to travel to England for three weeks in April to evaluate British aircraft production needs and to provide an up-to-date strategic analysis.[93][nb 31] His meeting with Roosevelt to report his findings was judged as impressively cogent and optimistic, but the president ruminated on Arnold’s future for three weeks before submitting his name and the others to the Senate. From that point on, however, Arnold’s “position in the White House was secure.”[94][nb 32] His importance to Roosevelt in setting an airpower agenda was demonstrated when Arnold was invited to the Atlantic Conference in Newfoundland in August, the first of seven such summits that he, not Morgenthau, would attend.

I’m under the impression that every commander wanted “more” of something. More tanks, more M1 garands, more B29s, more men, more food, more bullets, etc. Every one of them had to make a case as for why they needed it. Sometimes, there just wasn’t enough money to get the job done or there was another weapon in the works that could do the same job and maybe do it better.

While the Mossie did well against some targets and was the only choice for others, it wasn’t considered the first choice for most missions. Just for comparison purposes, how many Mossies and how many sorties would it take to knock out the heavily defended Schweinfurt-Regensburg ball bearing factories in 1943?

102

Regarding the US not having anything comparable, what about the A-26 Invader? On a new phone right now, so unable to cite stats, but it seems to be roughly equivalent in many ways.

103

I don’t see how you can get any better than the B-25s in the Pacific with eight fifties and a cannon, and a cannon, not those dinky 20 mm.
One sank a Japanese destroyer with gunfire. :slight_smile:

104

Big deal. A P-38 did the same thing.

Said totally in jest, because I think the B-25 gunship was fucking awesome!

105

My Father worked on B-25s in New Guinea and Australia. He was adamant that the cannon bent the airframe.
I always said, “Yeah, but look at the other guy!”
He died in 1972, and I only discovered recently that the M4 cannon, which I presume we was familiar with was replaced with a 75mm. He was returned to the states (to receive basic training :slight_smile: ) when his brother was killed in pilot training. I presume that the 75mm was successful and that he was not familiar with it.

106

The Germans introduced a practical air to air missile with their Ruhrstahl X-4 wire guided missile. It could be guided by the pilot toward a bomber and it detonated automatically when the 200 Hz sound frequency of the engines was recognized. It was a stand off weapon designed to keep the fighter outside the range of bomber guns.

107

My Dad pulled the lanyard on the first 75mm cannon ever mounted in a B-25 during it’s test flight.

I have the actual casing.

75

75mm

108

For precision attacks, the Americans had their various divebombers (The Douglas Dauntless of Midway fame, the Curtiss Helldiver, and the North American Apache, a variant of the P-51 Mustang, all come to mind), as well as various light and medium bombers (Douglas A-20 Havoc and A-26 Invader, the North American B-25 Mitchel, the Martin B-26 Marauder), and various other air frames.

The Consolidated Catalina flying boat, of all things, was evidently one of the most effective night-time attack planes of the Pacific campaign, due to it’s rugged construction and long loiter time. When the plane had spent it’s bombs, the aircrew would chuck mortar rounds and hand grenades from the cabin, with the primary intent being to keep the Japanese troops from getting any quality sleep.

And of course, there were the many torpedo bombers, with the aerial torpedoes being improved throughout the war (per Wiki, the Mark 13 torpedo could be dropped from several thousand feed at up to 400 knots by the end of the war, resolving the main problem of vulnerability torpedo bombers had). They even had a glide-torpedo that could be dropped several miles away from the target, assuming the target didn’t move far from where you expected it to be. Assuming a torpedo struck it’s target and detonated, they could cause devastating damage to a ship (several hundred pounds of high explosives going off below the water line can be a problem for just about anything that floats).

Mind you, most of these aircraft earned their fame in the Pacific, which involved considerably more naval engagements and far less strategic bombing until late in the war once the Imperial Japanese Navy had been neutralized. By that point, the Superfortress bombers proceeded to burn several Japanese cities to the ground, forgoing any attempt at precision bombing altogether (Japanese heavy industry wasn’t massed together the same way European factories were, evidently).

In any case, the key to the Mosquito’s accuracy, as has been covered like crazy through the thread, was that they got really freaking close before they released their bomb. The only thing particularly special about the Mossie was that the approach was done at low altitude. Other planes (Stuka, Dauntless, Apache, Helldiver, Vindicator, Val, Thunderbolt, etc.) were known to get similar accuracy via dive bombing. Start high, spot your target, dive down on top of it and release the bomb before you pulled out of the dive. Bit dangerous if you waited too long to pull out of the dive.

As for whether there should have been a greater emphasis on precision bombing… who knows? Maybe it would have been a benefit. Maybe you’d just have the small planes getting knocked down by massed light AA fire, balloons trailing wires (snagging on a wire and losing a wing can ruin your whole attack run), and enemy interceptors, as happened to many Navy pilots in the Pacific trying similar attacks against enemy shipping. It probably required quite a bit more training than high-altitude bombing as well.

I’m curious what the relative range/payload/loiter times of the Mosquito versus the various medium and heavy bombers were. I mean, clearly a Flying Fortress or a Lancaster could carry more than a Mosquito could, but could they carry it farther?

109

Sure, and the Mosquito Mk XVIII (“Tsetse”) carried a Molins quick-firing 6-pounder (a not-so-dinky 57mm, admittedly still smaller than the B25H’s seventy-five). It was good at what it did, but rocket-firing Mossies and Beaufighters did the same job at least as well, and a salvo of rockets was rated the firepower equivalent of a cruiser’s broadside, not a dinky three-inch gun.

Which ain’t to deny that an airborne 75mm was pretty damn badass, at that.

110

Though from what I’ve read, the 75mm was kind of useless as an airborne gun (muzzle velocity was too low, making it very hard to use accurately). I much prefer the version with the set of 8 .50 cal machine guns in the nose and four more in cheek mounts. Those things could chew holes through anything short of a heavy cruiser.

The A-20 Havoc had a similar “Six Shooter” variant with 6 heavy machine guns in a steel nose, as opposed the glass-nosed default model. One tactic used by the Havocs was for the lead plane to be a glass nosed model with a bombadier, and the other planes in the formation all being six shooters. Fly in, drop bombs on the lead plane’s cue, then break up and start strafing. They could also carry rockets under the wings (as did many smaller bombers and fighters)

111

The J-88 carried an 88mm gun. And it fired automatically with a drum magazine.

112

Cool.
Did he say anything about the behavior of the aircraft when the thing went off?

113

Heh. Yes, that’s roughly 100 .50-cal rounds per second arriving within a few square feet of each other. As they say, under those circumstances it’s not the one with your name on it you have to worry about, it’s the 999 labelled “To Whom It May Concern”.

Let’s not forget that if the B25’s mid-upper gunner was bored he could add two more fifties to the party…

Re: the B25’s seventy-five, I feel that what it lacked in accuracy it must have partly made up for in "WTF was that?! :eek: " factor.

114

I believe I’ve read that the pilot aimed it with the fifties. :slight_smile:

115

At the risk of telling you what you already know, the B-25J could carry 18 fifties! That’s nine inches of lead, ten times per second! The J’s motto could have been, “Don’t even try to fuck with me”!

116

Here is a pic. Note the red line painted by the cockpit 50’s, and the stenciled “DANGER”. :slight_smile:

Were there no waist gunners?

117

The red line coincides with the prop. :smack:

118

Understood - it’s just that AFAIK the mid-upper turret could aim straight forward over the nose to join in the fun while the main battery was letting rip; the tail and waist guns would have to wait their turn.

Carny, that’s the standard-issue glass-nosed B25J (still with a fair bit of firepower) and you should find the starboard waist gun is hidden by the engine nacelle.

119

Thanks. :slight_smile:

120

You mean about how it would totally just stop or fly backwards? :smiley:

Doing test flights all the time made him not worry about armament firing making the aircraft shake or vibrate much. They were very used to the reactions of planes from firing all the guns. 4 or 8 .50cals like talked about above were not noted for being gentle with those war planes.
But as with all pilots, strange noises would get their attention. And that 75 was really loud. The shock to the aircraft scared them all. :slight_smile:

Remember, each plane was test flown, ( wrung out in all flight modes ), radio checks done in special areas and to the gun / bomb range. It was a big triangle they flew each one in.

He worked out of the Tulsa mod center. They did not change the planes coming off the assembly lines much. They were immediately put in to the mod center hangers to make them into how that particular plane or what was wanted.

A lot of planes came from other plants to get converted at Tulsa.

The test crews there flew:
B-24
B-17
A-20
B-25
B-26
A-26

a lot, or at least those where the ones Dad talked about.

B-17 was like flying a Piper Cub
A-20 was the best, most honest plane for the pilot, it had no bad habits.
B-26 Martin Marauder need a real pilot, they were not a very forgiving airplane.
B-24 just lumbered along, ugly but flew well.
B-25 & B-26 were the most fun to play with doing unnecessary but fun flying.

Dad’s best story was this other pilot, his good friend for life it turned out, Jimmy C was the pilot & they decided to SLOW roll a B-17. Well, it was not designed to do that, negative G’s and all that stuff, so as things started going very wrong really fast.

They had to split S out. Now the B-17 was not meant or designed to go vertical in either direction, up or down.

Jimmy said he was watching the wing bend when Dad said they had very excessive speed. Not sure if they pegged the airspeed or not but Dad remembered it as being pegged.

This all started at 20,000’ and they came out level at 2000’.

When they got back to Tulsa, they marked that plane as not passing the test flight. It had popped rivets and a lot of wrinkles all over it. They went home & never mentioned it again. No one else did either, written off as a bad aircraft he thought.

Actually, all radios, & the landing gear on B-26’s, were the most constant problem. Go figure.

They all had to wear side arms because of the Nordan Bomb sights when they were installed. Really top security on that stuff.

In 1969, they were laying on the floor in the local aircraft salvage. About $50 each as I remember…

The flight test crews were civilians, working for thew ARMY. That way the manufacturers could have any power over them & they did not have to answer to the ARMY either. Other than the B-17 incident, they covered up, they were never questioned about passing or failing a plane on it’s test flight.

If they passed, the were taken away by the lovely ladies of the ferry command.

If they failed, they went back in the line for the mod center hangers.

Dad was working in the control tower when the US went to war but after the rejection he got when he tried to enlist, they laughed & sent him back to work, too important a job to make a grunt out of him, he quickly got into the acceptance pilot program. Pilots like him & Jimmy C & Mike U were really needed, and just a bit too old to send off to the ARMY Air Corps.

After the war, he went into business for himself & Jimmy C flew Corporate the rest of his life until retirement. Mike U went to the oil industry

Dad stayed a pilot & always had a plane or three all his life. I come by my flying honest, If you were not in the aviation industry or played bridge, or you did not fit in very well. Bawahahaha, ( Old Family Joke. )

That 75mm shell casing, his log books and a few pictures are all that is left of that period in his life. he passed in 94, still living in Tulsa.

Yeah, TMI, I know but those were important time IMO. :cool: