The Mosquito reply to Moa

[Thomas Hinderks]

Not wanting to contaminate the other thread:

Moa

I always thought the de Havilland Mosquito was an amazing aircraft, I used to read war comics about it as a kid. The "wooden wonder", the Germans were amazed such a fast and effective aircraft could be built out of such simple matierals.

The Mossie is one of my favorites and it drove the Luftwaffe nuts to the point Goring had Kurt Tank of Folke Wulf design a German version, that failed due to lack of glues that could stand the forces.

But the materials are not very simple, they are actually a fairly complex composite that allows for the cold molding of the structure.

It was developed from racing aircraft the British make in the 1930's, air racing then being a big sport.

I believe you are thinking of the Dehavilland Comet that did so well in the England/Australia race, another amazing aircraft. But it shared little in design or type of construction with the Mossie...it would be fair to say it helped inspire the Mossie though.

The aircraft that really drove the Mossie was the DH Albatross as it pioneered the cold molded construction, style of construction and pioneered the clean design/performance model that made the Mossie great.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Albatross

A beautiful bird in it's own right, but not a financial success.

The simple wooden materials helped in a time of shortages of steel

Again the wood was a complex composite, not stick and panel and I think you meant "aluminum" not "steel". As a rule and particularly at that time steel was rare in an aircraft (comparatively), aluminum was the material of choice.

Canada made more than a thousand of them as well.

The RCAF was also extremely effective operating them...418 "City of Edmonton" Squadron is a great example.

Here is where we differ:

After WWII some analysis was done, that showed the Mosquitos were more effective in their missions

Agree to this point, but their missions were very different than the heavies, tactical vs strategic, pin point, low altitude, smaller load vs large target high altitude, bigger load (Lancaster was much higher load).

Different tools for different jobs.

I think a lot of modern bombing theory can be traced to the Mosquito (also the bomb scope technology the US were using in their daylight raids with heavy bombers). The technologies sort of merged over time to become the pinpoint method with smaller aircraft which is so effective today.

Mostly agree as long as we insert "tactical" bombing theory. We have not really seen "strategic" bombing (in combat) since the Second World War and I hope we never do. But they really are not comparable.

With the exception of the B-1, B-2 and the vintage B-52 there are no strategic bombers today. The B-52, when the restrictions were pulled during the Line Backer and Rolling Thunder campaigns in Vietnam showed how effective strategic bombing can be (put North Vietnam back at the Paris peace talks both times). But through the rest of that conflict they were wasted playing politics and bombing deserted dirt cross roads while playing targets for SAM sites.

Really a demonstration of all that was wrong in that conflict.

Today's fighter bombers are really the great grand children of the Mossie and are extremely effective "Tactical" aircraft that really show their abilities in the brush fire conflicts of today.

But what we really need to do is relegate them to the history books and find a way to not need to use them.

My highly opinionated 2 bits

[moahunter]

^Thanks, I don't really disagree with any of your points. Except perhaps, on the tactical / strategic.

I saw an interseting documentary on the development of English aircraft, and how the air races contributed to the technologies / industry that lead to the Merlin engine (used in so many English, and even US aircraft like the P51D), the Spitfire, and other aircraft like the Mosquito. Its a bit like Michael Porters theory on clusters, there is a formula 1 cluster in the UK today, back before WWII there was a racing aircraft cluster.

Yes the heavies were used strategically (like the fire bombing of Hamburg), but they were also used not so effectivley against various tactical targets (like the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission, where they did damage, but for terrible loss of life for only a small and temporary drop in production). The US in particular were more focused on tactical from the get go (with their amazing Norden bomb sight, although real world perfomance didn't match training), whereas the RAF gave up on daylight raids early on, for less accurate area bombing (although they did use "radar" Oboe techology with Mosquito pathfinders often leading the way).

[Thomas Hinderks]

I saw an interseting documentary on the development of English aircraft, and how the air races contributed to the technologies / industry that lead to the Merlin engine (used in so many English, and even US aircraft like the P51D), the Spitfire, and other aircraft like the Mosquito.

Ah the Schnieder Trophy races of the 20s and 30s...yes they did spur huge engine development and the R Rolls Royce engines did eventually evolve to the mighty Merlin and then the Griffon. Can't remember the Lady that sponsored the development right now but this dowager or great foresight gave the allies that controlled the skies in Europe.

The US in particular were more focused on tactical from the get go (with their amazing Norden bomb sight, although real world perfomance didn't match training), whereas the RAF gave up on daylight raids early on, for less accurate area bombing (although they did use "radar" type techology with Mosquito pathfinders leading the way).

Well we will disagree to an extent here:
The US developed the Norden specifically as a Strategic weapon, but it relied on to many factors (including not being shot at) to ever reach it's promise. As a result their losses for results in 1943/44 were horrific.

But once air superiority had been established the daytime results drastically improved and losses dropped.

In the Japanese theater Hap Arnold actually adopted the British Tactics (using B-29s) against Tokyo and several other centres.

The RAF and RCAF concentrated on night bombing after the massive losses of 1941 and in spite of revisionists were very effective. (Read the whole, not the excerpts USGG report from 1946 I believe and it completely refutes the claims of ineffectiveness, actually done as a full review after the war and very detailed)

But losses remained high due to the very effective Luftwaffe radar guided night fighters and the very rudimentary (by today's standards) navigation systems. The allies never did gain air superiority at night and the Luftwaffe was very, very good.

In the tactical field both the RAF/RCAF and the USAAF (especially in the Pacific) became extremely effective against tactical targets (hard points, shipping etc).

Evaluations of combat aircraft are always very difficult when it comes to effectiveness of different types, especially when you try and do it from the standards of today vs the context of the times.

Personally...the best solution is not to have to go to combat, but if you do...use real overwhelming force, not "just enough".

Once again my highly opinionated 2 bits