I cannot help but point out that the Hudson's bombload was ONLY 750 LBs - that means even if it carried SEPARATE, individual incendiaries - it CAN'T carry 400 4lb incendiaries....it only carrys 187 at most!
Except that when I check page #172 of the Profile Publications booklet on the Hudson (#283) I read:
"... with the passing of the Lend - Lease Bill by the US Congress in March 1941, outstanding orders for 52 Hudson Mk IVs and 200 Mk IIIs were taken over for delivery under these funds - these aircraft receiving USAAF Attack category designations of A-28 and A-29 respectively."....
I'd think that it was these Burbank A-28s and A-29s that were likely those questioned by the American Aviation Daily reporter on July 2/41.
Your logic is faulty.
1/ You've ALREADY said...
"If Britain was in such dire need of Lockheed Hudson bombers, the reporter asked, why were there 155 of them sitting idly at the Lockheed Air terminal in Burbank, California ?"
Also reported is that, "Within a few days of the interview, the Hudson Bombers had been spirited away to Canada."
So they were NOT the "American" Hudsons, but aircraft
destined for the UK I.E. the Dorsal turret version.
2. The Chinese would hardly be ordering an already-compromised "medium bomber" with even LESS defensive armament than it needed for the bomber role!
3. Remember what has ALREADY been said in this thread to you -
that the AVG would NOT be equiped from aircraft or types out of the U.S. inventory - but "export" types - so again, like the P40 version they got from a BRITISH order, they would get the dorsal turret type from the British specifications.
To return to THIS -
Page #173 there goes on to say:
"Meanwhile, other A29s were taken over by the USAAF for similar duties, though they were not fitted with turrets, carrying instead a single hand operated 0.50-in. Browning in an open mount in the dorsal position; 1,600 lb of bombs were also carried."
Without the weight of a turret it seems that a heavier bomb and/or fuel load could be carried
This does not apply ANYWAY - for the version in question HERE - the U.S. "AT-18A"
without a turret... was the LAST variant made, used as an air gunner trainer and target tug. The AT-18 was produced in
1942, with Lockheed serial numbers running from
42-55568 to
42-55784. The Americans ONLY started "repossessing" Hudsons from the British orders AFTER December 7th - so the American version YOU are trying to claim would
NOT be the one available
EARLIER to the AVGII.
Incidently - the AT-18 didn't carry a 1600lb
bombload - it could carry "1600" lbs
It had greater internal space than earlier Hudsons because it profited from some design tweaks made for a projected but not produced cargo version, the C-63...
Page #174 goes on to list the ranges of the MkIII as 2,160 miles and the range of the A-29 as being 2,800 miles so I think that Nagasaki at 730 miles was well within reach without the need for even one bomb bay fuel tank. So we're back to 1,600 lb bombloads of some 400 incendiaries per Hudson.
And finally - no we're not...
for yet ANOTHER reason you've overlooked...
WHY was the
MkIII Hudson's obmbload so small at 750lbs?
Simple - the MkIII got IT'S range -
only by the introduction of additional wing tanks.
You want THAT range...you make do with the 750lb bombload. I've already had to tell you this before, in the Panama Canal thread - ALL bomber aircraft designed and delivered to a set specification
can only vary ONE factor at the cost of another SOMEWHERE in the parameters.
In the case of the Hudson you have to look at
WHY the 1,100lb bombload
of the Hudson MkI shrank
SO much to that 750lbs of the MkIII....and the answer is the extra tankage to GET you your long range. The MkI Hudson could pack a bigger punch....
but only a 570-mile operational radius!!!
You MAY be interested to know that the maximum bombload for a Hudson
of 1941 was actually an overload of 1344lbs - 12x112lb British MkVIIC AS bombs....
but carrying THAT much you couldn't fully close the bombdoors!
So if you want the range to get to Japan and back - your plan is stuck with the small bombload. And THAT I'm afraid is the
history.
I'm sure that the AVGII pilots flying them to attack Japan would have been up-to-date on the best mix of incendiary and anti-personnel munitions to use.
NOW that I've reminded "them"....
When undertaking their first special surprise strategic bombing mission on the Japanese Home Islands, I'd think it possible that normal everyday procedures might be waved, don't you ?
Why??? I'd have thought they would have planned on more than ONE operation...and you've got the WOLE force flying on the first mission risking combat attrition, mechanical loss etc.
There's a example for this; Bomber Command was only able to fly a couple of "1,000 bomber raids" in 1942 because they had to scrape up aircraft from everywhere, including aircraft they'd leant out to Coastal Command when they were "obsolete" for night raids. The mechanical attrition from this intensive level of operations meant that they then had to halt these massed operations until a full force of four-engined "heavies" became available
I'd expect 5 squadrons, not 4, of 12 Hudsons each, with 6 as spares from a total of 66. But for such a historic first mission, why couldn't a 1/2 squadron fly along as well ?
Because it immediately throws
any maintenance schedule completely out of kilter!
Everyone forgets the VERY high level of maintenance WWII-era aircraft required for combat operations, and don't forget these aircraft will be expected to fly a high rate of tactical day-bombing TOO...
Let me point out to you that the incendiary bomb would be burning either ON a wooden roof OR would be burning INSIDE the wooden/paper house if it had crashed through a fragile clay roofing tile. Buckets of sand /soil wouldn't be quickly at hand in either case.
Pot plants, bonsai trees,....um - night soil pots...those dinky little split-bamboo pitchers...in London even mops and brushes were used to put out incendiaries. It's about
cutting the supply of oxygen to the fire; even a
blanket thrown over one has a change of stifling it, like a burning deep fat fryer!
I was under the impression that the hand pump spraying of water on white phosphorous incendiary bombs was totally ineffective. WP will continue to burn even underwater IIRC
Yes....
but you wet down the wood around it
Also, since that American had gone to the trouble of examining even the fire hoses for age and wear as he evaluated Tokyo's fire fighting abilities, do you not think it likely that he would have mentioned large stockpiles of firefighting sand, shovels and buckets IF any such were present ? I don't think that any such firefighting stockpiles were in place at that time,...
Robert - take a look at period photos of WWII-era Japanese urban residential areas...
metalled roads are not common. Sand and soil....and mud...is available -
underfoot.
nor that the Japanese urban populace at large was trained to deal with over 25,000 firebombs falling on their wooden city, at once
You ALSO forget that part of the problem with incendiaries is that you have to drop ENOUGH of them that somewhere
ENOUGH catch hold in flammable material before they are put out. You forget
this is 1941...the incendiaies will indeed be coming down
all over the city, scattered by the wind - incendiaries are quite "light" in wind terms from altitude, and if HE can be displaced by anything up to a half a mile on Dresden with the entire war's development of heavy strategic bombing targeting techniques - 4lb incendiaries are very much a "random" weapon. They will NOT all be falling on suitable roofs - a percentage will be falling on open ground, streets, squares...tin roofs not thin clay tile or wood.....
With a large enough fuel margin, some deceptive flight paths might also have been used to flow off any Japanese fighters from the Home Islands that might try (without benefit of radar, in the dark) to intercept
You think single-engined fighter pilots, flying at NIGHT, with a complete absence of ground vectoring, would be able to
FLY those deceptive flight paths???
The British were only able to do that sort of corrected-course flying over Europe
before OBOE and H2S by equiping every bomber with an astrodome, a full set of navigational instruments - and a navigator! That idea is a complete non-starter....and would in the end would only take a few miles' margin of error to have them paddling home in their dingies.
