The great bombers (Flying Fortress)

[Madsen]

the more i read about the war the more i start thinking about the big flying fortress of the allies. how would the war looked like without them?
would it make a differense? I think so.
if they haven't been there the germans would have a better chanse to buildt up a infrastructure to support the whole wermacht. as far as i know the Flying fortress were smashing out factories and oil installations so that germany always suffered from having too little supply and too many troopers. Ex: the russian always have a new tank ready for the crew(or wat's left of it)when a tank was destroyed. the germans haven't because the FF was 1: bombing the factory that made tanks and
2: the FF was destroying infrastructure all the way from factory too the frontline.
It wouldn't change the end of the war but i think it would last longer.
Bjørn
Nice site this:)

[Dora]

Madsen,
The stretegic air campaign against Germany from 1942 to 1945 by the US 8th Air Force and the British RAF seriously disrtupted the German war effort. In the manuscript I'm working on I consider the air weapon another 'front' in the war. By the middle of 1943 the air campaign against German industry was so effective that most of the Luftwaffe fighter units had to be recalled to the Reich to defend it. The result was a disaster for OB West fighting off the Allied invasion of Normandy.

There was a saying amoungst the German landsers on the ground about the aircraft overhead, "If it is camouflaged is British, if its silver its American, if its not there its ours".
Dora
800mm

[Cantankerous]

There was a saying amoungst the German landsers on the ground about the aircraft overhead, "If it is camouflaged is British, if its silver its American, if its not there its ours".

Although it's well known that the RAF preferred to paint its heavy bombers in camouflage, there were some B-17s that were painted not in natural metal finish but instead in olive drab or camouflage.

[Sid Guttridge]

Was the Flying Fortress really such a "great bomber" by WWII?

It first flew in 1935 and was no longer a cutting edge design by the time the US entered the war in 1941/42.

Its typical bomb load was about the same as could be carried by the twin-engined de Havilland Mosquito at considerably greater speed over at least as great a distance.

One wonders why Boeing took so long to develop a successor to the Flying Fortress?

Was there a missing Boeing design not accepted into service between 1935 and the advent of the Superfortress?

If so, why was it not put into service?

Cheers,

Sid.

[EwenS]

You will find details of the various links from the XB-15/16/19 designs arising from 1935 USAAF specs (which also led to the (Boeing Model 299 aka B-17) to the 1939 spec that led to the XB-29/30/31/32 designs over on Joe Baugher’s US bomber pages.

https://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers ... mbers.html

The XB-29 page includes details of Boeing models along the way.
https://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b29_1.html