German Strategic Bombing

[stg 44]

Came out recently, about the Operation Citadel preliminary:

Hitler's Strategic Bombing Offensive on the Eastern Front: Blitz Over the Volga, 1943

https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Strategi ... itry+Zubov

Very interesting book, thanks for sharing!

[T. A. Gardner]

You should have compared the B 24 to the He 177. When the 177 engine where working fine it was a better bomber in my opinion.

The 24 represented what you really wanted with WW2 planes, a focus with role. While it had a hefty amount of weight tacked in with the amount of .50cals and armor plating to protect them, it was a bomber through and through.

The 177 represented a failure with focus on role, it was a strategic bomber with quirks like mixed remote/manual defences (pick one or the other, or you get no benefits of either!), welded together engines (loss in reliability no matter how you spin it, not good), and dive bomber abilities, which is simply wasted on the airframe and only increases weight further.

The Germans would've been far better off with a Kurt Tank designed bomber, that guy knew how to make a plane with a focus in mind.

One of the B-24's true strengths was its range. The plane could fly missions as much as 1,800 miles in radius from its airfield. The RAF in India managed to coax 2,200 mile bombing runs on Bangkok out of a B-24 removing some of the armor and guns allowing it to still carry an 8,000 lbs. bombload at the same time. They got 2,800 miles out of them with half that payload flying to Penang harbor for bombing runs.
The derivative PB4Y was the same way. On maritime patrol, it could stay airborne for close to a day.

While the He 177 is quoted as having a 3,000 mile (give or take) flying distance, it was never demonstrated in operational use that it could come anywhere close to that range.