The B-17 Was Crap
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- In which I discuss the merits of the B-17 and only refer to Vasaline and its uses once.
With thanks to the Imperial War Museums, British Pathe, the National Archieves, and WWII Database for providing the majority of footage and pictures.
All rights are Creative Commons except for those covered above
A note on operational loads - in October and November 1943 the 8th launched its infamous assaults on the Schweinfurt ball bearing factory in Germany. The average B-17 load was around 5,000lbs and they flew in combat boxes from about 20,00ft to 30,000ft. In November and December the RAF flew their infamous "Battle of Berlin" (which they lost comprehensivley) during which Lancaster loads were increased from 9,500lbs to 10,060lbs flown at around 25,000ft (+/- 2kft). Even allowing for rubbish like the Stirlings and Halifaxes and including the much lighter Mossie loads (4,000lbs) average RAF loads were 7,300lbs. You can find the full details here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweinfurt%E2%80%93Regensburg_mission#Schweinfurt_strike_force, and here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin_(RAF_campaign)
Yeah, but Lancasters flew at night and didn't hit anything so they just wasted more ammunition
@tedarcher9120 in 1942, true. By 1944 RAF accuracy was significantly better than US accuracy by day. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey post war assessed less than 2% of US bombs landed within 1,000yrds of their targets, Bomber Command was closer to 5%.
@@HardThrasher well if you define your target as Berlin, of course. And anyway, bombing was not the point of the strategic bombing campaign.
@tedarcher9120 that's whole other thing - certainly for the USAAF from Feb 44 - June 44 it wasn’t, the aim was to flush the fighters out so they could be shot down. After that transport and oil were the key objectives and the combined bomber offensive was incredibly effective. Prior to that, for both US and RAF, whatever they were trying to achieve didn't work. It took time, perhaps understandably, for them to figure out what worked and there were a lot of false idols
The B-17 has a higher cieling than Lancaster or B-24. I recommend Greg's channel to you.
My dad was a B-17 pilot during WWII.Was gonna surprise him with a $400 ride in a B-17 at a local ais show back in the '90s. He laughed and said "Hellll nooo! They'd have to pay me 10 times that much go back up in the bucket of bolts"
Same on Mosquitos according to a Mosquito pilot I met in the 60s. "Wouldn't fly over Germany in anything else during the war. Would prefer to fly in anything else once it was over." Mossies were just for experienced pilots and very difficult at take off and landing. WW2 aircraft sacrificed everything for performance.
@@ethelburga Not the p47, by happy accident it's massive engine and supercharger + some armour made it incredibly survivable on crash landings. One pilot even survived after an underslung bomb went off while still attached to the plane during a rough landing, and one pilot made it back and landed after being set on fire putting it out then having an FW190 "pester" his plane as he was limping home. If I had to go up in anything during WW2 It'd be a P47
Almost all US fighter types were better engineered in the undercart department than their Brtiish or German equivalents. RN pilots would prefer a Seafire to dogfight with but a Hellcat for everything else. @@agravemisunderstanding9668
that's what they call an opening offer
he prob was not a pilot. perhaps he worked in the air force kitchens or similar ?
My father: 8th Air Force, 452 Bombardment Group. Pilot. First thing they told them was the B-17 had so many guns that when they flew in formation they were invincible. First mission they learned that they were sitting ducks in death machines. It was all crap. It turns out that old artillery and infantry officers, educated at West Point, really knew nothing about bombers and bombing. However, military contractors do know how to sweet talk generals and governments.
They were told the Norton bomb sight was the greatest instrument in the world and super secret. Turns out the Germans obtained a sample in the interwar years and declared them crap. After weather prevented my father from hitting the first two targets they returned looking for targets of opportunity. Found a nice German bridge. Bombs hit things on one side of bridge, they hit things on other side of the bridge. They hit a barn. They did not scratch the bridge. My father, like much of his crew, grew up on farms and were horrified.
After the war my father left to join the new formed USAF as a Lt. Colonel. There was a strategic bombing survey. The bombing campaign was hideously ineffective and costly. The German generals kept asking them why they bombed ball bearing factories. "We had tons of ball bearings in stock, never a problem. Where you hurt us was oil fields, refineries and synthetic plants."
My father once said to me he was very proud of his military service, but that the US Military was the most f*@ked up organization he ever worked for. (And he worked years in public school systems!)
Firstly huge respect to your father, the guys who flew were unspeakably brave.
I'm right in the middle of editing a video on basically what you're talking about
The Nazis said a lot of things. Try not to use the Nazis as an expert reference.
@@touristguy87 You can when they are trying to help you overcome the USSR. Just because someone is a NAZI does not mean everything they say is a lie. Also, it was confirmed by post-war production analysis. (Not all were NAZI's. Many were Wehrmacht officers that did not join the party.) This conclusion is also backed up by the lack of fuel suffered at the end of the war when they still had tanks to burn it.
@@vladimpaler3498
Even if it is true that they are trying to help you overcome the USSR, that doesn't mean that anything they say is true.
And In the long run you know their goal because you can't and should not even begin to trust Nazis.
Your comment seems to come out of a refusal to accept these truths. Almost like you respect them because they are Nazis.
@@vladimpaler3498 you know how I know that not all Germans were Nazis?
Because some Germans were executed as traitors for trying to kill Hitler. For acts of terrorism against those who did obey Hitler. For attempting to rescue people from concentration camps, death camps and labor camps. For engaging in espionage for the Allies. And so on. Those people were hunted-down and killed by the Nazis. There always were Germans who were not members of the Nazi party who still obeyed party directives just as the non-nazis in the Wermacht and other areas of authority and responsibility did. That made them Nazi collaborators and sympathizers. The legs and arms of the Nazi party.
The British soldier bottom left at 2.01 minutes was Bob Weightman, my P.E teacher, who went ashore on D Day. Great bloke, very clever and a great sportsman.
A British pilot was landing at the airport in Frankfurt. Given instructions by the ground controller, he hesitated to confirm the directions. The ground controller quickly imperiously interrupted saying 'what is the matter, Have you never been to Frankfurt before?
To this the pilot replied, "yes, I have on a number of occasions. But it was at night and we never landed."
HA! Tche'
Sounds like a similar joke of an American going to France and not having a passport handy and displayed...
I heard someone tell that joke in Hamburg. He left in an ambulance.
@@ohgosh5892 Not surprising. My wife, who was Slovakian/Italian, once told someone in an Irish bar on St Patrick's day that I was Scottish. The waitress came by the table a minute or two later and said we really should leave. Now. We left. That was in the day when the NYC gunpowder Irish were organized and functional. No doubt the joke you refer too is better told in London, but that brings to mind there might be a German version of it....
"at night" I the key difference between the American Raids and the British Raids. It is such an important difference that leaving it out help render this video useless.
The B-17 is all of those things you said, but ugly isn’t one of them!
It had the looks for sure. Salute to those brave crews who had to fly them.
Did you write "butt ugly"?
Yeah, definitely not an ugly plane.
I think he did that in humor. We all know its a beautiful plane. He just said that to ruffle more feathers in the end. Thats he also says it was "a bit" crap. Cause he likes the B17 as well. You can tell by how he shows respect for the aircrews and knows about it to some extent.
Yeah, the Liberator was ugly, the B-17 was not. I think he also said the ME262 was a terrible looking plane in another video, but it was a beautiful aircraft. I won't argue with his facts, but I will argue with his opinions.
After coming here off of the recommendation of a certain swine, I can agree that yes, this channel is a hidden gem.
I followed the pig and I'm glad I did
@@neidu same here
The swine has lead us to a lovely oasis. Thank you for being here Lord @HardThrasher
same
agreed, happy i discovered this channel
The brass balls of those brave men added a lot of weight to the B17 also.
Yes, I'd say that's exactly what made it succeed, courage...and long range fighter escorts
.
I had a neighbor that I heard tell about the war on just 1 occasion in over 50 years. He was in the Bloody 100th. He told about seeing holes come in the side of the plane the size of his fist. He told about grown men screaming when they were hit and an arm that flew half the length of the fuselage. He told about having to thaw the blood to remove the bodies from the plane because they had frozen to the floor in the -40 temperatures. No one ever mentioned the war again in his presence. He completed 33 missions by the wars end. He retired from the post office and you would never guess what he had done, seen, and heard. imagine getting into a plane absolutely knowing every plane IS NOT coming back. Sooner or later your turn was coming! The word "hero" is way over used today. These guys had balls like church bells!!!!!!!
Huge respect to him
I'm 82 years old and I have met and had conversations with a considerable number of men whom had been in WW2. I've known men who had been pilots of both B-17's and B-24's, regardless of which airplane I can see guys getting into either for their first mission but the BALLS it took to get in for their second mission is hard to imagine.😮
Completely agree
@@HardThrasher Yes, but the downside of that was when, after many missions, some aircrew members understandably couldn't face going up again, they faced being discharged as "Lacking moral fibre" when in reality. they were exhibiting common sense!
My dad, bombers RAF, told me he used to watch the b17s coming back in bits, often crashing just before the airfield. It was awefull.
Clark Gable flew 5 missions. Some balls. And Jimmy Stewart.
!!!! Brass!
Here's the role the B-17 was selected to carry out - On August 8 , 1934 the USAAC tendered a proposal for a multi engine bomber to replace the Martin B-10. The Air Corps was looking for a bomber capable of reinforcing the air forces in Hawaii, Panama, and Alaska. Requirements were for it to carry a bomb load at an altitude of 10,000 ft for 10 hours with a top speed of at least 200 mph.
And given some of the competitors, the 17 was the best option
@@SudrianTales in 1934.
Per Hard Thrasher's comment in the video, the RAF had commissioned and retired the Stirling bomber, and replaced it with the Lancaster by the time the USAAF was bringing this 1934 plane to the battle.
@daispy101
And the US tried replacing it with the 24 but the 24 was more complex and had a long list of people fightinf over it. The 17 was more available for the fight
@@SudrianTales and yet the B24 was the biggest production run of any bomber during the war (18,500 B24's to the B17's 12,731). Granted, a lot were used in the AP theater, but to say they were less available just isn't accurate.
Not sure what you mean by "more complex" as it's my understanding that the B24 was not as complex as the B17 though it was, by most accounts, more difficult to fly (it's poor low speed handling catching more than a few pilots out, from what accounts I've seen and read).
Hindsight being 20/20, people almost forget that there was no pre-announced starting date for the war. If the war had started a few years earlier, maybe the B17 would have been remembered as an Omega level S-Tier wunderwaffe. If the war had started a few years later, the B-17 might barely have seen any front line service and be completely forgotten now. As history happened, it was a bit of an awkward timing for the US, so we ramped up production of what we had mature and ready to roll-out, even though it was already kind of obsolete. Once the war was going, there wasn't an option to just sit around waiting for a better plane to be mature before ramping up production.
The fact mosquito losses were only 1 in every 200 airframes is a testament to the design. What an awesome aircraft
Survived by it being virtually impossible to intercept. If an FW 190 did get one in its gunsights, though, with that wooden construction, the Mosquito would quickly become toothpicks.
@@selfdo *IF*
wasn't it made of wood?
Mainly because the majority of Mosquito bomber sorties were flown at night and at 25,000 feet or above after the middle of 1944, when the Luftwaffe was some what in decline.
@@richardvernon317 sounds like a skill issue from the Germans
I feel like half of these issues are basically because the plane was drawn up and mostly unchanged from 1935-1945. It was just old
The basic design of the B-17 was not the problem….the problem was how it was used. Once the generals added fighter escorts with drop tanks and formation carpet bombing to the protocol it gave useful service with a loss rate the brass could live with. B-29s would have been nice, but those long haul bombers were needed in the Pacific.
My Dad did maintenance on B-17's of the "U" Squadron. Everyone knew they were too slow, couldn't hit a target worth a damn (which is why hundreds of bombers were sent to hit one factory or one rail yard, etc.) that without escorts they were doomed, that they were a pain in the ass to work on, the list goes on, and he should know. But the one thing, above all else, was that they could take gobs of punishment and bring their crews home. He told me story after story about B-17's having their tails shot off, wings chopped up, the front end gone, fuselages nearly cut in half, but they still brought their crews home. Men flew these planes with the faith that, no matter how badly damaged the plane was, they could still get back to base. And in a war, knowing you have a good chance to make it back after every mission, is reason enough to go again and again.
It's just the law of high numbers. If many planes are getting shot up then a good number are going to make it too. But an even greater number aren't going to make it.
Most bombers on both sides were lucky if they dropped their lives bombs within five miles of their intended targets.
If if the run in was flack free.
Didn't really work out that way in the end though, unfortunately.
@@lordeden2732 Except the Mosquito that did it with regular accuracy
Because it was a low altitude medium bomber. That could not be caught by fighters.@@brentoncoppick3922
I don't think it's so much a problem with the plane itself as the doctrine that produced it. Unescorted bombers hitting precision targets from high altitude was not going to happen with WWII technology. The ad hoc strategy we wound up with was conducting an attrition battle with the Luftwaffe by forcing them to defend their airspace from US bombers. It worked, for all intents and purposes eliminating the Luftwaffe as a stratetically relevant force. As bait to get the Nazi fighters up in the air where P47s and P51s could shoot them down, the B17 did its job. It wasn't its intended job, but it was the job that wound up being relevant.
Except it wasn’t. Just look at the Italian campaign. Firstly it produced spectacular attrition of the Luftwafhe without needing bombers as bait and secondly German airpower wasn’t able to stop landings despite the situation for the allies being less favourable than it would have been on D Day, flying close to English airfields and radar. It’s just a riff the Bomber Mafia pulled out of its ass to justify their continued existence.
@@TheGreatAmphibian Bomber Mafia had the right idea, but made mistakes on a tactical level by not changing tactics fast enough. Having said that, they did the best with what they had (example is of the M3 being deployed first, without waiting for the M4). The strategic bombing had an important impact on the war which can't be ignored. Like the impact of the atomic bomb against Japan, the strategic bombing of Germany likely contributed to shortening the war in Europe and reducing overall Allied casualties.
@@joefish4466 Just asserting they had the right idea is meaningless. No one cares what you think. Not unless you can give a good reason. And again, you don’t seem to understand the very basic concept of opportunity cost. Yes, bombing hurt Germany. You’re a genius, the first person to realise that bombs hurt! However, what a grownup wants to know is whether strategic bombing was the BEST use of resources, eg whether more tactical air support would have ended the war more quickly at lower cost.
@@TheGreatAmphibianwell you already have your answer to that bub, and the answer is that strategic bombing shortened the war by months, if not by years. And here is your proof.
When Germany invaded Russia in the east, they effectively signed their death warrant. They couldn’t survive a two front war, and everyone from them to their enemies knew it. However, it’s also been calculated that without the war in the west, Germany could have defeated Russia by simply outcompeting their industry by inflicting higher losses. Germany needed to accrue a 2:1 kill to loss ratio on all Russian forces to deal more damage than Russian industry could recover from. They achieved 5:3 on all local fronts, *right up until* western strategic bombing campaigns began wiping out their own production centers. Without the ability to continue fielding their own equipment in the same numbers, their position became untenable and they were forced to constantly pull back to consolidate forces that might withstand a single Russian unit, which allowed Russian units to consolidate and push forward, creating an ever worsening spiral on the eastern front. Full stop: no strategic bombing campaigns means Russia isn’t advancing half as fast as they did and that means a lot of western units don’t have to get mobilized and sent east, meaning harder beach landings in France and Italy.
We haven’t even touched on how strategic bombing campaigns defanged the western occupation forces, how it ruined the German logistical train in ways that cannot be fixed, or how it utterly gutted the ability of the German Air Force to cover frontline units from air attacks as they had to keep huge reserves of desperately needed frontline fighters back near cities to slow down their homelands destruction. And I’m not going to touch on those in this response. For now, sit and think on just how different the war is going to be if Normandy has 3x as many men, Salerno has twice as many fighters, and Russia doesn’t even reach the polish boarder until November of 1945.
@@nathanielweber7843 Sorry: you are too stupid to understand the point. Once again, yes, dropping bombs on people hurts their war economy. Everyone knows that,thank you for playing. However, that does NOT mean that it’s “shortens the war” until you take in THE OPPORTUNITY COST. For example, the lack of dedicated tactical airpower that could have been built for the same effort.
And, no, you can’t just claim that the Russian advance would have stalled without strategic bombing. Or that there would have been three times as many Germans in France. Or you can claim it, but you will look like an idiot unless you try to justify it. And then you have to explain why strategic bombing could provide this benefit and not eg more aid to the USSR at a lower cost.
You can’t argue that because something worked it was the best thing to do. Especially in a massively one sided fight like WW2. Or rather, that is what you are doing - but it is a stupid thing to do.
I like that the mosquito is one of the few fucking mental ideas that actually was immensely successful and is actually loved and heralded as one of the best bombers by military enthusiasts.
@7:10 the ball bearing plants. Part of the problem not recognized at the time, was that the high explosive bombs were not destroying the capital equipment, machine tools of the factory, most of the lathes, presses, etc. could be restored to working order.
Later in the war after receiving intelligence reports from the ground ( spies/ resistance) White Phosporous bombs and Thermite bombs were mixed into the bomb load. The high heat of these bombs destroyed the temper of the the metal of the machine tools making those tools expensive scrap.
My French teacher always told us that her father loved the USAAF as they always ploughed his fields for him.
Another entertaining view. Even after decades of studying air war in WW2 it’s always humbling to realise just how brave (or trapped) the aircrews were.
50% losses. Only German U-boat crews had it worse
@@tedarcher9120 Actually if you look at the losses of the RAF Maritime Strike Wings in the Mediterranean they had it a lot worse. Their survival statistics were the worst in any arm of the air force. It's an often forgotten part of the war but the RAF starved Rommel of fuel and reinforcements by sinking most of it as it crossed the Med. The Beauforts and Beaufighters crews had a tiny chance of surviving a 20 mission tour but failing meant thousands of Desert Rats dying. Unlike strategic bombing that had a longer term impact and often killed lots of civilians, targeted bombing at a tactical level had an immediate effect. Unfortunately attacking in daylight, at low level, despite heavy defences was often murderous.
The US has one thing - we categorically refuse to learn from other people's good ideas and adopt other peoples good machines. I find that frustrating and dumb
to be fair, there were no good machines available to replace it. Unless you count the Mossie, which the Brits weren't letting the Americans have
My Opa served in the Luftwaffe from day one of ww2, flying Do17 recon , transferred to the Eastern front after the BOB escapade for 109 Fighter conversion training, , served in the Mediterranean arena , shot down and injured, flew ju52's while recovering (lucky to survive flying those as quoted " bullet magnets") ... back to the Eastern not soo eastern front again, then recalled to Germany for home defense flying various available 109's & 190's .... his stories after a few beers where amazing , the Blitzkrieg, english, russian, african & italian theatres where nothing compared to facing hundreds yet thousands of daylight bombers & fighters over Germany ..... one of the few "retreads" that survived the war intact ....
Btw HardThrasher ... luv your vid presentation and wording used .. Danke und Prost
...I bet he could fill a book and documentary each about his experiences and I'd read it for sure. The saddest thing now is all the men/women who fought in WW2 will soon be gone forever and they take their amazing memories with them.
Truly the greatest generation, not just in America but world-wide.
The winners have a way of sweeping the loser's stories under the carpet. Thank you for your story. My father was a WWII vet, and years later got to be friends with several German vets. With one of them, they determined that they actually had been shooting at each other. And now they were sitting down having a drink. Things can be mended.
As far as the "crap" thing goes, the B-17 certainly had its shortcomings but it was the best we had at the time and earned its legendary status. In hindsight it is easy to say "this was wrong and that was wrong." But they did the best they could with what materiel and information they had at the time, and nobody can say the faults were for lack of trying. We had a war that we needed to win at all costs, amd the cost was horrifically high on both sides, tragically the most so for the civilians in, for example, Coventry, Dresden, and Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Tokyo. LeMay's fire bombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than Fat Man and Little Boy, and LeMay himself said of the Tokyo bombings, "If we lose this war they'll prosecute us as war criminals." There wasn't much chance of our losing by that time, but he knew what he was doing was morally despicable. Still, being pigheaded LeMay, it was "damn the civilians, full speed ahead." The justification for bombing Japan was that it saved American lives and I'm sure it did. The horrors of Okinawa (I was there recently and it looks like any other 21st century city; at first sight there's nothing to indicate what a bloodbath it was) and the nuked cities should by themselves have made the world swear off war. Alas, that has not been the case. May I humbly ask everyone on this feed to do whatever they can to work toward and pray for and plea to combatants for an end to current global conflicts? It may look impossible, but please try. Thank you.
@@robertmaybeth3434 Yeah soo many conversations lodged in my head, sadly he passed away of natural causes in NZ 30 odd years ago ... but apart from his combat etc stories is that while recovering in Italy after being shot down, He met an Austrian Nurse who would later be his wife after the war ended ... ❤
@@wjoseph924 "it was the best we had at the time and earned its legendary status." Not even close. The B.24 Liberator was far superior. The 'status' is all fake.
@@ohgosh5892 I acknowledge your data but one of the things that made the B-17 such a legend was her incredible ability to take serious damage and still fly. What
For your first video you sure decided to come out swinging.
The B17 was far from perfect but saying it is crap is a bit much and your justification is pretty weak.
I'm confused as to why you try to compare the Mosquito to the B-17. Both are different aircraft designed for different missions. It is a bad comparison since the Mosquito is a medium bomber designed for fast, fighter bomber, pathfinder or recon use while the B-17 was built as a long range bomber designed to get to a target and to fight its way back. Apples and oranges. You were wrong when you said the Moquito could carry the same bomb load as the Fortress. It could carry 4000 pounds but its range was drastically cut short by doing that. It might make the German coast and even then had to stay low since there was a performance drop with that much of a bomb load. A B-17s standard bomb load was more than the max in a Mosquito and it could carry that load twice as far. Mosquitos were difficult to make and required hardwoods that Britain didn't possess. Most of the wood that went into the Mosquito came from the US. It had no defensive armaments' and by 1944 could be caught by aircraft like the Fw190D, He 219 and Me 262.
As for the other 'issues'. No, the B-17 wasn't pressurized. Neither was the Lancaster, the B-24 or any other heavy bomber built in any real numbers before the B-29 Superfortress. The 'freezing thing' didn't really effectt Lancasters as much because they didn't fly at the altitudes the USAAF did. Bomber Command rarely bombed above 10,000 feet and most of the time under 8k to most of the time crews didn't even need oxygen when flying. B-17s regularly operated at 20,000 feet which was close to the service ceiling of the Avro Lancaster. And if they did then the Lanc's crews would have suffered just as much as a Fortress crew would have. So this argument makes no sense. You could have brought the B-17 down to 5000 feet to attack but in daylight this would have been suicidal.
As for the armament, again, look at the role the aircraft was intended for. The Lancaster was designed for night bombing missions, not deep penetrating raids into Germany. Neither was the Model 299, which became the Fortress but over time it morphed into this role. The B-17s that you talked about as being 'lacking' by the RAF were early model B-17C variants and they were still dealing with teething problems. In addition the RAF flew at extremely high altitudes which exacerbated the issues with the earlier engines. But the biggest reason the RAF brought in limited B-17s was because the mission of the Fortress was daylight bombing and the RAF had dismissed the idea by the time these missions had taken place. The B-17c was a low production model and was already being replaced by the E model, which was substantially different from the earlier c models. The B-24 was selected more because it had longer range and could do naval recon work than anything else. The RAF used the Liberator only in limited night bombing roles as well.
You talk about how the Lancaster was a better plane. In some respects it was better but it is also a much newer design. It was faster but had a much lower ceiling. It carried a heavier bombload but was vulnerable to belly attacks. it was no more accurate than a B-17, probably less. It had the same lack of cabin pressurization. The ranges were not substantially different. The loss rates to enemy fighters and flak were similar but the Lanc flew at night and the B-17 during daylight. The same fighter that you talk about taking out B-17s destroyed Lancasters just as easily. No WW2 heavy bomber could outfly a Bf110G4. If you look at the loss rates of aircraft in WW2 the Flying Fortress was pretty much the same as the Lancaster, Halifax or Liberator.
But here is my final point. The Model 299 was designed in 1934 and first flew in 1935. It was accepted into service in 1937. No other bomber type built during this period was still in front line service at the end of the conflict. There were less than half a dozen combat aircraft designs from that era that were still combat capable all the way to the end of the war. The biggest ones that come to mind were the Spitfire and Bf109 series and both of them were heavily modified during the war, like the B-17 was. It was not a perfect aircraft and the myth has certainly overshadowed it's true performance. By 1945 it was outdated, like most pre-war designs. But it was far from crap. It was a fantastic, ahead of its time design that was getting long in the tooth by 1944 but still better than anything the Germans, Russians, Italians or Japanese could muster. And if you took a Halifax or a Lancaster and tried doing what the Americans did in 1943 and early 1944, unescorted daylight bombing missions into Germany, the numbers shot down probably would have been the same, if not more since the service ceiling of the British bombers was much lower.
I'm afraid, sir, that I disagree with you on almost every point, which I suppose you already know because you watched my video :)
I appreciate the thought and time you've taken, but I'm afraid I remain comfortable with my initial conclusion to wit the B-17 was a flawed concept that was obsolete by the time it got to Europe in appreciable numbers, that the leaders of the 8th Airforce were misguided and it would've been better for everyone if they'd adopted British kit until they got the P-51 Mustang working properly.
Fortunately for all concerned the Germans were worse still
I think the fact that the Mosquito even CAN be compared to the B17 is kind of the point being made. It's a jack of all trades aircraft that is much cheaper than the specialist, yet when undertaking the specialists role it can carry just as much, just as far, and faster.
It's like buying a family sedan and entering it into a race against purpose designed racing vehicles. If it can even stay on the same lap it suggests the race cars are a bit shit, let alone match them. And it can take the family home afterwards.
@@vonskyme9133 Well, then why didn't the British build thousands more Mosquitos instead of the myriad of 'heavy' bombers that were produced by Great Britain herself. Using this logic it would have been much more efficient and saved more lives just doubling the number of medium bombers and then letting them buzz all over Germany.
Why didn't Britain just have the US build them Mosquitos instead of buying Bostons and Mitchells. There were several reasons. One the Mosquito was relatively hard to build and required a skillset more akin to fine boatmakers than aircraft production. Secondly, most of the hardwoods used weren't even available in England and had to be imported from the US.
And the Mosquito did not carry as big a bombload as far as the B-17. It could carry 4000 pounds of bombs but with a much diminished range. It could not fly deep into Germany with that bombload. The furthest it could fly was the forward edges of the Reich. Two tons of bombs is good for a medium bomber but a B-17 could carry twice the weight the same distance.
It's more like comparing a 3/4 ton truck to a small pickup truck like a Ford Ranger or Toyota Tacoma. A small truck will do smaller jobs a lot more efficiently than a big truck but hauling a heavy load requires a bigger truck. If the Mosquito could do the job of a heavy bomber then it would have replaced it. But it couldn't.
@@HardThrasher I think obsolete is a bit of a stretch. I agree that the design was getting long in the tooth and was approaching obsolescence by mid 1943 but my objection is not that you thought it was getting old, but that you called it 'crap'. Crap would have meant it was like the Boulton Paul Defiant or He 117. The plane managed to remain in production for 10 years, a rarely heard of feat in the run up to WW2. And it wasn't like there weren't other designs out there that could have taken its place.
I also disagree that a good plan would have just had the B17 changed out with a British design. The US could have done that but any design would have had to be heavily modified for use in daylight bombing raids over Germany. Neither the Halifax nor the Lancaster had a belly turret nor did they have defensive armament necessary for fighting against newer model German day fighters. If you think 8-10 50 caliber maching guns all around the aircraft are sub standard how can you think that 8 rifle caliber 303 machine guns would be any better?
In essence, to perform daylight precision bombing the US would have had to add a belly turret, possibly two side turrets and increase the caliber from .303 to 50 cal in all of the other gun positions. This, along with the increased crew to man these guns would have increased the weight probably close to another 800 pounds, if not more if you count the extra weight of the ammunition to carry it. Just like the Brits had to modify US Aircraft to make them work the US would have had to do the same. It isn't as easy as just building a plane in another country. Tooling and production lines would have to be put together, engineers would have to modify the blueprints to make it work for US specs and suppliers would have to be found to make things like engines and other components that may or may not have been readily available.
It could have been done but the B-17 was still a serviceable aircraft and the Liberator was just entering production. It didn't make any sense to delay production for at least six months.
And just one last point. I think you are combining a critique of the USAAF's theory of Daylight bombing with the actual aircraft found in the B-17.
Daylight bombing was a concept that was only partially successful. I'm sure you would agree that the concept was only partially successful at best and probably not worth the loss of life and poor results in general.
No bomber built during that time would have been successful. Even the Mosquito would have struggled in formations large enough to actually damage enemy targets and it was just as susceptible to flak as any other aircraft. Flying in formation to a target at a set altitude and a set speed, even if it was faster, was still a recipe for danger for bomber crews. And current single seat fighters could still intercept a fully loaded Mosquitos, albeit with more difficulty. The problem was that there was no way for a Mosquito to defend itself if it was heavily laden and then jumped by the Luftwaffe.
The B-17 was not designed to be a long range strategic bomber, it was designed as a coastal defense bomber. It was forced into the daylight strategic bomber role because the U.S. didn't have anything else at the time. The fact that the U.S. could mass-produce just about anything more than any other Allied power also helped tremendously in the war effort. The B-17 was certainly not the best bomber of WW2, but until better bombers came along it did the job it was asked to do. And so did it's crews.
The US did that with other equipment. The Sherman was only supposed to be a stop-gap measure but turned into the main tank just because the US could build so many. For some reason I never the 17 was to be a coastal defense bomber. But that makes sense considering the time it was spec'd, designed and all that. WW2 comes along and "Crap!!!" we don't have a great bomber.
I think the 17 was improved but the horrible failure to accurately hit targets is the real failure of USAAF bombing as a whole.
The B17 was really terrible at any job that took place over salt water. It was even worse as a coastal defense weapon than it was as a strategic bomber.
Of course the real flaw was aircraft built to carry out strategic bombing at all, which was extremely costly and never worked very well when done by either the Allies or the Nazis.
@@LuvBorderCollies precision bombing, like much else back then was in its infancy. It only really has come into its own during the last 20-30 years. No equivalent bomber of the time was better than another. B17, B24, Halifax, Lancaster etc. The B29 had a number of improvements with its remote turrets and gunner stations but OTOH had its own problems.
@@davelauerman6865 jah, jah and so the total ineffectiveness of the allied bombing campaign in Europe hmm?
The B-17 was designed as a long range maritime bomber. Sacrificing the internal bomb bay for fuel/range. In fact some of it’s bomb load was to be carried on wing pylons, that would slow it down.
My grandfather was a bombadier in a B-17. He managed to get to 23 missions when they bumped up the mission requirement from 25 to 30. Alas he passed before I was born, but I'm told he was quite furious at that, but he did make it through.
I was lucky enough to fly the B-17 "909" in 1992. I realise I was flying her low level and lightly loaded, but it was a delight to fly - like a big Super Cub!
Rest In Peace, 909, Crew, and Passengers.
It crashed years later because of horrible engine maintenance. The ignition system on 3 and 4 were total junk.
@@stevebutlersr.7927 Friend of mine told me that they got in trouble for neglect of maintenance.
@@stevebutlersr.7927we lost number 4 and retrimmed and continued with three turn of the vertical stabiliser trim, so when I read 909 had crashed because she’d lost an engine, I thought “ There’s a lot more too it, that will never come out!”
The Mosquito carried more bombs than the B-17?! That is outrageous and embarrassing.
In fairness, the B-17 *could* carry more but only if it wanted to bomb something *really close* and with total air superiority over the target as it involved the 'murder hobo' setup where they strapped bombs to every flat surface
@@HardThrasher Thanks. If it wasn't obvious from the timing, I'm from the Lazerpig recommendation.
I just found out that the tiny little A4 Skyhawk can carry more (or at least the same amount) bombs than the B17
@@JohnSmith-dt1tw I know that. The A-4 is my third most played aircraft in Warthunder
The mosquito is the best plane of ww2 and I will defend this till the end of the earth.
In all seriousness it is basically a flying kitchen cabinet.
As a red-blooded “Murican”, I was ready for some apoplexy, but your points are cogent, and your data convincing. Moreover, I appreciate your acknowledgment of the bravery, sacrifice, and ultimate success of the aircrews. Because at the end of the day, warfare itself is an exercise in mass insanity - the winner(s) may be those who are the least insane. The belligerent nations all certainly manifested their examples of bureaucratic stupidity, with the young men sucked into the vortex of combat paying the price.
I have nothing but respect for the crews. Unbelievably brave
Well Said !!!
@@HardThrasher You deserve a Medal for making this Video.
Congratulations on actually having the Balls to do it !!
Hi from UK 2 things first I had the honour of flying in a B17 Aluminium Overcast out of Denver Airport, and the Avro Lancaster from Hamilton in Canada. But did you know originally because of problems loading the Atom Bombs into the B29 bomb bay, they were going to use RAF Lancasters over Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Luckily for us the British, the US Government said it had to be an all American job and sorted the problem with the bomb bays. Otherwise we would have been blamed for even more of the world’s problems (world wide web,jet engine, soccer, cricket, Rugby, English language, end of slavery, Light bulb, but never never going to the moon, we would have know one to give it back to! Will be back in USA for my 16th visit next September following Rogers Rangers, Albany to Fort William Henry.
@@vernongoodey5096 the lancaster could have never dropped the atomic bombs. It never was even close to be considered. Greg's airplane did a great video debunking the claim.
My dad was shot down during the mission to Hamm on 3/4/43 and was rescued from the Waddenzee. That mission was written about by one of the men whose name appeared in this video...George Birdsong. He mentioned how my dad's plane got hit and actually began gaining altitude before finally, and slowly, heading earthward. There's a lot of truth to this presentation, but remember that the U.S. was not, like the Germans and Japanese, a militaristic society and was doing what it thought best.
The Jerries and Japs were doing what they thought was best too.
I had a neighbor, when I was a kid, who had been a 23 yr old Captain (?) and PIC in a B-17 crew and who flew at least one tour. I met him in the ‘80s. Very nice man. I remember him as being tall. The thing I’ll never forget is that he was 23 years old. With that responsibility. And ability! It boggles the mind.
Some of the pilots didn't have a driver's license or be legally old enough to drink
That was/is not unusual in combat due to losses, and the need to fill slots. And just the fact that company grade officers (LTs and CPTs) are pretty young guys - say 22-30 years old. I’m not comparing myself to him on any level, but in Desert Storm, I was a 23 year-old Lieutenant with a platoon of 4 155mm howitzers. Every time I said the word “Fire”, an area the size of two football fields as much as 18 miles away was vaporized.
Young minds could 1. convince themselves that they could do it and live, and 2. Respond quickly under battle conditions, 3. take the stress.
@@TheGhostrider9667 ... and every time it was a case of "you bet your bars". In case it turned out to be a "blue on blue" incident...ie friendly fire
Most of them were teenage schoolkids! on both sides!
The “Stirling Short” (actually Short Stirling) was a heavy bomber. The Short Sunderland was a massive flying boat.
I got to see a Sunderland flying boat at Airventure one year. They landed on Lake Winnebago.
And critical in Operation Victuals
Only plane capable of hauling in salt
The Stirling & Sunderland had the same wings, that’s why Stirlings flying height was so restricted. The really stupid reason for the wings size was that was the width of the factory they were made in
@@vernongoodey5096 I am a retired Short Brothers Airframe Fitter and I can tell you that the Stirling's wingspan was restricted to suit the RAF Hangars, nothing to do with the factory. Shorts Belfast factory had a300 foot wide assembly bay. In fact it still has!
@@robg5958 thanks for reply I was sort of correct. Dad must have told me this story years ago he & my Grandad worked for Miles Aircraft at Woodley
Very much enjoyed the humor and your points seem well taken, although I built a plastic model B-17 when I was a kid and thought it was beautiful.. My dad was a pilot who was grounded due to being color blind and then flew in a B-17 as navigator. He never really complained too much about the plane, and bragged a bit about his shooting (as navigator he had his 50 caliber gun in the nose of the plane). He was shot down his 3rd mission by ground fire over Munich in 1943 and spent the remainder of the war in a camp in Barth, Germany.. He was ordered to stay put in the camp as the Russians approached but he and a buddy disobeyed orders and left camp, stole a sailboat and were apprehended cruising the Baltic sea. He was court martialed for disobeying orders to wait and be "liberated" by the Russians, but was pardoned by Eisenhower. He enjoyed telling about getting in Lemay's face at an air show in Oshkosh complaining about that court martial!
Alright, I've had my little tirade...I just have to say that I have the highest admiration and respect for the aircrews who flew those missions....Whether one boarded a Lanc or a Liberator, a Halifax or a Fortress, the level of heroism was just astounding......My God!! I can't even conceive of the level of courage required to board those bombers day after day, or night after night, knowing the odds......They had nothing to do with picking targets or determining bomb load......Their fate was death, mutilation, or at least, a lifetime of PTSD.....
As an American growing up in a military family, I always heard a ton of praise for the B-17. However, every time you hear stories about a particular sortie, they always had some version of the phrase "unfortunately, all of the guns had frozen solid" or "a single bullet hit the aircraft, shutting down the entire electrical system" or "two of the engines had randomly caught fire". The plane always seemed like a flying coffin to me, but its mythical status was never questioned.
I’m guessing you grew up in an Air Force family (or possibly Army). In my experience, the naval side generally has nothing but scorn and derision for the fortunes in lives and materials that were wasted on the Air Force’s delusion that carpet bombing a city would do anything other than make its occupants angry at you.
I'm surprised that people thought the B17 was an amazing plane. I was under the assumption that the reason it was so revered was because of the sheer amount produced
@@Ch1ssl fewer B-17's produced than B-24's. The difference is that the B-17 could absorb far more damage and return home. The B-24 was lighter built with a greater payload - much like the Lancaster. The B-24 also had an annoying tendency to flip and break apart usually killing the entire crew if it had damaged landing gear or was forced to ditch in water. Belly landing a B-24 was a death sentence. On the other hand, there are tons of film clips from WWII of B-17's landing with no gear or only one wheel down, where the crew simply walks away.
The whole 8th AF had mythical status. This was entirely the fabrication of the media which was mostly in England and not so much in North Africa, Italy or the South Pacific. Not much happened until D-Day and the only "real" action activity was the B-17/8th AF so it got written about so much. I know this irritated aircrews in North Africa as I've heard them complain.
Wow you're telling me a plane made over 80 years ago isn't perfect??
You are correct in all issues. The German army entered Poland on horseback. The Mosquito was fast, carried lots of bombs and was beautiful. I will always revere the B-17 because my father was a top turret gunner and navigator on an 8th Airforce B-17. I'm subscribing to your channel because I like your attitude and your delivery of that attitude
The Mosquito could only carry 2000lbs of bombs. To carry 4000lbs required bulged bomb bay doors which slowed the aircraft and were used at night. B-17 could carry 5000lbs internally (6000lbs if AP bombs) and in fact 17000lbs if external carriage was allowed. Had a massive force of unarmed mosquitos been developed the Luftwaffe would simply have lightened their Me 109G by retaining rifle caliber cowl guns and the retractable tail wheel of the G1 as well as removed some armour, non was needed for the Mosquito. The speed would go up quite a bit and they're ability to deal with any escorts.
I just want to add something. Your dad, and every American who came over here, was a hero. This country is lastingly in their debt, and years of two minute silences and thousands of miles of parades would never repay it. So from this Brit who has enjoyed five decades of freedom thanks to them, my lasting gratitude.
@@Hartley_Hare Well said .
@@williamzk9083 I agree. The me109 also had cannons, and one hit could well have been devastating to a wooden aircraft.
Top turret gunners were sargents while navigators were lieutenants. And the two jobs weren't done by a single person.
The B-17 was probably the best bomber... _pre-war._ Like, it's genuinely a pretty solid design for its time, but it held on for far too long.
The B-17 was superior to the B-24 in almost every metric you can name.
@@kurtpena5462 Bomb load? Speed? Range? Cost?
@@Spudtron98
By far the most economical.
Most durable.
Lowest cost.
Simplest to maintain.
Highest sortie rate.
The Lancaster was an expensive plane to operate and wasn't produced in anywhere near the volume of the B-17 or B-24, both of which had plenty of range.
@@kurtpena5462 🤣🤣🤣
A Brit scolding anyone for fielding ugly aircraft doesn’t realize the Spitfire was an anomaly…
From the horses mouth. Not many pilots got to fly the B17 and the Lancaster but my late father's pilot did. He brought dad safely home 56 times. Daws Kornegay was an American volunteer from Texas who joined the RCAF before Pearl Harbour. Having completed two 'tours' on 35 Squadron (Pathfinder Force) he was shipped home in preparation for joining the air war against Japan and started flying B17's. He hated them and described them to me as 'a ropey aircraft'. He even preferred the Halifax to the B17.
I’ve read that many pilots really liked the Halifax.
He was not the only one. The Soviets had a close look at the B-17 and decided there was nothing they would want to copy. The B-29 was obtained and copied by the Soviets and also obtained by the Chinese. This one they both liked and learned a lot from it.
The Germans captured several intact B-17s and used them flying from airport to airport to train German pilots on how to shot them down. Again with no intention to copy anything. During the war around a hundred B-17 and Liberators made emergency landings in Switzerland. The Swiss looked at them and were not interested but bought the Mustang, and that was a good decision.
There's a reason why the British went to night bombing
The later Halifax were not at all bad
Their radial engines were much less prone to battle damage, flew on with cylinder heads shot off while the Lancs Merlins seized up after one bullet hole in the cooling system
The biggest drawback of the Halifaxes was their lower ceiling
@@graemebdh2172 The later Halifax marks were not at all bad
Their radial engines were much less prone to battle damage, flew on with cylinder heads shot off while the Lancs Merlins seized up after one bullet hole in the cooling system The biggest drawback of the Halifaxes was their lower service ceiling compared to the Lancasters
My dad, who was a machinist and aircraft fitter, got the chance to look at some engines of the first flight of B-17s that were ferried across to the UK for the RAF. They had had a number of problems with the Wright Cyclones, including at least one failure on the long trip, so some needed to be stripped and rebuilt. Dad was either still with Hobson's engineering in Wolverhampton at the time, or had by then moved to Rolls Royce in Derby, so not sure where this happened. He found the engines really interesting, as he had no experience with American radials, but they did
discover some poor quality control leading to problems with pistons overheating and scoring the barrels etc. Not sure if it was from ramping up production, or just a few bad eggs. Hell, even RR lost a string of Merlins in Spitfire crashes due to valve chest gears that were improperly machined at a new Vickers plant at one stage during the war. There's been a lot of jingoistic bunk written about whether US or British aircraft engineering was superior etc. Dad thought it was mostly crap, as although both nations worked in somewhat different ways, they both did their very best to ensure their boys came home alive.
Complete twaddle.
@@lordeden2732 Care to expand - what was twaddle? That quality control during wartime wasn't always what it should have been? Or the jingoistic bunk bit?
Hallelujah, sir you managed to say it in a much better way than me.
The Rolls Royce skew gear problem was in american built engines eventually traced to american machinists pouring un consumed flat coke into the gear cutting fluid, causing a change in the metal hardness during the cutting of the gears causing them to fail.
@@oktoday8323 My maternal grandfather was a toolmaker at the Austin Motor Company. He spent nearly five years at Longbridge building first Short Stirlings, then Avro Lancasters, working 365 days a year, 12+ hours a day. It was called total war for a reason.
Algorithm joke was perfect. I was digging for meme songs and your video was set to autoplay.
Not mad. You're my type of content. At last, we meet. ❤
I'm American - I thank Gawd that I didn't have to fly in one of thosedeath traps.
Some double-edged swords in the argument. For one, German fighter losses to gunners were nowhere near as high as the USAAF claimed, both because each kill had gunners on a dozen different bombers claiming it, and because bombers would not follow a smoking fighter down to ensure it actually crashed (plus a bit of good ol’ propaganda). By the same token, German losses to gunners were higher than they and modern wehraboos like to claim, and they played a substantial role in attritting the Luftwaffe. Beyond outright deaths was the psychological effects that many fighter pilots suffered from repeatedly charging into a wall of tracers as they attacked bomber formations. It wasn’t the “no big deal” it’s often made out to be; many German fighter pilots described it as pants-shittingly terrifying, and some men broke from the emotional strain of it (a pilot who can’t fly because he’s become a basket case is just as ineffective as a dead one).
Second, many missions missed, aborted, or otherwise failed. But many others did put ordnance on target, and contrary to Speer’s self-aggrandizing bullshit, this actually did take a toll on nazi war production, which in turn had cascade effects down the line. It wasn’t the war-winning Easy Mode that Arnold claimed, but the war would’ve been longer and harder without it.
The B-17 was more survivable than most other heavy bombers (some Boeing engineers were even surprised at the damage some Fortresses sustained while still remaining in the air), therefore it was sent to the areas where bombers were most likely to get shot to pieces. At the same time, it’s reputation for toughness is often misunderstood; it was beloved by the men who flew it because it was they figured it was the plane most likely to bring them back. As long as you came back alive, do you really care that your plane is now a giant wad of Swiss-cheesed scrap metal that will never fly again?
All that aside, I must call bullshit on your claim that the B-17 is ugly! I could forgive everything else, but this insult cannot stand! The B-17 is aesthetically gorgeous! I will die on this hill! I demand satisfaction on the field of honor!!!
I so agree! The b17 is a beautiful bit of engineering, all other things aside.
At the end of the war....the Germans were forced to use very low octane fuel. The fuel was so bad their engines needed to be started on high octane fuel. then switched to the only available very low octane fuel.
The very low octane fuel caused the German fighter planes to produce large amounts of smoke. So, when the American gunners would see a German fighter flying away and smoking, they would claim a victory.
I was at an airshow decades ago. A B-17 belly gunner was talking about his experiences in WW2. He flew from Jan 1945 until the end of the war in April 1945. He said that he saw hundreds of German fighters on the ground....but, not a single German fighter in the air.....Probably due to the lack of fuel.
The results for strategic bombing did not have a large pay-off in terms of targets destroyed, especially in Europe where the Germans soon learned to disperse their factories, and were actually able to INCREASE fighter production in 1944 (which stunned the Army Air Force planners when they learned the awful truth post-war). Despite that, strategic bombing was indispensable to winning the war - IF there hadn't been bombing would D-day even have been possible? Not only would the luftwaffe have been out in force on June 6 it could have stopped the beach landing in its tracks - I can't think of one military target more vulnerable to destruction from the air than an amphibious landing force.
Also, without strategic bombing, would there have ever been a B-29? And if not, how would the US have delivered the atom bombs?
The B-17 gunners Think you are correct were not as effective as hoped, but the P51 escorts' destroyed the Luftwaffe.
@@robertmaybeth3434 The bombing destroyed German industry. Now it did not come as early as hoped, but that was in part because The bombers were shifted to Eisenhower's control to support the Day invasion. It is true that the Germans dispersed production, but there swore costs in this with quality control nd increasing pressure ion the transport system. You are correct that fighter production increased, but this was Me-109sa nd FW-190,s aircraft types outclassed by the Allied fighters. And notice how much of German production was defensive in nature. And they were being flown by increasingly poorly trained pilots, in part because the bombing was destroying the synfuel plants. The Eighth Air Force did not begin bombing the Reich until 1943, but by 1944 the raid were having a real impact on German wav industries. Have you not sked yourself--Where was the Luftwaffe in D-Day?
My uncle David (A Kiwi volunteer) flew 19 missions as bombardier in a Lancaster. However, he got chronic PTSD, and was unable to board the plane for his 20th mission. For this he was dishonourably discharged from the Royal Airforce, with his ration book stamped with "LMF" which indicates Lack of Moral Fibre.
FU Royal Airforce. FU very much.
I don’t believe the RAF had bombardiers.
@@annoyingbstard9407 I see you're trying to live up to your name!
The fact that they used the term 'bomb aimer' does not mean that they did not have 'bombardiers'
@@annoyingbstard9407 Yes they did, they were called Bomb Aimers!!!
@@richardvernon317 I’ll let you have a while to consider the stupidity of that remark.
Post Traumatic Stress was not understood at that time, why IDK because it has been around for as long as war
Tone of the video: the Mosquito was crap because it only carried a 4,000 lb. bomb load compared to the B-32 Dominator's 20,000 lb load and would have been totally destroyed by a Luftwaffe Eurofighter. And was made out of balsa wood.
You're missing the point. The Mosquito didn't carry many bombs because it didn't need to. It was a fast light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. It was meant to fly fast at night and strike key targets, then quickly gtfo. The B-17, on the other hand, was a strategic bomber. It was meant to fly in day time, and drop massive amounts of bombs on strategic targets (like a factory). The Mosquito succeeded in its role, while the B-17, for the most part, failed miserably. The B-17 couldn't fly fast or high enough to avoid the German interceptors it faced, while the mosquito could outrun almost everything the Germans threw at it, and outturn the stuff it couldn't. The British equivalent to the B-17 is the Avro Lancaster, which was significantly better in every single way, while being cheaper.
@@user-mx1fq6qm6i The point is the video is a cherry picked list of B-17 flaws that ignores the deteriorating state of German air defenses. Its tone is "RAF you go girl."
@@user-mx1fq6qm6ijust square up one thing for me, exactly how did the B-17 "fail miserably" and still manage to drop more tons of bombs on occupied Europe than all other bombers combined?
I really enjoyed this video.
It's the second time I've watched it
For some reason a search doesn't pull it up either on CZcams or Google
But either way, it's a shame that the comments are shooting you down, You've created a very watchable video and certainly don't deserve this much flak 😉
Can't wait for the b-29 edition
One advantage of day bombing was it was bad on the german side COMBINED with night bombing. The bombing was more 24 hours, so the luftwaffe/flak had to properly defend 24 hours a day and the people on the ground never had a "there will be no bombing for the next X hours" predictable relaxation time either.
And, it should be mentioned, a considerable number of 88s were used as flak guns which could have otherwise been used on the battlefronts.
@@roryobrien4401I know in a computer war game having just a couple 88's can turn enemy counter-attacks into flaming battlefields with ease since they can hit at long range and reload and aim quickly. Plus they rarely do not penetrate a tank. But they were usually in short supply because something like 50,000 were kept back to defend against bombers. Plus having air superiority meant Allied fighter bombers could hunt them down so that limited their effectiveness. That is exactly what cracked Rommel's 88mm defensive line at the end of El Alamein, not that it would have held out foreever.
@@roryobrien4401 The 88s were used as flak guns because that is what they were designed as. It was serendipity that they turned out to be lethal as AT weapons.
What about times of very bad weather?
@@robertmaybeth3434 Yanks didn't fly or aborted missions and bombed "Targets of Opportunity" AKA any German town they could see (plus on occasions towns in the wrong country like France and Switzerland). in 1943 things had got so bad that 8th Air Force formed a bomb group to do the same job as the RAF's Pathfinder Force and fitted the British Gee system to all of their bombers. The USAAF Pathfinders were fitted originally with the British H2S bombing radar and Oboe bombing system andtrialled as night bombers, before the US developed H2X bombing radar and G-H blind bombing system were introduced in 1944 and a couple of aircraft fitted with the radar bombing aids from the pathfinder group were detached to each bomb group to act as lead ships for bombing raids. When the radar lead ship dropped its bombs which were fitted with smoke dispensers, everybody else in the combat box dropped their bombs. Main limitation for both the RAF and USAAF was the state of the weather at their airfields. Also during parts of the year, certain targets couldn't be hit "Around the Clock" as the RAF or USAAF couldn't get in and out to them with enough daylight or darkness. In the height of Summer, the Yanks bombed long and the Brits bombed short, in winter vice versa.
Lazerpig sent me. Brilliant sense of humor.
Yo same
Me as well
This channel is such a gem
Subscribed! My dad was a waist gunner on a B17 during the Schweinfurt Ball Bearing Raids. He never talked or wouldn’t talk about it. He’s one of the few survivors.
Whether crap or not, I love the look of a B-17G. One of my favorite model planes to build when I was a kid.
Start building kits again👍 I have and love it.
@@PeteCourtier Lol. I should. I have a kit I bought a couple of years ago but it's been sitting on the shelf ever since. I used to love making the dioramas too, and adding realistic touches to the planes by adding bullet holes with a hot needle (not gonna lie, I didn't mind the slight buzz from the glue and turpentine fumes either, lol).
Ditto.
@@PeteCourtier I've built the B-17, B-29 and the Lanc, but the Mosquito is still in its box. I need to start on that this winter. :)
b-17 was not crap. Most of the criticism here are that the B-17 had lower specs than the Lancaster.
The only part of the B-17 that was crap was USAAF day light tactics and the pre-war assumption that "the bomber would always get through." Unescorted missions were what was crap.
The B-17 had several powerful virtues. 1) It existed on day 1 of the war, even if it was a mid-1930s base design. 2) It could be manufactured in vast numbers. 3) The pilots, crews, and ground crews knew how to operate it.
A mediocre aircraft in hand TODAY when you need it is better than a perfect aircraft five years from now.
The pig told me to do this and I regret nothing. Great videos dude and I will definitely be checking out more from this channel.
Last time I saw a B-17 in real life, it left a permanent grease stain on one of my favorite shirts while I was crawling around inside of it, but I’m not complaining too much. The boys at the Arizona Commemorative Air Force Museum did a great job on that place and I had a great time
the b17 has marked you as its successor it seems
Frame that shirt!!! Lol
@@james924s haha
Ahh the sentimental journey. Very cool museum.
@@The_SmorgMan that’s the one
Lancaster bomb load: up to 21000 lb (grand slam armed)
Mosquito bomb load: 4000 lb (cookie armed)
Flying fortress bomb load: 4000lb
I'm starting to see the problem. It was never a heavy bomber. It was a well armed medium bomber with 4 engines.
The A-26 from 1941 was almost 100mph faster in cruise and top speed while carrying a similar bomb load with only 300mi less combat range.
“Visionary arrives 80+ years after the end of WWII and proclaims that B-17s really should have been better.” 🙄
When 73% of your crews are dead or captured in 18 months you know you have a problem. You can choose to do something about it, or you can choose to
to the Press you have a 'Fortress' or you can do both. Arnold did both. He claimed loudly to the press what a great job the boys were doing and in Dec 43 he fired Eaker, got Doolittle in and got the P-51 as an escort. Bit late but better late than never.
To be clear, the primary reason for the difference in survivability between the Lancaster and B-17 was night missions vs day time missions. Kinda comparing apples to oranges in that respect.
It's not like the RAF said "No, we chose it first".
I agree. That is a serious flaw in an otherwise highly entertaining presentation. But that sort of flaw brings all the other information into question.
With the radar directed flak and night fighters plus the weather night bombing and day bombing dangers were pretty much on a par or the RAF losses would have been a lot lower, so it's a pretty fair comparison.
@@alanwright3172 Early radar was not that precise. It is still easier to aim in the light of day.
@@alanwright3172 But they were a lot lower. There were 10 day light interceptors to every 1 night time interceptor, and German flak was considered so ineffective by the German leadership, that they felt that the 8.8s should have been sent to fight as anti-tank guns.
"Freezing their nuts off trying to hit Herman the German" pure poetry
My grandfather flew in a B-17. I was too young to know him well as a man, but as I was reading his memoirs he mentioned that he was put in an older model that ran out of fuel before they could return back to base. In the process he and the rest of his crew bailed, and he spent a year and a half in a German POW camp. If they'd actually been worried about keeping the planes in the sky and actually going the full distance he would have never been in prison. It would be a struggle for me to convince myself that the United States Air corps actually valued their men.
Crap or not I'm truly grateful for the sacrifice so many young Americans made for us. I've visited the US military cemetery in Cambridge where many of the aircrew are remembered and it's a very sobering experience. Thank you America we couldn't have done it without you.
You'll get no argument from me on that one
Be nice if they got in at the start but even worse didnt rip us off
And America couldn't have done it without us. Remember that. Remind today's Yanks of that. Tolerate no disrespect or minimisation of our own massive contribution. The war against the Axis was won because those powers picked on the three richest, most populous, largest most advanced, trio of badasses on the planet - the British Empire & Commonwealth, the USA and the USSR. And, they tried to do it all at the same time. Seriously, the Axis was never going to prevail - it was just a matter for all of us of holding our nerve, tolerating a bit of poverty and discomfort, and being brave and determined in the face of considerable loss of blood and treasure.
As a thought experiment, just try the counterfactual and imagine America alone against the the Axis and its allies, (including the USSR) its European slave populations, war in every continent and every sea, almost every vital natural resource in the world under Nazi control.
"A prisoner, fed through the bars" was FDR's vision of the end of America's solo fight against the Axis. America, surrounded on every side by its foe, having signed a humiliating peace 'treaty'. That's why Roosevelt urged the American people to see that Europe mattered, that Britain was actually DEFENDING the USA and that 'splendid isolation', of a 'self sufficient America' could never really protect the American people.
It's rare that American acknowledge their country's debt to Great Britain and still rare that they express any thanks.
@@alastairbarkley6572 Uh... What? I've never once heard an American not appreciate Britain's involvement in the war - I think you're doing some projecting here and trying to bandwagon off this video's shit talking of America. Stay off the internet for a while, yea?
@@alastairbarkley6572 I think every nation likes to overstate their own involvement in a war, and that often results in downplaying the actions of others. The British and French are just as guilty as the Americans and Russians. Many British dramatically overstate the involvement of the British by often considering units made up by Indians as actions done by the british. Many a british battle wouldn't be successful without Indian, Polish, Czech, Yugo, Greek, ANZAC, Canadian, American (both volunteer and regulars), French (both european and colonial), Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Singaporean, and so on. The thing about the allies wasn't just that three great powers smacked the shit out the Germans. It was that a true coalition of nations. The Polish and Czech could say the exact same thing to the British, their countries were sacrificed by the British and French to buy time to prepare. Their countrymen bled until there was no longer a country to bleed for and kept bleeding. The Chinese lost MILLIONS of lives, and barely any western nation even talks about the war in China.
This is often one of the things that sorta irks me about Europeans, they act like the US takes them for granted because America does not grovel at their feet. America is not a colony, it is an ally and a major power. At no point would any American say that the British did not make an impact in WW2. But also remember WW2 to Americans is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than WW2 to Europeans. British troops weren't there in the liberation of the Philippines. The Royal Navy wasn't at Midway or the Coral Sea. To America, half the war wasn't fought by just about ANY European power. Just like how to a lot of Europeans the half of the war America fighting in it.
This attitude that I see predominantly Europeans have on WW2 is that it started and ended with Germany. The entire scope of the "world" in world war often is just Europe and the Mediterranean. The war didn't end when the Germans surrendered, it just wasn't your houses, your people, your countries.
Also side note, as a brit I think you have absolutely no excuse to say the US wasn't involved before American troops were marching. The US sent 33 billion dollars in aid to the UK in the Lend Lease act, to put that in perspective the US spent 2.2 billion of the Manhattan Project. Also yes you had to pay it back at a MASSIVE discount, 1.03 billion pounds (which was paid off in 2007 for less money than the Soviets paid back). The Liberty Fleet was unending. The food and oil exports were vital. The US took Shermans out of it's own units hands to make sure that you guys had them first. All of this was done LONG before the majority of Americans wanted anything to do with the war. American public opinion at the time was that they didn't want to get dragged into yet another European war which is only waged for other people's benefits. They saw how quickly the British abandoned Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and France. Many people in the US in the early stages thought it was just another war between Germany, France, and Britain. That it would result in the exact same thing, new borders drawn for the benefit of those who drew them not for the ones who lived in them. To many Americans the British and French just wanted Americans to bleed in their place. If that attitude is the norm in the United Kingdoms, I don't think they were very wrong.
I've often wondered how many B17's were lost in action not due to enemy fighters but through being riddled with bullets from the other B17's all around it getting target fixated on German fighters diving through their formation!
my dad ,a ball turret gunner admits that on one occasion, while tracking a German fighter he shot up an adjoining B17,needless to say the guys in the other plane wanted to kick my dads ass. At 11:17 in the video, that ball turret gunner looks very much like my father
@@josephmcdermott5503 It was bound to happen, probably time after time! The whole concept of tight formations bristling with defensive guns in broad daylight was flawed from the start. We started the war with that concept and learned through horrendous losses that it just didn't work - so did the Germans in the Battle of Britain which is why we both switched to night bombing.
It had to have happened, and yet I have never seen it mentioned in the books I've read about the Eighth's bombing campaign.
@@IncogNito-gg6uh It's probably not the sort of thing to have been widely circulated at the time for morale purposes (or admitted by those who knew they had done it, although I have no doubt most never realised they had done it with all their concentration focussed on the enemy target). Even Douglas Bader's eventual downing, which he attributed to colliding with a German fighter has been subsequently theorised as a friendly fire incident by one of his own squadron in the heat of the dogfight.
Fighter were not the bigest killers of the B- 17 IT WAS FLAK NOT THOSE NIMBLE FIGHTE THE BRITIS AND U.S AIRFORSE LOST APOX 70% LOSSES WERE TO FLACK PERIOD
A German ace in his book said the B-17 was hard to bring down. It was the same German who let Charlie Brown’s B-17 escape back to England full of holes. That German said the B-24 was much easier to bring down. You just dove down from above and aimed where the two wings met, and the whole thing would just fold up and drop.
Have read the same thing. The B-17 could take a lot more punishment than the B-24.
They changed tactics and went straight at the Pilots
The B24 caught fire instantly. US POWs said that you could always tell what plane fellow POWs had been flying by the burns that they had suffered.
anecdotally that is correct, I've seen it several times , but statistically not so. Loss rates on B24s are lower than B17s even when both are tasked with the same mission
@@kennatt7295
It's almost as if having a plane that's faster and capable of carrying more bombs means you'll spend less time in danger, thus suffering less casualties.
Beautifully written and delivered. I enjoyed every minute. And learned a lot.
The Americans should have purchased the license to make Lancasters, a much, much better platform.
Absolutely would not have worked with their doctrine. It would have meant completely retraining their entire bomber force, which would have put the 8th and 15th air forces out of the war for more than a year. Which wouldn't have been politically or militarily feasible.
3:12 Thats not fair, daylight B-17 raids on French and German agriculture looks pretty effective lmao.
If you've ever eaten French food you'd know they didn't have to bomb it to cause starvation. Nobody was going to eat that stuff...
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was an outstanding groundbreaking revolutionary bomber built in and for the 1930s but found itself fighting in the 1940s when as little as a 6-12 month lifespan meant the difference between an aircraft being state-of-the-art and obsolete...
That's pretty much the size of it
@@HardThrasher 😆😆😆
@@HardThrasher one important thing to remember is that the US likely took the right path though by building a 4 engine bomber and why they had something. Other countries went the path of twin engine bombers with stronger engines, but the stronger engines turned out to be more difficult to build and took longer to make, greatly delaying their release.
I wouldn't consider it an "ugly" aircraft!
There is a reason why the USA only built 12,000 B17's while they built 18,000 B24 in a shorter operational time.
For some reason, I've always loved the B-17 and I have many books on the subject. However, I must confess that after watching this video I'm inclined to agree with you, except on one very important point ... I think the B-17 was gorgeous to look at!
Yes. It was the best looking bomber by far. British bombers were for the most part ugly, but no doubt better planes. I took my dad to see a B17 parked at an air field nearby a few years ago. He was in the infantry in WWII....landed at Anzio. Anyway, he was mostly amazed about how big the wings were. :)
It had that 1930s Art-Deco/Art Moderne look to it that you can see surviving into its later combat-capable versions. Same as what you see on those Raymond Loewy steam locomotives and the GG-1 electric for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Yep, I have always thought the B-17 to be a great looking aircraft, but otherwise I agree with every point made here. For every time the USAAF put a thousand bombers into the air towards the end of the war, to deliver the same ordnance, imperilling 10,000 aircrew, the RAF only had to put up 330, with only a quarter of that number of men in the firing line. The one huge advantage the American heavies had over their British counterparts was the survivability of the crews after being attacked. I know of one BG that lost 11 Forts in one particular raid - and out of the 110 airmen shot down, something like 105 survived. The advantage of having two pilots and an accessible bomb bay perhaps?
@@stuartburbridge8091 And no main spar to have to clamber over in the pitch dark with the aircraft spinning and tumbling because the one pilot was dead? And the night fighters that snuck up underneath and shot them to bits with *Schragemusik* with nary a second's warning.
There are some things wrong and cherry picked topics within this video. First thing I believe the B-17 can be somewhat compared to the SBD Dauntless. On paper the SB2C Helldiver was much better, faster bigger bomb load, more durable. The pilots still preferred the SBD due to its forgiving flight nature and ease around the boat. Same could be said about the B-24 better on paper but "was like flying the house from the front porch" and had issues on takeoff when fully loaded. In my opinion both were great for the task at hand.
High altitude bombing was brand new and trying to pioneer a new way of war is going to bring many challenges and setbacks. The 8th Air Force learned the hard way in 1943 on deep penetration missions in Germany but did not give up and these lessons learned paved the way to truly bring the Luftwaffe and Germany to it's knees. The Oil Plan beginning in 1944 was extremely detrimental to Germany's war fighting capabilities brought by allied bombing. Long range escorts needed due to early bomber losses would ultimately lead to the destruction of the Luftwaffe.
The British suffered a higher casualty rate flying at night then the 8th Air Force did during the day. 45% of Bomber command crews were killed. I think a lot of this is due to the B-17s toughness and flying during the day, The B-17 could take tremendous punishment and get back but also when a B-17 was shot down many of the crew were able to bail out. It could take a ridiculous amount of abuse for the crew to have a fighting change to get out of the airplane. Just finished a book about the 100th during mid to late 1943 during the worst of it and it seemed like majority of B-17s shot down had half or more of the crew survive. Just my two cents.
The RAF flew most of its sorties at night! The B-17 flew during the day! That could be the reason they did better!
This aligns perfectly with what my late father, an industrial engineer (operations researcher) and fan of WWII history used to say.
I'm really grateful for living in the timeline where I find this channel.
Was unsure whether I wanted to subscribe, so decided to watch the videos starting with the oldest one.
As you might've guessed, one video turned out to be enough, great job
I did the exact same thing, thanks for the great videos Thrasher and thanks to the pig for pointing the way.
An actual series on American bombers; if not from this channel, but elsewhere, in this type of actual levelling the playing field (despite being put in the firing line) and hearing about their actual flaws, would honestly be a great breath of fresh air
It's fun to actually hear the drawbacks of an aircraft you're fond of; not that there's much to go off on for the Marauder or the Liberator in terms of "flaws" but still, this was a very good breath of fresh air.
No one is allowed to be rude about the Marauder near me. She might have had a front like a smacked arse and the handling characteristics of a gliding television, but she was near perfect ;)
I will stick it on the 'tbc' pile
This is what we in the business call equal wavelengths on what was basically America's best medium bomber of the war; if not the early-mid twentieth century; not to mention much of its flight characteristics were well honed by crews who were seasoned with the type and knew how to land it aside from meeting their maker at mach jesus and therefore making what I'd say was Martin's magnum opus during WWII.
I will watch this channel with great interest :)
@@HardThrasher I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. The Marauder had a pretty damn good looking nose, if you ask me.
You didn't. But I'm pretending you did.
The real crime is that the US was sucked into WW1, thus making WW2 inevitable. The soldier uses the weapons he’s given, and those that survive have good stories to tell. Soldiers don’t care who they kill, they just want to go home. The ones that cry about civilians do this decades after the war. Harris and LeMay did their duty as they saw it and tried to make up a narrative the public would swallow. As someone said there’s no substitute for victory.
A couple of points, which might explain some of the stupidities:
1) Daylight bombing - the idea was they were hit day and night. The RAF were able to do night raids, and the USAAF opted for the day. It was also necessary for the gunners to be able to see targets. Even the Kammhuber line was making life tough for the RAF at night. The other part was the mission. Bomber Harris was for bombing cities, while the USAAF stuck to strategic targets. Intellegence isn't an exact science, and there were some bad choices for targets (ball bearing factories).
2) No fighters - Captain Obvious would like to point out the Germans could attack from airfields just over the channel, while for the US and UK, they had to make it to Germany which was a fair distance.
3) Gunners - The .50 cals actually outranged the ME-109 and the FW-190 MG's, and also when they went to cannons. They eventually went to rockets. That forced the Luftwaffe into head-on attacks. Also, there was a decent amount of armor in the B-17. The B-24's had reflector gunsights which were a lot more accurate, and they switched to powered turrets. Took them a while to stop using tracers which didn't help.
4) Accuracy - Agree on the Norden bombsight. Often targets were covered by smoke or clouds, and people were shooting at you. They finally wised up and started using the Pathfinder system where the Pathfinder would have ground radar late in the war. It got better, as did the bomb loads with HE and thermite incendiaries.
Later in the war, they got rid of the guns for bombload.
I love the nerdy history section of youtube that reacts to this like typical clickbait stuff. History is the best
I love the B17 ,I think it is a beautiful looking machine.I have so much respect for the allied air crews they were very brave.
I recall a conversation with a former B24 pilot and POW. He said that if he had been flying a B17, he would have made it home that day.
Maybe, maybe not. The 17 had more wing area to shred apart. Altitude or speed, I'd rather both (B29mperformance) but would be hard pressed to decide which I would give up. Loss rates were nearly identical with the edge by a RCH going to the 24.
That doesn't make sense, how would he know that?
@@jaymorris3468 It made sense to him. Apparently, B17s had suffered similar damage and made it home. Since he was there, I was not going to question his belief.
The B-24's Davis wing was particularly vulnerable to battle damage.
My father, a B-24 pilot, would have agreed.
I feel personally attacked by the American accent bits in the beginning but they were also so accurate I slapped my knee and said out loud “boy howdy I tell ya”
Good Lord, did they think the bomber was the sky equivalent of a battlecruiser? you’d think they were hallucinating about magnificent broadsides being fired
HardThrasher tries to do to the B-17 Flying Fortress strategic bomber what Belton Cooper tried to do the M4 Sherman tank. "The" problem of both the B-17 and the M4 were that they were robust and remained in service a long time during a world war. (A similar thing could be said of the German Bf 109; later supplemented by the Fw 190.) Actually, the B-17 was supplemented by the B-24 even in the European theater, and the B-24 and, later, the B-29 dominated in the Pacific theater. The role of the B-17 was quite specific. It was as much to divert German resources from the eastern front (to defend against strategic bombing), as to degrade the ability of Germany industry to support its war effort. The British Mosquito bomber was something of a niche bomber, and just wasn't capable of the role of the B-17. The British Lancaster bomber was a thoroughly capable strategic bomber. The Lancaster was optimized for night time bombing, while the B-17 was optimized for daytime bombing (hence, much more heavily armed, which had implications for bomb load and performance). Allied losses in strategic bombing were horrendous, but, my God, Russian losses on the eastern front were an order of magnitude worse. This was a war we had to win, even at a high cost.
Well said.
Belton Cooper’s less than scholastically-accurate book came to mind relatively quickly while watching this.
Nice try buddy, I'm gonna have my cake and eat it too. You're right but so is he.
8 Mosquitoes upset Goering, Goebbels and the German nation in one day. The Mozzie made the Gestapo wonder if it was their turn next too. They also, one by one, took the photos the USAAF needed to target their bombers. The USAAF used them as photo recce aircraft too (F-8) - because they had nothing to match them.
Very cool explanation
okay, he brought up the myth of the lower losses of the RAF night bombing raids. statistics show that late in the war the RAF losses while night bombing were higher than the losses of the USAF during the same time period. so i guess the big question would be. which plane would you prefer to fly combat missions in, B-17 or lancaster?
The difference between the British bombers and Americans bombers was in their survivability. B-17 and B-24s could take more hits than could the Lancaster or Halifax and fly home.
What I didn't see mentioned is the armor on the planes. The American planes shielded their pilots and aircrews. The British only had armor for the pilot that was less protective that the American schemes. That alone factored into the extra weight of the American bombers.
Fewer Lancaster crews survived after being shot down as the plane was difficult to get out of. The hatch was small, as I recall, 23" square. Entering, the crew tossed their parachutes in first then entered. In an emergency, in the dark, trying to squeeze out that same small hatch was a lot more difficult wearing your parachute. The American planes and even the Halifax had a far less of a problem getting out of a damaged plane.
Both Allies lost more planes to flak than enemy fighters. In the summer of 1944, 2/3 of all losses were to flak. The flak guns were far cheaper to produce and maintain than were the fighters. While they required training to use, their crews lived far longer lives than did the fighter pilots. The flak guns didn't need to see their targets, they just filled the skies with bursting charges. Throw enough shrapnel up there into those massive formations and you were bound to hit something sooner or later.
The one major thing that made the Lancaster superior over the American planes was the wing spar did not bisect the bomb bay. The Lancaster could carry it's large and very large bombs while the B-17 and B-24 were restricted to smaller bombs. (The spar was higher on the B-24, but the fuselage was also narrower which led to limiting bomb size.)
Regardless of which was really better, you didn't get a choice as an airman. If you were American, you flew B-17s or B-24s. If you were British or Commonwealth, you flew Lancs or Halifaxes. Stating the obvious, I know. But choices that aren't choices aren't choices.
Thank-you for another outstanding presentation. Absolutely love your commentary !.
As an American, with a genuine love of history, I love having my view of historical vehicles and events challenged, and this video does that fantastically. While I don't agree with ALL your points, you certainly make a good enough argument to sway me at least a good ways to your opinion on the B-17, and you've made a subscriber of me!
My Dad navigated a Mossie with 627. Occasionally, a Flying Fortress would make an emergency landing at his airfield, Woodhall Spa and they would shake their heads at the Fort. They were not impressed. Dad said they called them Flying Coffins and he had no desire to swap his Mossie for a Fort. Or any other bomber if it came to that.
Nobody flying Mosquitoes would exchange them for any other aircraft during the war. But nobody would get into one after it finished which is why so few survive. One of those aircraft where everything was sacrificed for performance. And that's what kept you alive.
@@ethelburga They brned easy and were hard t ext
The B-17 was not a “crap” airplane-not even a “bit crap”-either by specs for its class at the time of its development and sometime thereafter, nor by reputation.
Reputation first, actually. As part of my thirty years of research into this particular crew and their war (SW Pacific, 1942-43), I've talked to numerous veterans, both pilots and other crew, who piloted or flew on both B-17s and B-24s and the overwhelming majority preferred the Fortress for its flight capabilities and durability. The B-24 carried a larger payload and could fly farther, which is why the transition was made from the 17 to 24s beginning in early 1943. But it also scared the pants off a bunch of the men who had to fly on it, and literally every pilot I talked to preferred the 17. Not only could it take more damage, it could handle far more flight stresses, allowing far more extreme maneuverability than the 24. This wasn’t new with the E/F/G models, either: one of the original YB-17s suffered little more than a few popped rivets after being flipped on its back in a violent storm on its way from Dayton to Langley. (Which is why static testing on the thirteenth B-17 was cut short.)
So the men who actually flew, and flew on, the bomber certainly didn’t believe it was crap.
But again, neither was it at the time of its development. You say the B-17 entered service in 1938, and compare it to a modified Me-109 that year. But the B-17 didn’t “enter service” in any respect in 1938. It was designed and developed in 1935-36, with the first YB-17s delivered to the 2nd BG for testing in the first half of 1937. The equivalent Bf-109 (it was always officially “Bf”) was the 109B-1 and B-2, with a max speed at altitude around 290 mph. In flight training exercises off the east coast in October 1937, the 2nd BG’s YB-17s *cruised* at 200mph carrying a 4000+ lb. payload. So in fact at the time of development, even with a full bomb load, the B-17 matched quite well against the Germany’s top fighter at the time. That it fell behind quickly ignores the fact that you’re comparing development of a heavy bomber designed and developed by the military of a highly isolationist country in the middle of the Great Depression, with the development of airpower in a country fully mobilizing at breakneck speed for war.
You also compare it negatively to the British Lancaster-a bomber whose first prototype flight wasn’t until January 1941, a full five years later than the B-17, and didn’t enter combat until March 1942. A few questions come to mind, in light of that:
1. Do you think that if the B-17 had been developed in 1940 rather than 1936, its specifications might have been upgraded?
2. What bomber should have begun being deployed in 1941, the B-17 or the original Manchester that the Lancaster was based on?
3. Which aircraft, the Fortress or the Lancaster, was more available for mass production and deployment in 1941-42, and could be produced on the greatest scale as the war progressed?
This all strikes me as either poorly contextualized, or not at all. By the standards of the time of its development, the B-17 stood out. The Army chose it-chose to pay almost twice as much for it as its nearest American competitor-for a reason. And it was what was available, and could be in numbers sufficient to the necessity, when Lend Lease began. I’m reminded of a quote ascribed to Teddy Roosevelt: “Do what you can with what you have where you are.” That was the role the B-17 was asked to play, and to suggest it was crap because of that misplaces the blame. You say it “started out well” but “ended up being a disaster.” More accurately, it became increasingly less suited for the task being asked of it. But that makes the changed circumstances crap, not the aircraft. I don’t say my 2000 Honda Accord is “a bit crap” because we can’t haul the RV we want with it.
All in all, it’s a thin argument based on a faulty premise advertised with an insulting title. Yes, insulting-to the people who built it, to the people who flew it, and to the people faced with the charged decisions that made it the workhorse that it became.
Like you said, the 17 was what the Air Corp. had aviable and in production at the time so they flew with it, however by 1942 the 17 was becoming obsolete due to the every changing circunstances of the war, therefore something had to be done, either upgrade the aircraft to match the new requirements or replace it.
There is a reason why just the 8th force alone has an insane amount of losses: 10 man in an outdated piece of hardware flying deep into enemy territory most of the time without fighter escort. Just 10 B-17s down mean 100 men either killed or recruited for the POW program.
Also the engines were a severe problem, even the B-29 (wich development had a cost above the Atomic Bomb Program) went over an engine upgrade since the original was litteraly an IED attached to the wing, while the 17 was forced to fly with something that was outdated even when the US entered the war.
Due to the amount of planes, the slow speed, overstuff with guns that barelly hit anything, non-pressurized cabin (meaning that the crew had to constantly check and unfreeze the condensations in theirs masks), low bomb capacity (menaing that twice the planes were needed to do proper damage), bellow average sights (most of the time the formation would miss their mark (in some cases for more than a mile), mean that the 17 while a great bomber for the early 30's was near obsolete by 1943 and gave the 8th Air Force one of the highest numbers of losses in the entire war. The clossest ones might be the Kriegsmarine's U-Boats crews wich endured kinda the same circunstances as the crews on the 17s and had almost the same amount of losses.
In the end, the plane WAS a bit crap by 1942 and should have NEVER been involved in the war at all. If the US actually developed a properly modular heavy bomber exlusively for the European campaign (like the british did with the 24), they would have NEVER ended with a plane equal to the B-17, they used it because it was already in full production, not because it was the solution for that situation.
@@PointReflex Your opinion would have more credibility if the Germans agreed with you, but they don't. German fighter pilots are virtually unanimous in saying that B-17s were a very hard plane to shoot down when it was flying in formation and a dangerous opponent. If American bombing was so inaccurate why did the Germans focus the majority of their fighter strength against the Americans in 1943 and 1944, not the RAF. After the invasion in 1944, the RAF began flying daylight missions flying in formation imitating American tactics.
I thought it would be satire after read more revealed a lot of text but it actually cleared things up from the video in a way
@@user-cd4bx6uq1y Glad it helped, if only a little.
@@ZeamersEagerBeavers most of this can be explained in the US went with 4 engine bomber while other countries thought that they would soon have much more powerful engines so they could do it with 2. Turned out those more powerful engines were much further away and caused long delays. America made the right choice here.
My Great Grandfather flew a B17 for over eight months and he loved it. But then he quit War Thunder and moved to World of Warcraft
As a boy who grew up in the 1950's, I can now look back at how the men who actually flew and flew in these planes so, mostly, adroitly handled our keen enthusiasm. It is only now that I understand that far away look or abrupt gruffness.
Thank You.
God Bless them all.
Prayers for all who suffered.
The B-17 was outdated by 1942 but it had the most important of all qualities, it was where it was needed when it was needed. You fight the war with what you have...that is how legends are made.
Yes... but it was a pity that so many brave young Americans died in them..... I am British, born in 1942 in the middle of WW2, and I can still remember the air raid sirens and the V1 "doodlebugs" (cruise missles) that killed thousands of civilians in London.
Those "yanks" that went out in those B17s every day sustained appalling losses, but still went and did their jobs as best they could, even though they knew that their chances of getting back were not good. We owe them much, and my generation will never forget them. The RAF were in it too of course, but not in large numbers in daylight, where they would have been cut to pieces.... The USAF got that shitty end of the stick because they were slightly more survivable....
Such is war, but my American brethren will always be close to my heart.....
The might of the US should have been able to develop better bombers faster. The cynic in me thinks the big businesses were happy to lose loads of planes over Europe as it meant more income. Have the economics of war changed? I think not.
Completely agree with the sentiment about those brave lads. I weep sometimes.
I think the subtext you may have missed is that the US war machine was highly focused on profiteering, cost overruns, useless over engineering, preferred suppliers, single-source contracts, and terrible metrics. Fortunately that's all fixed now.
The upshot is, while the US was playing catch up after 1941, they also were an armed nation more focused on regional dominance, and keeping their Caribbean and Latin American client states, and the dictators they propped up, equipped with the appropriate level of adequate arms that discouraged local wars, but worked well against popular insurgencies to allow their corporations to rape those regions in various ways.
You can argue that it was their stumbling into the Philippines through their thoughtless attempt to fill the Spanish power vacuum that broke the pseudo-isolationist stance, forced the creation of a bigger, more aggressive naval presence with the Great White Navy, and so down a path to inevitable confrontation with the Japanese, who they consistently underestimated, while tolerating and often embracing Naziism. But none of those policies awoke them to the imminent need to engage fully modernized armies or air forces - hence the generally terrible air power they had, and continued to field until the end of the war.
@@markgadsby5568 Damn-it, if you are correct.
@@danieldonaldson8634 by 1943 we were now ahead of the aircraft dilemma.
The B17 was designed as a long range coastal and marine patrol bomber. The Lancaster was a strategic heavy bomber from the start.
No…the Army Air Corp wanted a heavy bomber.
A erca nws the anc was better
@@kitbaker8521 they didn't get one...
@@mostevil1082 Until the B-29 at least.
"How many Lancasters were shot down?
According to the Bomber Command Museum, more than half of the Lancasters produced - 3,932 of them - were shot down during the war, at a total cost of £186,770,000 (or £7,397,375,152 when adjusted for inflation)."
Out of ~7,700 produced.
Unfortunately, you don't fight wars with the equipment you want, you fight it with the equipment you have.
Yes. And the equipment you have is the result of decisions you made pre-war.
About your pinned note above, Bomb and fuel load is fungible with altitude. The more the plane weighs, the lower it must fly! The Germans who had the best AAA Defense in the world in WW-II, claimed in every AAA Manual that they had a ~100% chance to shoot down any bomber between 4,920' & 7,870' of Altitude! The 56,000 RAF Bomber Command casualties prove this with exquisite precision! This is why our planes averaged ~25,000' cruising altitude and thus were restricted to 5,000'-8,800 pounds of bombs. They also flew longer missions on AVERAGE, than the RAF did, thus they were loaded down with more fuel. B-17 having dropped more Tonnes of bombs on Germany Propper than the RAF, in spite of their admittedly lower average bomb load! Not to short the RAF, they dropped more Tonnes on Europe than we did, but flew more & shorter missions total.
The positive side of the B-17 was that it was a stable, forgiving aircraft. This was very important when you had a lot of new pilots coming on line. It also was easy to control at high altitude and could fly in close formation that allowed the many machine guns to cross fire at enemy aircraft.
Put it this way if you had a MG40 and a you had to shoot up a Supply truck full of guns( ie think Mad max ) went past or a series of F1 cars , what would survive better ?
Interlocking fields of fire: Luftwaffe pilots stopped trying beam or stern attacks on B-17 formations because, well, you can't keep on trying when you're dead.
Thanks for clearing things up
Frankly, I would rather fly B-17 missions then Lancaster. Why? Plain and simple: I would have, statistically speaking, much better chances surviving the war.
My father was a crew member who flew 54 missions with the Jolly Rodgers Squadron in the South Pacific during WWII. The B17's he was in got shot to hell more than once , and they always made it back to base. Twice they were flying one only one engine and had hundreds of holes in their plane. They just barely made it back. One of those times, my father and the pilot were the only crew still alive after landing.
Massive respect to him mate
The 90th Bomb Group, aka The Jolly Rogers, flew only B-24 Liberators. The only non B-24 aircraft the group had was an A-20, used as a group hack.
Yeah but we had zillions of them so it didn't matter in the end. A bit like the Sherman tank.
"Quantity has a quality of its own" said some bloke - can't remember who said it but he wasn't wrong
A friend of mine was a waist gunner in a B17 and they successfully completed their campaign and then added missions as well. He credited the ships captain who insisted all personell lose their side arms, including ammo, knives, and everything else that added weight. He stripped the plane of anything else that wasn't completely necessary. His theory was that by being light as possible and carrying less weight meant more maneuverability, higher speed and greater rate of climb. Don't get shot down in the first place and you won't need all the other stuff. In their case, it was successful for them,
the ship did go down later with a different crew, but thankfully all survived, with a different captain. It wasn't how great the plane was or wasn't, but how many there were. Another guy I knew said of the Panzer tank could take out 6 Sherman tanks, but there was always that 7th Sherman tank. The one who makes the most equipment the fastest frequently wins in the end it seems.
so long as you do not mind being dead as the winning play.
One of the greatest operational limits on bombers was the position of the main-spar, assuming bombs were beneath it. In the case of the B17, the bombs fell between the front and rear elements of the main-spar, however, this limited both the poundage total of bombs carried, but also the length and girth of those bombs. When the Manchester/Lanc was on the drawing-board, the 250lb GP bomb was typical, but this rapidly became 2000lb bombs, 500 and 1000lb bombs, and thousands of pounds of incendiaries. Even the 4000lb cookie was readily mountable on the Lanc. By wars end, 3 such 4000lb bombs were dropped as a single 12,000 lb blast bomb. And that's before we get to the 12,000lb and 22,000lb earthquake bombs. All this was permitted by the exceptionally large, and long-bomb-bay beneath the Lanc's mains-spar. The downside of this was the difficulty in getting out of the aircraft as it required some gymnastics to make your way over said mainispar before the g-forces pinned one to the fuselage. There's no question that the B17 had far superior firepower, however, firing v night-fighters was a very very different proposition to fighting in daylight. The simple truth is that the B17's turrets, relatively slow moving, would have been hopeless for snap-shooting at night, and vice versa, the Lancs were unable to take on Jerry fighters in daylight. So to some extent comparisons are unfair, as each was optimised, as for as possible, for the conditions in which it operated. That said, of the two designs, I'd say the Lanc was more operationally flexible, and therefore was a better design.
Yup, very fair points.
The B-17s' firepower was useless, day or night. Removing the gunners and gun positions might have resulted in a slightly better aircraft and may even have saved lives. The Lancaster was superior in every significant respect.
@@ohgosh5892 At night it was. In daylight it'd have been cut to pieces, indeed on the Augsburg raid it was. The bombload of a B17 was very small, and the damage it did to the Luftwaffe was somewhat overclaimed. However, there was considerable value in the daylight campaign especially when they backed each other up on the same target, as it precluded or greatly complicated fire-fighting efforts.
@@Fidd88-mc4sz "However, there was considerable value in the daylight campaign " What value?
@@Fidd88-mc4szThe Lancaster was superior to the B-17 in every significant aspect. The B-17 was obsolete at the start of WW2. Dreadful aircraft.
Thank you very much for this insight into a topic I knew relatively little about. Looking forward to going through the rest of your filmography and further videos on more bombers.
@HardThrasher - I feel like a very brief summary of this vid is: “The self-absorbed USA came over with our crap planes, useless bombsite, and gun-obsessed/faulty strategy- and bollixed up the works.” Did I get that right? At any rate, I’m still proud of my grandfather, his generation, and the tech they got behind. Plus- they had the balls to get in those planes- go over there (where it sounds like they were despised), and help out at their own peril. Thank goodness for CZcams- now we can safely re-write history, labeling everything as crap! Good show!
Sort of, they didn't bollocks it up, they made it work but a lot more of them died than was strictly necessary had they been given decent kit earlier
My Uncle Dan was a bombardier on a B17 in WWII. His plane was shot down over Holland. The first time he ever parachuted out of a plane was when he had to. He landed badly, hurting his back (a lifetime of pain). He was picked up by the underground and hidden in a barn for 6 months before being smuggled back to England. All of this saved his life as very few crews survived all their missions.
Around 2010, a working B17 made a tour and stopped in Ct. We went to see it and were surprised how small it looked. It was about the size of a DC3. We could have taken a ride in it but they were charging about $430 for a quick flight around the airport (Brainard). Also, they had great difficulty starting the engines, but it did fly that day.
That plane, the Liberty Belle, crashed about a year or so later in Illinois and was a total loss of the aircraft. Of the seven on board, one had minor injuries and the rest were unhurt.
Dad did 30 missions as a top turret gunner and flight engineer in a B17G in the 8th Air Force, 401st bomb group, Triangle S Squadron. He had a lot of hair raising war stories especially about the German jets. He said the gun turrets wouldn’t rotate fast enough to keep up with ME262s when they flew through the American bomber formations.
Respect to him
not many survived . You were lucky to be here then
@pdalko Fortunately the Jets were too few and too late--in part because of the damage to German industry. .
The idea of the Americans attacking in daylight and the Brits at night was to make it impossible for Germans to sleep (particularly their pilots).
No it was nothing of the sort. Look up Augsburg - it was carried out by Lancasters in broad daylight. The losses caused a serious rethink in the Air Ministry and Bomber Command, and the decision was made to fly at night.
The USAAF likewise suffered heavy losses which were also - like BC's unsustainable, but the decision at high levels in Washington, was to continue daylight operations. Which is why the B17 had several variants! The Lancaster had 3.