MUTANT B-17 and B-24 Gunships!
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- čas přidán 28. 01. 2024
- These mutants were known as YB-40s and XB-41s and they were meant use their extra gun and armour superpowers to save their bomber sisters from the ravages of the Luftwaffe. Did it work? Watch and see...
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My dad worked for Lockheed at the beginning of the war and had part in inspecting the B-17, built under license from Boeing. They put as many guns and as much ammunition as possible on board. The problem when used in Europe, it was so heavy it flew fine with bombers that were loaded, but when they dropped their bombs, the flying gunship was still heavy and couldn't keep up with the other B-17s. They had to slow down to keep it in with them, the whole thing got dropped because of that.
Yep.
There's a difference between something that seems like a good idea - until you actually try to do it - and something that is still a good idea after that.
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I like the 6 forward firing gun option. That would surely inhibit frontal head on attacks.👍👍👍👍
Innovation is never a "waste" ! I hate when people say that crap. During war many things are tried some successfully some not. If your not moving your a target.
While the gunship concept was good, once the regular B-17s and B-24s dropped their bombs they were lighter and therefore faster. But did anyone think of giving the gunships 4 bladed propellers with wider propeller blades? Maybe even adding more powerful engines and turbochargers…
The simple answer is no.
Probably thought of, but by then I imagine it wasn't worth their time 😢
At the US Air force museum in Dayton Ohio there is an excellent exhibit about Jay Zeamer the pilot of Old 666. His flight jacket and medals are on display along with a plaque telling his story of survival.
The story of Old 666 was wild even before the recon mission. Once during night bombing run Japanese spotlights lit up the formation. In classic Zeamer drive it like you stole it style
he dropped out of formation to strafe the spotlights.
Wish some movie producer would take a serious look about making a film about Old 666 and its crew.
@@josepolotan9253 sofar we only have several documentaries about old 666
Avro Lancaster, 8 browning 303s and 3 times the amount of bombs
than a B 17. GOAT ! Not to mention it could carry 1000lb 'Cookie' + bombs. Well, you did start out with the R.A.F march song.
It’s the RCAF playing but it’s the same song! BTW I’ve got a model of a Lanc hanging right over my desk.
The 8th AF didn't encounter serious opposition until 1943.
And "the bomber will always get through" was based on actual fact. At the time the B-17 was faster than state of the art USAAC biplane interceptors.
Give me a B26 Maurader with the solid nose with 8x . 50 and the gun pack on both sides
Wondering whether a B24 gunship could keep up with the B17s after they emptied their bomb loads, since the 24 was faster.
Shame we didnt have the Gatling guns like we do today. Can you imagine?
The Germans would have been Shredded Sauerkraut!
To slow to spool up for air2air in bomber vs fighter
The thing with "Old 666" was it was a re-con aircraft - and so the bit about not being able to keep up with the bombers once they'd dropped their loads - was non applicable. There were no bombers - just the recon aircraft.
One thing about the American and British Bombers - was that they both carried about the same useful load. Since they were going to fly at night - and thought that would protect them - the British put more of that useful load - into bombs.
Since the Americans were going to fly during the day - and fight it out - they put more of that useful load into guns, gunners and armor.
The problem the British had - was that the Germans came to have a very effective Air Defense Network. Their Radar would track the British Bombers - and vector in Night Fighters to attack them. The Night Fighters had radar too - but - theirs was not as powerful as the ground based systems - so - they needed the vector from the ground based system to get close enough to their prey to pick it up themselves.
The thing with Fighter Escorts - was that they didn't have to wait for the enemy fighters to attack - they could go attack them. That made the machine guns in these fighters much more effective than the machine guns in the bombers. They could get really close to the fighter they were chasing and concentrate all that fire power right on it. That - and the enemy fighter couldn't run away. Then - the other thing these Escort Fighters could do on the way back - was attack enemy air fields.
The Bombers had DEFENSIVE fire - but the Fighter Escorts used OFFENSIVE fire - which was more effective.
The problem for the British was that even Allied Night Fighters assigned to "escort" the Night Bombers - were ineffective. The Allied Night Fighters didn't have ground based radar to vector them in on enemy night fighters - so - it was very hard for them to find any.
What they could do - was loiter around the air fields the Night Fighters were based at - and wait for them to come back - but - those airfields were very heavily defended - and they didn't know when these aircraft would be coming back.
Once the 8th Air Force had destroyed the Luftwaffe Day Force - the British started flying during the day - where the American Fighters could protect them. No one had any cure for the German Night Fighters.
Over Japan - LeMay changed tactics and instead of bombing Japan the way they had Germany - they switched to the Area Bombing tactic the British had used.
One thing about Japanese Industry - was that they tended to have a lot of manufacturing done in small little shops scattered all over the city. Parts would be brought together at an Assembly Plant - which could in fact be an open field. If we bombed the Assembly Plant all we would destroy was the stuff that was there when we bombed it - not - the little shops making all the parts.
The other thing was Japans cities were mostly paper and wood - so - they burned really well.
LeMay took all but the tail guns off the B-29's and the gunners as well. That let them carry more bombs - which were incendiaries. They flew at night - and as the Japanese Air Defense System was no where near the German's the B-29's were safe. The other thing was - since they were flying at night - they could fly at lower altitudes where the engines on these planes that had to fly such long distances over water would have less trouble with - than at high altitudes.
B-29's over Korea - flew during the day until the Communists got Mig 15's - then they switched to night bombing - which the Communists had no answer for.
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9:14 “for recycling” damn, very sad it wasn’t preserved
Sad...we never know what we've got til its gone. Even the USS Enterprise, CV-6, was scrapped after the war...
Slight correction. Old 666’s bombardier Joe Sarnoski, received the Medal of Honor in addition to the pilot, Jay Zeemer. Cool vid tho
Englishman - lets hide in the darkness
American - more guns! NO MORE GUNS! MERICA!!!
The MoH megals were awarded to the Pilot and Baombadier. The Bombadier was killed defending his plane and was credited with 2 kills. Pilot lost his leg. God Bless them.all
Lemay hated this idea.
Another good effort Brian, thanks for all the time and research You spend on these videos. Best Wishes to You and Your Family.
Thanks, you too!
Ww2 planes are my favorite
Even for a standard B17 or B24 all those guns, extra crew members and ammo came at the cost of bomb load - the very reason for their existence. B17 - 2 Tonnes of bombs.
B24 - 4 Tonnes of bombs. This compares to the 6 - 10 Tonnes carried by the lighter armed Lancaster. Yes the American planes had a better bomb sight than the British aircraft, but to use it, you needed to be able to see a pickle barrel to drop a bomb on it. The chances of finding a clear cloudless sky over Germany was small.
@johnwilletts3984 depends which bomb sights you are comparing Norden vs Mk XIV or Norden vs SABS
6,098 enemy aircraft shot down by 8th AF heavies, 320 by Lanc's.
"Within Essen there was still Krupps, virtually intact after nearly three years of attack."
page 158 Hyperwar Royal Air Force 1939-1945 Vol II
Search
Operational history of Lancaster 1B R5868
This Lanc flew 136 operational sorties in two years and ten months (less than one a week) and dropped "466 tons (assume long, ND) approx" or 3.42 long tons or 7,675 pounds on average. I did not deduct missions in which bombs were jettisoned due to engine failure or the entire load was flares or mission was called off in flight.
On pages one and two (July and August 1942) the entire load was 3,360 pounds of bombs.
On page one two raids were in daylight, the next daylight raid would be in July 44.
On page two a bomb load is 2,000 pounds plus "6 x 4 flares".
"(USA)" appears nine times with bomb type.
Some of the notes are interesting. Recommendation by two pilots the aircraft be withdrawn from bombing, one friendly fire incident, "bomb doors damaged by bombs" and one midair collision with another Lanc over the target.
I was amused by the listing of a USAAF general as "Passenger" (instead of observer) as if they were going to drop him off somewhere.
the army air corps could have just let the P 47S use drop tanks and the bombers could have had fighter escorts in 42.
There are more images of YB-40s and the sole XB-41 gunship presented here than I have found in all my previous internet searches. Thanks for remembering Old 666.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks!
The biggest problem with the US bombers were that they massively sacrificed bomb load for greater defensive armaments, which meant they needed more bombers and more raids.
The B17 had a bomb load comparable with the DeHavilland Mosquito and got nowhere near the Lancaster or Halifax.
True. Of course they and their fighter escorts wrecked the Luftwaffe and won Air Superiority.
With all that defensive armament its a wonder there was any room for the bombs and crew.
The gunships didn't have bombs
The trick would have been, norm gun armerment + flak mortars. No need for external barrels. Germans had air to air mortar flak rounds
“A typical interception in the fall of 1942 has been described by Johannes Naumann, at that time the an Oberleutnant in II/JG 26. The Gruppe was ordered to attack the bombers on their return flight as there was no chance of reaching them on their bomb run. The B-17’s were flying in a staggered formation at about 26,000 feet. The Focke Wulfs finally struggled up to 27,000 feet, only to see the American formation receding into the distance. The speed of the FW 190’s at that altitude was only a little greater than that of the bombers…No bombers were downed; none had even suffered visible damage.”
Attacking a B-17 formation from the German side! page
sums it ip…by the time the issues were being addressed tactics changed, they weren’t the real issue for the planes, it was the flak hitting them that was
Lucy was not a photo recon. She took part in a photo recon mission which elevated her fame.
I wonder if they could have made some sort of protocol, to dump most of their ammo, after the bomber strike, so that they could keep up with the (now empty) bombers, on the way back…or if that was even possible, or would’ve made any difference in weight, etc,….
Yes, I’ve wondered the same thing myself
I've always wondered why every B-17 carried a bombardier and navigator, since they flew in formation with other B-17s. Why didn't they replace the nose crewmen on a few of the B-17s (bombardiers and navigators) and replace them with fixed, forward firing .50 cals in a similar arrangement to the B-25s. This would've given a B-17 formation formidable forward defense. Add in an increased number of tracer rounds for psychological effect, and it would've been pretty fearsome.
I think you’d always want a navigator in case you got separated. And both of them manned guns when under attack. With fixed guns they would have to weave about, which wouldn’t be great for the formation!
@@worldofwarbirds True... but the plane next to you could provide cover fire. Imagine attacking a flight of bombers from the front, and suddenly, a hundred tracer rounds per second were coming at you in something like a shotgun spread...unnerving.
Imagine if they would have used the R2800 or the high horsepower engines of the B29 that would have made them faster
Yes, I do wonder if mods could have been done to make the concept work!
Didn't the B29's engines kill more aircrew than Japanese fighters?
Admittedly by that stage Japan barely had an air force, the planes were slapped together and the pilots untrained.
Or they simply could have produced P38s and mosquito's instead which hold nearly as many bombs for similar range and can defend themselves or be escorted by their kin .
The modified B-17 gunships needed more powerful turbocharged engines, perhaps with four bladed propellers to have functioned better with the bomber stream. I like the gunship concept in general. More resources should have been put into the gunship concept to have made it more viable for other missions. It is too bad old used up B-17's weren't salvaged or cannibalized to be used as either tactical bombers or gunships optimized for ground attack roles to help American infantry with heavy fighter escorts. Modified B-17 gunship ground attack aircraft could have hovered circling overhead of Amerivcan frontline infantry positions. These modified B-17 gunships, with perhaps upwards of twenty 0.50 caliber machine guns, could have poured tens of thousands of rounds on German Wehrmacht positions during an American infantry attack. Radio controllers on the ground along with smoke shells could have accurately placed a hailstorm of 0.50 caliber machine gunfire upon German positions. Three or four modified B-17 gunships could worked to provide near continuous strafing of marked German defensive positions smothering them. This smoting effect would have allowed US Army tank-infantry teams to advanced upon the Wehrmacht defenders to clear them out of their positions.
Like a 1940s Spooky!
The extra weights given, it that increase in net weight? I woud assume that the gross weights would be the same as the YB-40 was not carrying bombs, though the YB-40 would have more drag due to the extra turrets.
A mention/comparison of the Consolidated PB4Y Privateer could have been interesting. And did Consolidated use any of the things it learned with the YB-41 on that plane?
But the PB4Y did not need any ball turrets and slightly different engine configuration as it was meant for low alittudes and if attacked would just get near the surface preventing attacks from the botton and fast diving attacks. (if the guns don't get you the ocean will)
You mentioned the Privateer. For a deeper dive, you should check out my audio podcast where I go into much more detail. For better or worse, CZcams tends to like shorter content!
good
Thanks
The twelve o'clock attacks weren't the most effective way to shoot down a bomber; while an effective tactic for highly skilled pilots, the closing speed between the attacking fighter and the bombers was so high that hits were hard to achieve. Unskilled Luftwaffe pilots usually missed and it was rare for even skilled pilots to put in more handful of 20 mm hits. The only reason the Luftwaffe switched to head-own attacks was the bombers' defensive firepower, which is a testament to its usefulness.
I believe more than the chin turret and offset waist positions should have been incorporated into standard B-17s. The radio turret should have been kept as well, as it aided against rear attacks (covering the 4-5 and 7-8 o'clock positions that weren't easily covered by either the tail turret or the waist guns), and supplemented the top turret against attacks from above and the waist positions versus attacks from the flanks. I also believe a 20-mm cannon should have been added to the tail position (keeping the twin 50s). This would offered much more effective firepower against both the "bomber destroyers" aircraft of late 1943 and (in 1944) the "Sturmgruppen" attacks, which were harder to knock down with just 50s.
I realize there would be weight penalties with this (the turret for the radio position alone means one less 500-lb bomb). However, once fighter escort protection was available, and fighter attacks dropped off, the weight could be compensated by carrying less ammo. Once fighter attacks became rare, and bombers weren't fighting their way continuously to and from the target, then the situation became one of "if fighters attack it will be like 15 minutes of hell" so while you will still need as much firepower as you can bring to bear to survive the attacks, they won't be there for long.
If I remember correctly the first electric powered Gatling gun was made around 1891. Obviously not practical at the time. I have always wondered with everything that was tried in WW2 why some version of the minigun wasn't developed, I see no obstacles to doing so at that time. If these aircraft were armed with 30 caliber guns firing at 6000 rounds a minute I the German pilots would have had some real concerns about attacking.
I thought the earlier ones were hand-cranked? When it comes to WW2 aerial combat, I wonder if it was more of an issue of getting more rounds out, or getting the ones you are shooting on target? Interesting...
The original Gatlings did use a hand crank in the 1860s, bur Gatling himself experimented with an electric motor in the 1890s. Of course all the components were just to big to be practical.
5:44 that's a Bell plane?
What is that flying off port elevator at 5:43 ??
P-39 Airacobra!
To compensate for the slower return speed couldn’t they have the gunship turn back before the target to get a head start?
That way it avoids flak and tempts fighters which it is designed to counter. It could also escort damaged bombers.
That’s the best idea I’ve heard!
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What a load of mis information the XB 41 was a failure because it couldn't keep up with the normal bomber stream less than 5 were employed the same can be said for the 1 or 2 B24s used for the same purpose There was a B24 that had a B17 nose grafted on to it as a result of a collision with a Bf 109
The war has been over for 70 plus years.... This podcast is just more click bait... Until the P 51 was perfected and could fly all the way to and back with the big boomers,it was a slaughter for the heavies...I had an uncle who was involved with the bombing raids and part of the B 17 crew flying missions over Europe....He returned a broken man....💔🇺🇲 RIP uncle Paul 🙏☝️
The one XB-41 Liberator was a disaster as it coudnt keep up with the bomber stream particulalry when the bombers had dropped their load. The one B24 with the B17 nose never got past the experimental stage.
The 12 YB-40 Flying Fortresses (the 13th didn't make it to the UK) had the same faults as the XB-41 Liberator and were withdrawn after 2 months. A number of the YB-40 mods, including the chin turret, made it to production with the B-17G.
I have seen a photo of that B-24 with a B-17 nose. You are only the second person I know to mention that in the field conversion.
@@philipcallicoat31472😂
The navy has a sail ship the Constitution but we couldn't keep one heroic B 17 like ol 666
Yes, but I can’t fault them too much. The machines were built to win the war and when it was won…well momma needed a new toaster!
‘“The RAF tried to hide on the way in and on the way out”? Right. Nothing inflammatory in that comment whatsoever……..
Is it false? BTW I’m Canadian and have a model of a Lanc hanging over my desk!
As it turned out, the result was that the RAF flew at night and was good at it, and the USAAF flew dayraids and became good at it. That way it became the start of a good co-operation where both did what they were best at. As I see it, that's a win-win situation all the way.
You did a great disservice to the Old 666... If you guys want to know a good ass story go watch old 666 from fat electrician
I’d love to know what the “great disservice “ was. You can’t improve if you don’t know what you did wrong!
Boeing & Consolidated: Spends millions of dollars prototyping and developing aircraft that barely work.
The Eager Beavers: Does the same thing with scrap, spare parts and "Strategically Transferred Equipment from Alternate Locations" for less than a fraction of the cost, and made an even better, more successful version of the Gunship.
...I'm sorry, WHY do we need these big corpo's again?
Typical American approach: Lots of guns-good, even more guns-has to be better.
Sometimes it works! Those ground attack B-25s with all the extra 50s did a great job!
Yes, but that´s another cup of tea.@@worldofwarbirds
You act as if the Luftwaffe didn't do the same. Also, we aren't fans of tea in this country, unless it's Sweet Tea
6,098 enemy aircraft shot down by 8th AF heavies, 320 by Lanc's.
OLD " 666"
czcams.com/video/6Im086TCu3I/video.html
@@worldofwarbirds Didn't they have a dozen or more 0.50s?
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Children telling stories! Omg you are such children not historians... this is such crap!
Yup! Not a historian, but a dedicated and fanatic amateur! And at 53 I don’t mind being called a child!