Best Medium Bomber

[Cult Icon]

The defensive firepower of the B-25 is outstanding compared to the rest. Up to 18 x 50. cal. MGs.

In comparison, the German medium bombers only had a trio or something like that of 7.92mm MGs..

[Cult Icon]

For those that are in the know, weren't 7.92mm MGs totally inadequate anti-fighter armaments? Or is this only in late war, with heavily armored P-47s and P-51s?

[dutched]

Originally Posted by Cult Icon

For those that are in the know, weren't 7.92mm MGs totally inadequate anti-fighter armaments? Or is this only in late war, with heavily armored P-47s and P-51s?

Hate to do this, but could not the same be said of 7,62 mm (.30).
I think it is known that the German pilots bemoaned the fact of the "light" armament of the BF 109 F. So for the defencive one may dare to assume that 'lightness' as well. There have been attempts to beef the weight of "defencive" fire by substituting single MG 17 weapon with double version like the MG 81Z, doubling the theoritical 900 rounds per minute to 1,800.
For now I like to leave it at that. I know I've got some stuff on the topic buried somewhere. General gist of it is how many hits could one land on target
in that badly aimed burst of fire. For flexible mounts the figures were extremely disappointing.

Ed.

[flash]

Originally Posted by Dibble201Bty

Which means it was better in the medium bomber roll, excellent in the fighter-bomber role, the night-fighter role, photo-reconnaissance roll, anti-ship strike roll, intruder roll.....

Perhaps we should say that the Mosquito wasn't really a Night-Fighter because it was a bomber/photo-reconnaissance aircraft.


Paul

I agree Dibble but we are talking of Medium bombers only.
Perhaps a fair way to decide on which Medium was the best would be to examine them all by studying their performance figures in that role only,disregarding the other roles they may have performed,we could do this by introducing a bit of alternate timeline magic.
By that I mean introduce a completely inaccurate historic reason for each respective air force to deny the aircraft on our list permission to perform any task other than medium bombing from medium altitude.
(Pretend the RAF only used Mozzies as medium altitude level bombers,ditto for the LW and 88s,etc).
I would suggest the following performance figures are then compared:

Airspeed fully laden at 15000'.

Range fully laden.

Max bomb load at extreme range.

Historic bombing accuracy,(Day and night).

Numbers built.

Loss ratio,(Sorties per a/c built).

Ability to defend itself whilst laden.This would probably take the form of multiplying the weight of fire from every gun on board by 3 (seconds),with the exception of fixed guns as they can't really be called defensive.

If you can think of anything else along these lines post it up.
I'll then do a bit digging on all of our contestants and see what comes up.