EDITED by South African Military: Debate about which country had the best bombers of the second world war. I already had to split this topic and then move it, because 15 pages was about something totally different. Please vote!
Britain - Lancaster heavy bomber and Mosquito tactical bomber
Its a hard topic because all the countries produced bombers with different objectives in mind. But the Americans had the best strategic bombers of the war.
B-29 was far and away the best bomber of WW2. However, it is worth noting that all previous British and American bombers were either optimised for range and bombload at the expense of armament (UK) or range and armament at the expense of bombload (US) hence dictating the night and day bombing tactics of the respective sides. The B-29 was the first bomber advanced and large enough to do both with success, and even then was never used against the Germans where it may have done less well.
German bombers were generally awful, while the Soviets never really had the resources to put into a true strategic bomber. Many of their other aircraft were very good indeed though.
Consider this…
The USA has spent billions of dollars to design a light bomber with an operational speed of 400mph, no defensive armament, a 4000lb bomb load and the radar cross-section of a goose…F117
The UK spent thousands of pounds doing the same using a few sheets of spare birch ply and half a dozen toothless cabinet makers in a country house in the 1940s…DH Mosquito
…and you still ask who made the best bombers in World War II.
:twisted:
Id have to say the Mosquito is the plane that wins the vote. The Lancaster is a fair competitor too, however it was a bit slow, and had a low ceiling rate comapared to the B-29. The Lancaster had a bigger bomb load though.
I also believe that the Lancasters had more advanced technology compared with the other American bombers.
H2S radar-First used in 1943 it was used for navigation and ground mapping for “all weather bombing”. Used to Identify targets.
GEE-Something similar to GPS it tracked and gave the location of a bomber. two broadcasters emmited timed signals which the navigators onboard the heavy bombers could tell how long it took and therefore get the exact location of the plane. Its extreme range was 400 miles, and had an accuracy at that distance of 2 miles. However it was accurate up to 165 yards, depending on the distance.
Oboe-Tracking/Targeting system. See further info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboe_(navigation)
I’d say US had the best bombers but I must say overall plane wise UK
I agree. I think the Brits are having too much fun blowing smoke up each others asses at the moment. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
The US’s B-29 was ceretainly the best.
the b29 was bomber who dropped the atomic bomb,so it`s the best of the best.
vote 4 america
if a bomber could drop one of this: 
it was the best
the b29 was bomber who dropped the atomic bomb,so it`s the best of the best.
vote 4 america[/quote]
Your statement above proves nothing. So it dropped the Atomic bomb, does that make it the best?? Im sure Lancasters could easily be fitted with the Atomic bomb if necessary. The Lancaster bomber, could hold the greatest load, able to drop the biggest bomb the “Grand Slam Bomb”. No American bomber could hold the “Grand Slam Bomb”.
Basically you are giving your vote for the Atomic bomb, not the B-29. We are talking about Bombers, not Bombs.
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/miscellaneous/tallboy/tallboy.html
The most effective “IRON” bombs of the war.
conventional explosive used to devestating effect, the Grand Slam destroyed structures from beneath, by pentrating the ground and detonating beneath the target the shockwaves would shake the building apart.
http://www.constable.ca/bombs.htm
I believe that they were also the precursor of the bunker busting bombs in todays air forces due to their hollow/shaped charge design for penetration of armour.
better photograph below. http://www.johnmullen.org.uk/aerospce/pics/bombs.jpg
Early summer 1945, three Boeing B-29s were modified to carry a 22,000 lb Grand Slam on external bomb racks under each wing between the inboard engine and fuselage. After experiments at Eglin AAF in Florida, an order for fifty modified aircraft was placed. If the war hadn’t ended with the dropping of the atom bombs, dual Grand Slam B-29s might have been available to see action over Japan by the first week of September. Postwar publicity photographs never show more than three of the dual bomb modified B-29s flying in a formation. That may have been all that were built. Another B-29 was modified so that the lower part of the double bomb bay section would permit the semi external carriage of one large bomb (Tallboy, Grand Slam or T-12?). 20
Sorry SAM only just saw the end of your message! maybe we can start bombs thread! I have an idea for a proximity detonated bomb that I am going to patent!
Great Idea!, I suggest you should make the topic. Id like to hear about the bomb that you have thought up. I have an intrest for aviation and bombs…
the b29 was bomber who dropped the atomic bomb,so it`s the best of the best.
vote 4 america[/quote]
Your statement above proves nothing. So it dropped the Atomic bomb, does that make it the best?? Im sure Lancasters could easily be fitted with the Atomic bomb if necessary. The Lancaster bomber, could hold the greatest load, able to drop the biggest bomb the “Grand Slam Bomb”. No American bomber could hold the “Grand Slam Bomb”.
Basically you are giving your vote for the Atomic bomb, not the B-29. We are talking about Bombers, not Bombs.[/quote].
ok,without talking about atomic bombs.
my vote is for B-29 
Incidentally, the B-29 was the only Allied bomber of the war that really had the performance to drop an A-bomb safely. While a Lancaster could have carried it, it had substantially lower speed/altitude performance. This means that unless the bomb spent far longer dropping by parachute (making it much more vulnerable to AA weapons - a surprising fraction of the weight was actually armour to protect against this) the bomber would not survive the mission. This means that realistically the B-29 was the only allied bomber of the war capable of dropping the early nukes.
True that the lancaster could have carried a nuke. But you are incorrect about the rest. The B-29 had better range, a larger payload (the B-29 could carry 69% more payload than the lancaster), far better armament, and was faster. The B-29 also had remotely controlled guns. The B-29 far exceeded the capabilities of the Lancaster at everything, and was far and away a better bomber than the Lancaster. The B-29 represented a virtual new class of long range bomber.
Lancaster
max payload: 13,839 kg
max speed: 280 mph (448 km/h)
range: 4,320 km
8 x Browning 0.303 in (7.62 mm) machine-guns in three turrets
B-29
max payload: 20,300 kg
max speed: 357 mph (574 km/h)
range: 5,230 km
12× .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 machine guns in remote controlled turrets
1× 20 mm M2 cannon in tail
I doubt that seriously, since the Luftwaffe was badly reduced by 1942, and the B-29 had so much armament and would have been escorted like any other bomber. B-29 had no less than 12 .50 calibre machineguns and a 20mm cannon! It was also fast (maximum speed 357 mph (574 km/h). That is faster than the Lancaster (280 mph (448 km/h). I see no reason to think it would have faier worse than any other bomber, especially since it was faster and had tremendous armament.
The resourcefullness of the British under the tremendous hardship of German bombing is commendable, but has nothing at all to do with which was the better bomber. The US had other bombers besides the B-29, such as the B-17 and the B-24 Liberator.
A Luftwaffe Test Pilot’s Account of a Captured American B-17 Bomber
Luftwaffe Test Pilot Hans Werner Lerche
"Perhaps there were other aircraft that were even more pleasant to fly than the B-17, because it did have its drawbacks: for example, the forces acting on the ailerons were relatively high, and the rudder felt as if it were set in concrete. But it was much more important that the aircraft was easy to fly and land. When one had become accustomed to the higher all-up weight and the strange instruments, it could be compared with our He 111 in the degree of effort needed to fly it.
What was really outstanding about the B-17 which made it, together with the Liberator, the standard day heavy bomber in the European theater of war? It certainly was not fast in low altitudes; only the exhaust-driven turbosuperchargers gave the B-17 its good performance at higher altitudes. All in all, that was for me the most admirable thing about American planning, namely the consequential pursuit of a concept once it had been recognized as correct, in this case the effectiveness of raids carried out by well-armed high-altitude bombers flying in close formations.
One must remember that several years would pass between planning and execution of a concept. Possibly only the idea of keeping the attacking fighters at bay with heavily armed bombers flying in close formation and firing from all ‘portholes’ had to be revised. This consequently happened after the raid on Schweinfurt which, due to the long distance involved, had to be carried out without fighter escort, During this raid the USAAF bombers suffered heavy losses from twin-engined Zerstorer and single-seat fighters attacking with rocket missiles, which naturally caused quite a crisis. The correct solution to this problem was soon found: elimination of the sluggish, rocket-carrying Luftwaffe ‘destroyers’ by escort fighters – and several versions of these, with excellent performance, were also soon available. Nor did the rather poorly adjusted control forces on the American bombers have much detrimental effect, as this was certainly not decisive during the approach at great height, and even less so after the bombers had been equipped with an excellent three-dimensional autopilot. It must be stressed that the respectable speed of the B-17 at higher altitudes was due solely to its excellent exhaust-driven turbo-superchargers. But for the production of these devices one required not only the know-how but also large quantities of heat-resisting materials which we were lacking in Germany.
Occasionally I would receive via Switzerland foreign reports on German aircraft, and it was interesting to read that they quite often not only praised the construction of the machines but the engines as well, more often than not concluding that the Germans just did not have the necessary heat-resistant metals for even better performance."
