repaint | 26 Jul 2016 7:40 a.m. PST |
Yesterday, I had the chance to visit one of the last 8 flying B-17 in the world. Here are a few (totally subjective) thoughts that came to my mind: -cockpit is smaller than a standard car's -there is strictly no armor, all the panels look as thin as tin boxes -the plane is smaller than I initially thought (obviously not as big as jet liner) -the ball turret is insane. How can one go willingly in such a confined space is beyond my mind -the whole plane looks "crude" inside -it is not "spacious" -the bomb load is a lot less than what I initially thought. Modern fighters certainly carry more lethal load. -The plane did not look that much able to defend itself and the machine guns seem more like best effort not to go out completely naked. All in all, it was very interesting to see this plane from the inside. I always thought that B-17 were gigantic armored fortresses but all in all, it looked more like the best they could a century ago. With new respect for these young guys who climbed up into these flying boxes. |
JimDuncanUK | 26 Jul 2016 8:06 a.m. PST |
The B17 was classified as a 'heavy' bomber using other criteria such as defensive armament and survivability as well as bomb load. The RAF classified bombers by their bomb load so a 'medium' bomber could carry much the same as a B17 and a 'heavy' bomber a good bit more. Later models of the B17 could carry more than earlier models and then the B29 came along. |
evilcartoonist | 26 Jul 2016 8:14 a.m. PST |
Years ago, as a member of the press, I got to fly in the B-17 Sentimental Journey. I agree with everything Repaint said and will add that all of what he said is 20 times scarier at 5,000 feet :) What I remember most was walking across a tiny (inches across) catwalk in the center of the bomb bay. The bomb bay doors weren't air tight, so there was a sizeable gap where you could look through and see the ground thousands of feet below, with only that little catwalk between me and the ground. |
Timmo uk | 26 Jul 2016 8:58 a.m. PST |
I'd urge anybody with an interest in the B17 to Read Combat Crew by John Comer. It is one of the most readable and interesting insights into the lives of those who flew the B17. It's a wonder any of them survived. Statistically the waist gunners had the lowest survival rates and perhaps surprisingly the ball gunners the best. However, there were horrific incidents when the crippled bomber had lost all power to the ball jamming it in place and trapping the poor gunner as the plane, without undercarriage, belly landed ripping ball and gunner to shreds. I think 5' 4" was the max height for a ball gunner. I live close to the US cemetery where lots of the B17 crews are buried – it's a peaceful hillside spot. Once or twice a year I go for a walk there. I've found the names of John Comer's friends on the memorial wall. Sobering. All insanely brave men. My father can recall seeing B17s coming home during the war with huge holes in them. One he particularly remembers came down near his home. I discovered that was on the day of the tragic Schwienfurt raids. |
Vigilant | 26 Jul 2016 9:05 a.m. PST |
Also the B17 was not designed to be a strategic bomber. It was intended to be a maritime reconnaissance aircraft, hence the small bomb load compared to the British 4 engine bombers and the B24. Still a marvellous aircraft and very brave men who flew in them. Mt dad was a navigator on Lancaster and after his tour he was based near a US base. He was impressed by the strength of the B17 and by the fact that they flew daylight raids. He'd done a few daylights and much preferred the night. In his words you couldn't see what was happening at night. |
JimDuncanUK | 26 Jul 2016 9:08 a.m. PST |
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jowady | 26 Jul 2016 9:08 a.m. PST |
there is strictly no armor, all the panels look as thin as tin boxes Not correct, the B 17 carried armor. |
rmaker | 26 Jul 2016 9:23 a.m. PST |
Also the B17 was not designed to be a strategic bomber. It was intended to be a maritime reconnaissance aircraft Huh? While the B-17 was expected (mostly by the press) to bomb enemy battleships, that was a legacy of Billy Mitchell's bogus stunts. The reasons it had a lower bomb capacity than the British heavies were 1) it was intended to operate by daylight, not by night, therefor had to carry heavier defensive armament and armor, and 2) it was a generation earlier than even the Stirling. The B-17's British contemporary was the Heyford! The plane did not look that much able to defend itself and the machine guns seem more like best effort not to go out completely naked. I doubt that the Luftwaffe pilots who had to attack them would agree with you. |
Zargon | 26 Jul 2016 9:48 a.m. PST |
Very interesting insights, thanks guys and my hand to heart to al brave pilots and crews, we will remember you. |
Mako11 | 26 Jul 2016 10:32 a.m. PST |
Yep, they are surprisingly small by modern aircraft standards. |
boy wundyr x | 26 Jul 2016 11:16 a.m. PST |
I was at the USAF's main museum in Dayton this weekend, and I found even the B-29 to be smaller than what I had in my head (the B-36's size is more what I imagined). |
jdginaz | 26 Jul 2016 11:42 a.m. PST |
Restored flying B-17s don't have the armor installed in order to keep cost of flying them down. Few people have any idea how much it costs to keep a 4 engine bomber flying. My father was wing leader of the Mesa AZ group for several years, it was like a full time job putting in 50 plus hours a week for him and a small staff and a bunch of part time workers trying to keep everything together and raising enough money to meet expenses all done as volunteers. |
Yellow Admiral | 26 Jul 2016 12:25 p.m. PST |
I had all the same impressions as the OP the first time I looked in a B-17. There's just no substitute for taking a close look at the actual thing. On the subject of armor: The B-17 was armored, but airplanes aren't armored like tanks or battlehips with a complete shell of armor plate. Armor is heavy, so it has to be limited in size and strategically located to do the most good. Here's a nice drawing of the armoring scheme of the B-17G:
- Ix |
zippyfusenet | 26 Jul 2016 12:49 p.m. PST |
While the B-17 was expected (mostly by the press) to bomb enemy battleships, that was a legacy of Billy Mitchell's bogus stunts. I politely and respectfully disagree. The US Army Air Corps claimed in the late '30s that the B-17 was a 'hemispheric defense' bomber that could safeguard the continental US by sinking enemy fleets as they approached. The stunt of intercepting the ocean liner Rex at sea was supposed to prove the expensive new plane's capability. And since the Air Corps generals had now made the Navy obsolete, would Congress please award them the Navy's budget to build more B-17s? In 1941 MacArthur seriously thought he could defend the Phillipine Islands by sinking Japanese invasion fleets with the 100+ B-17s he had amassed on Luzon. He knew the game was up when he lost most of the bombers in the disasterous Dec. 8 raid on Clark Field. It took months of grim experience in the Phillipines, the Netherland East Indies and the Solomon Islands before the US Army admitted that B-17s, even with their top-secret Norden bomb sights, could only rarely hit a ship under way by level bombing. The strategic bombing campaign against Axis Europe was not the B-17's originally planned mission. |
Gozerius | 26 Jul 2016 4:25 p.m. PST |
The B-17 was always envisioned as filling the role of strategic bomber. However, with the isolationist sentiments between the wars, the USAAC had to market their bomber as long range coastal defense. |
zippyfusenet | 26 Jul 2016 5:07 p.m. PST |
Then what was MacArthur doing with all those B-17s? What was he going to strategically bomb? He thought they could sink ships. |
7dot62mm | 26 Jul 2016 10:25 p.m. PST |
Bear in mind that the B-17 you visited most likely lacked about ten machine guns, thousands of rounds of 50-cal ammunition in dozens of cans, scores of oxygen bottles and their various hoses, bulky WWII-era radio and navigational equipment, a full load of bombs and about ten men etc. etc. etc. On an actual mission the plane would have been a lot more cramped than when you visited it. |
Gozerius | 27 Jul 2016 6:18 p.m. PST |
Had they been used immediately, they could have bombed the airfields and harbors of Formosa. There were only 35 B-17s in the Philippines, divided between Clark Field and Del Monte. These were the early C and D models. Unhappy experience revealed that you can't hit a ship from 30,000'. The B-17s were supposed to act as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. Much hope was placed on the Japanese believing the US and British propaganda about Allied military capabilities and readiness. Apparently, they didn't. |
Gozerius | 27 Jul 2016 6:27 p.m. PST |
Once the war began, other than a few units to keep the Pacific viable, nearly all heavy bomber production was aimed at the strategic campaign against Germany. The Air Corps brass fought tooth and nail against any diversion of effort from the strategic mission. This was one of the chief reasons for the horrible shipping losses in the Atlantic. Long range bombers were not allocated for sea reconnaissance. |
Swab Jockey | 27 Jul 2016 7:15 p.m. PST |
Southest Pacific B-17s were used quite extensively against Rabaul, and later on Japanese airfields on New Guinea. First high level attack on Rabaul was 3 B-17s out of Port Moseby. They were also the first type used for skip-bombing, but turned out to be unsuited for that. |
zippyfusenet | 28 Jul 2016 5:33 a.m. PST |
I stand corrected. 35 B-17s were in the Phillipines in December 1941, not 100. Another 50 planes were in route, out of only 150 B-17s in the USAAC's inventory, but a dozen were caught in Hawaii by the Pearl Harbor raid, and the rest were held back in conUS after the Japanese attack – to defend against a potential Japanese invasion fleet. Remaining B-17s in the Phillipines were used up in strikes on Japanese shipping, which were conducted from much lower than 30K feet: link Airfields, ports and other bases were not strategic industrial targets, but they were static land targets that level bombers could hit. The strategic targets were mostly in Japan, too far to fly from the Phillipines. |
zippyfusenet | 28 Jul 2016 11:35 a.m. PST |
The Air Corps brass fought tooth and nail against any diversion of effort from the strategic mission. This was one of the chief reasons for the horrible shipping losses in the Atlantic. Long range bombers were not allocated for sea reconnaissance. Must disagree. The USAAC quickly allocated the 100 available B-18s, with their excellent payload-over-range performance, to anti-submarine patrol. Given that the Air Corps only owned 150 B-17s on Dec. 7 1941 and immediately lost more than two dozen of them in the Philippines and Hawaii, allocating 100 of the remaining long range bombers to anti-sub patrol was a substantial commitment. I think American merchant ship losses in early 1942 were more due to the Navy's stubborn refusal to organize convoys until bloody disaster forced their hand. You can't blame that failure on the Army Air Corps. Of course the admirals and the generals squabbled over the new heavy bombers as production ramped up, just as they did over every resource. "My mission!" "No, my mission!" |
Gozerius | 28 Jul 2016 4:48 p.m. PST |
The B-18 was an obsolete, 2nd line aircraft in 1941. ASW was about all it was good for. It was being replaced by B-17s and B-24s in the heavy bomber role, and the B-26 and B-25 in the medium bomber role. |
zippyfusenet | 28 Jul 2016 5:36 p.m. PST |
True that. So the B-18 was a perfect choice for an ASW plane, and it performed well in that role. |