Four-engined heavy bombers became central to the “Total War” of 1939-45, enabling increasingly devastating strategic bombing.
First used by the Luftwaffe during the invasion of Poland, strategic bombing was soon adopted by the Allies as an integral part of the long-range combat needed in the years leading up to D-Day. 1.
The Heinkel He 177 was loaded with bombs in 1944.
Early in the war and in its rapid conquests during the Blitz, Germany relied on medium bombers such as the Heinkel He 111, Dornier Do 17 and Junkers Ju 88.
The Luftwaffe then acquired only one heavy bomber, the Heinkel He 177, which was operational from April 1942 but had very limited effect.
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The 4,000 lb ‘cookie’ or ‘blockbuster’ was the largest of the RAF’s conventional bombs, loaded onto a Vickers Wellington in May 1942.
The twin-engined Vickers Wellington was essential to RAF Bomber Command from the start of the war and accounted for more than half of the aircraft used in the first 1,000-bomber raid on Cologne in May 1942.
In the European theater it was gradually replaced by four-engined Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters.
The Short Stirling was the RAF’s first four-engined bomber to meet pre-war specifications calling for a 14,000 lb bomb load capacity and a challenging range of 3,000 miles.
First deployed in February 1941, a power failure cut a quarter of its bomb load during long-range flights, and performance problems meant it suffered particularly heavy casualties.
It was gradually phased out of bombing until 1943, reducing the total by 27,000 tons.
4. Handley Page Halifax
Handley Halifax flies over Cologne during daytime air raid.
Handley Page was deputy to Euro Lancaster, Halifax.
The Halifax first flew operationally in the Le Havre raid on the night of 10 March 1941, but it got off to an inauspicious start as the aircraft was mistakenly shot down by an RAF fighter.
Despite continued improvements, the Halifax lacked speed and power, which limited its loading capacity, making it Air Marshal “Bomber” Harris’s second choice for destroying German cities.
Still, it was used to drop about ten times the weight of bombs achieved by Stirling and was used by the RAF until 1961.
5. Euro Lancaster
A Lancaster releases a chaff or ‘window’ (left) before dropping incendiaries and ‘biscuits’ over Duisburg in October 1941.
The Euro Lancaster entered the war as a replacement for the Manchester, although the inadequacy of its predecessor almost led to the closure of the Euro production facility at Newton Heath before development.
The decision against this move proved crucial to the British war effort, as the new aircraft played a central role in the success of the Allied bombing strategy from March 1942 onwards.
Its compact bomb bay allowed it to carry the full range of RAF explosives, meaning it could be deployed both accurately and more indiscriminately in area bombing.
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Ultimately, they were reduced to over 600,000 tons by the end of the war.
6. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
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The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was used by the RAF from 1941 with little success, but with the arrival of the USAAF in 1942 it became essential to Allied bombing and gained a remarkable reputation.
Although this was discontinued in late 1943 due to excessive casualties, they were an integral part of America’s daytime precision bombing strategy.
The arrival of the P-51 Mustang allowed these operations to resume relatively safely.
In Europe, B-17s eventually matched British Lancasters in total number of bombs dropped.
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress replaced the B-17 and was extremely advanced compared to most of its contemporaries, but was used only in the Pacific War. 7.
Another notable US heavy bomber was the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, which was used to great effect by the RAF in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The USAAF deployed the B-24 alongside the B-17 as part of its strategic bombing campaign over mainland Europe from 1942-5, where it performed admirably due to its superior speed, range and bomb capacity over its more popular companion.
Although the B-24s represented only one-third of the USAAF heavy bomber presence in Europe, it was reduced by more than 400,000 tons.
Second world war
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