WWII Forums Quiz Part VII

[TA152]

That was just a wild guess !

What was the RAF's other wooden bomber that had twin engines ?
I am not talking about the Wellington. Hint, it had tricycle landing gear.

[macrusk]

The Mosquito.

From Damn Interesting » The Timber Terror

...In 1936 the RAF commissioned several companies to submit designs for such a plane, and a civilian outfit called De Havilland responded with a highly unorthodox concept: a bomber constructed almost entirely out of plywood. Initially the British Air Ministry scoffed at the idea, and suggested that the airplane company instead use its resources to construct wings for existing bomber designs. But the people at De Havilland were convinced that their unconventional idea had some merit.

The aircraft designers originally conceived of a wooden airframe armed with several gun turrets and a six-man crew, all propelled by a pair of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. A series of calculations soon indicated that such a plane wouldn't be particularly fast given its heavy weight, so the engineers discussed adding two additional engines to bring it up to the speed of existing bombers. After some consideration, the original thinkers at De Havilland concluded that the best way to defend an aircraft wasn't with bristling machine guns, but by making it so fast that nothing in the sky could catch it.

The approach seemed reasonable, so the design team continued to tinker with their wooden aircraft concept– though it still hadn't received the blessing of the RAF. They discarded the gun turrets and four of the crew positions, a reduction which significantly decreased the estimated weight. They also paid close attention to the aerodynamics of the craft, aiming for a skin as slippery as that of a fighter plane. With its pair of supercharged Merlin engines, the lightweight plywood design was estimated to have a top speed of 400 miles per hour with a full bomb load, easily outpacing Germany's fastest fighters.

The RAF continued to be apprehensive in spite of the impressive specs; a lightly-armed wooden bomber was profoundly contrary to the thinking of the time. Fortunately De Havilland had an ally in the British Air Ministry, a man named Sir Wilfrid Freeman. Freeman had been friends with the De Havilland family since World War I, and he saw the potential in the new design. At his coaxing, the Air Ministry finally authorized construction of the prototype, largely due to Freeman's observation that the wooden airplane would not sap the country's already bedraggled metal supplies.

After some setbacks due to equipment shortages and German bombings of the De Havilland buildings, the Mosquito prototype was transported to the town of Hatfield for a test flight on 25 November 1940. Its final construction was heat-formed plywood over a wooden frame, with sections glued and screwed for extra strength. It employed Ecuadorean balsawood sandwiched with Canadian birch, a particularly strong and lightweight grade of plywood. Metal was used in only a few parts, including the engine housings and some control surfaces. The wooden sections were covered in fabric and the prototype was painted bright yellow to discourage British anti-aircraft crews from firing upon the top-secret airplane. A series of test flights over the following months confirmed that the Mosquito was an extremely agile and swift machine, executing impressive acrobatics and reaching speeds up to 392 miles per hour. Further testing also discovered that the aircraft could easily heft four times the load it had been designed for.

...The unlikely wooden aircraft quickly established itself as one of the most useful planes in the Royal Air Force. The bomber varieties could deliver a payload comparable to that of the flying fortresses, while consuming less fuel, putting fewer lives in danger, and cruising at about twice the speed of the larger bombers. The Mosquito was also useful for low-altitude runs, where squadrons of Mosquitos flying at rooftop heights dropped their ordnance with precision, departing at full speed with German interceptors in hopeless pursuit.

My Uncle Trevor worked at De Havilland in a reserved occupation during the War as a specialist tool & die maker.

Michelle

[TA152]

Hint, it had tricycle landing gear.

[macrusk]

Originally Posted by TA152

Hint, it had tricycle landing gear.

Darn... I was hoping I just hadn't seen it in the description

[PzJgr]

I thought you had it and by george I can't find it

[macrusk]

I'll give this one a shot!

Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle - en

Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle

The Albemarle was designed as a light bomber built from non-strategic materials. It was built from wood and steel instead of aluminium alloys, and suitable for construction in dispersed factories. It was a clean aircraft with a tricycle undercarriage. Performance was mediocre, and it was used mainly as glider tug and transport.

General characteristics Albemarle Mk. I

Primary functionBomberPower plantTwo Bristol Hercules XI enginesThrust2x 1,590 HP2x 1,186 kWWingspan77 ft23.47 m Length60 ft18.26 m Height15.6 ft4.75 m Weight empty22,575 lb10,240 kg Speed265 mph426 km/h Ceiling18,000 ft5,500 m Range1,342 mi2,160 kmArmament6x7.7mm machine gun, up to 1,360 kg bombsCrewSixDate deployed1941 Number built602

[TA152]

Good second guess ! They built around 600 of the aircraft and they were dreadful to fly. The side engines obscured all side vision and the long nose obscured alot of foward vision.
Over to you !

[Slipdigit]

Good find, Michelle.
I had hurriedly dug through my 1945 Jane's last and missed, as they didn't have a pic of it with the landing gear down and I didn't read the description of the wings (there were too many)

"Centre-section covered top and bottom with non-stressed plywood...Steel-tube spar and plywood covering."

Apparently the fuselage had a good bit of plywood construction, also.

I guess you could call it a Woodie.

[macrusk]

Where did Mike Wardell conceive the idea for the weapon that was informally known as the "Land Service Mattress"?

[skunk works]

From the "Screaming Mimi" (Nebelwerfer, 1930s), or "Katie" (Katyusha, late 1930s).
His was used by both British & Canadian forces in the summer of 1944, with mixed results.

?
edit-ola
The "British Z-gun", anti-aircraft rocket launcher. My next guess would've been the "HedgeHog", since it's also a "spigot" system.

[macrusk]

Close enough. The story I have, is from Tug of War by Denis Whitaker.

On a frigid mid-winter evening in 1944, a lone Canadian, distinguished by a shock of snow white hair, checked in for dinner at the Officer’s Mess at Larkhill, the BritishSchool of Artillery near Stonehenge. Lieutenant Colonel W.E. Harris, veteran Canadian gunner who had commanded a regiment until senior artillery officers decided he was too old for active duty, was now, to his great distaste, relegated to staff work at Canadian Military Headquarters in London.

The artilleryman noted a single familiar face in the room. The young British colonel who had conducted the artillery demonstration Harris had witnessed that morning was sitting dejectedly in the corner of the Mess.

“That was an imposing demonstration today, Colonel Wardell,” Harris commented.

Mike Wardell looked up. “Much good that will do!” he answered, and then added, “Oh! You’re the Canadian!”

As the two shook hands, Eric Harris recalled their earlier meeting: “I first saw him when our small group went out on the ranges to see the demonstration. An English colonel, in Guards battle-dress, looking somewhat out of place on an artillery range, and wearing a black patch over one eye, was standing beside a contraption which certainly did not look like a gun. The weapon, if it could be taken to be one, seemed nothing more than four rows of narrow stove-pipe, each of six pieced tied together and mounted on a two-wheeled twenty-hundred-weight trailer.”

Wardell introduced the curious weapon. It was, he explained, a rocket-firing gun, capable of firing up to eight thousand yards, the same range as heavy mortars, yet considerably lighter and more mobile. Harris’s skepticism turned to enthusiasm when he saw from his observation post the designated target enveloped in what he would always remember as “one of the most accurate, concentrated, vicious mass explosions” he had ever seen. Suddenly, within a very short period of some five seconds, all twenty-four shells seemed to come together directly in the target area and to reinforce each other with a tremendously devastating effect.

“Damned good!” said one of the War Office observers next to him. And then the same man uttered the words that would become the anathema of Harris and Wardell, “Too bad it’s too late!”

During dinner, Harris heard the story of how the infantry officer, a publisher in peacetime, had become so obsessed by rockets.

In 1942, fighting Rommel’s Afrika Corps at El Alamein Wardell’s position was being overrun by enemy troops. In desperation he seized an anti-aircraft weapon ordinarily used for shooting rockets at German planes, and turned the fire on the attacking German infantry. The result was electric; the enemy was demoralized by the devastating impact of the rockets and subsequently withdrew. Mike Wardell was himself wounded and lost an eye in the action but he never forgot the usefulness against troops of a weapon designed to fight planes. Back in England, he determined to design a rocket gun specifically for this purpose. Wardell took on another war, this time against mule-headed British authorities who were convinced that the war would be over before the weapon could be properly designed and tested.

At this point, Eric Harris stepped into the fray. The pair decided to approach Canadian officials, although without a great deal of optimism. Historically, Canada seldom took the lead over Britain in such matters, but perhaps this time, they though, the Canadians would do something on their own initiative. To their surprise, back came the decisioin, supported by General Crerar and Brigadier H.O.N. Brownfield, head of all Canadian artillery, to make the undertaking a wholly Canadian venture.

So, on the 15th of September, 1944, the 1st Canadian Rocket Unit, informally known as Land Service Mattress, was formed. Two weeks later, the unit was anchored off the coast of France at Arromanche, where they were compelled to sit out an eight-day storm before joining Harris and Wardell at Bruges, preparatory to training for the Walcheren assault.

Colonel Wardell, now formally attached to the Canadian Army, and Harris, flew directly to army headquarters. “We were a pretty jaunty pair,” Colonel Haris remembered; “Mike had been invalided out of the Guards, and because of age I had been relegated to duty in England only. Now we were back at the front, and with our own battery to fight with. In the damp little tent where were found quite acceptable quarters we drank a quit and thoughtful toast for what the months, and this day, had brought us.” Endnote: Lt.Col. Eric Harrs, Mike Wardell and the Canadian Rocket Battery.

Your go, Skunkworks!

[skunk works]

On Guam...

How many Japanese tanks (less than one third of which had a 57mm gun) faced the 132 Shermans of the Army, and Marine Corp ?


Hint?........less than 50 !

[macrusk]

38

According to Guam 1941/1944: Loss and Reconquest by Gordon L. Rottman

"The three Japanese tank companies were equipped with varied numbers of Type 97 (1937) 57 mm guns-armed medium tanks and Type 95 (1935) 37 mm gun-armed light tanks. The 29th Divisions 24th Tank Company had nine light tanks; another eight had bene lost with the sinking of the 18th Infantry's transport. The 1st Company, 9th Tank Regiment attached to the 38th IMR, had twelve to fifteen light tanks, while the 2nd Company attached to the 48th IMB possessed ten or eleven mediums and tow or three lights. A Japanese report listed a total of 38 tanks, but not by type."

[skunk works]

We have the same book(s)....Well done !

You're on again.

[macrusk]

Can't say I have that book SW, but I did find an excerpt which is where I found the answer on the Internet. The quiz questions get me looking up information I might not have gone searching for on my own!

My question:

How many air crew were produced by the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan by the end of WWII? Where was BCATP held? and which countries air crew were trained?

Easy to find the first answer so I added the extras...

[macrusk]

Hmm, no one wants to answer?

[mikebatzel]

1) 135.000?
2) Canada
3)GB, Canada, NZ, Australia, S. Africa, Argentina, Belgium, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Fiji, France, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the United States. I don't think i ggot them all though

[Slipdigit]

I didn't have a clue, Michelle, and didn't want to look any dumber than I already do.