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B-24 vs B-17?

Discussion in 'Aircraft' started by abaime, Mar 17, 2014.

  1. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Essentially all we have above is anecdotal unless one of those sources links to some actual data. In any case I'm under no real compulsion to prove them wrong. They may indeed be correct but the statistical data we have certainly brings that to question and indeed may point in the other direction.
    If we look at the data at:
    http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8aflosses.shtml
    It does indeed look statisitically significant to me. The numbers state that in 8th AF a group of B-17's had a 44% chance per mission of looseing an aircraft and a B-24 group had a 29% chance of looseing one. That means that for 72 plane groups a B-17 had a .6% chance of being shot down and a B-24 a .4% chance. If we look at say a 30 mission tour of duty then the probability of being shot down in a B-17 was ~17% and that of being shot down in a B-24 was ~11.5%.
    If the question is what kind of aircraft did you have a better chance of surviving a tour of duty in then that's a very strong indicator that the answe is a B-24.
    If you look at http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter9.htm then the answer varies a bit.
    According to table 175 during June, July, and August the B-17's had a very slight advantage (which may not be statistically significant) but if you were in 3rd division you were better off in a B-24 than a B-17. If your plane returned home tables 177 and 178 show that in that period again you were better off in a B-24 than a B-17, at least during that period.

    Now if the question is which is more suseptable to combat damage then we would need more information and I'm not even sure enough exist to evaluate it that is without going to a CAD model and shot line analysis.
     
  2. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Why not?

    That question may stand but it is hardly confirming evidence one way or another. Pictures are rather classic cases of anecdotal evidence. Also by standard internet conventions the ball is in your court. You need to prove that the B-17 was more robust and the data we have does not suggest that.
     
  3. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Thought some more on this and one of things we are doing is confounding th eproblem with questions that are related but whoose answeres may be confusing some of the issues. If may help if we introduce the concept of the "survivability onion". The concept is if you want to survive you can do a number of things. For aircraft you might describe the layers as:
    1) Don't be detected
    2) Don't be intercepted
    3) Don't be targeted
    4) Don't be hit
    5) Don't be damaged
    6) Don't be shot down.

    Now the robustness of the plane only comes in with 5 and 6 but things like flying higher or faster could impact 1-4. After some thought the data at http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter9.htm does offer some clues as to 5 and 6.
    Table 175 and 176 showed that the over all survivability rate was virtually identical between B-17s and B-24s (less than .2%) however if we look at the number of damaged planes in relation to the losses we see that roughly twice as many B-17's recieved casualty producing damage as B-24's. The big problem here is we don't know how many aircraft were damaged without any casualties being recieved. We also don't know how many of the MIA planes were lost to operational causes or ended up in a neutral country but with those caviots it the ratio of MIAs / (MIAs + battle damaged ac) is .39 for the B-17 and .48 for the B-24 at least during the period under study. I'm not sure where this leaves us though.
     
  4. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Does anyone happen to know what the projected areas of the two aircraft are from front(or rear), side, and top (or bottom) are? That might allow for some analysis of the probability of a non casualty inducing hit that could refine the above.
     
  5. harolds

    harolds Member

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    Actually lwd, it is you who are attacking the status quo so by debating rules you are the one who has the burden of proof. My point is, that if the B-24 was as robust and as resistant to combat damage as you claim these statistics show, then there would be pictures and anecdotal accounts to back it up. I'm sure USAAF photographers would have been happy to show shot-up B-24s getting their crews home. Just as surely, GAF and American pilot's reports would have reflected on the B-24's toughness. etc., but I've not been able to find any of that. Therefore, one should be very careful not to misinterpret these figures. One of the problems with this is assuming that all B-17 and B-24 missions were equivalent to each other and my reading says that aint necessarily so. All you have done is show that perhaps more study is needed in order to figure out this discrepancy.

    A quick thought on your last question: By the time this study was done the air war with the Luftwaffe was essentially over. Only occasionally would small groups of German fighters get through the bomber screen to effectively attack the bombers. Therefore, I have to wonder if a significant number of these lost bombers were from accidents and "other causes", which would probably figured about the same in both types of planes. If so these losses could not be used to answer our question.

    To Dave 55: Oh yes, the B-24s were indeed "doing something right"! VLR Liberators were very instrumental in closing the Atlantic Air Gap and thus winning the U-boat war. The winning of this campaign was probably more important to our war effort than anything that was done by strategic bombing until the transportation and oil plans were implemented. Also, the U.S. strategic plans called for more B-24s to be used in the Pacific due to their longer range. The B-17 was to be, I believe phased out after Germany's defeat.
     
  6. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    It's not a matter of status quo. You made the statement that the B-17 was more robust than the B-24. I've questioned what that was based on and while all you have been able to produce is anacdotal evidence I've produced at least some statistics that bring that to question. You could be correct indeed I have not claimed you are wrong just that at this point we don't have strong evidence pointing to that conclusion. You don't seem to be exerting much effort in trying to find it or to analize the data either.

    Would there be? Perhaps and perhaps not. Indeed such may exist but in my book hard numbers by far out weigh anecdotal accounts. Indeed if you look at the data that is presented in some of the sites I've linked there's pretty strong evidence that B-24's got shot up as bad as B-17's although the distribution was different. For instance B-17's with obvious battle damage tended to have such damage on their bellies under represented. Such damage wouldn't necessarily show up in many pictures so that could be a factor. B-17's also got more press and are IMO better looking planes and that opinion seems to be shared so is the fact that there are more photos of them due to their being more "photogenic" or perhaps the fact that they predominated in Britain where photos were more likely to be taken? Considering you haven't even quantized this "lack of B-24 photos" it simply means it simply doesn't carry much weight.

    Interesting you tell me to be careful about interpretting actual figures yet you feel free interpreting a lack of information. Bit of a double standard there.

    Indeed but that sword cuts both ways.

    If you mean by that which plane is tougher then I agree. If you mean why the numbers don't support your position then you are approaching this issue as a matter of belief rather than one of science.

    Based on the numbers I presented earlier in this thread that is clearly not correct. B-24's in the US had higher accident rates than B-17s so based on that the numbers would tend to over play the "hardyness" of the B-17.
     
  7. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    One of the logical consequences of that would be that the overall number I used would tend to over play the strengths of the B-17. Initially the two bombers were used in equal numbers but the B-17 came to predominate toward the end of the war when the threat was decreasing significantly. This means that more of the B-17 missions included in the overall numbers were at lower threat levels than the B-24 missions.

    It would be interesting if there was any information about what if any differences there were in the missions assigned to the two types of bombers.
     
  8. harolds

    harolds Member

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    I think there was a difference in missions but this comes from asides from various histories. Passages such as "X groups were sent on a decoy mission". Nothing real specific. Also I think some B-24 groups were sent to target V-1 and V-2 sites when others went deeper. Again, there's not a lot of hard stuff. Perhaps if there are any group or air division histories we could get a better idea.

    I must say that I'm not adverse to changing my mind, but there has to be solid evidence for me to do so. In fact, I did indeed admit error earlier in this thread. However, what you call anecdotal evidence is all pointing one way so I must view your interpretation of these statistics with some skepticism since I have been trained too well in the pitfalls of interpreting stats. Certainly anecdotal evidence has its problems also so perhaps this is one of those things we just can't get a handle on right now.
     
  9. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    It is very clearly anecdotal and not just "what I call anecdotal". It's hardly unusual for such info to be fairly consistent either. Statistical data does indeed have it's own problems but it is much stronger than anecdotal unless all you want to do is prove something possible.

    As for the mission types varrying, that's certainly possible but looking at: http://www.8thafhs.org/combat1944a.htm
    For instance we see:
    4 January a big raid (Keil) with a mix of B-24's and B-17s and a small raid of B-17 (with a larger escort force to Munster)
    5 January a mixed raid to Keil and 2 B-17 raids in France.
    7 January a mixed raid
    11 January 3 raids 2 B-17 only one of which takes heavy casualties in the mixed raid B-14's are outnumbered aproximately 2:1 by B-17s yet B-17s take 4 times as many losses.
    14 and 21 January one mixed raid each

    I'm not seeing much to justify the claim that B-17 raids were worse and again as you pointed out as time went by the raids became easier and since B-17s tended to predominate more of these easier raids would count in their totals.

    Then there's the fact that the B-17's are flying higher and have more mgs which would imply that they should be less likely to get hit so if you look at overall loss rates even if they suffered the same loss rate as B-24's the implication would be that the B-24 could take more combat damage.


    Oh by the way it's not particularly difficult to find picures of battle damaged B-24's.
    https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1080&bih=1796&q=b-24+battle+damage&oq=b-24+batt&gs_l=img.1.0.0.2036.5328.0.7302.9.7.0.2.2.0.183.799.4j3.7.0....0...1ac.1.39.img..0.9.801.5o4sC3EDkUE
    for instance brings up quite a few including:
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.100thbg.com%2Fmainmenus%2F351st%2Fimages32%2Fhte_42_39867_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.100thbg.com%2Fmainmenus%2F351st%2F351st32.htm&h=613&w=800&tbnid=GnBVQtr7w5ZXXM%3A&zoom=1&docid=VrDBki1Eq-EQhM&hl=en&ei=yFM9U8DuCOjb0QGR44HwCg&tbm=isch&ved=0CGEQhBwwBA&iact=rc&dur=4475&page=1&start=0&ndsp=36
    Although I must admit I can't tell if it's a B-24.
     
  10. mcoffee

    mcoffee Son-of-a-Gun(ner)

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    I had a gallery full of them on this site before the last software revision wiped out the galleries.

    Its a B-17 - single tail, 100th BG. Here's a comparable B-24 photo.
     

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  11. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Thanks, Glad I admitted up front I couldn't tell. Might be able to now after looking at your photo.
     
  12. Dave55

    Dave55 Member

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  13. mcoffee

    mcoffee Son-of-a-Gun(ner)

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    True, there is a PB4Y sitting outside at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. But, there were none in the 100th BG which was the source of LWD's photo, and also the round fuselage cross section vs the B-24's oval cross section is a clear indication of a B-17.
     
  14. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    There was something about it that raised a suspicion in my eyes in spite of it turning up in a search for B-24's. I'm not sure what it was but the fusalge cross section may have been it something about the angle and the engines didn't look right either but that may just have been my imagination.
     
  15. mcoffee

    mcoffee Son-of-a-Gun(ner)

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    I didn't do it the first time, but if you click on 'view image', it brings up the full resolution photo with the annotation across the bottom including the s/n. The aircraft was damaged over Frankfurt on 1-24-44. After a bit of Googling, it appears the tail gunner survived being blown out of the plane and became a POW.
     
  16. Dave55

    Dave55 Member

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    The low wing is another dead giveaway. The B-24 was high midwing.
     
  17. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    That may have been what was looking wrong to me. Somthing just didn't look right with the wing area I rather focused on the engines but I'm a long way from an expert in photo ID'ing anything as I think I have just illustrated.
     
  18. TiredOldSoldier

    TiredOldSoldier Ace

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    IMO the very long rather thin wing of the B24 make it less likely to survive spectacular wing damage that the B17 but that may lead to anedoctes rather than real overall survivability.

    Off topic I would put the retreat of the LW from the MTO in late 1943 if not early 1944, IMO the last victory of the LW against the allied air forces was during the wiping out of the British attempt to capture the Dodecannese islands after the Italian surrender, and there were still quite a number of attacks against the Anzio beachhead. El Alamein was the beginning of the end but there were still plenty of axis fighters until 1944. Terror bombing against cities in Northern Italy was not on a scale with what was suffered by German towns but still significant, the total tonnage of bombs is misleading as the ground war in Italy and France lasted a longer so it's obvious tactical bombers had a bigger share.
     
  19. harolds

    harolds Member

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    The other clue that it was a B-17 was that it was on its tail wheel. B-24s had tricycle landing gear. I'm sure that the men who saw the B-17 flying along with everything forward of the top turret gone had nightmares about it for years afterwards!

    You'll notice that several of the B-24s going done were on fire, while very few, if any, of the B-17s going down are aflame. While this could be just a function of picture selection, it does dovetail with what I wrote about their tendency to catch fire early in the thread.

    TOS: The problem the Germans had in the MTO was not just the number of planes but also of serviceability and pilot morale. The GAF fighter units that fought in Africa and Sicily were a spent force.
     
  20. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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