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Official Information of American Bombers by the Site OwnerAmerican Bombers
Boeing B-17
This was one of the most famous american bombers and most certainly one of the best.The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was the first mass-produced, four-engine heavy bomber. It was most widely used for daylight strategic bombing of German industrial targets during World War II as part of the United States Eighth Air Force based in England and the Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy.
The B-17 was a versatile aircraft, and it served in dozens of units in theatres of combat throughout World War II. Its main use was in Europe, where its shorter range and smaller bombload relative to other aircraft available did not hamper it as much as in the Pacific Theatre. Only five B-17 groups operated in the Pacific, all converting to other types by 1943. Thirty-two groups were stationed in Europe, twenty-six in England and six in Italy.
It had got its name Flying Fortress from the armorment it carried:-
Guns: 13× Browning M-2 0.50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns (with optional extra nose armament fitted in glazed nose)
Bombs:
Short range missions (<400 mi): 8,000 lb (3,600 kg) on short-range missions
Long range missions (≈800 mi): 4,500 lb (2,000 kg) on long-range missions
It was also used by the Royal Air Force, though mainly in roles other than those for which it had been designed. The first B-17s, -C and -D models — known to the RAF as "Fortress I"s — used by the Royal Air Force had been unsuccessful, and despite its overwhelming success in American hands, the British were reluctant to use the B-17 for its original mission profile of heavy bombing. They regarded the B-17 as uneconomical, due to its larger crew and relatively small bomb load. Instead, they used them for patrol bombing, and later equipped a number of them with sophisticated radio-countermeasures equipment, where they served in some of the first electronic countermeasures operations with RAF 100 Group.The Luftwaffe had got thier hands on a few and were flown by the Reich and renamed "Dornier Do 200," and obviously in Luftwaffe colors and insignias.
Cosolidated B-24 Liberator
This was another fomous bomber used by america.The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was an American bomber that was produced in greater numbers than any other American combat aircraft during World War II and was used by most of the Allied air forces during the war. Designed as a heavy bomber, it served with distinction also as a maritime patrol bomber (known as the PB4Y in U.S. Navy service) and as a heavy transport (where it was designated C-87 or C-109).
Like the equally successful North American P-51 Mustang, the Liberator was designed in a great hurry. In January 1939, the United States Army Air Corps invited Consolidated Aircraft to submit a design study for a bomber with greater range, higher speed and greater ceiling than the existing backbone of the Army Air Corps, the B-17 Flying Fortress.
It was armored with
Guns: 10× .50 in (12.7 mm) Browning M2 machine guns
Bombs:
Short range (≈400 mi): 8,000 lb (3,600 kg)
Long range (≈800 mi): 5,000 lb (2,300 kg)
Very long range (≈1,200 mi): 2,700 lb (1,200 kg)
North American B-25 Mitchell
The North American B-25 Mitchell (North American NA-62) was an American twin-engined medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation. It was used with devastating effect against German and Japanese targets in every combat theater of World War II. The aircraft was named the "Mitchell" in honor of General Billy Mitchell, an early airpower pioneer and advocate of an independent United States Air Force. It is the only American military aircraft named after a specific person. By the end of its production, more than 10,000 B-25's in several models had been built. These included a few limited variations, such as the U.S. Navy's PBJ-1 patrol bomber and the Army Air Forces' F-10 photo reconnaissance aircraft.
The B-25 was flown by a number of Allied forces in addition to the Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy. These nations included Australia, the United Kingdom (which received more than 900), China, The Netherlands, and Soviet Union.
The B-25 first gained fame as the bomber used in the April 1942 Doolittle Raid, in which 16 B-25B's, led by the legendary Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, took off from the carrier USS Hornet and successfully bombed Tokyo and four other Japanese cities without loss to themselves. However, 15 of the planes subsequently crash-landed in Eastern China en route to their recovery fields in that country. These losses were the result of fuel exhaustion, stormy nighttime conditions with zero visibility, and the lack of electronic homing aids at the recovery bases. Only one B-25B landed intact; it came down in Russia, where its five-man crew was interned and the aircraft confiscated. Fortunately, the majority of the 80 Doolittle Raid crewmen survived their historic mission and eventually made it back to American lines.
It was armored with
Guns: 12× .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns
Bombs: 6,000 lb (2,700 kg)
B-26 Maurader
The B-26 Marauder was a twin-engine medium bomber of the Second World War, built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. Peyton M. Magruder led the design team for this aircraft after Martin won a 1939 United States War Department bid.
5,288 were produced between February 1941 and March 1945; 522 of these were flown by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force.
The first bomber in the Pacific theater and Aleutian Islands in 1942, it was also used in the European Theater of Operations and in the North African Campaign. The plane distinguished itself as "the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front" according to an Army Air Forces dispatch from 1946, and also because the B-26B maintained the lowest loss record of any combat aircraft during World War II. Its loss record stands in sharp contrast to its unofficial nickname "The Widowmaker" – earned due to its high rate of accidental crash during takeoff for the B-26A variation.
Armament
Guns: 12× .50 in (12.7 mm) Colt-Browning machine guns
Bombs: 4,000 lb (1,800 kg)
Boeing B-26 Superfortress
Undesputedly the most effective bomber of the war,The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a four-engine heavy bomber propeller aircraft flown by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and other military organizations afterwards.
The B-29 (Boeing 341/345) was one of the largest aircraft to see active service during World War II. It was one of the most advanced bombers of its time, featuring innovations such as a pressurized cabin, a central fire-control system, and remote-controlled machine gun turrets. It was designed as a high-altitude daytime bomber, but flew more low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing missions. It was the primary aircraft in the U.S. firebombing campaign against Japan in the final months of World War II, and B-29's carried the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unlike many other bombers, the B-29 remained in service long after the war ended, a few being employed as flying television transmitters for Stratovision. By the time it was retired in the 1960s, some 3,900 planes had been built.
Armament
Guns:
12× .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 machine guns in remote controlled turrets
1× 20 mm M2 cannon in tail
Bombs: 20,000 lb (9,000 kg)
Lesser Known Bombers
Douglas DB 7
The Douglas DB-7 was a family of attack, light bomber and night fighter aircraft of World War II, serving primarily with Soviet, US and British air forces. The DB-7 was also used by Australian, South African, French and Dutch services during the War, and Brazil afterwards. The aircraft was known as the "Boston" among Commonwealth air forces, while the night fighter variants were known as the "Havoc". The USAAF assigned the DB-7 the designation "A-20" and gave it the popular name "Havoc," adopted from the RAF moniker.
Douglas Invader
First flown in 1942, the Douglas A-26 Invader (after 1948, the B-26, and after 1966, the A-26A) was a twin-engined light attack bomber aircraft built during World War II and seeing service in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. A limited number of highly modified aircraft served in combat until 1969. The last A-26 was retired from service in 1972 by the National Guard Bureau and given to the National Air and Space Museum. The US Navy also used a small number of these aircraft in their utility squadrons for target towing and general utility use. The Navy designation was JD-1 and JD-1D until 1962, when the JD-1 was redisgnated UB-26J and the JD-1D was redesignated DB-26J.
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