Lancaster in WWIII

[Dr Jekyll]

Inspired by the 'Nimitz in WWII' and '737 in WWII' threads.

Could a Lancaster do a useful job today? For example giving the bomb aimer a laser guidance system and taking a load of paveways. Then using the long endurance to cruise around near an enemy with no air power and being called in when air support was required.

My guess is it would be too vulnerable to ground fire, at least in daylight.

[Eric Mc]

Way too slow to survive in a modern environment. Even in WW2 an awful lot of them were shot down.

[DoubleD]

No chance.

[Wacky Racer]

In WW3 they would all be destroyed on the ground by a single (non nuclear) missile.

My dad used to work on Fairy swordfish in the FAA in the second world war, they were antiquated in 1941, but did a job torpedoing several capital warships plus destroying much of the Italian fleet at Taranto...Top speed was about 95mph.......but these are different times.

[Dr Jekyll]

The Americans did use DC3s for ground attack in Vietnam but even then the losses were horrific, and for C130s in the same role not much better.

[Eric Mc]

I didn't realise that there was a massive loss rate amongst the gunship transports in Vietnam.

[Flooble]

Don't know the veracity but 55 C-130 losses according to Wiki. Not sure how to find total committed?

[Simpo Two]

Wacky Racer said:

In WW3 they would all be destroyed on the ground by a single (non nuclear) missile.

My dad used to work on Fairy swordfish in the FAA in the second world war, they were antiquated in 1941, but did a job torpedoing several capital warships plus destroying much of the Italian fleet at Taranto...Top speed was about 95mph.......but these are different times.

And they flew over an empty sea with no enemy airforce around - quite different from flying over hostile territory.

[CanAm]

A very empty sea if some bugger has just sunk your landing site, like the carrier HM Courageous, the first RN ship to be lost in WW2.

[RicksAlfas]

Eric Mc said:

I didn't realise that there was a massive loss rate amongst the gunship transports in Vietnam.

The Key Publishing "Vietnam" magazine says 19 AC-47 Spooky and 6 AC-130 Spectre were lost.
Not sure how many were out there.

[Eric Mc]

Some of those would have been accidents or destroyed on the ground by VC attacks using mortars etc.

Essentially, the US were mostly unmolested by enemy aircraft in the Vietnam War. Most losses on combat missions were caused by ground to air missilles, "Triple A"(anti-aircraft fire) or even rifle and small arms fire.

The combat aircraft that suffered the most losses were the F-4 Phantom, F-105 Thunderchief and the Bell UH-1 helicopter (by far).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_losses_of_t...

[aeropilot]

RicksAlfas said:

Eric Mc said:

I didn't realise that there was a massive loss rate amongst the gunship transports in Vietnam.

The Key Publishing "Vietnam" magazine says 19 AC-47 Spooky and 6 AC-130 Spectre were lost.
Not sure how many were out there.

53 in total during their 5 year period of ops between '64 and '69.


They fired a total of 97 million rounds of 7.62 in that 5 year period....

[davepoth]

Depends what you used them for. Don't forget that at least some parts of the lancaster were being used for maritime reconnaissance up until 1991 as part of the Shackleton. You wouldn't want to go anywhere shooty in one though.

[williamp]

Eric Mc said:

Some of those would have been accidents or destroyed on the ground by VC attacks using mortars etc.

Essentially, the US were mostly unmolested by enemy aircraft in the Vietnam War. Most losses on combat missions were caused by ground to air missilles, "Triple A"(anti-aircraft fire) or even rifle and small arms fire.

The combat aircraft that suffered the most losses were the F-4 Phantom, F-105 Thunderchief and the Bell UH-1 helicopter (by far).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_losses_of_t...

Those figures for the Phantom are amazing:

445 total USAF
138 total US Navy
95 US Marine Corps

678 seemed a lot, then I checked and they made over 5,000.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

davepoth said:

Depends what you used them for. Don't forget that at least some parts of the lancaster were being used for maritime reconnaissance up until 1991 as part of the Shackleton. Yo

AEW.

The Maritime role was taken on by the Nimrod MR1 from 1969.

[Alias218]

If they could reach their target then they would deal just as much damage as they did 70-odd years ago. Stab a man with an 800 year old sword and it'll still be as deadly.

Getting to the target, however, is a different matter altogether.

[DoubleD]

As is staying over the target and getting back to Base. So basically, no they would be totally outclassed.

[Tango13]

aeropilot said:

53 in total during their 5 year period of ops between '64 and '69.


They fired a total of 97 million rounds of 7.62 in that 5 year period....

The spent casings took some clearing up too...

[010101]

Was it a Lancaster that Churchill used to visit North Africa in 1942?

In the next global conflict it could be a totem of negotiation, a standard borne, full of statesmen brimming with virtuous policy solutions, busting to go down in history, metaphorically of course.

[RicksAlfas]

010101 said:

Was it a Lancaster that Churchill used to visit North Africa in 1942?
.

I think it was a B-24 Liberator he used.
He had a bed in the bomb bay!