[WW] The Lancaster : More bang for your buck

[Soothsprayer <hercubadger@yahoo.com>]

The Lancaster. Four engine heavy bomber for the
Commonwealth. "Dead From Above" touched on the
Lancaster but here's some additional information for
those who want an alternative to the B-17 for their
aircrew.

Diagram of the internal worky-bits
http://www.nucleus.com/~ltwright/Lanc.HTM

Range to target - Europe
http://www.nucleus.com/~ltwright/range.jpg

Bombloads and Missions
http://www.nucleus.com/~ltwright/bombs.htm

Unlike many other bombers, the Lancaster operated with
one continuous bomb-bay rather than a
compartmentalised variant. This mean that the
Lancaster could be equipped with a variety of mission
specific weaponry that just plain wouldn't fit in
other bombers. For example - the bouncing bomb, Tall
Boy, and the Grand Slam.

Tall Boy and Grand slam
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/miscellaneous/tallboy/tallboy.html

The Tall Boy bomb weighed in an at impressive 12,000
lb while the Grand Slam came in at a rather
extroverted 22,000 lb. As you could imagine, the
Lancaster could only carry a single Grand Slam at any
one time, had to ditch a large variety of equipment
before take off (including a number of the gunners),
and had a vastly reduced range. I believe the range
was reduced to 1,250-1,750 miles.

From a game mechanics point of view a Tall Boy would
doing approximately 42,000 points of damage at impact
with the Grand Slam pulling in an impressive 77,000
points of nasty. You can see why Tall Boys were used
to take out enemy capital ships (the Tirpitz in
particular).

During a recent trip back to the colonies I had the
opportunity to visit the Sir Keith Park Memorial site
at MOTAT in Auckland. One of the 10 remaining
Lancasters is situated here and has been restored to
her former glory. As well as the Lanacaster a
Sunderland flying boat is currently being restored
behind the museum proper. 

MOTAT:
http://www.akcity.govt.nz/around/places/motat/keithpk.asp

Cheers,
Mr. B

=====
"Morituri Nolumus Mori" - We who are about to die don't want to.

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