Non-historically accurate tank builds?

[jarndice]

Thanks for the video Mick,
I did not know about the Black Lancasters But the RAF Airfields in Oxfordshire have a history,
I have been to Enstone and flying still takes place there,
Another little known RAF Airfield is Chalgrove which has a Hangered Highly polished black Gloster Meteor 2 seater which is owned and operated by Boulton Paul a well known ejector seat manufacturer, at the entrance to Chalgrove is a large plaque telling anyone who cares to stop that the very first Aircraft carrying the United States Paras for the Allied invasion of Normandy took off from there on the night of June 5th 1944,
Not far from there is Weston on the Green where idiots from Brize Norton and once upon a time Lyneham carry out there first parachute descent's,
Ahh some (But not all) happy memories.

[General Jumbo01]

One of the things the Brits were good at is modifying or creating aircraft that were needed in a very short time scale. Those beautiful trio of V bombers took no real time at all. I'm sure a special Lancaster would have been a breeze, example the dambuster specials.

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[jarndice]

The advantage that the Avro Lancaster had over the B17/B24 and B29 was an unimpeded bomb bay.
The disadvantage of the Avro Lancaster over the three American Heavy bombers was its unimpeded bomb bay,
Yes it could with little or no modification carry any airborne weapon in the Allied arsenal in it's long unobstructed bomb bay but that meant that in the bomber stream at night on it's way to a target in Germany a professionally flown Arado 240 (Uhu) nightfighter could climb within a few metres of the bomb bay and using it's "Schrage Musik"(Dorsal mounted remote gun turret) fire into the undefended belly of the Bomber,
A lot of Lancasters were shot down in that fashion and the crew never knew about it because the aircraft would simply explode,
This was a very uncommon event with US heavies because they had ventral turrets which allowed the aircraft to defend it's nether regions albeit at the cost of a two part bomb bay or in the case of the pressurised B29 the intrusion of the wing roots.

[r32]

The advantage that the Avro Lancaster had over the B17/B24 and B29 was an unimpeded bomb bay.
The disadvantage of the Avro Lancaster over the three American Heavy bombers was its unimpeded bomb bay,
Yes it could with little or no modification carry any airborne weapon in the Allied arsenal in it's long unobstructed bomb bay but that meant that in the bomber stream at night on it's way to a target in Germany a professionally flown Arado 240 (Uhu) nightfighter could climb within a few metres of the bomb bay and using it's "Schrage Musik"(Dorsal mounted remote gun turret) fire into the undefended belly of the Bomber,
A lot of Lancasters were shot down in that fashion and the crew never knew about it because the aircraft would simply explode,
This was a very uncommon event with US heavies because they had ventral turrets which allowed the aircraft to defend it's nether regions albeit at the cost of a two part bomb bay or in the case of the pressurised B29 the intrusion of the wing roots.

The fact of the matter was, the bombers lacked the ability to detect intercepting night fighters. Had they been able to detect a night fighter, the lack of a belly turret would not have hindered the crew from calling a corkscrew manuever to prevent Jazz Music from being employed effectively. That being said, offhand I don't recall any bombers in ww2 from any allied country being fitted with AI (airborne radar) for defensive purposes, only H2X for bombing in overcast conditions.

While it could be argued that conventionally-mounted weaponry meant that attacks took place where the bomber gunners could fight back, the fact of the matter was that the interceptors always had the initiative the moment they could detect the bombers on their radar sets.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

This is all interesting: thanks for posting the video. (Obviously, the whole event of the bombings, still controversial--although moot--is sad, no matter what perspective one takes on it.) I take it that the "Black Lancasters" were not actually all-black, but camouflaged above, just as any of the rather standard Lancaster paint schemes. This question interests me because I am about to paint a Lancaster, and an all-black scheme would be cool and a heckuvalot simpler.

[Tiger6]

The RAF Bombers had the 'Monica' tail warning radar, but it was quickly deleted when a German Nightfighter with a detector device got lost and landed/crashed in the UK by mistake. Initially Air Marshall Harris refused to remove the radar as he felt something was better than nothing, until he was taken up in a British aircraft fitted with the capture German device and shown how incredibly effective it was at guiding fighters right onto British bombers' tails in the pitch black.
The order to remove the radar was given as soon as Harris touched down...

(Source: either Prof R.V. Jones "most secret war", or Dr. Alfred Price's "Instruments of Darkness" - I forget which, been a while since I read them)

As a matter of fact, a small number of RAF bomber aircraft were fitted with a ventral turret as a short lived experiment, but it was felt to be of limited use, and the adoption of the H2S radar used the space more effectively. You have to remember that the German fighters often had a crude infrared scope in addition to their radar, where as a gunner would be looking with the naked eye - if the tail gunner couldn't see the German fighter approaching, a belly gunner would be be equally useless.
(also need to bare in mind that the tail turret on a 4 engine RAF bomber had a much wider firing arc available to it than those on a B17 - a corkscrewing Lancaster could get guns on target if the tail gunner spotted the German approaching)

[jarndice]

The Lancaster actually did carry an H2s radar system and a very few a tail warning radar which was quickly removed when it was found to help the night fighters rather than hinder them The H2s which was carried under the rear fuselage was covered by a bakelite shroud but unknown to the RAF a crashed Lancaster revealed most of it's secrets only weeks after the system was first adopted, a matter of weeks later another H2s radar was found intact on a downed Lancaster from this the Nightfighter's know knowing what to listen out for were able to ride the beam to find the Bomber and then shoot it down which is why the more canny bomber crews would only switch it on for just long enough to find the target and then switched it off.

[Son of a gun-ner]

Lads, don't want to worry you all, but this isn't the "Non-historically accurate Lancaster Bomber builds?" Thread

[General Jumbo01]

Just realised. You already seem to own a rather lovely mean looking Tiger! Is he/she yours?

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[Will01Capri]

Making theatrical tanks is all good fun, i really need to finish my Halftrack rat rod which has been slammed.

I like seeing peoples own tank builds, makes the hobby what it is if we have some diversity