What if the Americans had built the Avro Lancaster under licence?

[McColm]

I haven't thought this through but what if the Americans had built the Avro Lancaster under licence?
The obvious answer is that they didn't need it as they had the B-17 and B-24 with the B-29 entering service in the later years.
This is a whiff,so would the Alison engines be fitted or Pratt & Whitney turbochargers.  Would the twin tail fins have been kept or removed in favour of a single vertical tail fin. No doubt the fuselage would have been stretched beyond the limits of the Avro Lincoln or a high performance Lancaster built, a Sea Lancaster for the USNavy and then various turboprop versions.
Would the US Lancaster have been flown during the Vietnam War,  this opens up a can of worms with loads of options available to the whiffer.

[Logan Hartke]

If they'd built it for USAAF use, then it surely would've undergone a lot of modification to be suitable for US service. I'm sure most of them would have been counter-productive or just plain time-consuming, but others (like a Sperry ball-turret) wouldn't have been bad, either. If it was a USAAF initiative, then I don't see the Lanc entering service with the US until 1944, by which time it's in danger of being looked over in favor of the B-29 or B-32.

I think the likeliest scenario is that the RAF would have contracted with an American company to produce the Lancaster before the US entered the war, just as they did with Victory Aircraft in Canada. In fact, a lot of people don't know that the Canadian Lancasters that the RAF used US Packard-built Merlin engines, Martin turrets, and some even had US radios. On that note, a good candidate for the US manufacture of the Lancaster is Martin, who was already building the Maryland and Baltimore for exclusive RAF contracts. I can see the RAF contracting Martin to build the Avro Lancaster, then it gets a formal USAAF designation in order to allow it to be supplied under Lend-Lease. You can re-use the real Martin "XB-33" designation, or steal "B-34" or "B-37" from the Ventura (why does it need two, anyway?).



If you have an active US production line building RAF-spec Lancasters on December 7th, 1941, then I think there's a chance you have very familiar-looking Lancasters in USAAF service by 1943. In that event, I think the Lancs go to the 8th Air Force almost exclusively, freeing up more B-17s and B-24s for service in other theaters. You might even see other plants that actually built B-17s or B-24s take up the Lancaster, like NAA Dallas, Douglas Tulsa or Long Beach, Lockheed-Vega, or Ford Willow Run.

You might end up seeing more modern landing gear, Emerson nose or tail turrets, Sperry ball turret, etc. I think it keeps the Packard Merlin engines and general layout, though. One immediate change would be a pilot & co-pilot front office with dual control. The US Army Air Force would require that. The flight engineer would have to be moved back with the radio operator, squeezing the navigator wherever they can find room for him.

Cheers,

Logan

[McColm]

Thanks Logan 

[PR19_Kit]

All that blank expanse between the wing and tail, with NO waist guns.................. 

[tigercat]

Maybe a couple of those mini blisters like on the Matchbox Privateer kit

[jcf]

By the time you made all of the changes necessary to turn it into a USAAF style
daylight bomber, any potential "advantages" would have dissapeared.

[PR19_Kit]

It would still have a MUCH larger bomb bay...................

[McColm]

What about a night bomber or reconnaissance platform?

[Snowtrooper]

What about a night bomber or reconnaissance platform?

For reconnaissance, the Lanc has a low ceiling which would make it much more vulnerable. Also, Liberator was already available and used for maritime patrols and photo-reconnaissance and had a noticeably higher ceiling, slightly higher cruising speed, and comparable range.

For night bomber, it would be a logistical burden to have a specific bomber type just for that since all it takes to convert a daylight bomber into one is adding radar - which was also useful on daylight raids for navigation and bombing through overcast.

One good argument speaking for Lanc is that Lanc's maximum bomb load was twice that of B-17 and half again that of B-24. If USAAF leadership had emphasized the amount of bombs carried by a single bomber (after all, if you're risking four engines and ten airmen,  why not try to get the maximum benefit out of that?), then a US Lancaster, initially with minimal modfications but progressively different as new subtypes are introduced, is definitely a possibility. In that scenario, it would supplant or eventually even replace B-17. B-24 would still serve as its longer range means that it's more suitable even for the non-bomber roles.

Coming back to the question of vulnerability, it might be that until escort fighters are available to do a preemptive sweep ahead of the bomber force all the way to the target, the Lanc might have to avoid daylight raids. So conceivably you would have only B-24's flying daylight raids until early 1944 but both USAAF and RAF flying nighttime raids. Which is when butterflies really start flying, does this mean then that the Luftwaffe could release daylight fighter units from Reich Defense to Eastern Front, and/or would they try to increase the amount of night fighters correspondingly?

[jcf]

Lancaster* (all regular versions) standard max. bomb load: 14,000lbs
B-17G max. bombload: 12,800lbs (internal only; 16,800lbs with two 2,000lb under wings)
12,800lbs = 8 1,600lb bombs.

http://wwiiaircraftperformance.org/B-17/B-17G_Standard_Aircraft_Characteristics.pdf

The weight carrying ability of the B-17 is continually misunderstood, the bomb-bay
dimensions limited the size (length/diameter) and thus the number of bombs that could
be accommodated, a whole bunch of smaller bombs = a lower weight.

While the Lancaster bomb-bay is indeed longer than the B-17 and B-24 it's no wider, much
shallower and not accessible in flight.

*The Grand Slam carrying specials were not standard aircraft so the notion that 22,000lbs.
was somehow a normal load for a Lanc, as stated by some, is silly.

[zenrat]

A couple of scenarios spring to mind both involving the USAAF wanting to use Wallis's special bombs in daylight.  They couldn't hang them from their existing aircraft so would have to use Lancs.

However, I am now thinking about an Upkeep B-17...

[Snowtrooper]

Lancaster* (all regular versions) standard max. bomb load: 14,000lbs
B-17G max. bombload: 12,800lbs (internal only; 16,800lbs with two 2,000lb under wings)
12,800lbs = 8 1,600lb bombs.

No, I did not think that the Grand Slam would be a standard maximum load!

The Lancaster routinely carried nearly its standard maximum load though (the "usual" load being a 4000 lb "cookie" and 12 Small Bomb Containers each weighing 700-1000 pounds depending on the contents).

B-17 external racks were very rarely used due to the drag they caused, and a typical mission load was nowhere near even that 12800 pounds internally, more like 4000 to 6000 pounds internally, and 8000 pounds only over short ranges (ie. northern France and Low Countries). Even B-24's flew typically with only 5000 pound load, even though early models could carry 8x1000 internally and later models 8x1600 internally (B-24 also had the capability to use external racks for 2x2000 pounds, again, rarely used).

Might dig deeper into source literature with better time, those were just the impressions I had.

[PR19_Kit]

However, I am now thinking about an Upkeep B-17...

Hmmm, an interesting idea but I think the ground clearance under the bomb would be pretty minimal.

The V brackets to hold an Upkeep bomb on a B-17 would have to be mounted right on the bottom of the fuselage as it's a low wing aeroplane, so the bomb would be lower too. On the mid-wing Lanc the V brackets were mounted on the sides of the fuselage, somewhat higher.

[McColm]

The Lancaster could have been used for search and rescue missions as they did towards the end of their careers or radio relay or coordinating the fighters to intercept the enemy's aircraft.

[zenrat]

However, I am now thinking about an Upkeep B-17...

Hmmm, an interesting idea but I think the ground clearance under the bomb would be pretty minimal.

The V brackets to hold an Upkeep bomb on a B-17 would have to be mounted right on the bottom of the fuselage as it's a low wing aeroplane, so the bomb would be lower too. On the mid-wing Lanc the V brackets were mounted on the sides of the fuselage, somewhat higher.

And even less feasible on a B-24.

But imagine Fortresses swooping in and bombing the dams in daylight while Mustangs fly top cover and take care of the flak.