Why?

[CF-spitboy]

The B-24 had more gunners then the Lancaster, and i would really like to know why? Is it because the Lancaster only flew at night and not that many enemies?

[MerkavaMK4]

because superfotress had better armor and more guns, because it was build by different country

[CF-spitboy]

Oh i c well someone did tell me that the flyingfortress had more armour so...good comment man thx.

[F-14blaze]

the fortesses are american, that automatically gives them more guns

geez, not to go w/ strereotypes here but... well ok, i'm stereotyping but so what its true

lol

[cee47]

Originally Posted by CF-spitboy

The B-24 had more gunners then the Lancaster, and i would really like to know why? Is it because the Lancaster only flew at night and not that many enemies?

You've probably got it right about the night/day roles determining level of armament. Lancaster and Liberator were of similar size (wingspan 102ft vs 110ft), power (4x1280hp vs 4x1200hp) and weight (loaded 63000lbs vs 55000lbs) but much more of the Lancaster's lifting capacity was devoted to bomb load (22000lb vs 8000lb) and less to defensive armament (8x0.303" (7.7mm) vs 10x0.50" (12.7mm), the lighter armament compensated to a certain extent by a higher rate of fire). Much of the Lancasters defense relied on night missions only (early example of 'stealth'?) and the enemy night-fighters having only Mk1 eyeball or primitive radar at the best. There were almost certainly more Lancasters lost at night to ground-based 'Flak' than to opposing aircraft (I don't have the data to support this but I'm sure it's available somewhere on the 'net). But during the day they were incredibly vulnerable. Also, the US Air Forces used a layered or box defensive formation to maximise the effectiveness of the guns whereas the British tended to fly in a 'stream'.