soc.history.war.world-war-ii

In article ,
barronbranek@nospamsbcglobal.net (Branek) wrote:

> On a similar note, if the B-24 Liberator wasn't as good as the B-17
> than why bother manufacturing
> it? Why not just stick w/the better plane?

The B24 was considerably more versatile than the B17 serving as a
transport and maritime reconnaissance aircraft as well as a bomber. On
the other hand a lot of this resulted from US procurement policies. Like
Britain the policy was to issue a specification of required performance
and wait for results. The designs would be studied and prototype orders
made for evaluation.

Due to the difficulty of evaluating a paper design and estimating
performance it was quite logical for prototypes to be ordered from
several manufactures. Production orders could and were made before
evaluation was complete especially in the run up to war with two or more
different aircraft being ordered as insurance against failure. If one
showed a considerable advantage in service production would be
concentrated on it. However that would mean retooling a production line.

As a result the UK started the war with three heavy bombers under
development, several different medium bombers and two fighters in front
line service.

Ken Young