Fortress Mk.IIA (B-17E)

MajorMagee

MajorMagee

SOH-CM-2022
Unit: 220 Sqn, Coastal Command, RAF
Serial: J (FL459)
End of 1942. This squadron used to fly from Ballykelly in Northern Ireland on long distance patrols.

FAA_B-17E.jpg


I did this skin to fit the Firepower B-17F. Anyone still interested in Firepower skins?
 
Yes

Your B-17F or E Coastal Command skin would be a great addition. I believe the

only other B-17 Coastal command skin available is for a B-17 from another CFS3 add on.
 
I have an CC skin for the FP B-17F I obtained from SOH long ago.
cfs32010-01-2709-04-32-00.jpg


This is quite an old one now and I really like yours Major. Could I have if for myself and host it with other CC stuff on my website please? I've also tweaked the loadouts to be more CC accurate.
 
46 B-17Es were supplied to the RAF, which designated them the "Fortress IIA". The Fortress II, confusingly, was the designation given to the later B-17F in RAF service. The RAF had originally been promised 300 of the better B-17Fs, but USAAF requirements had forced a change in plans, and so a smaller batch of B-17Es were provided instead, resulting in the switched designations.
The RAF hadn't forgotten their bad experience with the Fortress I and had mixed feelings about the new Fortresses as well. The RAF judged the B-17E's tail and belly turrets to be ineffectual; that was possibly unfair, since for most of the war the defensive armament of RAF bombers consisted of 7.7 millimeter (0.303 caliber) machine guns that lacked hitting power, and RAF bombers generally lacked belly armament, making them painfully vulnerable to attacks from the bottom. However, the RAF also didn't much care for the B-17's unarguably small bombload. The British were no longer focusing on high-altitude daylight strategic bombing at the time in any case, and so the Fortress IIA was pressed into service with the RAF Coastal Command for ocean patrol, where its long range was a clear asset. It was designated "Fortress GR.II" in this role


19 B-17Fs were supplied to the RAF Coastal Command, which designated them "Fortress IIs", as mentioned earlier. They were used with their Fortress IIA (B-17E) predecessors for antisubmarine patrol, with the designation of "Fortress GR.IIA" in this role. They were armed with depth charges, and many were later fitted with longwave "Mark III ASV (Anti-Surface Vessel)" radar, with "stickleback" aerials along the fuselage spine and Yagi antennas underneath the wings. The Fortress Mark II/IIAs proved capable at their role and were credited with sinking 13 U-boats. They were eventually replaced in this role by Liberators and Sunderlands, and were then put into service for weather reconnaissance, where their high-altitude capabilities were a definite asset.

A number of B-17E & Fs which were switched to the 8th USAAF from an RAF order had already been camoflaged in RAF colours as shown here: http://www.markstyling.com/1ad_b17s1.htm and picture below.
On 17 August 1942, 18 B-17Es of the 97th, including Yankee Doodle, flown by Major Paul Tibbets and Brigadier General Ira Eaker, were escorted by RAF Spitfires on the first USAAF raid over Europe, against railroad marshalling yards at Rouen-Sotteville in France.
In early 1944, 14 B-17Fs were transferred to the RAF from the USAAF 8th Air Force to be converted into electronic warfare platforms of various types. They were designated "Fortress II(SD)", where "SD" stood for "Special Duty", and used as flight trainers for electronic warfare variants of the later B-17G, or "Fortress III" as it was called in RAF hands.

Eighty-five USAAF B-17Gs were transferred to the Royal Air Force as the Fortress III. The first 30 of these planes were built by Boeing, and the remainder were built by Lockheed-Vega. RAF serials were HB 761/790 for the Boeing-built models and HB791/793, 795, 796, 799/803, 805, 815/820, KH998, KH999, and KJ100/127, KL830/837 for the Vega-built models. However, HB794,797,798,804, 806/814 were diverted to the USAAF before they could be delivered to the RAF.
Three of these Fortress IIIs (HB786, HB791, and HB792) were operated by RAF Coastal Command. They all served with 220 Squadron in the Azores and were subsequently allocated to two met squadrons (HB786 to 521 Sqdn and HB791 and HB792 to 251 Sqdn). They usually carried twelve 400-pound S.C.I. bombs or sixteen 250-pound depth charges. They had the cheek-mounted machine guns removed, and radar was fitted in place of the ball turret.
In February 1944, the first Fortress IIIs were assigned to No. 214 Squadron of Bomber Command based at Sculthorpe before moving to Oulton as Sculthorpe was closed for conversion to 'very heavy bomber configuration'. These operated with No. 100 group on special electronics countermeasures missions to confuse and jam enemy radar. With No. 223 Squadron, the first Fortress III unit of Bomber Command, they took part in clandestine operations until the unit was disbanded in July of 1945. Fortress IIIs also took part in mass night attacks, being employed as decoys to confuse enemy night fighters and to drop "window".
 
BeauBrummie said:
I have an CC skin for the FP B-17F I obtained from SOH long ago.

This is quite an old one now and I really like yours Major. Could I have if for myself and host it with other CC stuff on my website please? I've also tweaked the loadouts to be more CC accurate.
Click to expand...

Oops, I didn't realize it had already been done. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Of course you can add it to your fine Coastal Command collection. I'll clean up a few more details, and get it packaged for distribution.

I see during its wartime career FL459 sank a total of 4 U-boats before moving to meteorological duties from March 1945 until it was struck off charge in December 1945.

Source Image
 
During the early hours of Thursday the 22nd of June 1944 B17 Flying Fortress SR382 (BU-B) of 214 Sqn RAF was shot down over Holland by a German nightfighter while returning from a raid on Germany. Dutch observers at Bergharen reported the aircraft crashing in flames at 1.15am.
Some hours earlier at their base at Oulton, Norfolk, the crew had attended a pre flight briefing on the forthcoming night’s raid on Gelsenkirchen. In the role of bomber support it was 214’s duty in their specially adapted American built B17 Fortresses to counter measure the German radar and nighfighter radio defence networks in the hope of reducing losses likely to occur to the main attacking bomber force.
Outside of dropping aluminium foil strips known as “Window” and electronic jamming most 214 crews carried a fluent German speaking radio operator whose primary function was to broadcast false information into German wavelengths and thereby confuse German nightfighter pilots. Reports of heated exchanges taking place between genuine German ground controllers and their opposite numbers in 214 have subsequently become quite legendary.
Gelsenkirchen because of its oil refineries and nearby war industries in the Ruhr Valley was, at the time, one of the most heavily defended places in Germany. Such were the losses suffered by RAF bomber squadrons during previous night attacks on the town that many crews sarcastically referred to the area as “Happy Valley”.

SR382.JPG

​
This is a photograph of SR382 wreckage taken on the morning of 22nd June1944 by a member of the Dutch resistance. It was sent to John Cripps by the "Foundation of Uden War Cemetery" some years ago now. Antoon Verbakel, the "Foundation's" secretary at the time told me that they have no idea who holds the original as their copy was a copy of a copy and so on.

At approximately 23.50hrs on the 21st, the shortest night of the year, Flying Fortress SR382 lifted from the runway at Oulton and headed east over the North Sea to Holland, then on to the Ruhr Valley. At some time around 01.00 hrs it came under attack by a Messerschmitt 110 piloted by Hauptmann Heinz Struning of NJG1. Although SR382 survived the first attacking pass a second, two minutes later, proved disastrous, knocking out the inboard starboard engine and rendering the aircraft's controls useless. Instructing the co-pilot to feather the engines the pilot then ordered the rest of the crew to stand-by for an emergency jump, but in the next moment the aircraft was diving out of control for the ground.
Somehow by piloting skill, or just plain luck, the pilot managed to pull the aircraft's nose up for just long enough so that the crew could bale out, while five managed to do so the pilot, co-pilot, navigator and an air gunner did not. Some years later one of the survivors reportedly said that when he baled out “The pilot and co-pilot were struggling with the aircraft's controls hoping to make a forced landing.” It has never been clarified why, the assumption is that one or more of the crew were badly wounded in the attack and that their only chance of survival was to attempt a crash landing.
Whatever the intentions of the pilot and co-pilot some moments later the aircraft, in flames, crashed into the ground where it quickly burnt out, by the time German soldiers arrived, some minutes later, four crew lay dead in the wreckage and another lay hidden beneath it.

Two days later on the 24th four of the crew were buried at what was then known as the “English Graveyard”, in Uden, Holland, (now Uden War Cemetery) attended by a military Guard of Honour made up of Luftwaffe personnel. Only on the 28th when the wreckage of BU.B was being removed was the body of a fifth member of crew found under the remains of the fuselage with an open parachute attached. For reasons unknown he was not taken to Uden to be buried along side his fallen comrades but instead was buried in the local civilian cemetery at Bergharen where his body remained until the late 1940’s at which time he was exhumed and re-interred at Jonkerbos War Cemetery.
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3 B-17Gs did serve with CC.

'Three of these Fortress IIIs (HB786, HB791, and HB792) were operated by RAF Coastal Command. They all served with 220 Squadron in the Azores and were subsequently allocated to two met squadrons (HB786 to 521 Sqdn and HB791 and HB792 to 251 Sqdn). They usually carried twelve 400-pound S.C.I. bombs or sixteen 250-pound depth charges. They had the cheek-mounted machine guns removed, and radar was fitted in place of the ball turret.'
 
Interesting in doing this kind of work what you discover about the original model. It turns out that there's a problem with the hinge point of the cowl flaps on #3 engine. In the original colors you didn't see it, but once they were painted white I had to do some under painting to hide the polygon errors.

As far as doing a B-17G in CC colors it shouldn't be too difficult. Anyone know what the ID Codes for HB786, HB791, or HB792 were?
 
westview said:
Would it be possible to do a B-17G skin for those without FP? I know CC didn't operate that model though.
Click to expand...

How about an Air Sea Rescue version?

In November 1943 the Materiel Command's Equipment Laboratory began work on an airborne lifeboat, which could be dropped to survivors who could not be picked up by surface craft, submarines, or seaplanes. Specifications were released to the Higgins Company in the spring of 1944 for a 27-foot boat, with two engines which would give a speed of 8 knots. Delivery was slow, lagging behind orders until January 1945. The boat proved satisfactory in operation. When carried by a B-17, it could be faired into its belly so as to produce little additional drag, resulting in a loss of only 6 miles per hour. Dropped by parachute, the boat was usually released at a speed of 120 m.p.h. from an altitude of 1,500 feet.

http://members.peak.org/~mikey/746/boat.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-1_lifeboat

Perhaps one of our modelers that knows how to do pylons and weapons might be able to do this for us, and I can do a skin for the freeware B-17G. I guess it would take the same know how as the para frag bombs that House Hobbit was working on to get the parachutes to work though.

Boeing_SB-17G_of_the_5th_Rescue_Squadron%2C_Flight_D.jpg
 
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