Aircraft Trivia Quiz

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. Work has a bad habit of interfering with my pleasures.

In response to the last question. The He 177 at one point had a 88mm gun mounted in the gondola and plans were afoot to place a 120mm (going from memory here, I know it was larger than the 88) in the gondola. I don't recall if it was used operationally or not, but it was planned to use it for ship busting.

Sorry but none of the aircraft mentioned is the one I am referring to. Also; my question does not require the aircraft to have seen combat just have the largest calibre gun fitted during WW2. I was suprised by the answer but have found mutiple references to confirm it.

Matt90 wrote:

Was it the very obscure Piaggio P.108 with a 105 mm cannon? Had to dig deep for that one, found my "Aviation Records" book after about 20 minutes of looking.

You got it. If I had made it too easy there would have been no fun to it. Your turn now.

For those wanting more info on the Piaggio here is a link. Just scroll down a bit and it will appear.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0174.shtml

MC. 200, or Regianne Re.2000 Falco?

Hey Matt, I woud guess it would be one of these:

Well if that means it is my turn, as most of you know, I prefer to "keep it simple".

Which aircraft is considered to be the world's first stratigic bomber?

Tom T

T_Terrific wrote:

Well if that means it is my turn, as most of you know, I prefer to "keep it simple". Which aircraft is considered to be the world's first stratigic bomber? Tom T The B-17 was the first in the west.  The Russians had one that predated the B-17, but I can't recall it's designation right off.  I can see it in my mind's eye though.  Ugly thing. I believe they had some experiments with it using parasitic fighters, which made an even weirder arrangement. Bill

wdolson2 wrote:

T_Terrific wrote: Well if that means it is my turn, as most of you know, I prefer to "keep it simple". Which aircraft is considered to be the world's first stratigic bomber? Tom T The B-17 was the first in the west.  The Russians had one that predated the B-17, but I can't recall it's designation right off.  I can see it in my mind's eye though.  Ugly thing. I believe they had some experiments with it using parasitic fighters, which made an even weirder arrangement. Bill

To clarify, stratigic bombing is generally the concept of demoralizing a population through the terror of raining "death from the skies", targeting any population center,  thus seeking to undermine its government and induce collapse (such as our bombing of Japanese cities in WWII), and and can include precision bombing (usually daylight) which is seeking to destroy a specific targeted facility such as an airfield, power plant, manufacturing plant, drydock, submarine pens, etc., which is what the Eighth Air Force saught to achieve in the ETO in WWII.

Hints:

1. WWII was not when this first done, nor when the concept actually origionated.
2. This concept actually origionated with the use of derigibles.
3. This particular aircraft did both daylight and night bombing missions, navigating by radio triangulation.
4. This particular plane's type became synonamous with large bombers produced by this aggressing nation, even though it was not the biggest bomber used by them.
5. This bomber was the also the first to have a defense against "belly attacks" by persuing fighters.
6. There are some very nice 1/72 scale kits of this planes varients out now.

Tom T

Glad you clarified that. I had been about to ask if we were looking for a lighter than air craft or heavier. Some regard the Zeppelin attacks of the first world war as the first strategic bombing raids. Others consider the attacks carried out by the Gotha IV bombers as the first. Therefore I would have said the Gotha IV was the first but I don't know if thay used radio triangulation back then.

Gotha is the answer Dave.

You go next

Tom T