User talk:Edweirdo/Maximum reported B-17 & B-24 bomb loads

Cleanup
Has begun. LanceBarber 19:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Point
Can somebody explain the point of this article, the few facts could be in the relevant articles, and why only B-17 and B-24. MilborneOne (talk) 13:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A very good question! As I was making changes, I got the funny felling that all I was doing was putting "lipstick on the pig." FWIW Bzuk (talk) 15:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC).

The point of the article can be found in the first paragraph: "The purpose is to tie information of the relative effectiveness of the two bombers to real data and actual practice". In the first footnote, you will find a popular author stating a bomb load and range for the B-24 over the Continent of Europe during WW2 that is absurd. The point of my article was to give those interested in the subject a comparison of these two bombers based on reports of the pilots and crew so that when reading books making wild claims they would have a way to sort through them. Why only the B-17 & B-24? The planes were produced by the same industrial base to meet the same threat in roughly the same time period. The different responses by different designers makes the comparison interesting, I think. Edweirdo (talk) 17:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * So the point of the article is to compare two aircraft built at the same time in the United States so readers can check that the bomb loads in references are correct. ! Still not convinced I dont see why the info can not be in the B-17 and B-24 article. MilborneOne (talk) 17:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it important that you be convinced? And what is the point you are making: that all references to the B-17 be included in one huge article? Not everyone reading the B-17 article wants to wade through every subsidiary article. Also, the B-17 and B-24 articles have links in an appropriate place to this one. Does "cleanup" mean consolidation? How about combining all bomber articles under a giant offering titled "Bombers".Edweirdo (talk) 22:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * No it is not important that I am convinced - just if I am not then I will consider a Request for Deletion. Dont have a problem with child articles just the fact that this is comparing two random different aircraft. Perhaps we should have Lancaster v Halifax etc etc. Links are not a problem and not a reason for keeping an article. MilborneOne (talk) 23:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

This is in no way comparing "two random different aircraft" (nice phrasing). The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was asked to produce B-17s like Lockheed/Vega and Douglas (in addition to Boeing), and they asked, and were permitted, to build a design of their own, the B-24. The question of which of these two designs worked out best is relevant and interesting to some people but not apparantly to you. Edweirdo (talk) 23:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks a lot like Original Research to me. --Rlandmann (talk) 08:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The article resulted from my failure to find an 8th Air Force table for the B-17 and B-24 showing, for targets at various distances, the minimum amount of fuel and maximum weight of bombs that each could or should carry. The Crowood Aviation Series book "Avro Lancaster" by Ken Delve shows such a table for the Lancaster and Halifax bombers on page 56. In lieu of such facts giving the operational practices of the commanders in the field, I created a spreadsheet for every mission reported by pilots and crews showing range to the target and weight and types of bombs dropped, etc. I reported the maxima of these data to establish, roughly, the extreme capabilities of the two aircraft as employed over Europe, eg, the top and bottom entries of a table. I thought that by writing the article in Wikipedia someone who knew of such tables used by the United States Army Air Forces in WW2 might edit them in. I question whether this is Original Research. Edweirdo (talk) 16:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps an expansion to include other bombers throughout the war. Problem with this is which version do you use?  B-17s alone have 15 varients (including 3 prototypes) and B-24s have over 50 (including USAAC, USN, and RAF) including 20+ prototypes and cargo varients.  Including even just the B-29 would add 19 or 20 (depending if you add the Tu-4).  How do you compare between the B-17B and B-17D varients much less adding in other types of bombers.  I say delete.  (By the way...this article is linked to the B-17s article which will have to have the link removed as well)  Leobold1 (talk) 20:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)