WWII usage of Mossie FB VI.

[Ptolemy_Soter]

Hi !

 

I have several questions about our new plane as I don't have a single book on it.

I see in skins descriptions that all were based in the UK.

Did some units were based in France too ?

Were they used for daylight close air support missions ?

Was our variant (so without radar) used for night harassment ?

 

Thanks a lot !

 

[357th_KW]

RAF Coastal Command used it’s Mosquitoes during daylight over the Bay of Biscay in an air superiority role to protect their anti-submarine aircraft from Luftwaffe heavy fighters.  They also used them later on to strike shipping along the Norwegian Coast.  Over France they were used on intruder missions (“Rhubarbs”) attacking air and ground targets of opportunity.  They also carried out some targeted strikes, like the attack of the Amiens prison, or the Shellhaus.

[busdriver]

13 hours ago, Ptolemy_Soter said:

Did some units were based in France too ?

 

The game's BoN career will model 2nd TAF and perhaps a pair of Fighter Command squadrons. 

 

The yellow highlights indicate the months when these Mosquito FB Mk VI squadrons moved to France or had detachments in France. The first six squadrons were part of 2nd TAF. The last two squadrons, 418 Sqn and 605 Sqn were part of 11 Group of Fighter Command until Nov 1944. At that time they moved to Hartford Bridge (renamed Blackbushe that month) and joined 2nd TAF.

 

13 hours ago, Ptolemy_Soter said:

Were they used for daylight close air support missions ?

 

Not daylight close air support, mostly night single ship Intruder (AKA "Flower" if directly supporting Bomber Command operations) to Luftwaffe airfields. Often crews would bring their bombs home or jettison them in the Channel if they could not positively identify their target (lights on the ground, moonlight reflections, aircraft position lights, airfield lights). There were periods where targets were mostly railways, road and river traffic.

 

Just prior to D-Day there were various daylight attacks against V-1 sites. Squadrons kept changing their tactics, such as starting out with 8 airplanes all flying together, but pretty quickly they changed tactics to 4 pairs spaced out by a couple of minutes. There was month when a couple squadrons tested flying in formation with a Mosquito pathfinder at medium altitude (~15000 feet) and bombed in level flight when the Oboe equipped Mosquito dropped his bombs. The famous raids on the Amiens prison and Gestapo HQs were not typical operations. The bulk of missions flown by the Mosquito squadrons modeled in BoN were flown as a single ship at night.

 

[edit]

While daylight ops by these squadrons were limited, they were usually planned as a two-ship Day Ranger. One of the primary requirements was to have some low altitude cloud cover they could easily hide in to escape Luftwaffe fighters. Squadron records frequently mention that crews would abandon a Day Ranger due to insufficient cloud cover. 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Ptolemy_Soter said:

Was our variant (so without radar) used for night harassment ?

 

Yes. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by busdriver

[LukeFF]

On 6/2/2022 at 7:57 PM, busdriver said:

The game's BoN career will model 2nd TAF and perhaps a pair of Fighter Command squadrons. 

 

Besides what's there in Rhineland now, these are the units planned for Normandy:

 

Flyable:

 

305 (Polish) Squadron

418 Squadron RCAF

464 Squadron RAAF

487 Squadron RNZAF

605 Squadron

 

AI:

 

21 Squadron

107 Squadron

613 Squadron

 

So, it's the same units that are modeled for Rhineland right now.

Edited June 5, 2022 by LukeFF

[Ptolemy_Soter]

Thanks a lot for all these infos !

 

Was the Series 2 the dominant variant by early 1944 ?

Or was it introduced later in the war ?

Edited June 4, 2022 by Ptolemy_Soter

[busdriver]

1 hour ago, Ptolemy_Soter said:

Thanks a lot for all these infos !

 

Was the Series 2 the dominant variant by early 1944 ?

Or was it introduced later in the war ?

 

Yes it was the dominant variant. Honestly you can't tell the difference, except the Series II could carry 500 pound bombs on the wings versus only 250 pound bombs for the Series I. It didn't fly higher or faster. Squadron histories don't even mention anything about Series I or Series II, nor do the Form 78 Aircraft Movement cards the RAF maintained.