What is your list of the top ten best bombers of WW2?

Curious as to what answers will come back. Lets try to look at some of the lesser known, but outstanding bombers of WW2 that perhaps did not get the attention/press they shoud have. Thinking


of A/C such as the soviet PE-2, German Ar234 "Blitz bomber".


etc.

What is your list of the top ten best bombers of WW2?
Well my favorites are as follows:





1. B-24 Liberator (actually the liberator flew more missions world wide than the B-17: it just didn't get the press the B-17 did.)


2. B-17 Flying Fortress


3. B-29 Super Fortress


4. B-25 Mitchell (Bomber, gunship this was a very versatile bomber)


5. B-26 Marauder


6. Avro British Lancaster Bomber - I have a fondness for this bomber because of the Dam Busting missions, and the other special ordnance missions it flew.


7.DeHavillan Mosquito (yes, it could drop bombs...very fast little bomber)


8. the Japanese "Betty" a very good bomber in its own right.


9. German Ju-88 also a good light bomber.


10. Consolidated B-32 Dominator. Yes they actually had these planes in the inventory.





In terms of effectiveness:





1. B-29: the bomber that burned an empire down.


2. Ju-88 the bomber that remodeled London


3. B-24 The bomber that struck out Italy, Romania and a few other German satellite countries.


4. B-17 and the Lancaster (the bombers that help kill the french and German military industrial complex).


5. the German stuka: the bomber that helped seize most of western Europe.


6. B-25 Mitchell the bomber that helped re-take the south pacific.


7. The Japanese Betty.


8. The US Navy Dauntless Dive Bomber: the bomber that killed a navy.


9. The B-26 Marauder: a killer angel in both fronts.


10. The B-20 Havoc: a light bomber with a taste for tanks and ships. designated to an A-20 status later.
Reply:P-61Black Widow. My favorite.
Reply:B17......err, well that just about sums it up, doesn't it?
Reply:My goodness the B 29 was the best bomber in WW2 then


the B 17. the plane I liked the best was the p-38 not a


bomber but it was a fighter bomber B- 25,these are the


planes in world war 2 that won the war .. bomber wise..
Reply:I'm Italian and I want to list italian models because you may not know them(I ONLY ADD BECAUSE ITALIAN ARE NOT USUALLY KNOWN, I DON'T SAY THESE ARE BETTER THAN GERMAN OR AMERICAN...), It's quite hard to give the right valuation to these models because they are not usually directly comparable because italian bombers were of a class in the middle between medium and heavy bombers, for example between B-17 and B-25...and because some were producen in too little numbers (for example the CR-25 fast recon/light bomber/long-range fighter were really good, but only 10 were built, it could be successful like Mosquito if built in a larger number..)


-Cant 1007 "Alcione"





-Cant 506 "Airone"





-SIAI-Marchetti S.79 "Sparviero": this was a quite good medium bomber, but it did it best as a torpedo bomber....this plane was the terror of the british sailors in the mediterranean, they nicknamed it "the damned hunchback" because of the gunner windshield on the top of the fuselage.


On 12 August 1942 the first attempt of unmanned attack mission took place as "canary operation". A S.79 painted in yellow with 1000kg of explosive and modified to be radio-controlled by a pilot onboard another airplane but a failure of the R/C caused the failure of the mission.





-SIAI-Marchetti Sm.82 "Marsupiale" (only few people know that the largest range(more than B17s or B29s) bombing mission in the WW2 was performed by this kind of airplane, italian Sm82's bombed a british rafinery in bahrein starting from Rhodes(today in Greece) and landing in Ethiopia)





-Piaggio P.108 (this is closely comparable with B-17, and probably most modern, but being produced only in the number of 24 it could't never show its great values and charateristics)
Reply:The best bomber may be down to interpretation. but respectfully,


the British Avro Lancaster was supreme in that role. It


carried the heaviest bomb load and also the grand slam


earthquake bomb, designed by barnes wallace of the


"Dambusters fame" The long distance Liberator was also an


extremely useful aircraft in the maritime role. It would be very


difficult to evaluate up to ten. The Germans had excellent


aircraft too (as a child in London during WW2, i was on the


receiving end) but they only had smallish two engined bombers (Thankfully) Good day to all our American friends, from Devon!