Alternate Doolittle Raid... With Inflight Refueling!

I did some readings on World War 2 In Flight Refueling....

Particularly Doolittles raid... Could in flight refueling have saved countless lives if this little piece of technology studied by the British in 1939 and was experimented on in the 1930s. What if they speeded up development and took them six months to develop a system.

Could it have saved lives of airmen and civilians on the ground from the wrath of Japanese Soldiers?

They could have had refueling aircraft dispatched to airfields in china, and refueled over China and make it to Burma...

What do you guys think?
 
Why would they fly to Burma? The Doolittle raiders were supposed to deliver those aircraft to the Chinese Air Force after the operation. A tanker flying out of China would help some of those crashed B-25s land deeper in China. But that would entail a risky mid air rendezvous over Japanese controlled airspace. Strategically it would make no difference.

It would make a considerable difference in the island hopping Pacific Campaign for both sides. The Luftwaffe bombers over Britain could really benefit from fighter escort, so would the Allied bombers over Germany.
 

Hyperion

Banned
B-25s in some cases bairly made it to the Chinese coastline, let alone far enough inland that the refueling tankers would be safe from Japanese fighters and AA batteries.
 
What type of aircraft was suitable and available for the mission at the time?

What type of system would have been used to accomplish refuelling?

Where would the refuelling take place, and from what bases?
 
Raid plans

The plan called for them to lauch quite a bit closer to Japan, but the fleet was spotted, and the picket boat got off a warning. Had inflight refueling been planned, if anything (like the picket boat) had gone wrong, the arangements would have been thrown way off.
 
Where exactly are the tankers going to be flying from in order to refuel Doolittle's aircraft? They can't be taking off from the USS Hornet also.
 
Yeah, the same logistical problems that faced the bombers would face the tankers. Where are they going to take off from and land?

Seems to me there's a lot more to lose than gain by such a manuver.
 
The problem with inflight refueling in WWII is shear volume. Even if refueling could be done with the ease that it was done in the 60s or 70s the number of aircraft that were being used would create problems.. I believe it would be most useful in mundane tasks such as ASW in the North Atlantic Getting a couple B24s a couple hundred miles further into the MidAtlantic gap would yield huge benefits. These missions could be planned with much more ease than trying to top off dozens of thirsty fighters at the edge of an active air battle.

The Combat B-24 and the tanker could take off at the same time with the tanker carrying fuel as the payload instead of bombs. Then a few hours into the flight the tanker could transfer fuel to the bomber topping off its tanks and return to base allowing the bomber to continue as if it was just beginning it's mission to meet a convoy or patrol an area further out than it could have without the topping off.

Of course the reverse is also true. German Condors could patrol further out in the convoy lanes looking for targets
 
I was about to suggest the use of airships as IFR tankers, but the speed is just too low. USS Akron and her relatives could manage less than 90mph at best, a B-24's stalling speed is 95mph. But if there's some way around that issue, then they might make decent tankers - plenty of room and lift capacity for refueling equipment and fuel, and able to stay on-station for extended periods.
 
Now i'm beginning to wonder... Could a dedicated Fuel tanker bomber have escorted the Doolitle Raiders?

What if they had another two planes carrying nothing but fuel and tanker gear while the bombers attacked they would hide in a higher altitude away from the mess when they left, they'd go high and refuel...

Can anyone do the math and see how much a Mitchell converted to a flying gas station carry?

Heres an interesting question... How far would they have gone into china could they have made it to a friendly airbase?
 
Now i'm beginning to wonder... Could a dedicated Fuel tanker bomber have escorted the Doolitle Raiders?

What if they had another two planes carrying nothing but fuel and tanker gear while the bombers attacked they would hide in a higher altitude away from the mess when they left, they'd go high and refuel...

Can anyone do the math and see how much a Mitchell converted to a flying gas station carry?

Heres an interesting question... How far would they have gone into china could they have made it to a friendly airbase?

So what are you going to leave off the 'tanker' to allow it to carry fuel?
They only carried a bomb load of 2000 lb (3 500 and an incindiery cluster from memory) Unless you are going to take other equipment off (guns, crew, the upper turret? That is about all the extra you have) I think the refueling gear will take most of the 2000 lb bomb load so what have you gained.

maybe a couple tankers could take off, top off each plane as it departs (Takeoff uses a lot of fuel) then ditch next to the taskforce and recover the crew (hopefully) Or use Devestators from the Enterprise to top off each raider (That way they could recover them) the Devestator could carry a 2000 lb or so torpedo so with a small 'buddy pack' hose and drogue combined with a fuel tank you might get as much fuel from them as you would a B25 and not lose the tankers. and if just some TBDs were rigged for it you would have 6-8 on the Big E

After penning this I found the followingin Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruptured_Duck_(B-25) )

Installation of three additional fuel tanks and support mounts in the bomb bay, crawlway and lower turret area to increase fuel capacity from 646 to 1,141 U.S. gallons (2,445 to 4,319 litres)

Now some thoughts -
As I remember it they added some extra fuel in 5 gallon cans at the last minute (I can't remember how many)

Conservatively if you use 6.2 lb/gal for gas each 1000 lbs of payload would give you 161 gallons of gas.
A Devestator had a range of 435 miles with a torpedo so if the torpedo is replaced with 200 gal of gas in a buddy pack it could give 100 gallons to each raider at 100 miles form the carrier and return (maybe it could do better but lets be conservative) I'm assuming they would have burned 100 gallons by then. This 100 gallons would get them further since it is already at altitude.
 
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So what are you going to leave off the 'tanker' to allow it to carry fuel?
They only carried a bomb load of 2000 lb (3 500 and an incindiery cluster from memory) Unless you are going to take other equipment off (guns, crew, the upper turret? That is about all the extra you have) I think the refueling gear will take most of the 2000 lb bomb load so what have you gained.

maybe a couple tankers could take off, top off each plane as it departs (Takeoff uses a lot of fuel) then ditch next to the taskforce and recover the crew (hopefully) Or use Devestators from the Enterprise to top off each raider (That way they could recover them) the Devestator could carry a 2000 lb or so torpedo so with a small 'buddy pack' hose and drogue combined with a fuel tank you might get as much fuel from them as you would a B25 and not lose the tankers. and if just some TBDs were rigged for it you would have 6-8 on the Big E

After penning this I found the followingin Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruptured_Duck_(B-25) )

Installation of three additional fuel tanks and support mounts in the bomb bay, crawlway and lower turret area to increase fuel capacity from 646 to 1,141 U.S. gallons (2,445 to 4,319 litres)

Now some thoughts -
As I remember it they added some extra fuel in 5 gallon cans at the last minute (I can't remember how many)

Conservatively if you use 6.2 lb/gal for gas each 1000 lbs of payload would give you 161 gallons of gas.
A Devestator had a range of 435 miles with a torpedo so if the torpedo is replaced with 200 gal of gas in a buddy pack it could give 100 gallons to each raider at 100 miles form the carrier and return (maybe it could do better but lets be conservative) I'm assuming they would have burned 100 gallons by then. This 100 gallons would get them further since it is already at altitude.

The Devasatator tankers make an interesting idea... Get a fuel tank and a prop connected to a electric pump... Refuel in flight and get the devastators to land back on the carrier after refueling...

Just have to wonder how much fuel those bombers use to take off..
 
Assuming the B-25 tanker can even take off from a carrier, you'll need a second carrier for the tankers. Would the Navy be willing to risk two carriers on a symbolic strike?
 
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