Talk:B-26 Marauder

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can someone clarify if all of this stuff is fair use or not? Alkivar 06:24, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To me, I think the more important question is its value. Personally, I think the whole historical evolution of the plane gets the article much too bogged down in the minutiae. A schematic picture (or the skeleton one they also have) would be much better for the article, IMHO. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 23:53, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Reverts by Alkivar

This revert is unjustified. User:153.111.60.15 made a valid and useful addition to this page by mentioning nations which operated the B-26 (a sub-heading supported by WP:AIR). Please refrain from reverting edits without an explanation. Thanks! - Emt147 Burninate! 06:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was reverted as a duplication of content already on there. See the bottom for link to article List of units using the B-26 Marauder during World War II This content was already spun off from the article. And comparitively makes this contribution look worthless... not to mention its uncited, and not entirely correct.  ALKIVAR™ 07:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. Please be so kind as to explain such deletions in the future. All I saw was a reverted edit with no explanation. - Emt147 Burninate! 20:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
No problem, I thought it was obvious... I'll explain non vandalism reverts in the future.  ALKIVAR™ 18:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello, This is a first for me, so I'm apologising in advance. But I was disapointed with the lack of historicalbackground or explanation and facts behind the Air Force's continued smear of the Marauder. I don't intend to get too specific, but either you know this already and don't want to even try to clean it up, or are actually ignorant of this background.

The Marauder story should be put in context; the cabal within the USAAC which did anything to promote a seperate service, the arrogant stupidity that caused the trainning deathes were no fault of Martin or the B-26 itself, but the direct result of that hubris.

The first two bomber groups who converted to the B-26 did so without the lethal accidents that occurred after the USAAF most decidedly ruined things , it has since refused to admit it's responsibility, and has yet to do so more than 60 years after the fact.

The time is long past when it should be readily admitted there was a cabal or group within the USAAC, that envied the independent air forces of Europe (who were rather foolish and extravagant with their resources, if not down right inept) and did whatever it could to further anything that might push that egocentric presumption, to the exclusion of any other purpose or mission. The strategic bomber mision being the most autonomous, they proceeded to reduce and or eliminate funding and actual aircraft for all the other missions they were supposed to perform, to the detriment of the national defense, which even today is reverberating.

This deliberate myopia is why the USAAF did not field a single aircraft designed for reconnaissance, or close air support (including dive bombing); even obvious necessities like long range fighters became available in spite of the USAAF, not by intention, when the cabal did it's utmost to ban auxiliary fuel 'drop' tanks, because the 'cabal' saw them as a threat to their precious strategic bomber, rather than being it's salvation. The deliberate purging of any fighter advocates like Claire Chennault from the USAAC is just one indication of thecabal's intent. Rather than covering up such stupid arrogance, it should be taught to everyone, to avoid possible disastrous decisions in the future.

The story of the auxiliary fighter fuel tanks, and the curiously stupid role various then current and future leaders played in the process, is another subject, touched on here only in passing but must be covered in detail for the truth to be known. The P-51 Mustang epic is another example that needs similiar treatment.

Even light or medium bombers were not on the preferred track, and they suffered from the cabal's (I generally refer to them as the bomber mafia; it's very decriptive) hubris.

The day after Pearl Harbor, Hap Arnold (by his own admission, not the smartest man in the room by far) signed an order that all multi-engined trainers be reserved for the "strategic" (four engined bomber) program, despite the fact that an engine failure in a four engined aircraft is far left serious than two engined, then because the B-26 was ahead of it's delivery schedule in deliveries (Martin doing an excellent job), somebody ordered some sent some to the training fields of Florida and put into the hands of pilots who didn'thave a single hour of twin engine time and and then seemed surprised when pilots began crashing them (can you imagine putting pilots into the hottest twin-engined bomber of the day without any multi-engined time at all; if someone put a pilot with no jet experience into an F-14/15/16/18/22/35 etc, we'd call it murder, but no one has yet identified the idiot who came up with reserving the twin-engined trainers, just as no one has been able to find out who in the USAAF Europe ordered the bombline on D-day moved 10,000 yards inland, ruining the whole purpose of using the strategic bombers, and nearly ruining D-day).

"Hap" admitted he tried several times to get the B-26 canceled, and never seemed to understand his staff's explanations as to the real problem (which says a great deal about his relationship with his staff or their quality), for when the twin-engined training for 'medium' bombers was renewed, the accident rate dropped like a stone, as experience from proper training, and better maintenaince eliminated the problems the USAAF had created but has never apologised for.

The excuse of a high wing loading was pathetic; when the B-26B-10's etc had an even higher wing loading after the wing extension was added, besides all the other aircraft with high wing loading including the B-29 (Arnold apparently had a hard time understanding why high wing loadings were a good idea for bomber missions), that made all the arguments advanced by the USAAF pathetic, yes, the R-2800 was brand new; the B-26 was the first equipped with it to see service, and to blame it's teething problems on the Marauder itself is pitiful. The first bomber group in New Guinea managed to keep their even earlier engines running with the most primitive equipment (or the lack of it); flying in combat under appalling conditions; by the way, LBJ was awarded a silver star as an observer in one which had to return to base before reaching it's target Rabaul (none of the crew were awarded medals of course; MacArthur was just buying influence in DC, with a congressman). It's higher operational rate despite it's youth compared to the comparitively ancient B-17 (more than 4 times as old) should have shown all its superiority, but while the marauder's combat record kept it in production, it could not stop the semi official air force smear campaign.

Despite a distinguished history of supplying the USAAC with it's most modern bombers, Martin continued to be punished; the Air Force refusing to buy any future Martin combat aircraft, such as the XB-51 which was quite superior to the Canberra which it made Martin build and then miss used again, because the 'bomber mafia' inside the Air Force (especially AFGHQ) ignored or sabotaged medium bombers, fighters (like the P-39) or observation aircraft in pursuit of their goal of a seperate service.

The Marauders' combat record (loss rate, mission success etc) was far superior to that of the B-17 which was withdrawn from the Pacific forits poor performance, besides an obsolete design concept that cost far too many lives and was only saved from disaster by a chain of serendipitous events that had nothing to do with the bomber mafia's supposed superior experience or wisdom; potentially even the course of the war was in the balance as the bomber mafia threw tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars onto their altar of self-defending unescorted strategic bombers and an independent Air Force.

The lack of success that the allied strategic bombers were having through 1943 clearly indicate that without the advent of longer range fighters (drop tanks, mustangs etc) the bombing of Germany would have continued to fail in 1944; allowing the development and production of the 'wonder weapons' that might have changed the course of the war.

Conceptually, the Marauder compares to the Mosquito, being the fastest medium bomber in its weight class, carrying bombloads that compared with those carried by the "flying Fortress" albeit over shorter distances, but the the B-26 carried a larger percentage of it's intended bombload than the B-17 did operationally is just another little known fact about the B-26.

I truly would like an explanation why this background information isn't part of the article.

I'm sorry this is so long and wandering, but the subject rings my bell.

I'd appreciate help in saving this, and of course editing it,

Thank you

```Reinzi56````

[edit] Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

Resolved.

maru (talk) contribs 02:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use in DDAY

Anyone have info on it's use in D-DAY? Thanks. Because I heard it was used, but I dunno how many, or a lot of info, or if it was a fake rumor?

[edit] Dead references and external links

All references to www.wpafb.af.mil now fail and need to be redefined to www.nationalmuseum.org. Researching new links and reference updates is necessary to meet standards. LanceBarber 18:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any such links. Were they removed? --Colputt 22:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Australian Use?

Australia is listed as one of the countries using the B-26. As far as I know the only unit to operate the Marauder in Australia was the 22nd BG out of the Northern Territory. No RAAF units flew the aircraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_units_using_the_B-26_Marauder_during_World_War_II. The main Commonwealth country to use the Marauder operationally was South Africa.Minorhistorian (talk) 23:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Could be Expanded

I reviewed the B-26 Marauder page today, one which I have not seen in a long time and was disappointed to see that there has been little content added as far as pertinent information about the history and operations of the B-26 bomber, one which has made a name in history with the Allied Forces in World War II. Is there anyone who is willing to help beef up this article and do some serious leg work to help restructure and add content to this article? Comments or concerns are welcomed. -Signaleer (talk) 18:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)