Flying Guns

An aviation history website

Medium Bombers

A brief history of an often neglected category of aircraft: The medium bomber, a class of versatile and useful aircraft that has been overshadowed in popular history by the heavy strategic bomber.

A wartime formation of Vickers Wellington bombers. The robust, reliable Wellington was built in larger numbers than any other British bomber, but the aircraft that almost monopolises popular memory is the Lancaster. Only two Wellingtons survive to this day, as opposed to 17 Lancasters. (Imperial War Museum, via WikiMedia.)

Chapters

Chapter I: The First World War

Chapter II: The Uneasy Years

Chapter III: German Bombers at the start of WWII

Chapter IV: French and British Bombers at the start of WWII

Chapter V: Italian Trimotors

Chapter VI: Japanese Competitors

Chapter VII: A failed modernization

Chapter VIII: American Medium Bombers

Chapter IX: Soviet Hesitations

Chapter X: The Outlier

Chapter XI: The End

Appendix: Bibliography