... and the B-17 had a paltry bomb load for a WW2 ‘heavy’ bomber. It wasn’t in the really same league with the B-24 or the Avro Lancaster. But it was sturdy and brought a lot of it’s crews back home.
Yes, based on the looks on the faces of the onlookers in a lot of the post-landing battle damage photos, the ruggedness of the B-17 amazed even the men who flew it.
Of course, when the incident below occurred many decades later, it helped the airplane had been designed and built by one of the world’s premier bomber manufacturers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=boeing+737+hawaii+loss+of+cabin+roof&t=iphone&iax=images&ia=images
The B-17s would only average 6-8 days between missions: The Memphis Belle was the first heavy bomber to survive just 25 missions. But it took over 6 months to do that.
Today’s A10 or A6 or F15EX can drop more bombs at longer ranges, flying 3 missions a day, and getting over 60% hits per bomb! The B17s were only getting 10% of their bombs within 1/2 mile of the target.