On Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:36:52 -0500, DeepSea
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote in
:

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:16:27 -0500, DeepSea
wrote:

Maybe not. I'm not a historian, I'm an engineer with an interest in
history. That being said, here's what I (think) I know.

Dive Bombing - technique that involves the release of bombs at high
speed/low altitude.

My comments are derived from a talk I attended last year while at the
US Army's General Staff College. The talk was given by a British Army
corporal who served as a courier in the early days of the Battle of
Britain. He was wounded (badly) in one of the attacks, and spent the
rest of the war recouperating and learning to walk again. He used the
terms "most" and "dive bombing" during his talk.

OK, if you are an engineer, then you should start by considering that
a "corporal" courier who was wounded by a dive bomber is probably not
authoritative on what dive bombing is all about.

The discussion was not about "what dive bombing is all about", the
technicalities or merits of dive bombing, nor was the talk. Simply that
in his experience, he mostly saw dive bombing. This was important to my
point of view because his talk was my only exposure to primary source
material on the subject (at least until Brian posted the weblink).

My point was the unusual nature of taking a general conclusion from a
very limited anecdotal sampling and one that was arguably not an
expert observer. It would be similar to taking testimony regarding an
individual who has been shot and extrapolating their experience to
some level of expertise in firearms.

If you were in attendance at "the US Army's General Staff College"
(can I assume you mean C&GSC?), then I would further assume a
professional military background and some exposure during your
educational background to some coverage of the Battle of Britain, the
blitz, and the bombing of London.

One could go a step further and, as Harry Andreas has pointed out,
"high speed/low altitude" is probably not the best characterization of
dive bombing either. Lay-down or skip-bombing display those attributes
more accurately.

Other than the oral history aspect of seeing a real live WW II British
Tommy, what was the point of his presentation at C&GSC? Was this part
of some larger program? Inquiring minds, etc. . . .

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com