ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: Guy Alcala

hat's a lot more than "a few pounds" of bombs, and you've
made every a/c far more vulnerable to fighters and flak, because you're
slower

A B-17 would do about 140 IAS

Normal B-17 formation cruise was150-160 IAS.

and an ME 109 would do about 350 IAS. And you are
worried about slowing the B-17 down so it can't outrun an ME 109????

Nope, I'm worried about slowing down and decreasing the cruise ceiling of a B-17,
B-24, Lancaster or Halifax operating singly at night (we are talking about night
bombing, after all) so that it's easy meat for an Me-110G loaded with 3 crew,
multiple heavy cannon, black boxes for radar and very draggy external radar
antennas, and which has a much smaller performance advantage over a bomber than a
single-engined day fighter does.

BTW, no Me-109 in sustained level flight at heavy bomber operational altitudes is
doing 350IAS: @ 20,000 feet and ISA that's about 480mph.

I sat in
a B-26 doing 180 IAS and the FW-190's could pass us like we were sitting still.

Sure could, at 10-15,000 feet. .But since the thread's clearly about night rather
than day missions, it's irrelevant. However, bomber speed and altitude could also
be a factor by day. The FW-190A's best performance was at or below 21,000 feet,
with performance falling off considerably above there. One of the first attempted
interceptions by FW-190As of B-17s (E or F models), the FW-190 unit commander
described tail-chasing the B-17s outbound from the target for what seemed like
forever with his throttle to the wall, closing only very slowly. He got very
frustrated by this, and even more so when his engine blew up from the prolonged
running at max. power, and he had to bial out. He (and his unit) never did catch
them on that mission.

The less speed advantage the fighter has over the bomber, the more limited the
chance to achieve an intercept (you've got to have a better set-up), and the less
chance of making multiple passes on the same formation. By day against
single-engined fighters, I agree that the speed generally made little difference
for the heavies compared to heavier armament, at least as long as fighters were the
primary threat. However, higher bomber speed and altitude can give heavily armed
multi-engined fighters real problems.

OTOH, B-24 units, when flying separately from the B-17s instead of in the same
stream, often had total mission times 30 minutes or so shorter than the B-17s
because the B-24s were that much faster, and nobody wanted to spend any more time
over enemy territory than they had to. Since they also generally flew lower than
the B-17s and attracted most of the flak and fighters, the speed advantage in that
case was at best a wash.

You think if we were a bit slower it would cause a problem? Not as far as the
FW was concerned.

Again, we were talking about night ops, but would you have preferred to fly your
missions at 160 IAS, 180 IAS, or 200 IAS? Which is likely to make the fighter's
job hardest? Which will allow you to spend the least amount of time in flak
envelopes, and decrease the accuracy of same the most? Was the A-26's higher speed
an advantage compared to the B-26?

Guy