Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: ojunk (Steve Mellenthin)
Date: 7/18/2004 2:19 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

erroneous, that the choice of the stream
stragegy
was not the best decision at times when a loose gaggle and varying run-in
headings and altitudes between the 2-4 airgraft groupings would have been
more effective.

The goal of the stream tactic was to overload the German
night defences. These were not very efficient, for initially
the German ground control needed two radars to bring about
an interception (one to track the fighter, one to track the bomber)
and by concentrating the bombers in a dense stream, the number
of bombers that could be intercepted by a system of limited
capacity fell. Later on, German tactics were much looser and
more effective, but the concentration of the stream probably
helped to concentrate the ECM efforts that had to be applied to
keep the German controllers in the desired state of confusion.

--
Emmanuel Gustin
Emmanuel dot Gustin @t skynet dot be
Flying Guns Books and Site: http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/



In my flying days the tactic was to vary the run-in headings for exactly the
same reason, to keep the gunners guessing in where to aim. Forces the
gunners


The best heaidng for a bombrun was a zero druft heaidng sinve the Norden had a
cumulative error (small) as the dirft angle increased. This was due to RCCTE
(Range Component of Cross Trail Error) because in a right triangle the
hypotenuse is always longer than either of the legs.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer