"Brian Sharrock" wrote in
:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
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.

Most - (significantly) more than half

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.

So you extrapolated from one man's experience the assumption that
_most_ bombing of England(sic) was performed bt _Dive-bombers_?

When that and a few pictures/supporting text of the BoB found in US
history books are all you have to go on, its not that far of a reach.


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.

Now, take your engineering prowess and consider the geometry of level
versus high angle release of a bomb--by diving at the target (in the
simplest iteration) you reduce the aircraft's travel over the ground
and hence increase the accuracy.

If you wish to go to higher levels of math, you need to consider dive
angle, airspeed, bank, sight depression from flight path, wind drift
both before and after release (aircraft first then bomb),
accelerations (g-loads), aerodynamic drag of bomb and a few other
things to begin to get what dive bombing is about.

But, don't ask corporals--they may know something about their
particular field, but it may not be dive bombing.



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


I concur with Ed Rasimus's comments above...
It could be that the 'British Army Courier Corporal' - interesting
that no Regiment or Corps was cited - did actually experience
situations where _most_ of the _bombing_
was by dive-bombers. This was not the experience of the majority (=
significantly more than half) of the British population suffering from
the 'Blitz' on cities. {Isn't there a saying about one swallow not
making a summer? Perhaps one Corporal's anecdotes do not a form a
basis for a deduction}.

Apparently not.



The experiences endured by my mother and her neighbours {most of the
menfolk were on active service} is summarised on the Liverpool blitz
web-site http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/blitz/index.html

extract
The seven nights of the 1941 May Blitz (1st-7th May) were the heaviest
consecutive nights of bombing experienced by Liverpool during the
whole of the Second World War. In those few nights around 681 planes
dropped 870 tonnes of high explosives and over 112,000 incendiaries
(firebombs) on the area, killing over 1,700 people and making around
76,000 homeless.

/extract

Not much mention of Dive Bombers there! The Luftwaffe _did_ have
Dive-Bombers, these were aircraft specifically designed for
Close-Air-Support of advancing troops and AIUI such aircraft were
directed by their pilots along a line-of-sight towards their target;
the aircraft's systems automagically performed a J-curve manoeuvre
which had the effect of taking the aircraft away and above the target
while the ordnance continued along the line-of-sight to impact. Such
aircraft were tasked against known targets, predominantly the Chain
Home stations and airfields. AIUI, the aircraft-weapon systems was a
success but not many Teutonic aircrew made a second sortie.


That would explain the British complaint with the early P-51's lack of
high altitude performance. Based on the information I had, I (apparently
incorrectly) assumed that there was no need for a fighter with good high
altitude performance - I thought that most of the action during the BoB
was down low where the early P-51 was actually pretty capable.

Thanks for the education - and that weblink.

DS