Boeing Niner Zero Niner AwwwYEAH!

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 13:13:26 -0700, "gatt"
wrote:

I have photographs of bf109s destroyed in the factories by allied bombing
raids. Those 109s never left the ground to shoot down folks like my
grandfather, so calling the air campaign a complete failure is a disservice
to not only the guys who endured the flak guns and FW-190s and Me262s in the
air war, but the guys on the ground who didn't have to face those Tigers,
artillery, etc.

Please, no one called the bombing a complete failure. What was a
failure was the concept of strategic bombing, as conceptualized by
people like Billy Mitchell and Giulio Douhet and fully believed by Hap
Arnold and Ira Eaker. They believed that strategic bombing would
cause such terror and destruction in the enemy camp, that they would
surrender. That bombing their vital war making industries would cause
the Wermacht to shrivel on the vine for lack of supplies. That idea
proved a failure in the crucible of war, except for the oil campaign
and the destruction of the transportation system (which was carried
out most effectively by marauding fighter bombers, not strategic
bombers), and the oil campaign wasn't actually part of the original
plan.

What also was a failure was the fanciful idea that bombers could
protect themselves against intercepters. In 1943, the AAF even
developed a purely defensive version of the B-17 called the YB-40. It
had an extra power turret where the radio operator normally stood, a
power chin turret and each waist position sported dual 50 caliber
machine guns rather than singles. That gave it 14 heavy machine guns.
Plus, it had added armor around the engines and to protect the gunners
and pilots, and a LOT more ammunition, but no bombs. The idea was for
this flying pillbox to accompany the squadrons and lend it's massive
firepower to their protection. Didn't work. The bomber was as heavy
as the normally loaded B-17F's with their bombloads. When the normal
bombers dropped their loads over the target, they suddenly became 4 to
5 thousand pounds lighter, but the YB-40's didn't. The normal bombers
turned off the target and opened up their throttles to get the hell
out of there, and the YB-40's couldn't keep up. They were quietly
retired after a few months of evaluation. The chin turret, however,
was deemed a success and was installed in the next model of B-17, the
G.

A little talked about problem with the massive formations of bombers
was the apparently frequent collateral damage from friendly fire as
the gunners hosed bullets all over the sky in a desperate effort to
protect themselves from the German fighters which often passed by
missing by mere feet occasionally. With so many airplanes occupying
airspace in so narrow an area and the speed with which the fighters
approached and flashed by, it's not surprising that the counter fire
would hit neighboring bombers accidentally. I know of no statistics
covering this situation, but it was apparently so serious a problem
that by the middle of 1944, the waist gunners were reduced from two to
one, and eventually to none. The bombardier, unless he was the lead
or deputy bombardier, really did not need to be trained to aim bombs
because only the lead bomber in each group actually did the aiming,
all the rest of the bombers dropped on his signal, or when they
sighted the bombs dropping from the lead bomber. So he became a
gunner/toggler. By that time as we all know, the bombers were being
protected all the way to the target by P-51's so high command may have
decided to kill two birds with one stone: eliminate the now
unnecessary gunners/ammo and save weight while adding to the bomb
load.

In the end, it was Allied soldiers capturing German territory that
forced the German surrender. Bombing them from afar was literally all
the Allies could do to claim they were taking the war to the Germans
during the first part of the war because they did not have the
infantry assets to confront them after their initial defeats.

Corky Scott