Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

WalterM140 wrote:

Also P-38 numbers grew from 302 in December 1942 to 567 in
May 1943 then declined to 372 in October 1943 before rapidly
expanding to 1,063 in April 1944. The numbers are for the USAAF
deployed against Germany and include reserves etc.

Thanks for the minutia.

Not minutia in this case, but very germane, as the lack of P-38 numbers was a
factor.

Gee, that is -my- point.

And the reason they were not there is because Eaker and Hunter didn't stress
it.

No, the reason they weren't there is because there weren't enough to go around,
owing to the need to redesign the a/c for mass production, and a delayed
development due to the crash of the prototype.

Was it beyond normal human kin in 1942 to devine the fact that the self
defending bomber was not going to work, even with the heavy armament, high
altitudes, tight formations and toughness of the B-17's and their crews?

We're not interested in 'divining' anything, what was needed was empirical
evidence, and early British unescorted raids by far more lightly armed, slower
twin-engined Wellingtons flying in looser formations at much lower altitudes
weren't necessarily indicative of US efforts. As it turns out, they _were_
indicative, but we didn't know that at the time.

Maybe so. I am not necessarily blaming Eaker and Hunter, just pointing out the
fact that a strong force of P-38's (provided that the technical problems were
addressed aggressively) could have been available a year before the pioneer
Mustang group arrived.

3 months maybe six months possibly, but a year? I think not. Production was still
ramping up, and the P-38 was still suffering from many of the same problems in
August 1944 as it had in October '43, 10 months after the 55th achieved IOC in the
ETO.

It's also true that some of the B-17 group commanders didn't care much about
escorts in the early part of the campaign. All that rendesvouzing made things
more complicated, don't you know.

But as the Germans realized the threat and acted to meet that threat, the B-17
bomber boxes met their match and were overborne.

Certainly, and after Aug. 17th 1943 you can make a good case for accusing Eaker of
remaining wedded to doctrine over experience. You might even make that case by
June 1943 - Arnold had already reached that conclusion. But not in the Fall/Winter
of 1942/43.

Production was very limited at the time.

Yes, I am providing a what-if. If the guys in England had been screaming for
P-38's the production could have been ramped up.

Everyone in every theater other than the ETO (where there were no P-38s because
they were all sent to the MTO) was screaming for more, and yet production was what
it was. I very much doubt that more screaming would have increased the pace any
more than it was.

Then there's the extra training
time for multi-engine, which would add some additional delay to getting units
operational/providing replacement pilots.

That doesn't seem that big an issue to me.

It was for P-38 units and replacements, especially those that were originally
supposed to get single-engined a/c. Lots of accidents when losing an engine on
t/o.

snip

The point is that Eaker and Hunter, 8th BC and 8th FC CGs respectively
could
have stressed long range escorts and pushed P-38 enhancements, stressed
solving the technical problems, and so forth in 1942. P-38's were available
in
England in 1942.

Eaker and Hunter didn't do that.

While Eaker and Hunter were doctrinally blind to the need for far too long,

Thats all I am saying, my friend.

So far we agree.

the
need for a long-range fighter in the ETO in 1942 was hardly obvious given the
shallow penetrations we were making at the time.

It wasn't obvious perhaps. That's why kudos go to those who see beyond the
obvious.

Arnold ordered Giles to
increase
the internal fuel of the fighters around June '43 IIRR (don't have the
reference,
"To Command The Sky" by McFarland and Newton, handy), giving him six months
to
achieve it. Besides the P-38 was only in the ETO for a couple of months
before
they were all sent to the Med.

Yes, Eaker could have been screaming bloody murder -- "hey, don't take my long
range escorts!" But he didn't, for whatever reason.

It wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference if he had. With our focus on
the ETO air war and D-Day et. seq., we forget that in 1942 and 1943, the ETO wasn't
the highest priority theater - the Med was. the P-38 was consuidered absolutely
vital there, so that's where they went. Eaker screamed repeatedly to Arnold about
diversions to the MTO reducing the rate of the 8th's buildup throughout 1943; a fat
lot of good it did him prior to October or so.

And as others have mentioned, the P-38 wasn't all that much more long-ranged than
the P-47 at the time. P-38 internal fuel prior to the J with leading edge tanks,
was 300 gallons. A P-47D-23 or earlier with somewhat less total power had 305
gallons internal (the D-25 through M had 370 gal.). The P-38 would outclimb it,
but the P-47 was faster, so range was fairly close. The P-38's big advantage was
that it had large external tanks early, but the 165 gallon tanks weren't
pressurized (and never were), so couldn't have been used above 20,000 feet or so in
any case, which is where the escorts needed to be.

Let's instead postulate that the P-47 got big pressurized external tanks, either a
150 (actual cap. 165 gal.) or 200 gallon for the C/L, or a pair of 108 gallons
underwing, in August or September 1943 rather than February/April 1944.
Historically, note that despite high priority and the best efforts of Cass Hough
and Co. at Bovingdon, the first P-47 mission using drop tanks, the 200 gallon,
unpressurized and very draggy ferry tank only half loaded, was only in July 1943,
with the 75 gallon (actual cap. 84 gal.) metal pressurized tank becoming available
in August 1943, and the 108 gallon paper tank in October IIRR.

According to Zemke the 150 gal.C/L tank allowed the 56th to get to the Hanover
region, while the twin 108 gallon tanks only increased the radius a bit further
(limited by internal fuel for combat and return), but did increase the endurance.
Sure, they still can't go all the way to Berlin, but they can sure as hell take the
heavies a lot further in and meet them further in as well, decreasing the time the
Luftwaffe has to attack them. And the P-47 is a better high altitude escort
fighter than the P-38 anddoesnt suffer from all its problems, it just needs bigger
fuel tanks (external and then internal, in that order).

Yes, it might to pure
hindsight to blame him for this in 1942. Definitely. But Eaker persisted in
supporting the self-defending bomber after 17 August, '43 and even after 14
Oct. '43.

Not after Second Schweinfurt. That made him a convert. Even so, he still made the
(apparently) cognitively dissonant decision to give the P-51s to the 9th, but
Kepner fixed that, before Doolittle replaced Eaker. It made undoubted sense from a
logistic perspective, but none from a tactical perspective.

Guy