Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

WalterM140 wrote:

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.


"The production in mid-1940 of 30 P-38's saw signifcant design changes
instituted to help mass production. For the first time, the fuselage was split
into left and right halves, and the nose section was built up independently.
The aft booms also were divided into two pieces with the skins adjusted to
accomodate this....The XP-38A was a converted P-38 with pressurization; next
production variant was the P38D of late summer 1940. The ever indeasing orders
for Lightnings prompted more design changes, both to improve performance and to
faciliate mass production."

--Warbird Tech Series vol 2, Lockheed P-38 Lightning pp. 22-26 by Frederick A
Johnsen

Sounds to me like the needed changes were in hand well before 1941, let alone
1942.

Sure they were in hand, but they also caused a lot of delay, which is why the a/c
was so slow in getting into mass production and why the numbers remained so low
relatively late. The P-38F, the first full-up combat-capable version was available
for combat in August 1942; the first flight was made in January 1939, so roughly
3.5 years elapsed. Even allowing for a fairly leisurely development prior to the
war, the P-38's development was unusually prolonged, especially when compared with
its single-engined stablemates. And then in 1943 the wing leading edges, turbos,
radiators etc. all had to undergo a major redesign to fit leading edge tanks in,
then they had to re-tool before they could produce them.

snip


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.

That might have been alleviated earlier the generals in England had pushed it.
But they did not.

Can't push what you don't know you need, and since they didn't have ANY P-38s in
the late fall of 1942, winter, spring or summer of 1943, there was no opportunity
for them to work out the bugs. The 1st, 14th and 82nd FGs had all been sent to the
MTO, while the 78th had been stripped of a/c to replace losses, and transitioned to
the P-47. Sending all the P-38s to the MTO was a decision made well above Eaker's
pay grade, and there wasnt anything he could do about it.

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.

They should have.

Why? The Luftwaffe was still working out tactics, had barely started to attack the
heavies, hadn't yet begun to augment their fighter defenses in the west, and were
inflicting only light to moderate casualties. We were still flying shallow
penetrations, and didnt even hit a coastal target in Germany (Wilhelmshaven) until
January 30th, 1943. We were flying few missions every month owing to the poor
weather, and we only had four heavy bomb groups available (none with Tokyo tanks
that allowed us to go really deep), so no conclusive test of doctrine was possible.

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.

Yes, production was what it was. I find it hard to believe it couldn't have
been increased.

And yet it wasn't, despite screams from the MTO and PTO asking for every single
P-38 they could get. The MTO was the highest priority theater in late 1942 and
most of 1943 (at least until after Salerno), so if any one was going to get them it
was the MTO. Guadalcanal got a single squadron (339th) in December 1942 while that
outcome was still in dispute, and the PTO wanted more. The ETO was well down the
list, because there was no ground combat underway, and the base was safe.

I very much doubt that more screaming would have increased the pace
any
more than it was.

I can't help what you doubt. The 8th AF was the premier USAAF organization in
the world. Arnorld was clearly ready to provide anything needed by his close
friend Eaker. But Eaker didn't ask for it.

Arnold was a member of the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff, who determined
allocations after their respective governments had decided which theaters had
priority. Throughout the period in question, the MTO had priority, and Arnold gave
them first choice, often re-directing units which had originally been planned to go
to the ETO. Eaker got what was left. Only after Salerno, when it became clear
that the necessary air superiority required for D-Day had not yet been established,
and the commanders started to relocate to the UK from the Med, did the ETO move to
first priority.



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.


The source I quote above says accidents for P-38's were less for the P-38 than
for the P39, P-40 and P47 in 1942.

And for units trained from the start for multi-engine, that may be correct. But
there's still the extra training time factor, and in 1943 you're talking about
transitioning single-engine pilots to twins, if you want to crew these P-38s that
are supposed to magically become available. The 55th's experience with hastly
transitioned pilots was apparently less than wonderful.



ibid p. 14

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.

Second Scheinfurt was late in the game.

Sure. OTOH, it was entirely possible to write off Regensburg/Schweinfurt as
everything going wrong that could go wrong (it did). It was hardly a typical
mission, so Eaker probably felt that a sustained effort was necessary, with the
large size force he believed was necessary to succeed. And of course, although he
knew that the German fighters were inflicting damage on the bombers, he still
believed that the bombers were badly attriting the fighters. Hence October
10th-14th.

After that, there could be absolutely no doubt. Eaker was wrong, but he wanted to
win just as much as anyone did. As one of the prime apostles of the very doctrine
he was employing (Hansell being another), no one was in a better position to give
it a full test.

Guy