Fly tight for tight bomb patterns on the ground.

Dave Eadsforth wrote:

In article , Guy Alcala
writes

snip

As to the technique of individual bombers aiming and bombing a target in a
stream,
AFAIK that was only practised by the RAF at night, from 1944 or so on (for
precision attacks, that is). This appears to have been adopted because
Churchill
was worried about French civilian casualties from collateral damage if the
transportation plan was adopted. However, it was found that Bomber Command
(well,
5 Group anyway, usually led by 617 as target markers), was able to bomb
marshalling
yards accurately and keep the collateral damage down, by bombing individually
instead of in formation. Using large formations would have caused too much
spillover damage -- even with a 100% accurate MPI, the bomb coverage area of a
big
formation was so large that numerous bombs were bound to hit outside the target
area. With individual bombers, even the occasional gross aiming error resulted
in
fewer bombs hitting civilian areas. Note that this technique was only considered
possible in areas where the defenses were rather light, i.e. over France at
night,
because the bombers lacked mutual support for defense. It's also true that such
a
risk was considered politically necessary to avoid allied civilian causualties,
whereas by 1944 (at least), none of the allied commanders cared all that much if
collateral damage from spillover due to bombing in formation killed large
numbers
of German civilians.

That's a huge thumbnail, Guy - thanks very much for devoting the time to
writing it. Archived and backed up already...

You're welcome. Oh, I forgot to mention the single most important factors that made
these Bomber Command missions possible - the targets had to be in Oboe range for
accurate marking, and the bombers had to be able to bomb visually on ground markers.
With an properly marked target and adequate visibility, accuracy could be quite
high. Of course, ocasionally the Luftwaffe would put up a decent defense in France
-- prior to the mission to Mailly-Le-Camp, tactical targets in France only counted
for partial mission credit (I think it was 1/3rd), like minelaying missions which
didn't go east of a certain longitude. The bombers suffered heavy casualties on that
raid owing to delayed marking,

http://www.raf.mod.uk/dday/timeline_may.html

See May 3-4, and that was the end of only part mission credit for French targets.
Oh, for an example of an RAF heavy bomber bombing "formation", see the first photo on
the same page. I'd like to know what the target was; with that kind of spread and
that amount of undercast it pretty much had to be a German city, with the drop made
by radar.

Guy