Why was the Fokker D VII A Good Plane?

And over 1/3 of those bombs landed within 1,000 feet of the aiming point during
1944.

Gosh, Walt, that's *terrible* accuracy! So two-thirds landed a mile or
fifty miles away

Geez, back in the days when I went deer hunting, I could put ALMOST
ALL my shots within only ten FEET of the deer!

vince norris

Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: (WalterM140)
Date: 4/17/04 3:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

When noting that at one point 63% of bomber crews failed to complete their
tours, you could have added that towards the end of the campaign -many-
completed their tours and never even saw a German fighter.


But what did this have to do with the Fortress's ability to protect
itself?

Wow.

I thought you were a lot more knowledgeable than that.

After a period in which the B-17 formations stumped the Germans to a degree,
the Germans adapted and were pretty much able to pierce, break up and destroy
the bomber boxes at will. The self defending bomber idea was broken.

To do this, the Germans heavily modified their single engine fighters to have
more punch and more protection. They added the twin engine ME-110's into the
mix. They adopted new tactics; especially the head on attack was adopted and
the attacks from the tail was discouraged. The ME-110's used heavy cannon and
rockets and stayed beyond the range of the .50 cal MG's of the bombers.

Perhaps providentially, just as the Germans perfected these additions to the
equation, the P-51B's began to arrive in numbers. The equation changed again.


Starting in about January, 1944, the heavily armed German single and twin
engine fighters were more and more overmatched by Mustangs (and also the
Thunderbolt).

Here's the thing: If the Germans up-armed and up-armored to kill B-17's,
they
were dead meat for the escorts. if they slimmed down to deal with the
escorts
they were basically back where they started -- too lightly armed to kill
B-17's
at a favorable ratio. A B-17 bomber box was a pretty damned tough and
dangerous opponent.

The Germans never solved that conundrum -- it was built on two pillars --
1)
the very tough structure of the B-17 and its heavy, punshing armament and 2)
the high technical achievements of the US fighters.

That, and a lot of guts by both bomber and fighter crewmen.

I'm very surprised that you seem unfamiliar with this pretty much common and
undisputable interpretation.

Walt

Those who talk of the innacuracy of our bombing have never seen Germany in
1945. We left damn little standing.




Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Those who talk of the innacuracy of our bombing have never seen Germany in
1945. We left damn little standing.


Not according to Dan Ford.

Walt

Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: (WalterM140)
Date: 4/17/04 7:09 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Those who talk of the innacuracy of our bombing have never seen Germany in
1945. We left damn little standing.


Not according to Dan Ford.

Walt


I don't think he was there.
Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: (WalterM140)
Date: 4/17/04 7:09 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Those who talk of the innacuracy of our bombing have never seen Germany in
1945. We left damn little standing.


Not according to Dan Ford.

Walt


Visit my website and download the bomb strike photos for an example of
accuracy.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

This will probably appear in the wrong spot thanks to a buggy news server.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
Night fighters need fuel. Night fighter pilots need training. It was the
USAAF that largely deprived the GAF of fuel.

I suggest people actually look up the Speer oil reports, they
show the credit for the reduction in avgas production was
much more evenly shared between RAF and USAAF raids
than Walter prefers.

I suggest that the people check what the leader of the RAF said:

Before going on to note the holes in one of Walter's pet quotes, you
can see his preferences. Speers day by day reports of the effects
on avgas production of the allied raids are to be ignored, they are
facts, they show the combined offensive working, and giving credit
to the RAF for some effective raids from June 1944 on. Instead we
switch to the RAF's chief of air staff, during wartime stating an
opinion, a possibility.

Walter prefers the opinions and possibilities, if they fit his fiction,

"But for the favorable air situation created by the Americans, said
Portal, "it
is possible that the night blitzing of cities, would have by now have
been too
costly to sustain upon a heavy scale.'

This quote is run through the Walter translator, so "it is possible"
becomes "it is certain", and "heavy scale" becomes "any scale"

Here was a remarkable admission from
the British Air Chief of Staff--that it was only the success of
American air
policy which had spared Britain from visible and humiliating defeat.
Not
surprisingly, Harris totally rejected Portal's criticism of the area
campaign.
He now asserted flatly that he had no faith in selective bombing, 'and
none
whatever in the this present oil policy'.

--"Bomber Command" P. 380-384 by Max Hastings

Hastings, like Walter, simply over states what Portal was saying and
ignores the multiple factors tat drove down the loss rates from July
1944 onwards.

Bomber Command was defeated over Germany in the spring of 1944. It was the
Oil Campaign, largely pursued by the Americans that deprived the GAF of fuel
and that allowed the RAF back over Germay with any chance of not being shot to
pieces.

When flying to Germany the percentage of effort devoted to oil
strikes looks like this,

Table is date, 8th Air Force bombs on Germany, tons / % of those bombs
on oil targets // Bomber Command bombs on Germany, tons / % of those
bombs on oil targets.

May-44 19880 / 12.89 // 9479.8 / none
Jun-44 13120.5 / 34.01 // 5443.5 / 83.82
Jul-44 29838.3 / 22.33 // 14670.1 / 26.14
Aug-44 23597.4 / 26.07 // 16119.3 / 11.49
Sep-44 34818.4 / 21.12 // 22955.3 / 19.56
Oct-44 43552.2 / 11.74 // 57679.1 / 7.09
Nov-44 37798.8 / 42.39 // 58870.2 / 24.20
Dec-44 41092.1 / 7.23 // 51132.1 / 14.54
Jan-45 38551.3 / 7.40 // 33218.9 / 27.55
Feb-45 51187.2 / 11.93 // 50891.2 / 28.69
Mar-45 72951.1 / 13.06 // 74969.8 / 28.28
Apr-45 35646.1 / 4.61 // 38103.1 / 14.80

Bomber Command matched the 8th Air Forces percentage of efforts
in three of the first 4 months of the offensive when flying to Germany,
despite having to reserve a greater amount of the better weather for
strikes to support the invasion. The difference in August 1944 appears
to be from outside requests, a series of raids against German ports
including Konigsberg by Bomber Command, and SHAEF requests
to the 8th and Bomber Command for strikes on German vehicle
production.

Remember Spaatz declared oil the number one priority. If you add
up the tonnages from June 1944 to September 1944 then the result
is the percentage of effort on oil targets when flying to Germany, 8th
Air Force 24.3%, Bomber Command 24.9%. Note these figures are
for Germany only. In effect the air forces matched each other's
percentage efforts, which means any claims Harris diverted effort
need to be made about Spaatz as well. In terms of absolute effort
the 8th dropped 24,629.2 tons, Bomber Command 14,740.9 tons
on oil targets in Germany in this period.

You see folks, Walter does not actually look at the German reports
about what raids did what damage. This would mean having to
understand how wrong he is about how the Germans were deprived
of avgas.

Arthur Harris' despatch on war operations has a graph for heavy
bomber losses over Germany, the missing rate. Walter needs to
explain the dramatic drops in the missing rate in July 1944, after
the capture of a Luftwaffe night fighter with all the latest radar and
radar homing devices, and in September 1944, when the allied
armies in the west over ran much of the coastal radar network and
the night fighter airfields outside Germany.

Bomber Command's Harris had to be ordered to bomb oil targets and
sloughed that off whenever he could.

Walter simply ignores the reality of the amount of effort involved,
and the fact Harris' personal preferences were an effect at the
margins. Harris was not so stupid as to not put in the effort and
then be set up to take the blame when the plan failed as he
expected it to. See Harris and bombing Atlantic ports earlier
in the war and the help to the invasion forces, lots of protest,
orders were followed. See above for the effort against German
targets.

Walter likes to think the oil campaign was an end in itself, ignoring
the war would go on until Germany was occupied. Strikes to help
the invasion and oil were a means to that end, it was not a
competition.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
I wrote:

I read your review on the WSJ of "A Long Way to Bombs Away".

It's true as far as it goes to say that, for a time, 63% of B-17 crew failed
to
complete their tours. It's true that the USAAF largely joined the RAF in
terror
bombing in 1945.

Incorrect, once the USAAF adopted radar as a method for dropping
bombs their accuracy became comparable with the night bombers
on those raids.

I didn't say anything about that (at least in my post that you quote). What are
you talking about?

Walter, one of the preconditions for a definition of terror bombing is
bombing population centres, not targets within the population centre.
Once the USAAF decided to bomb through cloud its accuracy was
dropped to the point where it was bombing cities, not specific targets.

This review in the WSJ was a serious over-simplification of what really
happened.

I am severely tempted to repeat the "i didn't say anything" line here.


As you show below, you have little of substance to add.

Translation Walter cannot answer the facts.

The USAAF started using radar in late 1943, initially
with less accuracy than the Butt reports figures for night bombers in
1941, the sort of expected result as the new idea was tried.

As for terror raids the answer is up to the individual, the bombers
hit things and people.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

This is the usual fun stuff, Walter likes to pretend the USAAF did not
effectively do area bombing until 1945, I pointed out it was 1943,
Walter then claims I agree with him.

It is also true:

That the Germans are clearly on record that the USAAF hurt them far
worse than the RAF did.

Walter has a careful selection of quotes from a few Germans to "prove"
this.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

No Walter, note the quotes around prove and the way you are
noted as having a careful selection of quotes show I disagree.

That during 1944 over 1/3 of 8th AF bombs hit within 1,000 feet of the
aiming
point using visual means.

Walter likes to highlight what he perceives as the best USAAF results,
if this means ignoring the problems or using non typical raids so be it.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Translation, Walter will simply keep presenting the best of the USAAF
against the worst of the RAF and wonder why the people who like
the USAAF complain about the way it makes the USAAF look bad,
if only the best raids can be counted.


Percentage of bombs dropped by the 8th Air force using visual sighting,

1943 56.5
1944 41.2
1945 41.5
overall 42.1

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Translation, Walter will ignore visual bombing was a minority of the
8ths efforts.

By the way the RAF visual bombing figures were quite good as well,
and we can always use 617 squadron as the night standard, if we
want to be as silly as Walter.

100% of the bombs dropped by visual means were dropped by visual means.

And over 1/3 of those bombs landed within 1,000 feet of the aiming point during
1944. The USAAF was capable of some pretty fair accuracy for the time. Again,
this review in the WSJ gave a poor and false impression of what happened.

In other words folks, the article has the temerity to point out the USAAF
was not as good as Walter dreams.

Walter will now provide a source of his figures and how many of
the targets attacked were bigger than a circle of 1,000 feet radius.

In good visibility according to the USSBS, 8.5% of bombs dropped over
3 miles from the target in the period September to December 1944.

And for the year 1944, over 1/3 did land within 1,000 feet of the aiming point.

Walter simply ignores the reality of the fact the majority of USAAF
bombs missed the target, apparently the 1,000 feet marker is some
sort of great point when the bombs had a blast radius in the order of
tens of feet.

By the way Walter can now give his proof of this, as opposed to his
last attempt, where he took the monthly percentages, added them up
and divided by 12, assuming the 8th dropped exactly the same amount
of bombs in each month in 1944.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

What I am pointing out is that using the best results on a minority of
the raids done is not the way to record the campaign.

That B-17's made made up a very important part of a "strike package" to
which
the Germans could find no answer.

In 1943 the Germans found the answer, the USAAF response in 1944
inflicted a defeat on the Luftwaffe day fighters, in 1945 the Luftwaffe
response was really beginning to worry the USAAF, the Me262.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Note by the way folks, I point out the Me262 was considered a
threat, the answer, in 1945, but Walter will ignore that. All USAAF
victories are absolute in his eyes.

That the Germans denuded other fronts of day fighters to combat the
unescorted
B-17's, when the 8th AF was only sending a few dozen on any given raid.

Walter likes to run this line, last time he tried to do this he simply
counted the Luftwaffe training units in Germany as proof of the
concentration of fighters.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Translation Walter is going to continually delude himself, counting
the training units should show quite well how his figures are wrong.

The first 8th Air force raid on Germany sent 72 bombers, apparently
6 is "few", the next was 91 bombers sent, both in January 1943, so
the claim is the Luftwaffe "denuded" the "other fronts" around January
1943.

Ninety-one bombers are a few dozen, last I checked.

Yes folks, few is now being defined as 8, why not 15?

The March 18, 1943 raid to Vegesack included IIRC, 73 B-17's and 24 B-24s.

Walter will now show the German fighter units pulled back in
March 1943. You see on 14 May 1943 the 8th despatched
over 200 bombers for the first time, the USAAF was growing
steadily throughout 1943, at a faster rate than Bomber Command.

I'd say that's a few dozen. The fact is that the Germans began returning their
day fighters to Germany when USAAF raids consisted of just a few dozen heavy
bombers.


Walter will now show the German fighter units pulled back in
March 1943.

"In the course of the year 1943 the accent of the Reich defense shifted more
and more toward action against daylight raiders. Even though numerically the
British were still stronger than the Americans and were undoubtedly a great
trial for for the civilian population, the American precision raids were of
greater consequence to the war industry. They received priority attention
over the British raids on our towns."

"The First and the Last" p. 178, Adolf Galland

Note folks, Galland talks about in the course of the year 1943, Walter
defines this as March 1943 or earlier. The Galland quote is one of
his favourites, the fact the chief of the day fighters decided the day
campaign was more important, with Walter ignoring the fact the
number of day and night fighters deployed in the west went up more
or less together. After all look at JG300, 301 and 302, day fighters
used at night starting in the second half of 1943.

So you don't disagree with what I said.


Translation Walter is not going to deal with all the problems he has
with his claims.

That on three days during May 1944, the USAAF reduced German synthetic oil
production by 50%.

Walter does not like to actually look at the Speer reports that
shows the first group of USAAF synthetic oil raids cut avgas
production from around 5,850 tons/day to around 4,850 tons/day.

I don't see a source for that.

Walter the source is the Speer reports to Hitler, as quoted many
times and ignored many times.

My source says the -Americans- knocked out 90% of German aviation fuel
production, and produced a 50% reduction in --three days--.

Note below Walter's quote says the 50% reduction was including
Ploesti strikes, and the 90% was after the raids in June.

"But now in May 1944 all that changed. Eighth Air Force's attacks against the
synthetic oil industry in the Reich complemented raids by the Fifteenth Air
Force out of Foggia in Italy against Romanian refineries and production
facilities. The first strike from Britain came on 12 May; 935 bombers sortied
against the synthetic oil plants at Zwickau, Merseburg-Leuna, Brux,
Lutzkendorg, Bohlen, Zeitz, and Chemnitz.
Allied bombers and escorting
fighters encountered severe resistance. The results, while encouraging, were
not decisive. The great Leuna plant, though damaged, lost only 18 percent of
its capacity. Speer was, nevertheless enormously worried.

...After feverish
efforts, production had come close to regaining preattack levels by the end of
May. On the 28th, Eighth returned to attack oil targets throughout Germany.
Over a two day period, it lost 84 bombers, but this time it badly damaged the
petroleum industry. Combined with fifteenth Air Force's raids on Ploesti,
American attacks cut petroleum production in half.

[exactly as I said]

Walter says the cut oil production was done in three days, in other
words the attacks on Ploesti apparently only occurred on the same
days as the 8th attacked German oil targets. Not a series of raids
starting in April, plus the effects of mining the Danube. The crude
oil could still be shipped from Romania if the refineries there were
damaged, Germany had spare refining capacity. The Romanians
normally exported only a minority of their oil to Germany.

Walter has a basic definition of exact, fiction.

The impact of the raids was apparent almost immediately...May's attacks were a
prelude to punishing raids over the succeeding months. After a two-week pause,
during which Allied bombers supported the invasion, the Americans staged a
series of new attacks that knocked out 90 percent of aviation fuel production,
so that by the end of the month total production had sunk to a miniscule 632
tons."

-"A War to be Won" p. 328-29 by Murray and Millett

Note above the claim is this reduction to 90% of avgas production
occurred in 3 days of raiding, some of which was in late June. So
what happened on at least one of the May strike days to knock it
out of the wonder 3 days. Also note the quote says a series of
raids, presumably over less that 3 days, to allow the May results
to be included.

Walter will also ignore the RAF raids in June 1944, say for example
the 12 June raid on the hydrogenation plant at Gelsenkirchen, which
cost the Germans 1,000 tons of avgas per day for "several weeks".

In other words folks, Walter is going to ignore the fact he claims
the results of the combined USAAF and RAF raids over 2 to 3
months are the result of USAAF raids in 3 days, it would be
good for him to nominate the wonder 3 days.

Standard Walter really, turn months into days, turn combined raids
into USAAF raids.

Even if what you said were true (instead of being a lot of blue smoke and
mirrors) it shows that the USAAF was capable of very great accuracy. I mean
--three days-- of raids for the reduction you suggest? That would be fabulous.

Next basic step apparently now I am claiming the USAAF did it
all in 3 days, and on the fourth day they presumably rested. People
can note why I use the "err staff" point, the way Walter simply
assigns words to other people.

Especially when you consider what the various bombing surveys found after the
war for the effects of five and half years British bombing -- that the
British bombing of Germany was useless.

Translation Walter takes the results of the area bombing campaign,
ignores the methodology problems with the analysis and then
ignores the way the Germans were saying the RAF raids on oil
installations were the more damaging, that key campaign according
to Walter.

In any case, this review in the WSJ gave a very skewed view of what was
actually accomplished.

Translation Walter does not like the results.

The second group of strikes cut production from around 5,550
tons/day to around 2,800 tons/day.

This is avgas, all not synthetic oil. Walter likes to simply ignore the
difference.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Note folks apparently pointing out there is a big difference between
avgas production and total oil production is agreeing with Walter.
His claim is wrong.

Keep this in mind when he makes his standard "they agree with
me" claims.

By September, largely due to raids by USAAF heavy bombers,
the Luftwaffe was receiving 1/15th of its required fuel allocation.

The Speer reports reproduced in the RAF history give the daily
avgas output for May, June, July and September 1944. They
show production drops after RAF and USAAF raids, for example
after the RAF attack of 12 June avgas production drops from
around 2,100 tons/day to 1,100 tons/day, the RAF raids of 22 June
dropped production from around 1,250 tons.day to 600 tons/day.

And so on for the various raids, the drop in production to 120 tons/day
in late July 1944 was after a group of USAAF and RAF raids.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Walter likes to simply ignore problems with his data, he will now
define largely and how he has calculated the USAAF's contribution
to avgas production. His list of what German plants were putting
out avgas, when they were hit, by whom and to what effect.

That without this havoc wreaked largely by the USAAF, RAF Bomber
Command could not have operated over Germany at all.

Walter ignores the reality RAF Bomber Command was operating
over Germany long before the USAAF appeared.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Translation, Walter simply ignores the fact he is writing fiction.

He has a careful
selection of quotes that tries to "prove" his claim.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Translation Walter is simply going to ignore facts.

Arthur Harris' despatch on operations has a graph of missing rate
for heavy bombers sorties against targets in Germany. The war peak
is in June 1944, there is a dramatic drop in mid July, after the capture
of a night fighter showing the latest Luftwaffe radar and radar homing
devices, and another dramatic drop as the coastal radar network
and associated western airfields were lost in September 1944.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Translation Walter is simply going to hope no one is actually
following the thread, and noted his claim that the oil campaign
was the reason for the decline in night losses.

Not the army advances, not the better radar counter measures.

That B-17's are offically credited with shooting down more German aircraft
than
all other USAAF aircraft types COMBINED (including fighter types). Though
B-17
gunner claims were wildly inflated, they were still very deadly and
dangerous.

When I ran a basic back of the envelope calculation it looked
like in 1943 the Luftwaffe lost 2 fighters shot down by the bombers
per 3 B-17/24 it shot down. In early 1944 the ratio was 1 to 2.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

All bombers were deadly and dangerous if the carried defensive
armament, they all also on average lost air to air fights with fighters.
Drop the B-17 to 8 machine guns, leave two gunners behind, and
you can increase the bomb load, more chance of destroying the
target, fewer sorties to do the same damage.

At least two high scoring German aces were killed in combat with B-17's. A
high scoring night fighter ace, whose aircraft had not been touch in months
in
combat with the RAF, was killed in his first combat with B-24's.

Apparently this is all the justification to claim the USAAF bombers
were really heavy fighters in disguise.

So you don't disagree with what I said.

Walter likes to find his pet examples and pretend they are
general. Rather like someone noting say an RAF kill of a
successful German day fighter pilot in 1944 to say the
B-17/24s were not dangerous. Silly isn't it?

It will be interesting to see how he knows the relevant
Luftwaffe fighter pilot had suffered no damage at all to
his aircraft.

Without a fleet of B-17's in place in England at the start of 1944, no
invasion
of Europe would have been possible. This because the Germans showed
they would only fight for the type of targets that could only be struck by
B-17's,
and her stablemate, the B-24.

Walter likes to have the B-17 in the spotlight alone if he can. He simply
ignores the reality that either the Luftwaffe fought for control of French
airspace in early 1944 or it would not be able to intervene effectively
against the invasion.

The Germans did not generally fight over France in early 1944. They fought
with, were engaged by, and were defeated over German targets by "strike
packages" that included B-17's and B-24's.


Note folks Walter changes the subject, from what the allies
could have done to what they did. His claim the Luftwaffe
would ignore the allied attacks on France if Germany was
safe is quietly jettisoned.

By the way Walter the German bomber force in the west was
engaged and defeated over Britain and France at night in
the first half of 1944. The Heer fought hard in France.

Unless it could keep the allied air forces away
from its airbases it could not conduct effective operations. So either
the Luftwaffe does not fight, and the result is basically as per history,
or it does fight, and therefore loses more quickly because more allied
fighters could make it to France than Germany.

In the event British fighters played a limited role in this because they simply
didn't have the range to get to areas the Germans were determined to defend.

Translation Walter will ignore the problems with his what if, and
just go on to note the shorter range of the Spitfire.

The Luftwaffe was determined to defend France, the 8th and 15th
made them defend Germany first.

As Dr. Russell Weigley notes in "Eisenhower's Lieutenants", during the
spring
and summer of 1944 the Allies held victory through air power in their grasp,
but did not persevere for the kill.

This gives an idea of Walter's search for quote, Weigley wrote a history
about the land campaign, but it is such a nice quote Walter will keep
repeating it.

See, Sinclair, this is when your bias and lies are most easily exposed. Dr.
Weigley (who recented passed away) didn't write an account of the "land
campaign", he wote an account about Eisenhower's --lieuttenants--. This
included Spaatz and Doolittle, and also Montgomery, Tedder, Leigh Mallory, and
for a time Harris also.

I have no problem with the reality Weigley included the air commanders,
I have a real problem with his quote as misused by Walter and the reality
is Weigley was concentrating on the land campaign.

Dr. Weigley may have meant to evoke with that title the mamouth work of Douglas
Southall Freeman, "Lee's Lieutenants".

I like the way Walter decides what Weigley thought.

But you are trying to denigrate Dr. Weigley's work as a history of the land
campaign. Too bad that any fair minded person can see that the Allies -did-
hold the key to victory to airpower in their hands. And a big part of that key
squatted on hardstands in East Anglia while the crews slept in underheated
Quonset huts in East Anglia. That was the B-17/B-24 force.

Translation Walter will not put the quote up, he will put the editorial
of the quote up. He will ignore the reality the Germans had oil reserves,
that if the oil campaign was such an obvious winner the question is
also why it remained a minority in the 8ths efforts, only in November
1944 was oil the number one target for the 8th and so on.

Walter wants to believe the war would be over in 1944 if the allies had
increased their efforts against the German oil sector. Simply ignoring
the size of the sector and the fact the German army had long since
learnt to live without great amounts of fuel and air cover. Then add the
supply problems as the allied armies advanced towards Germany.

Max Hastings suggested much the same thing as Dr. Weigley.


Remember the Walter method of "they agree with me"?

But that is no fault of the B-17/B-24's or their crews.

However later on Walter will attempt to denigrate the crews by over
claiming their successes, rather than accurately recording what they
did or could do.

I have shown what they can do.

Walter is good at selective examples.

The Germans knew:

"The Americans' attacks,
which
followed a definite system of assault on industrial targets, were by
far the
most dangerous.

It was in fact these attacks which caused the
breakdown of the
German armaments industry. The attacks on the chemical industry would
have
sufficed, without the impact of purely military events to render
Germany
defenseless.--Albert Speer"

--"Luftwaffe War Diaries" p. 355 by Cajus Bekker.

By the way how did the US strikes cause the breakdown of the
u-boat building, tanks, steel? Given the USAAF rarely went
near them. The reality was the transport plan was the way the
allies finally started to really hurt the German economy, and
the plan required and used all types of allied air power, from
all the allies.

Also note the USSBS says many of the oil plants were dual
chemical and oil plants, and that the bombs on chemical,
rubber, explosives and propellant targets in Greater Germany,
excluding the dual plants, May 1944 to the end of the war were
USAAF 13,208 tons, Bomber Command 11,005 tons, which
is around 10% of the "oil target" tonnage.

By the way folks remember the USAAF dropped 34,334 tons
of bombs on the oil/chemical industry in 1945 (the synthetic
plants were also major sources of important chemicals), the
RAF 53,067 tons in the same period. What I like is the way
Walter attacks Harris for not bombing the oil targets, quotes
Speer about what effect they could have had, then fails to
mention the way the USAAF moved onto other targets, in
1945 for every ton of bombs dropped by Bomber Command
the USAAF heavies dropped 1.4 tons. Maybe the problem
of targeting oil plants was a little more complex than Walter
wants to believe.

Back in December 2003

a) Walter managed to write the words "Err Staff" instead of air staff.
b) accused me of writing them
c) decided someone who wrote such a word invalidated themselves
as a source on the air war in question.

I don't recall ever using the term "err staff". I Thought you did. You don't
much like what they said, since they were critical of the sainted Arthur
Harris. If you didn't first use that tem, I wont make that point any more.

This is Walter in pretend retreat mode. You see it was not the
words that ultimately matter, it was the fact that Walter tried to
use them as an excuse to ignore problems, as a way of claiming
someone who wrote them could not validly comment on the air war.

Walter is faced with the problem he wrote the words but will not
uphold his standards, that is stop commenting about the air war.
Instead we have the generous offer Walter will drop the fact he
made a mistake while not admitting he did make the mistake
while he hopes no one is noting his preference for double standards.

And the reality is the Air Staff asked, in early 1944, for Bomber
Command area attacks to be better integrated with USAAF strikes,
Walter tries to claim they asked for "precision" attacks, plus try and
make the quote applicable to mid/late 1944.

Walter thinks he has a long range mental state detector, to tell people
what they like or dislike.

The fun thing about it is

a) Walter is at best either completely confused about what he says or
at worst is into rewriting history, and too foolish enough to realise how
he keeps presenting the evidence against himself.

So you don't disagree with what I said. Or rather, you can't gainsay what I
said.

Translation Walter is not going to look to hard here, the answer is
probably the wrong one. He trumped up the charge, declared the
penalty and now tries to avoid the penalty applying to him.

b) Unable to correct the record when shown to be wrong,
c) Is manufacturing the most trivial excuses to try and avoid coping
with the gap between reality and his preferred fiction. Think about it,
a totally trivial complaint, after all Err will pass through a spell
checker.

So you don't disagree with what I said. Or rather, you can't gainsay what I
said.

Translation Walter is not going to look to hard, the answer is
probably the wrong one.

"I don't know that these city strikes were launched on bad weather days.
You don't either. What I do know is that the Err Staff thought Harris was
not
properly applying his force, and they -did- know the weather day by day."

By the way the Air Staff complaint was in January 1944, Walter was
trying to prove it related to the third quarter of 1944.

I couldn't find the post that would show that you used this term first.

Note folks, Walter does not deny he used the term, instead he is
going to somehow pretend I used it first, with the usual level of
proof offered. Walter is going to ignore the fact he made claims
about a person's fitness to comment on the issue based on the
idea that they wrote "Err Staff"

I do
know that the moderator of the WWII group who is from Australia has a serious
hard-on over me. He sent me a very nasty e-mail. Maybe he made that note of
yours disappear, the way so many of the notes I sent just disappeared.

Walter is apparently into conspiracy theories. Apparently the WWII
moderators can purge the google archives, as oppose to stop people
like Walter posting because they break the charter.

There is a reason Walter has decided to waste bandwidth in
rec.aviation.military.

Well, this is not the moderated WWII group.

And as I suggest above, you can't gainsay anything I said. You've only made a
fool of yourself.

Translation Walter is going to try and pretend his fiction is fact.
He will ignore the objections.


Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

On 18 Apr 2004 02:09:44 GMT, (WalterM140) wrote:

Not according to Dan Ford.

Walt, you are a grumpy idiot. I *lived* in Frankfurt after the war.

Control K!

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org

And over 1/3 of those bombs landed within 1,000 feet of the aiming point
during
1944. The USAAF was capable of some pretty fair accuracy for the time

Gosh, Walt, that's *terrible* accuracy! So two-thirds landed a mile or
fifty miles away, or in another country altogether?


It's pretty good accracy when compared to some.

"A total of 377 aircraft returned with bombing photographs which showed either
ground detail or fires on the ground which could be plotted. It was estimated
that only ten of these aircraft bombed the built up area of Berlin and that
most bombs fell in a long spread up to thirty miles south of the city."

-- "The Berlin Raids" p. 82-83 by Martin Middlebrooks

Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: "Geoffrey Sinclair"
Date: 4/18/04 12:15 AM Pacific

Percentage of bombs dropped by the 8th Air force using visual sighting,

1943 56.5
1944 41.2
1945 41.5
overall 42.1

Translation, Walter will ignore visual bombing was a minority of the
8ths efforts.

You miss the point. Instead of not flying at all during bad weather we flew
radar mission . These added to the visual missions dramatically increased our
destructiveness.. Your classifying radar missions as not effective fails to
recognise that we did double the damage by flying both radar and visual a
missions.Walter is right.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer