Why was the Fokker D VII A Good Plane?

Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: nt (Krztalizer)
Date: 4/19/04 9:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

The
Germans had boys, foreign soldiers, even women in their flak defenses.

An 88mm set up to defend the Zeiss optics works is one that would not be
available to the invasion front. Multiply that by thousands of 88s and every
other caliber - these were being set up around various military targets in
1940-42, long before the stars and bars arrived overhead. The
flakhelferrinnen
did indeed include boys and women - although women usually served in other
roles and boys were physically unable to lift and load an 88mm shell, so men
were used that would otherwise be employed in the war effort elsewhere.

The
British had hundreds of very very expensive aircraft and their finest young
men
involved. And the Germans defeated Bomber Command.

Just as the IJN defeated the USN at Pearl Harbor. Within a few months, the
USN
carried the fight right back to the heart of the enemy - I think that is the
same situation at the RAF's costly, though short-term, loss against the
Luftwaffe over Germany's cities.

v/r
Gordon-
====(A+C====
USN SAR

It is important that we don't play fast and loose with the term :defeated" For
example. In WW II we "defeated the enemy" because we destroyed their ability
to continue the war. But in the American war of the revolution we never
"defeated" the Brits since after the war they still had the largest army and
Navy in the word. They just chose not to fight on. We "won": the war but
Birtian was never "defeated" since they could still fight if they chose to. In
WW II the RAF was never defeated by the enemy since they coild always fly
any time they chose.


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

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
The USAAF started out with an obsession about "pinipoint:" bombing,
"putting the bomb in the pickle barrel from 20,000 feet."

They ultimately made it work, too.

They made the campaign work by adopting radar bombing aids.

"From Spaatz's point of view, the results of the May attacks on oil
were outstanding.

You would hope so since it appears the first raids were delayed
until near perfect weather could be expected. Spaatz was going
to give his plan the best chance to succeed.

The Luftwaffe came up in strength, and Eisenhower soon got
feedback through ULTRA that the effects on tlie Germans were dramatic. The
military leaders of the Reich reacted immediately. They redeployed antiaircraft
defenses hurriedly from the aircraft factories to these synthetic plants that
had not yet been bombed. In addition, they changed the training programs of
some of the ground units to conserve fuel and modified additional vehicles to.
wood-burning propulsion systems. Though USSTAF could not at that moment be
relieved of its responsibilities in the preparatory phases of OVERLORD, the
combination of effects seems to have so impressed Eisenhower'that later in the
summer he permitted additional oil attacks."

--"Master of Airpower", David R. Mets.

For about the only time in the war, Ultra gave insight into the damage
being caused on the ground.

"The USSTAF and Bomber Command at last combined their offensives, the Eighth
and Fifteenth Air Forces hitting synthetic oil plants while Bomber Command
hammered targets in the Ruhr, where benzol was derived as a by-product of the
coke ovens. In the process, an argument that had by now become academic was
settled: precision bombing using the Norden bombsight could do more damage
with 250 tons of bombs than could an attack using radar with 1,000 tons."

-- "Clash of Wings" p. 346, by Walter J. Boyne

Walter likes to use this quote to "prove" the RAF raids were less
damaging The raid reports the Germans made and the USSBS
damage survey are ignored. Just pretend the 8th Air Force accuracy,
Norden versus radar, is he same as Bomber Command's and that
Bomber Command was always using radar, and Norden bomb sights.

"Despite all the terrible destruction of German cities, despite all the
hardship and death it brought to the civilian population and industrial
workers--whose ordeal was now often worse than the soldiers at the front--it
was not,as we have seen, area bombing by night that struck the vital blow at
German survival.
This mission was accomplished to a far greater extent by the selective and
precision bombing of the American Eighth Air Force in daylight. By careful
choice of target, this first blocked the bottle-necks of armaments production,
and finally brought the whole German war machine to a standstill."

Luftwaffe War Diaries, p.340 by Cajus Bekker

The Luftwaffe war diaries is one of Walter's favourite books, note
there is a quote on page 355 which says there was no systematic
attack before May 1944, with the first attacks on oil installations.
So apparently we have to ignore all 8th Air Force raids before this
as part of the "careful choice of target", in a book which ends its
effective coverage in June 1944.

Walter has posted this quote many times without noting the basic
objections, like why no mention of the 15th air force, why no mention of
the 9th and 2nd tactical air force, why no mention of Bomber Command
strikes on oil and transport? How can the heavy bombers be considered
to be doing precision bombing? The 8ths target list until the oil
and transport plans were mainly the finished product factories,
the aircraft assembly plants, strikes on rubber and ball bearings
could not or were not followed up. The 8th did not strike in a
sustained way at production bottlenecks, that is key raw and semi
raw products except the oil campaign, where it provided part of
the effort along with the 15th and Bomber Command. The 8th had
a key part in this campaign in 1944, less so in 1945. Walter should
tell us all what materials the German armaments production ran
out of thanks to the 8th air force, steel?, ball bearings? what?

Instead perhaps the way the allied air forces severely damaged
the transport system in western Germany might be mentioned
as the way industrial output was hurt and the attacks on oil
firstly hurt the Luftwaffe by reducing avgas supplies and then
later went after the fuel the army and navy used.

See the book The Collapse of the German War Economy 1944-45,
Allied Airpower and the German National Railway by Mierzejewski.
It documents the decline of the German Rail system in late 1944
and early 1945 to the point where it could not even supply its own
locomotives with coal, where special derail gangs were formed
with quotas of cars to derail each day to clear congestion. Where
the German economy was collapsing, mainly due to the transportation
strikes, the canals, the railways and the oil. How the stocks were
run down and weapons that were made were stuck at the factories.
Tables give an idea of the run down in coal production. The book
makes the case the marshalling yards were the key.

See also A Forgotten Offensive: RAF Coastal Command Anti
Shipping Campaign 1940-45 by Goulter. In particular the last
chapter on the economic effects of cutting off most of the
Scandinavian iron ore trade in late 1944, it helped but the
Germans had stocks to keep going for a while. The tables give
the decline in steel production. If ever there was a sustained
strike against a vital raw material it was the anti shipping
operations against the ore ships from Narvik.

I have another question, why does Walter never mention
Bekker makes it clear his Luftwaffe War Diaries ends in
June 1944? Which is clearly relevant to conclusions about
the bombing since most of the bombs dropped on Germany
happened after that date.

"After a survey of of Luftwaffe officers for "American Heritage", Carl
Sulzberger found agreement with one German flying officer that "There is no
doubt that the Americans harmed us most. The Russians were negligible as far
as the home front was concerned, and we could have stood the British attacks
on our cities. But the American devastation of our airfields, factories, and
oil depots made it impossible for us to keep going."

"A Wing and a Prayer", p. 384 by Harry Crosby.

Remember when in trouble look for a junior officer who tells you
that you had the most effect. Push poll anyone?

Also note the USAAF attacks on
oil refineries apparently had no effect, only the depots were
hurt, and that campaign did not start until June 1944 according
to the USSBS, and by the end of September 1944 the USSBS
has the RAF, with 3,300 tons of bombs, ahead of the USAAF
with 1,600 tons. So if the depots were the key the RAF was
the one turning it, not the USAAF.

"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


The chief of the day fighters worrying about the day battle. Just ignore
the large rise in the day and night fighter strengths which show's
Gallands words to be incorrect.

The formation of single engined nightfighter forces in mid/late 1943.


Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

ArtKramr wrote in message ...
Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: "Geoffrey Sinclair"
Date: 4/18/04 10:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:


(snip)

Hello Art, my problem with the Walter presentation in this case is simple.

Would you like only the best results mentioned when it comes to recording
the history of what you did? That is the story your descendants will take
as an accurate idea of what you did and therefore an insight to the abilities
of military campaigns today?

I mean ignore the problems of take off, formatting, staying in formation,
navigating, finding the target and then bombing it on cloudy days?

I did not classify the missions done using non visual bombing as
"not effective", like all bombing raids the results could vary dramatically
but overall they were less effective because of the lower average accuracy.
In the 8ths case visual bombing was a minority of its effort, and visual
bombing in very clear weather less again.

The 8th had a hard time doing radar bombing, it had the biggest need
at the very time the USAAF had shortages of equipment and trained men.

If it is allowable to only mention the best results, then presumably it is
allowable to only mention the worst results.

Bad results are almost always the result of bad conditions.

Agreed, both natural and man made.

When bad results
are quored in a sneering tone as though the AAC did not have the capability
oif accuracy. That is a false and ignorant point of view.

All air forces were capable of accuracy, the problem becomes when
only the best or worst results are used as "typical".

We could put a bomb
in a pickle barrel form 10,000 feet and I have done it many times.

The heavies dropped from 20,000 feet or higher usually, the USSBS
says the expected error was 830 feet, at 10,000 feet the error was
570 feet.

You are doing yourself a disservice by repeating the pickle barrel claims,
that is not reality.

See my
website for photogaphic evidence of just how high our accuracy could be given
reasonable conditions.

The USSBS makes it clear the mediums were more accurate than
the heavies. It also makes it clear reasonable conditions were just
met in under half the 8ths efforts

But the goeal was to hit the enemy imnder ALL
conditions, day and night, good weather and bad.

That was the goal, in trying to do this the air forces had to sacrifice
accuracy, and at some point the loss of accuracy and the cost of
the raid means it is costing you more.

Never let him sleep or rest or
recover. Hit him again and again If the target was missed by 10 miles and the
bomb load hit a farm destroying farm machinery and animals and grain storage
that deprived the enemy of food, that was a good mission. Then we would come
back and finally hit the prime target destroying it. Any attack on the enemy
is better than no attack. That is what war is all about.


Art, the reality is bad attacks hurt you. Fighting over enemy controlled
territory means most aircraft and aircrews are total losses, whereas
the enemy can rescue shot down aircrew and salvage crashed aircraft.

Your approach makes sense in the second half of 1944, as the allies
achieved saturation, so minor damage had to be left accumulate, rather
than be quickly repaired. It does not work before saturation is reached.
It is also the fact most land is open space or forest, not a building or
storage.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Welcome to a favourite Walter tactic, the multiple replies of around
one sentence at a time, rather than try a coherent single reply.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
But it explains that the RAF was committed to bombing the Reich years before
the US left its shores to join the party.

Exactly.

And the Germans are clear that the Americans hurt them much worse than the
British did.

Walter has a few carefully selected quotes to try and "prove" this.

The latest effort is apparently to drop the comparison to the US
versus Britain, not the Commonwealth, which hives off large
sections of the non US air and ground forces attacking the Germans
in the west.

The Kreigsmarine would disagree, the Luftwaffe would look at
the long and short term effects of the Battle of Britain, and the
costs of the continued campaign against Britain before making
a call, the Heer would probably agree that some time in the third
or fourth quarter of 1944 the US Army had now exceeded in
inflicting more losses.

This leaves the economy, which was not badly hurt before the
second half of 1944, and we have the extra weight of US bombs
dropped versus things like the USSBS oil report noting the RAF
raids were on average more destructive.

"What we are doing amounts to the ONLY Allied offensive
operation against Germany at this time."

Harris almost immolated his own force. He had a World War One mindset.

Walter likes to announce this, rather than deal with the reality Harris
did care about his men and did keep changing tactics to minimise
losses.

But he -was- a 'Butcher' alright -- of his own men.

Walter has little to like about Harris, Eaker, commander of 8th
Air Force when it was sending unescorted bombers to Germany
is not treated in the same way as Harris, for example.

From June 1940 to June 1944, Bomber
Command was the only Allied force in constant combat over the Reich, drawing
resources away from Germany's countless other campaigns.

You're on a roll.

The effort the Germans had to expend to combat Bomber Command in no way
strained them the way it strained the British to support Bomber Command. The
Germans had boys, foreign soldiers, even women in their flak defenses. The
British had hundreds of very very expensive aircraft and their finest young men
involved. And the Germans defeated Bomber Command.

This is the Walter standard, try this rewrite,

The effort the Germans had to expend to combat the 8th Air Force bombers
in no way strained them the way it strained the US to support the bombers.
The Germans had boys, foreign soldiers, even women in their flak defenses.
The US had hundreds of very very expensive aircraft and their finest young
men involved. And the Germans defeated the 8th Air Force.

After all it was not like the crack flak gunners only came out in the day, or
that the US bombers were less expensive or had lower quality crews or
that the 8th was not defeated at some stage. Silly isn't it?

Walter prefers though to believe his fiction.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
The context of my note, which perhaps you just
skimmed, or maybe I wasn't clear enough, was in the period following the
invasion.

Before during and after the invasion, Bomber Command was striking Germany.

After the Invasion, BC could only strike Germany because of the situation
brought on by the Americans.

We are back to the Americans, the US Army, Navy and Air Force,
ignoring the contributions of non US forces to the improvements.

If the Americans did make it better after the invasion there is a need
to explain the fact Bomber Command loss rates over Germany hit
their wartime peak in the post D day June 1944 raids.

No
heavy bomber raid was ever turned back, day or night, due to enemy action -
yes, that includes the RAF.

So what?

The British had to install cameras on their bombers to make sure the crews were
not dropping their heavier bombs into the North Sea.

No Walter, the British installed cameras to figure out bombing accuracy.
The fact some crews during a period of defeat dropped some of their
bombs in the North Sea to lighten the load, as opposed to aborting the
sortie is something Walter likes to highlight and try and pretend happened
for a long time in a large number of cases.

This was his favourite claim in an effort to "prove" Bomber Command
did not drop any 4,000 pound bombs on Germany before September
1944.

As for the Commonwealthians being unable to
continue bombing, Portal never said that - he said it was *possible* that the
situation would have gotten to that point; even as he wrote that, British
bombers were in combat. And his statement ignores the mounting Mosquito
raids that were by then causing the German leadership to remove large chunks
of hair from their own heads...

You can't gansay Portal.

The fun thing here is Portal does not say what Walter claims, people
are contradicting Walter and he cannot cope.

Mosquito raids, right.

The Germans hated them, largely because they seemed near unstoppable.

The Allied bombing campaign took on several facets
and Portal's perhaps out of context or otherwise incomplete comments

You're welcome to show that.

I keep doing so and Walter ignores it.

don't
accurately reflect the reality that American air armadas required X amount of
German assets to combat, while the night campaign required X amount as well -
often it meant they could react to a daylight threat only by taking assets
from the night war, and vice versa.

You could argue that both the daylight and night raids expended much more in
the way of blood and treasure than they returned. But the Germans are clear
that the USAAF hurt them far worse than the RAF

Junk claim number one. Try for a start Coastal Command in the mix.

and they began redeploying the
day fighter force back to Germay at a time when the average USAAF raid was
only a few dozen heavy bombers and only striking in visual conditions.

Junk claim number 2, Walter will now list the redeployments, if it is like
last time the training JG units, like JG102 will make the list and the
return of a gruppe will be made into the return of a Geschwader.

The RAF suffered greatly but didn't quit -
almost a mirror of the situation to when the Regensburg/Schweinfurt missions
made it tactically impractical for the US to continue with large scale
daylight penetrations without escorts.

The difference is that the Americans had a technological injection they could
make -- the Mustang. Due to the nature of its aircraft and techniques and
equipment, the RAF had no such fix.

Walter just simply ignores the significant drop in RAF losses just after
the capture of a Ju88G nightfighter and examination of its electronics.
He also ignores the offensive operations of the Mosquito units. He
ignores things like in October 1944 the night fighter force claimed 56
kills but lost around 54 in combat related sorties and December 1944
66 kill claims but 117 nightfigters lost to all causes. Things did improve
in 1945.

Walter also ignores the basic fact in absolute terms the USAAF losses
to enemy aircraft did not change much.

In the first four months of 1945 the USAAF statistical digest reports the
Air Forces in the European Theatre lost some 440 aircraft to enemy
aircraft, in the period September to December 1943 the losses to
enemy aircraft are put at 424, July to October 1943 the total is 406.

Aders list of Luftwaffe night fighter kill claims has the November 1943
to March 1944 figures as 1,057, November 1944 to March 1945 as
668.

The big difference is the number of allied sorties, in the later periods,
which makes the percentage losses much less. So the day loss rates
went down even as the absolute numbers remained the same.

Walter might like to contemplate how come the USAAF was less
successful in reducing the absolute numbers lost versus the RAF.
If the Mustang was such a wonder answer and all the improvement
in RAF losses were due to the Americans.

Allied bombing (not American, nor British)
accomplished the deed of forcing the Luftwaffe to its knees,

The effect on the Luftwaffe by the RAF during the run-up to the invasion was
negligible.

Just ignore the destruction of the Luftwaffe bomber force in the west.

by continually rocking the old warrior with an indefensible combination
of punches. No reason to try to demean the accomplishments of one
force to raise up the other - they were fists wielded by the same boxer.

Arthur Harris kept one hand tied behind the back of Bomber Command. it could
have been much more effective under another leader.

Walter likes to run this line, usually with a generous helping of hindsight
to the new, never named, commander.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

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

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
Yet even before that date the RAF were fully operational
In April 1944 Bomber command flew 9700 sorties with
a loss rate of 2.7%.

After losing almost 100 aircraft in the Nuremburg raid of 3/31/44.

Walter have you noted the overall USAAF percentage losses in
key months like October 1943? The air commanders did know
when to pull back or try something else after a big loss, it kept
the overall loss rates down.

It was only being put onto invasion related targets that saved Bomber Command
from the perception of visible and humiliating defeat, and only "the favorable
situation created by the Americans", that allowed Harris to make the rubble
jump in German cities later in the war.

Firstly it was widely admitted Bomber Command had suffered a
defeat in early 1944, even at the time. Secondly the claim only the
US efforts reversed the situation is junk. Rather like someone
claiming the formation of JG300, 301, 302 took all the best pilots
and weakened the day fighter force to allow the 8th back into
Germany. A junk claim based on a minor truth, that the diversion
did help slightly.

Finally Walter ignores the reality there was plenty of the economy
to damage in late 1944, but prefers "rubble jump" without ever
bothering to figure out if it was rubble being bombed then the
earlier attacks must have been much more successful than he
wants to claim. The usual Walter standard of logic.

Now, the Americans had a similar situation. After 10/14/43, it was
conclusively shown that the unescorted bomber boxes couldn't operate over
German targets without prohibitive loss. The Americans were able to interject
a technological antidote -- the Mustang.

This no doubt explains why the Luftwaffe is credited with shooting
down more USAAF aircraft in the European theatre in 1945 than
during the famed 4 months of the 1943 battles.

Walter has Mustang = absolute solution and ignores thinks like
the improvement in electronic warfare and the increasing numbers
of Mosquito nightfighters sent over Germany to help the night
bombers.

Due to the nature of the British techniques and the unsuitability of their
aircraft to being escorted the way the Americans could, the Brits could only
get back over German targets after the Americans deprived the German air force
of fuel.

The reality is the day and night fighter forces did not have their
fuel cut until later than Walter wants to pretend. His claim is junk.

The night bombers were "escorted" by electronic warfare like the
day bombers and distant escorts, the intruders and patrols, just like
the day bombers distant cover. The night bombers did not have
the close fighter cover the day formations could have.

And I remind you that Galland said that deliveries of aviation fuel
were inadequate before the RAF flew one sortie in the "Oil Campaign", and I
further remind you that Harris sloughed off boming Oil targets as much as he
dared.

Walter will ignore the reality Galland wrote post war without access to
many documents and is clearly confusing the tactical situation in France,
where most of his western fighters ended up. In France the allied bombing
of communications and airfields caused fuel problems. This was a failure
of distribution, not manufacture.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
Yet even before that date the RAF were fully operational
In April 1944 Bomber command flew 9700 sorties with
a loss rate of 2.7%.

After losing almost 100 aircraft in the Nuremburg raid of 3/31/44.


Indeed and in the month of march the loss rate was 3.6%
which was approx the same as the 8th AF was taking.

It was only being put onto invasion related targets that saved Bomber
Command
from the perception of visible and humiliating defeat, and only "the
favorable
situation created by the Americans", that allowed Harris to make the
rubble
jump in German cities later in the war.


Were the 8th AF also humiliated ?

They were switched to invasion targets too. The reality is that
the heavies were required to attack the transportation network
and defences in germany and France but continued to operate
over Germany, your fantasies notwithstanding

Now, the Americans had a similar situation. After 10/14/43, it was
conclusively shown that the unescorted bomber boxes couldn't operate over
German targets without prohibitive loss. The Americans were able to
interject
a technological antidote -- the Mustang.



As the British would do with windows, serrate , the Mosquito NF etc

Due to the nature of the British techniques and the unsuitability of their
aircraft to being escorted the way the Americans could, the Brits could
only
get back over German targets after the Americans deprived the German air
force
of fuel.

This has been shown to be untrue. The RAF operated over Germany every day
of the war. During most of spring and summer 1944 the Mosquito's of
the LNSF were delivering their 4000lb bomb loads to Berlin
almost on a nightly basis


And I remind you that Galland said that deliveries of aviation fuel
were inadequate before the RAF flew one sortie in the "Oil Campaign", and
I
further remind you that Harris sloughed off boming Oil targets as much as
he
dared.


All of which is of course irrelevant to your claim

An 88mm set up to defend the Zeiss optics works is one that would not be
available to the invasion front. Multiply that by thousands of 88s and every
other caliber - these were being set up around various military targets in

A War To Be Won says there were more 88s defending the homeland air
than were holding off the Russians. If they had been moved east?

1940-42, long before the stars and bars arrived overhead. The flakhelferrinnen
did indeed include boys and women - although women usually served in other
roles and boys were physically unable to lift and load an 88mm shell, so men
were used that would otherwise be employed in the war effort elsewhere.

At the Overseas Weekly we had a motorcycle runner name Bodo who'd been
one of the flak gunners. He claimed that his sergeant? would tell
them: "If we don't shoot at them, they won't shoot at us." But then it
was impossible in Germany at that time to find anyone who'd shot at
the Americans. They'd all served on the eastern front, been PWs, or
looked the other way when the planes came over, like Bodo.


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

The
Germans had boys, foreign soldiers, even women in their flak defenses.

An 88mm set up to defend the Zeiss optics works is one that would not be
available to the invasion front.

An 88mm gun defending the Zeiss optic works is not the equivalent of a
Lancaster with its whole suite of electronic aids.

Gee this desn't sound like rocket science. And there is no comparison in the
human material either, as I indicated.

Walt

The
British had hundreds of very very expensive aircraft and their finest young
men
involved. And the Germans defeated Bomber Command.

Just as the IJN defeated the USN at Pearl Harbor.

The German Air Force made a surprise attack on Bomber Command? In a time of
peace? I hadn't heard that before. Why not pick Custer's Last Stand? The
Indians defeated the soldiers, didn't they?

Within a few months, the USN
carried the fight right back to the heart of the enemy - I think that is the
same situation at the RAF's costly, though short-term, loss against the
Luftwaffe over Germany's cities.

Sorry, but it''s not.

Walt

Not according to Dan Ford.

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

Control K!


Maybe that's why you don't seem capable of objectivity.

Walt