Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

So what? What has that got to do with the RAF?


It shows the RAF were doing no worse than the USAF

Not material to what is being discussed. The USAAF was not running night
bombing raids over Germany.

You're making excuses.

Walt

The Battle of Berlin was indeed a defeat, that was not the
entirety of the air war over Germany however and its provably
untrue to claim that ai operations over Germany were suspended.

Harris said he could knock Germany out of the war by attacking Berlin. And
yet he stopped attacking Berlin. Why?

If you say that Harris qualified his statement by suggesting that the
Americans must help, then he was just butchering his own men because he knew
that help wasn't coming.. Right?

If you say that Harris thought that Bomber Command could do the job alone, well
then he was wrong.

You don't become a great captain by being wrong.

Harris was not a great captain. The evidence shows that he was incompetent, if
not criminally incompetent.

Walt

Once air superiority was available the RAF flew their
daylight missions in loose gaggles of 2-4 aircraft staggered
in height to minimise flak damage.



That might have been influenced by the fact that no other aircraft type could
fly in the tight formations used by the B-17.

I've heard that B-26s could also fly in very tight formations, but I shouldn't
think as at high an altitude as the B-17.

B-17's could maintain formation at heights almost twice as high as the altitude
at which Bomber Command usually operated, either by day or by night.

Walt

Walt

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 7/17/2004 10:09 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: smartace11@

My origninal question was mainly
about whether different run in headings between flights would have avoided
some
aimed AAA and possibly flack concentrations

More than likely. But medium bomber loss rates in Europe, especially as the
war progressed, were reasonably low. Ovrall, in the MTO, the B-26 loss rate
was one per 148 combat sorties and in the ETO one per 210 sorties. The B-25
loss rate in the MTO was one per 164 sorties, and in the Pacific one per 52
sorties.
Both the B-17 and B-24 in the ETO had loss rates of about one per 62 sorties.
Of course, these general figures hide some interesting details. For example.

The B-26 loss per sortie rate in the early days against the Japanese (attacks
against Lae, Salamaua and Rabaul) was one per 24 sorties and for B-25s one
per
19. During the first year of MTO operations (June 42-June 43, the North
African phase) the loss rate for B-26s was one per 20 sorties, for the B-25
one
per 43 sorties.
In general, in whatever theater, low-level missions were killers. In the MTO
and the ETO, the medium groups largely abandoned these tactics except for
specific needs, while in the Pacific they used them extensively throughout
the
war.


Chris Mark


The B-26's were unsuited to low level operations and were not used down on the
deck.

As Chris points out, both the B-25 and B-26 were so used, in the PTO, MTO, and ETO
(not the B-25), in the early stages. High loss rates led to the move to medium
altitude in every theater other than the PTO, where Japanese flak was less.

The B-25's were fine on the deck and were used there. All B-25's were
pulled from the ETO and moved to the MTO and Pacific which accounts for the
numbers you quote.

No B-25s were "pulled" from the ETO. There were a couple of Groups temporarily
deployed there while waiting to fly on to North Africa. It had originally been
planned to have two Bomb Wings of B-25s and B-26s in the ETO, the 4th and 5th
(later Air Division then Bomb Division) , but it seems the B-25's better
suitability for operating in theaters with poorer runways and logistic support
than the B-26 was happy with, led to a decision to use the B-25 everywhere other
than the ETO, with the B-26 pulled from the PTO.

I need to get down to Maxwell one of these years and do a search to find when the
decision was made as to theater allocation, and by whom. The decision to use the
B-26 exclusively in the ETO was probably made in early or more likely mid 1943.
In April 1943 the 5th Wing/Air Division was eliminated owing to Group diversions
to the 12th AF in the MTO, and its bases were reallocated to the 1st and 4th
BW/AD. Then the 4th BW/AD was supposed to get the mediums and lights, but flow
charts showed that most of the groups scheduled to deploy in the spring of '43
were equipped with B-17s. At the same time, the 3rd Wing/AD was expecting to get
a number of B-25 and B-26 Groups shortly. Sometime around May/early June, with
the failure of the first B-26 low-altitude raids and the change to medium
altitude, it was also decided to swap the bases of the medium and heavy groups of
the 3rd and 4th Air Divisions, so that the mediums would be closer to targets in
France, while the heavies could take advantage of the generally higher state of
completion of the 3rd AD airfields. (Details from one of Freeman's "The Mighty
Eighth" series books, either the first one or the technical manual; I made xeroxes
but didn't label it).

The B-25 was used exclusively in the CBI and ultimately in the PTO, both were used
in the MTO (where as Chris' data shows the B-25 had a lower loss rate than the
B-26, flying the same missions), and the B-26 was used exclusively in the ETO. I
suspect that the location of the production plants may have also played a part in
theater allocations. While both North American (Kansas City) and Martin (Omaha)
had plants in the middle of the country, the main factories were on the west
(Inglewood) and east (Baltimore) coasts respectively. Martin had to turn the
Omaha plant over to B-29 production starting in mid-43 or so, leaving only the
Baltimore plant producing B-26s.

Guy

Chris Mark wrote:

From: smartace11@

My origninal question was mainly
about whether different run in headings between flights would have avoided
some
aimed AAA and possibly flack concentrations

More than likely. But medium bomber loss rates in Europe, especially as the
war progressed, were reasonably low. Ovrall, in the MTO, the B-26 loss rate
was one per 148 combat sorties and in the ETO one per 210 sorties. The B-25
loss rate in the MTO was one per 164 sorties, and in the Pacific one per 52
sorties.

Chris, could I know the source of your loss rate figures? I've had difficulty in
tracking down MTO and early PTO data to compare the B-25 and B-26.

Guy

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I recently got DVD's with the B-17 and P-38 flight operation films.

The B-17 flight ops were relatively simple. And the actor (Arthur Kennedy, who
later was the journalist in "Lawrence of Arabia", among many other roles) who
was the B-17 instructor pilot tells the trainee -- "you will -never- fly a
better bird than this." [paraphrased].

On the other hand, the P-38 film is filled with cautions and 'insert shots' of
"turn this handle if this happens" and don't forget to do this "if that
happens." The one speaker in the film is the Lockheed chief test pilot. He
says some thing like -- "hey, don't worry if you get a runaway propeller, it
happens all the time." Whoa.

I am not sure when exactly this film came out -- maybe in early in 1944. The
very first thing discussed is proper bail-out procedure in the P-38.

Don't worry, you won't hit the tail, you'll pass below it. "But don't worry
about that -- your job is to make the other guy bail out."

I wonder if perhaps ol' crazy George Patton saw this film and modified that
line and made it immortal.


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.

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. 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.


Walt

The Brits ignored American advice on how to use the B-17. Admittedly, the
B-17C was not ready for the big leagues.

Could that be why they ignored the advice?

Perhaps.

I'll suggest that there was -no way- given the British experience in WWI that
they were going to the heavy daylight bomber route in WWI. And I don't blame
them a bit for that.

I think after all that 'Henry V'/'over the top' stuff in WWI, the Brits were
bound and determined to try a litte brain power the second time through.
B-17's were not going to help them that much in that particular endeavor.

Walt

You are incorrect.

The RAF operated B-17's in action in daylight long before the
USA even entered the war. The results were heavy losses and
poor results.

The Brits didn't use enough B-17's ever, to say they had heavy losses. And the
Brits flew them at very high altitudes, and often as single attackers.

Except for elite units, British bombing accuracy throughout the war was poor.

Walt

The USA had zero combat experiencewith the B-17 in 1941 and
sold the B-17 on the basis of the self defending bomber. It failed
in 1941 and again when the USAAF tried it in 1943.

Yeah. Well we expect our political leaders to keep us out of war [excepting
the present blithering idiot in the White House] . But you're implying that
the US should have been bailing you out a long time before 1941, I am thinking.

The Americans were ultimately able to make daylight precision bombing pay off,
although not the way they intended, that is true.

Walt

ubject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: Guy Alcala

As Chris points out, both the B-25 and B-26 were so used, in the PTO, MTO,
and ETO
(not the B-25), in the early stages. High loss rates led to the move to
medium

The B-26's were used on the deck with terrible results and were almost
instantly pulled up to 10,000 feet. After that the B-26 were the only mediums
used in the ETO replacing the slower, shorter range, smaller bombload B-25's.
The B-26 rendered the B-25's obsolescent.



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