How accurate was B-26 bombing?

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: How accurate was B-26 bombing?
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 2/29/04 2:13 PM Pacific Standard Time

Can we see some of your strike photos?


Sure old man.

To be fair, these two are actually the result of two 2-ships, but my
formation
hit it first.

Befo http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/990526-O-9999M-003.jpg

After:
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/990526-O-9999M-004.jpg

This mission was very interesting...to say the least:
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/b990514i.jpg

The rest of my strikes to make "news" were JDAM strikes. The one thing
you
will
notice is that mil dispersion pretty much ensures a few of your weapons
are
going to miss by a good distance, despite what you say. If you look at
the
Batajanica images, we threw a few M-117s out "in the weeds". We had
anticiapated this because some of the weapons were in pretty bad shape.
Unlike
you, we realized that sending a loader back to get us some new weapons
would
have interfered with the "hustle & bustle" of flightline ops, so we
pressed
on.


The runway was shutdown for the remainder of the conflict, although Eagle
pilots flying around probably aided in shutting down flight ops there as
much
as our weapons did.

Were you trying to make a point with your question?


BUFDRVR


YTHe point I was triyng to make was that we flew misison swith dumb bimbs
that
were sometimes as accurate as mision flown today with smart bombs.

LOL! Nope. Accuracy is usually guaged by CEP. Getting a single bomb, or two
or three, to hit the given aim point, while a laudable event, does not mean
that your strike was inherently accurate--because the other 200 bombs ended
up spread over a quarter section. Your CEP during WWII was abysmal compared
to that which was evidenced during Vietnam (with dumb bombs). Modern dumb
bomb delivery is much better than what you could have accomplished--toss in
PGM's and it's a whole new league altogether.

The B-26 was probably about as accurate as any level bomber could have been
during WWII in the ETO, largely due to the lower altitudes it typically
operated from (given that it had the same bomb sight as the B-17 and B-24,
that is about the only viable explanation). But even then it suffered its
fair share of bombs missing the aimpoint--the following is an account from a
USAAF crewmember who had been shot down and along with a couple of fellow
airmen was taken in by a brave French family until the allied advance later
mad it to their village:

"The next day, B-26 medium bombers bombed Chauny twice, once in the morning
and once in the afternoon. The station was almost destroyed along with many
buildings on rue Belmer, rue Amédé Evrard and rue Ferdinand Buisson."

The target for those missions was the railyard, not the buildings on those
streets within the village. A bombadier from the 386th Group recorded the
following results from the missions he flew in the B-26 in the ETO:

Results Unknown. We bombed through an overcast by Pathfinder.-- 1 time.
Mission Aborted. Due to bad weather or lack of fighter escort.------ 3
times.
Missed the Target -------------------------------------------------- 6
times.
Hit the Target. ------------------------------------------------------ 35
times.

So of the 45 missions they embarked upon they (allegedly--some exaggeration
was known to exist when it came to both bombing results and enemy aircraft
claims) "hit the target" 35 times. for a success rate of about 77%. If you
merely compare the "hits to misses" you get a success rate of 83%--again,
not bad, but not "we never missed", either. As the author's unit received a
Distinguished Unit Citation for, among other things, "maintaining the
highest bombing accuracy score" out of all of the B-26 groups serving in the
ETO, it would be hard to believe that Art's unit did *better* than what
these numbers indicate.

www.b26.com/html/people/ah/15.htm


In the PTO the B-26 did not apparently garner the same reputation for
comparative accuracy (the B-25 probably getting the laurels there among the
various medium/light bombers)--one account i read noted that troops referred
to the B-26 as the "coconut bomber", because they were alleged to be more
apt to hit innocent coconut palms than the Japanese targets they were
intended to strike.

Brooks

snip

Subject: How accurate was B-26 bombing?
From: "Kevin Brooks"
Date: 2/29/04 3:31 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: How accurate was B-26 bombing?
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 2/29/04 2:13 PM Pacific Standard Time

Can we see some of your strike photos?


Sure old man.

To be fair, these two are actually the result of two 2-ships, but my
formation
hit it first.

Befo http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/990526-O-9999M-003.jpg

After:
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/990526-O-9999M-004.jpg

This mission was very interesting...to say the least:
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/b990514i.jpg

The rest of my strikes to make "news" were JDAM strikes. The one thing
you
will
notice is that mil dispersion pretty much ensures a few of your weapons
are
going to miss by a good distance, despite what you say. If you look at
the
Batajanica images, we threw a few M-117s out "in the weeds". We had
anticiapated this because some of the weapons were in pretty bad shape.
Unlike
you, we realized that sending a loader back to get us some new weapons
would
have interfered with the "hustle & bustle" of flightline ops, so we
pressed
on.


The runway was shutdown for the remainder of the conflict, although Eagle
pilots flying around probably aided in shutting down flight ops there as
much
as our weapons did.

Were you trying to make a point with your question?


BUFDRVR


YTHe point I was triyng to make was that we flew misison swith dumb bimbs
that
were sometimes as accurate as mision flown today with smart bombs.

LOL! Nope. Accuracy is usually guaged by CEP. Getting a single bomb, or two
or three, to hit the given aim point, while a laudable event, does not mean
that your strike was inherently accurate--because the other 200 bombs ended
up spread over a quarter section. Your CEP during WWII was abysmal compared
to that which was evidenced during Vietnam (with dumb bombs). Modern dumb

For a guy who spent his entire military career behind a desk in Ohio, you sure
have a good line of bull****.


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

From: "Bob's Your Uncle"


Ask Max Cleland!


They don't give purple hearts for stupidity or clumsiness.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Didn't he get tagged by his own grenade?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Subject: How accurate was B-26 bombing?
From: (B2431)
Date: 2/29/04 4:01 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: "Bob's Your Uncle"


Ask Max Cleland!


They don't give purple hearts for stupidity or clumsiness.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Didn't he get tagged by his own grenade?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


In WW II you could only get a Purple Heart as a result of enemy action
providing the skin was broken.If you injured yourself no PH. it different now?




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

"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: "Bob's Your Uncle"


Ask Max Cleland!


They don't give purple hearts for stupidity or clumsiness.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Didn't he get tagged by his own grenade?

Tagged, fragged, noone knows.

In article ,
on 01 Mar 2004 00:08:13 GMT,
ArtKramr attempted to say .....

Subject: How accurate was B-26 bombing?
From: (B2431)
Date: 2/29/04 4:01 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: "Bob's Your Uncle"


Ask Max Cleland!


They don't give purple hearts for stupidity or clumsiness.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Didn't he get tagged by his own grenade?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


In WW II you could only get a Purple Heart as a result of enemy action
providing the skin was broken.If you injured yourself no PH. it different now?


No, but why bother trying to tell you . You won't listen.


--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

B2431 wrote:

From: "Bob's Your Uncle"


Ask Max Cleland!


They don't give purple hearts for stupidity or clumsiness.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Didn't he get tagged by his own grenade?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

No, the grenade was from another soldier. However, this was
indeed an accident, not enemy action, so I don't think he was
awarded the PH.

However, Cleland did receive the Silver Star for an earlier
action. He was an active combat experienced soldier.

Bob McKellar, former Cleland constituent

The point I was trying to make was that we flew missions with dumb bombs
that
were sometimes as accurate as missions flown today with smart bombs.

Were there *some* missions flown where *some* aircraft hit within 10 meters ?
Sure, but the laws of physics and bomb construction (particularly in the
1940's) mean that those strikes were as much about luck as the skill of the
aircrew. Even today, a gravity bomb hit within 30 feet is luck. Most honest
radar navs (or WSOs in the B-1B or Mission Commanders in the B-2) will tell you
they can get you down to 100 feet with skill, the rest is all luck. The mil
dispersion on a Mk-82 is .0025 (Did I get that right ??) which means for every
foot it travels, it'll move away from its "true trajectory" by 1/40 inch. If
your release distance is 35,000 feet, no matter how well you aim, your weapons
will tend to "wonder" by 87.5 feet (35,000 x .0025). So why is it possible to
"shack" a target with unguided weapons? Compensating errors. The RN aims 87.5
feet left and the drift tendancy (mil dispersion) of a majority of the weapons
is right. So...in summary, any strike you guys had in WWII that were inside of
10 meters, was luck.


How many planes in how tight a formation?

2 jets typically, but during OAF, I was in a formation as large as 6 jets.
Formation spacing varies, but has no impact since each aircraft (if both are
striking the same target) independantly targets its weapons. In the case of
Batajanica, all you see are my weapons, my lead aircraft hit the second runway
which you can almost see in the upper left hand part of the imagery.

Looks a bit loose. What was the intervelometer interval?

Loose? Hmm, thats 45 weapons, the interval was set to the min (.050) with the
externals timed to drop simultaneously. IIRC, it was a 700' train. That's about
as tight as it gets with 45 weapons. You can drop in RAPID mode and reduce your
train in about a half to a third, but this is not a common practice.

I note that there was a hole in
the bomb pattern that left one bullding standing Someone out of formation or
a
delay in a release?

Mil dispersion saves a single building. Chances are, anyone in it has white
hair and is deaf.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Subject: How accurate was B-26 bombing?
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 2/29/04 6:55 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Thanks for the rundown

Were there *some* missions flown where *some* aircraft hit within 10 meters ?
Sure, but the laws of physics and bomb construction (particularly in the
1940's) mean that those strikes were as much about luck as the skill of the

aircrew. Even today, a gravity bomb hit within 30 feet is luck. Most honest
radar navs (or WSOs in the B-1B or Mission Commanders in the B-2) will tell
you
they can get you down to 100 feet with skill, the rest is all luck. The mil
dispersion on a Mk-82 is .0025 (Did I get that right ??) which means for

every
foot it travels, it'll move away from its "true trajectory" by 1/40 inch. If
your release distance is 35,000 fee

no matter how well you aim, your weapons
will tend to "wonder" by 87.5 feet (35,000 x .0025). So why is it possible to
"shack" a target with unguided weapons? Compensating errors. The RN aims 87.5

feet left and the drift tendancy (mil dispersion) of a majority of the
weapons
is right. So...in summary, any strike you guys had in WWII that were inside
of
10 meters, was luck.

I am sure everuything uou say is true. But I stand by the strike photos on my
website whicxh as oiyu can see a lot of "shacks" were soc red under diffiut
coimvat ciditrions. Thg ephotos donlt liere
striking the same target) independantly targets its weapons. In the case of
Batajanica, all you see are my weapons, my lead aircraft hit the second
runway
which you can almost see in the upper left hand part of the imagery.


Yup. I inndersyand now. Looks good.

I note that there was a hole in
the bomb pattern that left one bullding standing Someone out of formation or
a
delay in a release?

Mil dispersion saves a single building. Chances are, anyone in it has white
hair and is deaf.


Dead probably . I wasn't being critical, I just wanted to know. Thanks for the
info. I never did know how operations were done these days. A lot has changed.
But as I said I'llet the strike photos on my website speak for themselves for
everyone to see..


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

From: Bob McKellar


B2431 wrote:

From: "Bob's Your Uncle"


Ask Max Cleland!


They don't give purple hearts for stupidity or clumsiness.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Didn't he get tagged by his own grenade?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

No, the grenade was from another soldier. However, this was
indeed an accident, not enemy action, so I don't think he was
awarded the PH.

However, Cleland did receive the Silver Star for an earlier
action. He was an active combat experienced soldier.

Bob McKellar, former Cleland constituent

All I remembered was that it was a fumbled grenade and didn't rate a purple
heart since it was "friendly fire."

Still, it must have been rough learning how to live with only one flipper.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired