Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:24:16 +0100, Keith Willshaw wrote:

[snip]

The most successful defensive tactic was to perform an
immediate evasion by flying a violent corkscrew manoeuvre

Which, be it noted, the single pilot Lancaster was perfectly
capable of doing. Not sure about the Halifax or American Bs.

IBM

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ArtKramr wrote in message ...
ubject: Night bombers interception....
From: "Keith Willshaw"

hat single aircraft ended up over targets was a result of
the extremely poor reliability of the aircraft, it was not
uncommon for half the dispatched aircraft to have to
return to base. Indeed the USAAC described the B-17C
as being unsuitable for combat use.


Why do you think we gave them to the Brits? Same reason we gave P-39's to
the
Russians.

Pokrishkin was grateful for P-39 achieving "only" 59 victories! So much for
an "Iron Dog" in the hands of an ace )))))



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

"ian maclure" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:24:16 +0100, Keith Willshaw wrote:

[snip]

The most successful defensive tactic was to perform an
immediate evasion by flying a violent corkscrew manoeuvre

Which, be it noted, the single pilot Lancaster was perfectly
capable of doing. Not sure about the Halifax or American Bs.

IBM


The Halifax used the same tactic, it was simply inappropriate
for the B-17 which operated in tight formation in daylight.

Keith

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: "Keith Willshaw"
Date: 7/19/2004 2:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ian maclure" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:24:16 +0100, Keith Willshaw wrote:

[snip]

The most successful defensive tactic was to perform an
immediate evasion by flying a violent corkscrew manoeuvre

Which, be it noted, the single pilot Lancaster was perfectly
capable of doing. Not sure about the Halifax or American Bs.

IBM


The Halifax used the same tactic, it was simply inappropriate
for the B-17 which operated in tight formation in daylight.

Keith


And it would result in death, destruction amid mid-air collisions


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

The Halifax used the same tactic, it was simply inappropriate
for the B-17 which operated in tight formation in daylight.

B-17's, even in formation, could skid and turn slightly at the right tme to
throw off the German's aim. Given the ballistics of a head on attack, the
firing window was a fraction of a second.

Robert Morgan related in his auto-bio a time when he was flying "Memphis Belle"
in which he pulled up slightly at the very last instant in response to a
German fighter attack. Instead of the cockpit area being hit, the tail was
shredded badly.

Walt

(WalterM140) wrote in message ...
The Halifax used the same tactic, it was simply inappropriate
for the B-17 which operated in tight formation in daylight.

B-17's, even in formation, could skid and turn slightly at the right tme to
throw off the German's aim. Given the ballistics of a head on attack, the
firing window was a fraction of a second.

Robert Morgan related in his auto-bio a time when he was flying "Memphis Belle"
in which he pulled up slightly at the very last instant in response to a
German fighter attack. Instead of the cockpit area being hit, the tail was
shredded badly.

Walt


The American formations also learned to jink (on command of the rear
gunner) to try and avoid attack by the 21cm rockets (and even 250kg
bombs) the Germans were firing and dropping on them. These rockets
were very effective and often took out 3 or 4 bombers and broke up the
formation. It was the appearence of the P38 Lightning that rendered
the use of such heavily laden Me 110, Bf 109 and Fw 190s generaly too
costly. Once the formation was scattered the Bombers were easily
despatched.

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: (Eunometic)
Date: 7/19/2004 9:23 PM Pacific Standard Time

The American formations also learned to jink (on command of the rear
gunner) to try and avoid attack by the 21cm rockets (and even

After all the missions I have flown I never once heard the word "jinking" We
did none of that. it was straight and level all the way in and steady as a
rock. "jinking" would tumble the gyro on the Norden and force a go-around.


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

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:24:16 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

Trouble is a fight between an aircraft armed with 30mm cannon and
one armed with a single 0.5 will mostly favour the fighter.
The most successful defensive tactic was to perform an
immediate evasion by flying a violent corkscrew manoeuvre

Indeed, and I'm skeptical of the utility of a hand-mounted machine-gun
in a ventral window with restricted vision, manned by a frozen
air-gunner who has to endure hour after hour of vigilance on multimple
missions before facing the slit-second reactions required to deal with
a real assailant. Plenty of bombers were lost to stern attacks, and
even attacks from beneath passed through the visible arc of the rear
turret before they closed to engage, which should indicate the real
problems encountered relying on unassistated visual observation alone
for bomber defence.

Gavin Bailey

--

Apply three phase AC 415V direct to MB. This work real good. How you know, you
ask? Simple, chip get real HOT. System not work, but no can tell from this.
Exactly same as before. Do it now. - Bart Kwan En

WalterM140 wrote in message ...

I wrote,

Yes folks, Eaker and Hunter are the designated Black Hat wearers
of the moment, all evil comes from them.

I have said that it might have been beyond anyone to make such a determination.
But for whatever reason, they didn't make it, didn't tumble onto it after many
others had, and were sacked in large part because of it.

snip pedantic rant

Sample of Deleted text, which is described as a pedantic rant,
the full text refutes Walter's pet conclusion, so it needs to be deleted
and editorialised away.

The Pacific theatre really wanted more P-38s, they were by far the
biggest fans, the problems of mass producing the P-38 cannot be
ignored, plus the changes made in 1943 to make the type more
combat worthy helping to limit production. How about raging against
the decision to convert 500 P-38s to unarmed photo reconnaissance
types in 1942 and 1943, versus the 3,684 completed as fighters by
the end of 1943, including the prototype. There is your "few dozen"
extra P-38s. Note by the way the first 433 or so fighters were not
really combat worthy, that is everything before the P-38F, and the
reconnaissance versions were model F and G conversions so some
25% of the available F and G airframe ended up unarmed. Presumably
Arnold will now be considered a bad captain.

The USAAF wanted more P-38s in 1943, there was little the ETO
could do to speed up the process. It also realised the need for
high performance reconnaissance types. Only the defence of
England, of all the theatres of war, had enough allied fighters at the
start of 1943. So the P-47 went to Europe and even New Guinea.

I'll look in later notes in the thread, but you seem to not responded to this
piece of text:

You see folks, Walter has a basic test for "responses", he expects
one before you have actually seen the request. Then tries to imply
you are ducking the issue.

Meantime Eaker convinced Robert Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of
War for Air to push for a long range fighter.
Source?


Williamson Murray in his book Luftwaffe, quoting Boylan, in The
development of the long range fighter escort, pages 90 to 91
and 121.

I find no corroboration for such a supposed statement.

Walter does not bother to look for facts that disturb the preferred
conclusions.

"Eaker as late as October 1943 still believed the key was in the size of the
bomber formations... Eaker stuck to this belief while high-ranking officers
such as Chief of the Air Staff Barney Giles and commanmder of the VIII Bomber
Command Fred Anderson had determined that escort was the key to victory."

-- "To Command the Sky, p. 112, by McFarland and Newton

"During June 1943 Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert Lovett visited
England to observe Eighth Air Force operations. He spent considerable time
inspecting the VIII Fighter Command and especially the problems of escort. At
an Eighth Air Force comanders' mmeeting immediately after Lovett's visit,
Hunter told Eaker that he feared Lovett would insist on the use of P-38's for
escort. Hunter identified the P-38 as a "wonderful ship," but preferrred to
give the P-47 a "complete trial." In doing so Hunter reavealed his
misunderstanding of the basic issue confronting the Eighth Ar Force in the
summer and fall of 1943. The bombers needed escorts with range, bot superior
fighters. The P-47 was a better dogfighter, but it did not have the legs to fly
long escort missions."

ibid, p. 114

I find no evidence that Eaker thought it imperitive to provide escort or that
he communicated such with Lovett.

So why were P-47s fitted with drop tanks and used as escorts during
Eaker's period of command?

You seem to have just made it up.

Translation Walter is as bad at character assassination as history.

See for example Eaker's letter to Wilfrid Freeman noting that the
Munster raid of 10th October 1943 might have lost only 10 bombers
instead of the around 30 lost if the escorts had been able to stay
with the bombers.

It is really simple, Eaker was more complicated that the cardboard
black hat wearing bad guy Walter prefers. He was amongst the last
to hold the unescorted bombers idea but he hedged his bets.

deleted text,

"By the way if Eaker was still an unescorted heavy bomber fan you can
show all those sorts of missions run by the15th Air Force in 1944 when
he commanded it, correct?"

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...

I wrote,

firstly my deleted text, and I note the dropping of the Maxi Hastings data.
scroll down to the next to skip it, Walter likes deleting facts.

"There is a slight problem with this, the combat record of the P-38 over
North Africa in 1942/43 and then again over Europe on 1943/44. Then
add the long range P-38 versions came about when the cooling system
was redesigned and the J-15 version allowed 410 gallons of internal fuel
versus the 300 gallons in previous models. The first J models were
built in August 1943 without the wing tanks, with 10 J-1, 210 J-5 and
790 J-10 models built before the J-15 model was introduced, then add
the time to ramp up the line and send the aircraft overseas. In September
1943 the P-38s in the Mediterranean were classified as having a combat
radius of 350 miles, well short of that needed to escort bombers deep
into Germany."

(On P-38 effectiveness)

Is this using the same sort of methodology used to "prove" the B-17
could do well against the average German fighter, total all B-17
sorties for the day, when most were not intercepted, and use the
totals rather than the results from the formations actually attacked?

Do we have one or two examples of this "few dozen P-38" phenomena?
Followed by the assumption the USAAF could do it once or twice then
they could do it at will? The P-38 was the most distinctive fighter going
around in 1944 over Europe. The Luftwaffe was quite able to work out
counter tactics of "hit the couple of P-38 formations to leave the bombers
unescorted". They Luftwaffe did quite well in Tunisia.

A few dozen means one or two escort formations, tell JG26 to
intercept them just back from the coast.

The Luftwaffe actually tried this for a short while in 1943, hence
the RAF Spitfires flying the "insert cover". The extra fighters
meant extra Luftwaffe losses and less chance of picking the
real long range escort formations, since the P-47 was not all
that different to the Spitfire when the other type being compared
was the P-38.

If you are going to accuse someone of not using something make
sure the something was available for use first. Simply put assuming
the Mediterranean war was shut down the above figures are what
was available. And the Mediterranean war was not going to be shut
down, it was needed, at least until the end of 1943. So there were
no P-38s for the England based units, the P-38s were, after a trying
start, proving useful in the Mediterranean, mainly their superior range
compared with the P-40 and Spitfire.

So the theatre had control over where the scare P-38 resources
went to, given how much the Pacific wanted them, plus the
requirements of Tunisia?

Furthermore, given the number of USAAF missions to Germany in
say the first few months of 1943 the results would be so compelling
that the P-38 production line, the only high performance fighter the
USAAF had in combat, should be disrupted to add in the improvements.
Not only that but the specifications could be drawn up in say April 1943,
sent back to the US, turned into reliable engineering solutions in say
May 1943, with the first types built in say June 1943 with the arrival in
theatre in say July 1943. As opposed to the reality it took many months
to accumulate the information and turn it into numbers of improved
aircraft deployed in theatre. The first J models appeared in August 1943,
and as a rough guess it looks like the first J-15s were in December 1943
or January 1944.

In 1942 and early 1943 the P-38 was the fighter the Pacific forces
wanted, it had the better overall performance versus the P-39 and P-40
and was doing really well. The experience in Tunisia indicated the
P-38 needed work to tackle the Luftwaffe.

With nearly 1,700 built by the end of 1942, versus 532 P-47s, it was
not available in quantity, and it would take until mid 1943 to debug the
P-47 over Europe, to prove it was a worthwhile fighter. So the secondary
theatre, at least in early 1943, was given the task of proving the new
fighter in combat.

What I really like is Walter likes to run the line about how good the
B-17 was against enemy fighters, then turns around and accuses
the Generals of not providing enough escorts.

The 8th Air Force placed large orders for drop tanks in June 1943,
placing it fourth on the list of priorities, the USAAF command back
in Washington apparently thought British production would be sufficient.

Meantime Eaker convinced Robert Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of
War for Air to push for a long range fighter.

He -was- sacked, after all.

I know this has been pointed out many times but General Eaker
was not sacked, he was transferred to the Mediterranean in what was
a swap of commands with Spaatz and Dolittle.

That is typical of the crap you try and pull. Eaker fought this transfer tooth
and nail and you surely know that.

Apparently "sacked" is defined as being transferred to another
combat post with the same, if not more seniority. The fact
Eaker preferred to stay is another matter. The Mediterranean
command team was going to lead the invasion of France.

Of course give the 8th Air Force, say 1,000 P-38Js in early 1943
and watch them rip into an outnumbered western defences. Just
ignore the lack of bombers to take advantage of this wonder gift.
Just ignore the Luftwaffe doing something like new tactics or speeding
up the deployment of the fighter types historically delivered in 1944.
Just ignore the combat record of the P-38 over Europe in 1943/44.

Someone posted over on the WWII board that Galland, I believe, said that the
P-38 was the best allied fighter.

You see folks, Walter looks for the one quote, no make that the
ONE QUOTE to rule them all. He does not bother with things
like the Luftwaffe intelligence reports that rated the P-38 below
the P-47 and P-51 for fighter versus fighter combat.

If it would have been so easy for the Germans to force the American fighters to
drop tanks, why didn't they rigorously enforce that against the P-51s?

I know this is silly but the tactic was used in mid/late 1943 when the escort
fighters were sent only part of the way and in small numbers, it was a
method of stripping the cover away. The counter move was the shorter
ranged fighters "escorting" the longer ranged fighters during insertion.
The counter tactic worked well enough, the escort range grew more
and the escort numbers grew larger. So it became better for the
Luftwaffe to engage back from the coast.

There is a big difference in tactics of there are only "a few dozen"
long range escorts, easily detectable, versus hundreds of escorts.

And the P-38's in my hypothetical don't have to dogfight the Germans. They only
have to break up their massed attacks and make things too hot for the ME-110's.

You see the P-38 is so good the pilots fly by waving US flags and the
Germans promptly fly away. An amazing aircraft the P-38, no need to
drop the external tanks that made them slower than the Bf109 or Fw190
just use the Bf110 homing device and sing the national anthem it seems.

Want to look up the top speed of the P-38 with external tanks and
the Bf110 as deployed in 1943?

The P-38s would have to fight and the idea they would be able to
hit the Bf110s so well is a joke, what about the Luftwaffe escorting
the heavy fighters for a start.

Now, you'll dispute this of course. But the problems the long range escorts
gave the Germans rested on this:

The Germans had to up-armor and up-arm their single engine fighters and add
twin engine bomber destroyers to the mix, in order to kill B-17's in large
numbers. -Any- of the three main US fighters on the scene (P-38, P-47,
P-51)could have made that up-armoring and use of the twin engine bomber
destroyers impractical.

Let us start with the fact in 1943 the twin engined day fighter force had
been run down, mainly by the conversion of the units to night fighters,
plus the realisation the Bf110 was not a day fighter and the Me210 was
a failure. The twin engined day fighters did not start appearing in any
numbers to defend Germany until the USAAF fighters had drop tanks.

That is just false. The ME-110s played a heavy role in second Schweinfurt on
10/14/43 and earlier.

Why not actually look at the evolution of the German tactics and
note they were drawing on the night fighters in October 1943,
not the twin engined day fighters, those came home as it became
obvious the weight if attack by both day and night was increasing.

Hitler wanted his attack at Kursk and defence of Sicily first. Hence the
use of some nightfighters in daylight in the west. The first use of rockets
was actually also the same day as the first use of P-47 drop tanks.

Yes, and even with drop tanks, the P-47's could get no further than the German
border in that time frame.

Strange as it may seem guess where the P-38 could reach at the
same time, around 350 miles as used in the Mediterranean.

When
things like rockets proved useful the fighters to use them were deployed.

Instead of giving the USAAF more earlier but saying the Luftwaffe stays
on the historical deployments consider the early appearance of the P-38
moves the Luftwaffe more quickly onto the line of the Fw190 bomber
destroyer.

Which P-38's could more easily disrupt or destroy.

Yes folks, the invincible P-38 so stuns the Germans that they
cannot work out any counter tactics. Always hitting the Bf110
formations with uncanny accuracy and minimal combat.

Add for extra spice the Fw190D-9 appearing earlier, the
engine it needed was in production in 1943.

What on earth are you talking about?

Noting the usual Walter what if, boost the favourites, the other
side continues as if nothing happened.

The P-38 was the least effective of the USAAF fighters over Germany,
thanks to a combination of factors.

P-38's were very capable of breaking up the German fighter formations as they
tried to do mass attacks on the bombers and they were also very capable of
engaging the ME-110s. It's not a matter of pure dogfighting ability, just as
the US Navy developed team tactics for the F-4-F's to use to fight the IJN
fighters.

Yes folks, the P-38 is so wonderful we should ignore the actual combat
record in the European theatre of operations in 1943 and 1944.

Once the USAAF could deploy
escorts in numbers to the required targets then yes the Luftwaffe day
fighter force was in trouble.

That day -could- have come a full year sooner. First flight of the P-38
prototype was in 1939. First P-51B prototype was in November, 1942. I don't
see any reason why, as a hypothetical, that the problems the P-38's encountered
over Europe couldn't have been worked out in plenty of time to match the
increase in the B-17 force in the spring of 1943. They did have Kelley Johnson
working on the P-38 after all. It's hard to imagine he couldn't have solved
about anything.

Why not look up the gap between the initial P-38 design, with its
37 mm cannon, its non self sealing fuel tanks and so on versus
the P-38F and onwards. Then go realise the P-51B was using
an already proved airframe and proven engine.

Eaker didn't stress it, and Hunter (the 8th FC CG) didn't stress it. I don't
see any reason why the number of P-38's in Europe couldn't have been
dramatically increased, and much earlier, if it had been stressed. The
strategic bombing campaign operating out of England was, after all, the top
drawer element upon which the Army Air Force officers planned to use to make
their case for a separate air force.

Walter all you are doing is parading your ignorance of WWII, in
this case the P-38 engineering and the problems in ramping up
production.

If Arnold was so pro the idea and it was a "top drawer element"
then start blaming the people in Washington, they had the results
from the USAAF in the Pacific and Mediterranean to look at.
They should have been pushing the idea, or at least be forced
to wear the Walter black hat until Walter moves onto another
target.

And the Mediterranean war was not going to be shut
down, it was needed, at least until the end of 1943.

The most impotant theater to Arnold was clearly in England, and it involved
daylight precision bombing of German targets.

The most important theatre for Harris was England as well. The
allies however rated the Mediterranean ahead of England for
over the first half of 1943 and allocated the resource accordingly.

So there were
no P-38s for the England based units,

There could easily have been. That's my point.

Walter will simply keep ignoring the sort of P-38s available in
early 1943, giving them the late 1943 abilities, and failing to note
the problems the P-38 had even then.

So the theatre had control over where the scare P-38 resources
went to, given how much the Pacific wanted them, plus the
requirements of Tunisia?

The most important air force was clearly in England. At least as far as Arnold
was concerned.

Yes folks, mantra away find the ONE QUOTE and proclaim it the
"truth". Arnold was not the Combined Chiefs of Staff.

Furthermore, given the number of USAAF missions to Germany in
say the first few months of 1943 the results would be so compelling
that the P-38 production line, the only high performance fighter the
USAAF had in combat, should be disrupted to add in the improvements.

That's why it is a hypothetical.

Walter will however condemn Eaker on the hypothetical.

Not only that but the specifications could be drawn up in say April 1943,
sent back to the US, turned into reliable engineering solutions in say
May 1943, with the first types built in say June 1943 with the arrival in
theatre in say July 1943.

Hypothectically, that could all have been done a year earlier.

Yes folks, in which case hypothetically the Germans could have
deployed the Me262 earlier, using the same sort of wonder
insight being granted to the favoured characters in the non
passion play.

In 1942 and early 1943 the P-38 was the fighter the Pacific forces
wanted, it had the better overall performance versus the P-39 and P-40
and was doing really well. The experience in Tunisia indicated the
P-38 needed work to tackle the Luftwaffe.

The P-38 could have been very effective ensuring that the Germans couldn't mass
the way they wanted to against the B-17's.

Yes folks, just ignore the problems with numbers and what actually
did occur when such missions were run.

It was working -with- the B-17's that the P-38 could have done well. Of course
the P-51's and P-47's could and did do that too, but P-38's could have been
doing it a lot sooner.

The straight answer is simple, Walter has his current preferred
solution and evidence is irrelevant.

Another hypothetical would be that the Allies could have mated the Merlin to
the Mustang a lot earlier. Sure. Then you would have had the same equation.
But no one, certainly not Eaker or Hunter, was pushing for that.

This is quite funny Churchill apparently was involved in urging the
mating of the Mustang and the Merlin. The USAAF with no less
than 4 fighter designs in production was somewhat resistant to
having a fifth fighter type.

What I really like is Walter likes to run the line about how good the
B-17 was against enemy fighters, then turns around and accuses
the Generals of not providing enough escorts.

That would just be a flat lie.

Yes when in doubt Walter simply drops his previous claims and
then accuses people of telling lies when they report them.

A quote from Walter,

"If you watch the World at War episode "Whirlwind", you''ll see Col.
Leon Johnson interviewed. Col. Johnson was on the first Ploesti mission, on
which he won the Medal of Honor. Later, he was a B-24 group commander in
the 8th. He makes this statement: "They found they could cope with the
fighters, more or less..."

The B-17 groups could not deal with fighters
after the Germans reinforced and re-armed beginning in the Spring of 1943.
With escorts to break up the German formations, and make it too dangerous for
the heavily armed German fighters (both single and twin engine) to be proximate
to the American formations, that changed.

You've seen me exposit that many, many times.

No Walter people have seen you many times trying to promote the
B-17 heavy fighter idea.

Meantime Eaker convinced Robert Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of
War for Air to push for a long range fighter.

Source?

I find no corroboration for such a supposed statement.

Williamson Murray in his book Luftwaffe, quoting Boylan, in The
development of the long range fighter escort, pages 90 to 91
and 121.

"Eaker as late as October 1943 still believed the key was in the size of the
bomber formations... Eaker stuck to this belief while high-ranking officers
such as Chief of the Air Staff Barney Giles and commander of the VIII Bomber
Command Fred Anderson had determined that escort was the key to victory."

-- "To Command the Sky, p. 112, by McFarland and Newton

"During June 1943 Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert Lovett visited
England to observe Eighth Air Force operations. He spent considerable time
inspecting the VIII Fighter Command and especially the problems of escort. At
an Eighth Air Force comanders' mmeeting immediately after Lovett's visit,
Hunter told Eaker that he feared Lovett would insist on the use of P-38's for
escort. Hunter identified the P-38 as a "wonderful ship," but preferrred to
give the P-47 a "complete trial." In doing so Hunter revealed his
misunderstanding of the basic issue confronting the Eighth Air Force in the
summer and fall of 1943. The bombers needed escorts with range, bot superior
fighters. The P-47 was a better dogfighter, but it did not have the legs to fly
long escort missions."

ibid, p. 114

I find no evidence that Eaker thought it imperitive to provide escort or that
he communicated such with Lovett.

So why were P-47s fitted with drop tanks and used as escorts during
Eaker's period of command?

Lovett DID take that idea back to Washington with him, but he didn't get it
from Eaker.

See for example Eaker's letter to Wilfrid Freeman noting that the
Munster raid of 10th October 1943 might have lost only 10 bombers
instead of the around 30 lost if the escorts had been able to stay
with the bombers.

It is really simple, Eaker was more complicated that the cardboard
black hat wearing bad guy Walter prefers. He was amongst the last
to hold the unescorted bombers idea but he hedged his bets.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.