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#72
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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. |
#73
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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. |
#74
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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. |
#75
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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. |
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"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 |
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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 |
#78
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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 |
#79
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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 |
#80
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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 |
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