Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

In fact I think it is still burning to this
day. See " Wurzburg" on my website.

Thanks Art. What was the proportion of group missions vs those of squadron or
fewer aircraft? Another tactics question. Was there a reason why those 21
B-17s wouldn't have been sent on that same mission at lower level if accuracy
was that much of an issue? Or was it just the luck of the draw that one unit
went instead of another? In other words, why send 350 men and 56 planes when
21 and 210 men ata lower altitude might have accompliahed the same thing? Was
the speed and the slapper size of the B-25 a factor in the decision?

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: Andrew Chaplin
Date: 7/16/2004 12:16 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

ArtKramr wrote:

snip Have you ever seen a German fighter take the full
blast from American twin 50's? It's a beautiful sight to see and a lovely
emotional experience never to be forgotten.

I think the expression you're looking for is also a title to an
excellent book on Canadian war art: A Terrible Beauty.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)


Yup. Great title.



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

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 7/16/2004 11:07 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: smartace1

Was the B-26 more effective or appropriately used in a heavy
bomber or a medium tactical attack aircraft type role. Hypothetical
question.
Just looking for an opinion not a service record.

Mediums (B-25, B-26) were generally used to strike at logistical
infrastructure
while the heavies generally went after strategic targets. Sometimes were
were
used against logistical targets such as railyards, where they generally gave
poor results. Mediums flying at about a third their altitude really scored
at
hitting precision targets.
In an ideal MTO world, aircraft types would have been assigned to targets
something like this:
B-17s and B-24s, the factories making the locomotives.
B-26s the rail yard.
B-25s the rail bridge.
P-47s, P-38s and A-20s the train.
P-40s, A-36s and Spitfires the trucks and carts that have unloaded the train.
That gives you an idea of how the types would have been tasked based on their
abilities. Of course, in the real world, B-26s bombed plenty of bridges and
B-25s hit plenty of rail yards. And P-47s hit plenty of road traffic (and
bridges) while P-40s strafed trains when they found them.
The biggest difference for most of the war was between the heavies hitting
factories and mediums hitting transportation targets.
In Italy mediums also bombed gun emplacements, airfields, shipping, troop
concentrations, basically becoming jacks of all trades.
In the Pacific, the mediums seem to have been used like fighter-bombers and
the
heavies (before the B-29) most of the time like mediums.


Chris Mark

Good rundown Chris with just one minor correction. When the B-26's arrived in
the ETO the B-25's were all shipped down to the MTO. I never saw a B-25 in the
ETO except as transport for a general.



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

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: Guy Alcala
Date: 7/15/2004 10:04 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Jack wrote:

ArtKramr wrote:

We offered to give the Brits B-17's each with a big fat belly turret.
They wouldn't take them. Big mistake.

I presume they did so because they preferred some other aircraft (or
weapon system) which we also offered. Do you know what the preferred
alternative might have been?

Perhaps they wished to avoid large manning requirements and sought
aircraft with fewer required crew positions.

The British used B-17s in combat before we ever did. They were B-17Cs which
were used by day, but proved to be less than wonderful. Contrary to Art's
assertion, Bomber Command did operate some B-17Gs, but they were used by
100 Group (electronic countermeasures), not as part of the main force.
Coastal Command also used them, but the B-17 was less suited to night
bombing than the British a/c, barring considerable modifications. Given
that the B-17 was preferred by the 8th AF for daytime missions over the
B-24, and the B-24 was preferred in the Pacific and for various other
roles, there was no good reason for RAF Bomber Command to use them in
preference to the Lancaster and Halifax.

Guy


They never used them where they really needed them against night fighter attack
with their big fat 50 caliber Browning heavy machine guns. The German planes
were never well armored enough to withstand the American 50's. The war at night
would have gone a lot better for the Brits with B-17's..and their belly turrets
with powerful twin 50's. Have you ever seen a German fighter take the full
blast from American twin 50's? It's a beautiful sight to see and a lovely
emotional experience never to be forgotten.

Unfortunately, the major problem at night wasnt the relative firepower of the
defensive armament, as the ranges were invariably quite short. .303s at typical
ranges of less than 200 yds are quite effective, especially when they're mounted
four to a turret. Range to a typical fighter in a Schrage Musik attack would often
be 50-100 yards or even less, below, slightly aft and to the side. For defensive
machine guns firing almost straight down, fighter armor wasn't an issue, especially
in the fighter's cockpit area.

The problem was seeing the fighters in the first place. As I and others mentioned
in other posts, the British were unaware of Schrage Musik, and were removing the
belly turrets from their Lancs to improve their performance. They would have done
exactly the same with ball turrets of either B-17s or B-24s, replacing them with
H2S radar domes (just as the Americans did for those B-17 and B-24 a/c that acted
as pathfinders, before a under-nose radar mount was developed) which were
considered more valuable. Unlike the case with daytime missions, most night
bombers never saw an attacking fighter before it opened fire, and (especially with
Schrage Musik) often not even then. When they did spot the fighters before they
opened fire, by far the most effective move to make was for the gunner to tell the
pilot to start a corkscrew; opening fire was a matter of last resort.

Ideally, the Brits would have removed the rarely used dorsal turrets and kept the
belly turret, but that's 20/20 hindsight. Even if they had, there's no guarantee
that they would have seen fighters often enough (given the typical visibility
conditions) to compensate for the reduced performance due to weight and drag.

Guy

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: Guy Alcala
Date: 7/16/2004 5:36 PM Pac

hen they did spot the fighters before they
opened fire, by far the most effective move to make was for the gunner to
tell the
pilot to start a corkscrew; opening fire was a matter of last resort.

I think you have just identified the heart of the problem.


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

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: Guy Alcala
Date: 7/16/2004 5:36 PM Pac

hen they did spot the fighters before they
opened fire, by far the most effective move to make was for the gunner to
tell the
pilot to start a corkscrew; opening fire was a matter of last resort.

I think you have just identified the heart of the problem.

Not a problem, just a recognition by the Brits that it was relatively easy to
make the fighter lose sight at night, while a single bomber engaging in a gun
duel against a fighter was usually a bad idea, as the fighter had far more
concentrated firepower and was much more maneuverable. This was equally true
whether the bomber was armed with .303, .50 cal. or even 20mm defensive guns.
It was often better, then, for the gunner to not open fire if it appeared that
the fighter hadn't seen the bomber, or so that he could retain his night
vision so he would hopefully maintain sight of the fighter and call out
directions to the pilot ("Corkscrew left!") should the fighter manage to stick
with the bomber after the first evasive move.

Naturally, not all gunners had such discipline -- having been trained to fire
their guns they wanted to fire them, especially as the first German
nightfighter they saw during their tour was generally also the last, either
because they were shot down or because the odds of them ever seeing another
were so low. Besides, active defense tends to be psychologically more
satisfying than passive defense, even if the latter is more effective, so many
a/c captains would tell them to open fire. The use of tracer ammo by the
Brits could have negative effects on both the fighter pilot's and gunners
night vision, so it might be a wash.

Guy

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: Guy Alcala

Besides, active defense tends to be psychologically more
satisfying than passive defense, even if the latter is more effective,

My experience was just the opposite.


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

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception....
From: Guy Alcala

Besides, active defense tends to be psychologically more
satisfying than passive defense, even if the latter is more effective,

My experience was just the opposite.

My "even if" should be read "when", but at night passive defense was
usually more effective, while by day flying in massed formations, active
defense was more effective. Active vs. passive defense effectiveness tends
to be situationally dependent. The psychologically satisfying bit re
active defense seems to be universal, though. Hard kills are more
satisfying than soft kills, because the physical evidence (target blowing
up etc.) is not only more exciting, but also you can usually tell that it
was an action on your part that caused it. It's a lot tougher to determine
the cause of soft kill, leaving the situation kind of vague and
unsatisfying.

For example, take the case of a ship protecting itself from a missile. If
it manages to shoot it down by its own missiles or guns, that tends to be
fairly obvious and relatively easy to assign credit for, although if more
than one system is firing on the missile multiple claims are likely to be
made. But if the missile isn't shot down but just misses, was it decoyed,
jammed, did it have a malfunction, was it fired at too great a range, was
the target not in the acquisition envelope, was the target signature too
low to be detected, etc. There's often no way to tell, and no satisfying
explosion to see/hear, even though the ultimate effect is the same - the
target ship is safe.

Guy

WalterM140 wrote in message ...

(snip)

The RAF definitely was defeated over Germany by the Luftwaffe in the Spring of
1944. Being put onto invasion targets has obscured this fact.

Strange as it may seem the histories make it clear the Luftwaffe
managed to defeat Bomber Command in early 1944.

"Bomber Command had lost 4,160 aircraft missing and crashed in England.
Harris's failure to bring Germany to her knees, and the cost of his failure,
had become embarrassingly evident to every man but himself.

The losses for the last three months of 1943 and the first 3 months
of 1944 are, according to Hastings, 1,287 missing in action and
another 217 crashed in England, Harris says 1,328 bombers were lost.

To obtain something around the 4,160 figure mentioned you need to
sum the losses from March 1942, when Harris took command to the
end of 1943, then Hastings' loss figures 3,619 MIA plus 626 crashes,
total 4,245.

In the same period according to the USAAF the 8th Air Force lost some
1,615 heavy bombers in combat and crashes, 1,078 considered lost
on combat missions.

And in a letter to
the Air Ministry on April 7, 1944, he came as close as ever in his life to
conceding that he was in deep trouble:

'The strength of the German defenses [he wrote] would in time reach a point at
which night-bombing attacks by existing methods and types of heavy bombers
would involve percentage casualty rates which in the long run could not be
sustained...we have not yet reached that point, but tactical innovations which
have so far postponed it are now practically exhausted....'

This was a preamble to a demand for ten suadrons of night fighters to support
his bombers. It was the final admission of defeat for the Trenchard
doctrine....Now Bomber Command had discovered that even night operations
against Germany could no longer be continued on their existing basis unless the
enemy's night-fighter force could be crippled of destroyed."

--Bomber Command, p. 308 by Max Hastings

This sort of ignores the fact the RAF had been steadily building up the
bomber support system, and the loss rates had peaked in earlier times,
with new tactics helping to drop the losses back into the acceptable
category. For example late 1941, and mid 1943.

It comes down to whatever Hastings defines as the Trenchard doctrine,
the unescorted bomber devastating the target had long been disproved
before March 1944.

The Americans also had to stop deep penetrations inot Germany (they had
made precious few) until they got Mustangs and longer-legged P47's and
also some P-38's.

It's a tragedy that the USAAF had a long range escort within its grasp even in
1942, and didn't see it. That was the P-38. A P-38 group was sent to England
in 1942 but wound up in Africa after Torch. The VIIIth fighter CG, Hunter,
wanted to concentrate on the P-47. This was a big mistake. It was shown that
even a few dozen P-38's could break up the massed attacks by the Germans.

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.

It would have been quite easy to stop P-38 escorts in 1943, just attack
them early, and force them to jettison their external tanks, they were
carrying about as much or more fuel externally than internally.

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.

But
they weren't supported, nor was the idea pushed. Eaker seemed to think that
some magic number of B-17's could be self-defending. That ultimately cost him
his job.

Eaker was not the only one and he did ask for long range tanks on
his fighters. It is not a simple good guy/bad guy situation.

To get back on target, so to speak, the Americans got back over Germany by
adding the long range fighter (and new commanders) to the mix. The RAF had
no such solution.

Of course this simply ignores the long range night fighter support and
better jamming systems for a start.


Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Probably because its untrue

The simple fact is that during March 1944 bomber command flew a total
of 9031 sorties with a loss rate of under 4%. Nuremburg was indeed a
disaster
but an isolated one.

The RAF definitely was defeated over Germany by the Luftwaffe in the
Spring of
1944. Being put onto invasion targets has obscured this fact.

"Bomber Command had lost 4,160 aircraft missing and crashed in England.
Harris's failure to bring Germany to her knees, and the cost of his
failure,
had become embarrassingly evident to every man but himself.


Bull**** - losses in the first 4 months of 1944 were as follows

Month Lost Crashed %Loss
January 314 38 5.6
Febuary 199 21 5.2
March 283 39 3.6
April 214 25 2.4


During this period the B-17's of US 8th AF were suffering very
similar loss rates.

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

And during the first 4 months of 1944, the USAAF was seriously attriting the
Luftwaffe. The RAF was not. The Spitfires didn't have the range to help out
over Germany. That's where the Luftwaffe was.


And in a letter to
the Air Ministry on April 7, 1944, he came as close as ever in his life to
conceding that he was in deep trouble:

'The strength of the German defenses [he wrote] would in time reach a
point at
which night-bombing attacks by existing methods and types of heavy bombers
would involve percentage casualty rates which in the long run could not be
sustained...we have not yet reached that point, but tactical innovations
which
have so far postponed it are now practically exhausted....'


So in fact in the spring of 1944 he is saying he has NOT been defeated,

Harris was in denial. As Hastings points out, he was the only one not saying
that.

If you watch the World At War episode, "Whirlwind", you'll hear Harris say that
the Battle of Berlin was not a defeat. But it was, and a bad one.



This was a preamble to a demand for ten suadrons of night fighters to
support
his bombers. It was the final admission of defeat for the Trenchard
doctrine....Now Bomber Command had discovered that even night operations
against Germany could no longer be continued on their existing basis
unless the
enemy's night-fighter force could be crippled of destroyed."



On the contrary it was a way of ensuring that he got his night fighters,
and it worked.

"In January the British losses rose to 6.15 percent of all sorties against
Berlin and to 7.2 per cent against Stettin, Brunswick and Madgeburg. But the
effectiveness of the German defenses was not confined to destruction. Harrassed
all the way to their distant targets with bombs on board, many of the bombers
were forced to turn back in a damaged condition. Combat and evasive action
scattered the remainder over the sky so that they no longer arrived on the
target as a coherent force. Much as Berlin and the other cities suffered from
the bombing terror of the winter of 1943/44, they were spared the total
extinction that had been the enemy's prognosis.

To quote from the British
official history, "The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany":

"Bomber Command was compelled, largely by the German night-fighter force, to
draw away from its primary target, Berlin, to disperse its effort and to persue
its operations by apparently less efficient means than hitherto. ... The Battle
of Berlin was more than a failure. It was a defeat."

Luftwaffe War Diaries, p.339 by Cajus Bekker

And consider this text from "The Berlin Raids" by Martin
Middlebrook:

"Fauquier [the master bomber] devoted most of his efforts to encouraging
the Main Force to press right on into the target and not to release their bombs
prematurely. It was not easy. He could deride the flak, but Main Force crews
harrassed by fighter attack were not always inclined to listen."

-- "The Berlin Raids p.65 by Martin Middlebrooks


"The raid proceded in no better, no worse, manner than so many raids beyond
the range of oboe. Enough of the 49 pathfinder
backers-up and re-centerers arrived to produce a steady supply
of green TIs. The planned route from the south east was never
achieved. It is clear from the evidence of bombing photographs, that once
the early raid markers and bombs were seen to go down, both the pathfinders
backers-up and the main force swung in from due south, neither being
prepared to spend the extra time in
the target area flying to a theoretical turning point futher on."

They were not prepared to fly further to the briefed point because they
were being heavily engaged by night fighters. Middlebrook makes that plain.

"Many of the Main Force crews were bombing the first markers they saw, instead
of the centre of the markers as ordered, or were dropping short of the markers;
a long 'creepback' developed. The night was clear. Bomber Command's
Operational Research Section later examined 468 bombing photgraphs and
concluded that only five aircraft had bombed within three miles of the correct
Aiming Point, that only a quarter of the force bombed the vulnerable area of
Berlin, and that most of the remainer bombed lightly built up suburban areas."

Ibid p. 66


The RAF was not only getting shot to pieces, they were ineffective.


snip

To get back on target, so to speak, the Americans got back over Germany by
adding the long range fighter (and new commanders) to the mix. The RAF
had no
such solution.


Horsefeathers.

What allowed Bomber Command to continue sending German cities to Harris'
bonfires was the favorable situation brought on by the Americans. That's what
Portal said.


Walt