Subject: THE DEADLY RAILROAD BRIDGES
From: Dana Miller
Date: 2/2/04 9:23 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Two Bad Days Over the Deadly RR Bridges


Railroad bridges were brutally defended. Knock out a RR bridge and you have
cut
transport for possibly hundreds of miles . And while repairing track took
only
a few hours. rebulding a RR bridge over a river or chasm might take weeks.
We
had some of our heaviest losses over these bridges. On the 13th of February
1945 we attacked the RR Bridge at Euskirchen. We lost two aircraft over the
target. We lost Yeager and his crew and Williams (one chute seen to open)
and
his crew. The very next day we hit the Engers RR bridge and we lost 5
aircraft
over the target. Brennen,Holms, Jones, Nelson and Meppen and crews were lost
but three chutes were seen you open. Two bridges,two days, seven crews lost.
A
lot of empty bunks at the 344th. And the war was almost over. What a time to
die.
Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer


Art,

It must have been these tough nuts to crack that were to motivation for
the weapons system I'm working on now. The AGM-130 and GBU-15 are
basically a 2000 lb low drag iron bomb with a daylight TV or IR TV video
seeker head up front and a control package, television transmitter, and
BIG fins on the back. The AGM-130 also has a 400lb rocket booster to
increase its range. These are both controlled by AXQ-14 data link pods
carried by F-15E's

I just saw some footage today of these things doing their job on
Yugoslav bridges. They are accurate, and controllable enough to hit
either the bridge arches, beams, or piers exactly where you want to hit
them. There is a pride in working on these things knowing that that 1)
they are such an effective weapon and 2) they do the job without putting
air crews in such terrible danger as Art faced.

There are some things you just can't do with laser or GPS guided
weapons. Much of the world where bad people live has heavy cloud cover
and too many SAMS to safely lase targets. GPS guided bombs hit things
from the top and only the top. I just saw the proof of how effective it
is to hit parts of bridges from the side. Sometimes the bad guys hide
high value targets under overpases. I think the dictator of Yugoslavia
gave up because they put a 2000lb bomb into the LEFT patio door of an
apartment he frequently visited.

I remember the sacrifices it took to hit the tough targets. One of the
best parts of my job is to tell people how many american air crews these
things save. All the while whe're building these things in the old
Norden bombsight factory:-). Start out good, get better.

--
Dana Miller


Wish we had that stuff back then. A lot of good men would still be with us.


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