History Channel

®i©ardo wrote:

No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


But when it came to the crunch?

Don't forget that the initial Dresden raid was supposed to have been
flown by the Americans but they cried off because of bad weather, so
the RAF stepped into the gap and played the lead role. American
"precision" bombing in that same campaign also saw the Americans bomb
Prague by mistake, although I don't know how accurately they did
that. It certainly upset the Russians, who were in residence by that
time!
Essentially the Norden bomb sight worked only in clear skies - not an
everyday thing in continental Europe, unlike California where it was
developed.


That's what I said.



Also, to quote:

"The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet,
2/3 of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets --
even with the best of bombsights.


Which was very good compared to RAF night bombing accuracy.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
®i©ardo wrote:
No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


But when it came to the crunch?

Don't forget that the initial Dresden raid was supposed to have been
flown by the Americans but they cried off because of bad weather, so
the RAF stepped into the gap and played the lead role. American
"precision" bombing in that same campaign also saw the Americans bomb
Prague by mistake, although I don't know how accurately they did
that. It certainly upset the Russians, who were in residence by that
time!
Essentially the Norden bomb sight worked only in clear skies - not an
everyday thing in continental Europe, unlike California where it was
developed.


That's what I said.


Also, to quote:

"The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet,
2/3 of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets --
even with the best of bombsights.


Which was very good compared to RAF night bombing accuracy.



Not at all. If their bomb sights were useless because of local weather
conditions their accuracy was as good/bad as that of the RAF, as the
USAAF's H2X radar was somewhat imprecise.

Over Japan the USAAF just abandoned "precision" daylight bombing altogether.

http://www.tamblyn.net/academic_pres...assignment.htm

--
Moving things in still pictures!

®i©ardo wrote:

Not at all. If their bomb sights were useless because of local weather
conditions their accuracy was as good/bad as that of the RAF, as the
USAAF's H2X radar was somewhat imprecise.


Right. When the weather was poor USAAF bombing accuracy was similar to the
RAF, when the weather was good it was significantly better than the RAF.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
®i©ardo wrote:

Not at all. If their bomb sights were useless because of local weather
conditions their accuracy was as good/bad as that of the RAF, as the
USAAF's H2X radar was somewhat imprecise.


Right. When the weather was poor USAAF bombing accuracy was similar to
the RAF, when the weather was good it was significantly better than the
RAF.

You really haven't read the information below have you?


The United States Strategic Bombing Survey
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm#eaocar

The U. S. Army Air Forces entered the European war with the firm view that
specific industries and services were the most promising targets in the
enemy economy, and they believed that if these targets were to be hit
accurately, the attacks had to be made in daylight. A word needs to be said
on the problem of accuracy in attack. Before the war, the U. S. Army Air
Forces had advanced bombing techniques to their highest level of development
and had trained a limited number of crews to a high degree of precision in
bombing under target range conditions, thus leading to the expressions "pin
point" and "pickle barrel" bombing. However, it was not possible to approach
such standards of accuracy under battle conditions imposed over Europe. Many
limiting factors intervened; target obscuration by clouds, fog, smoke
screens and industrial haze; enemy fighter opposition which necessitated
defensive bombing formations, thus restricting freedom of maneuver;
antiaircraft artillery defenses, demanding minimum time exposure of the
attacking force in order to keep losses down; and finally, time limitations
imposed on combat crew training after the war began.

It was considered that enemy opposition made formation flying and formation
attack a necessary tactical and technical procedure. **Bombing patterns
resulted -- only a portion of which could fall on small precision targets.**
The rest spilled over




on adjacent plants, or built-up areas, or in open fields. Accuracy ranged
from poor to excellent.** When visual conditions were favorable and flak
defenses were not intense, bombing results were at their best.
Unfortunately, the major portion of bombing operations over Germany had to
be conducted under weather and battle conditions that restricted bombing
technique, and accuracy suffered accordingly. Conventionally the air forces
designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around
the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey
studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at
precision targets fell within this target area. A peak accuracy of 70% was
reached for the month of February 1945. These are important facts for the
reader to keep in mind, especially when considering the tonnages of bombs
delivered by the air forces. Of necessity a far larger tonnage was carried
than hit German installations.

Robert Sveinson wrote:

You really haven't read the information below have you?


Yes, I have. Do you know who was on the survey?




The United States Strategic Bombing Survey
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm#eaocar

The U. S. Army Air Forces entered the European war with the firm view
that specific industries and services were the most promising targets
in the enemy economy, and they believed that if these targets were to
be hit accurately, the attacks had to be made in daylight. A word
needs to be said on the problem of accuracy in attack. Before the
war, the U. S. Army Air Forces had advanced bombing techniques to
their highest level of development and had trained a limited number
of crews to a high degree of precision in bombing under target range
conditions, thus leading to the expressions "pin point" and "pickle
barrel" bombing. However, it was not possible to approach such
standards of accuracy under battle conditions imposed over Europe.
Many limiting factors intervened; target obscuration by clouds, fog,
smoke screens and industrial haze; enemy fighter opposition which
necessitated defensive bombing formations, thus restricting freedom
of maneuver; antiaircraft artillery defenses, demanding minimum time
exposure of the attacking force in order to keep losses down; and
finally, time limitations imposed on combat crew training after the
war began.
It was considered that enemy opposition made formation flying and
formation attack a necessary tactical and technical procedure.
**Bombing patterns resulted -- only a portion of which could fall on
small precision targets.** The rest spilled over




on adjacent plants, or built-up areas, or in open fields. Accuracy
ranged from poor to excellent.** When visual conditions were
favorable and flak defenses were not intense, bombing results were at
their best. Unfortunately, the major portion of bombing operations
over Germany had to be conducted under weather and battle conditions
that restricted bombing technique, and accuracy suffered accordingly.
Conventionally the air forces designated as "the target area" a
circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of
attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show
that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision
targets fell within this target area. A peak accuracy of 70% was
reached for the month of February 1945. These are important facts for
the reader to keep in mind, especially when considering the tonnages
of bombs delivered by the air forces. Of necessity a far larger
tonnage was carried than hit German installations.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
Robert Sveinson wrote:

You really haven't read the information below have you?


Yes, I have. Do you know who was on the survey?

Is this close enough?

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey was established by the Secretary
of War on November 3, 1944, pursuant to a directive from the late President
Roosevelt.

The officers of the Survey we

Franklin D'Olier, Chairman.
Henry C. Alexander, Vice-Chairman.

George W. Ball,
Harry L. Bowman,
John K. Galbraith,
Rensis Likert,
Frank A. McNamee,
Paul H. Nitze,
Robert P. Russell,
Fred Searls, Jr.,
Theodore P. Wright, Directors.

Charles C. Cabot, Secretary.
The Table of Organization provided for 300 civilians, 350 officers and 500
enlisted men. The Survey operated from headquarters in London and
established forward headquarters and regional headquarters in Germany
immediately following the advance of the Allied armies.






The United States Strategic Bombing Survey
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm#eaocar

The U. S. Army Air Forces entered the European war with the firm view
that specific industries and services were the most promising targets
in the enemy economy, and they believed that if these targets were to
be hit accurately, the attacks had to be made in daylight. A word
needs to be said on the problem of accuracy in attack. Before the
war, the U. S. Army Air Forces had advanced bombing techniques to
their highest level of development and had trained a limited number
of crews to a high degree of precision in bombing under target range
conditions, thus leading to the expressions "pin point" and "pickle
barrel" bombing. However, it was not possible to approach such
standards of accuracy under battle conditions imposed over Europe.
Many limiting factors intervened; target obscuration by clouds, fog,
smoke screens and industrial haze; enemy fighter opposition which
necessitated defensive bombing formations, thus restricting freedom
of maneuver; antiaircraft artillery defenses, demanding minimum time
exposure of the attacking force in order to keep losses down; and
finally, time limitations imposed on combat crew training after the
war began.
It was considered that enemy opposition made formation flying and
formation attack a necessary tactical and technical procedure.
**Bombing patterns resulted -- only a portion of which could fall on
small precision targets.** The rest spilled over




on adjacent plants, or built-up areas, or in open fields. Accuracy
ranged from poor to excellent.** When visual conditions were
favorable and flak defenses were not intense, bombing results were at
their best. Unfortunately, the major portion of bombing operations
over Germany had to be conducted under weather and battle conditions
that restricted bombing technique, and accuracy suffered accordingly.
Conventionally the air forces designated as "the target area" a
circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of
attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show
that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision
targets fell within this target area. A peak accuracy of 70% was
reached for the month of February 1945. These are important facts for
the reader to keep in mind, especially when considering the tonnages
of bombs delivered by the air forces. Of necessity a far larger
tonnage was carried than hit German installations.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
®i©ardo wrote:

Not at all. If their bomb sights were useless because of local weather
conditions their accuracy was as good/bad as that of the RAF, as the
USAAF's H2X radar was somewhat imprecise.


Right. When the weather was poor USAAF bombing accuracy was similar to
the RAF, when the weather was good it was significantly better than the
RAF.

From the USAAF Air War Plans Division A-WPD/1

The A-WPD/1 Committee calculated the possibilities
of hitting the plants, in daylight, using the Norden bombsight,
balancing a number of factors to produce an 'accuracy probability". Their
first calculations indicated that to hit a target 100 ft. sq. from 20,000
ft.
would take a mission by 220 bombers, and when all the other elements were
factored in-flak,fighters, weather, whatever-the resources required to
achieve
a 95% chance of destroying such a precision target amounted to either
30 bomb-group missions or a single mission by 1,100 aircraft-which hardly
sounds like precision bombing at all.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
®i©ardo wrote:

No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


But when it came to the crunch?

Don't forget that the initial Dresden raid was supposed to have been
flown by the Americans but they cried off because of bad weather, so
the RAF stepped into the gap and played the lead role. American
"precision" bombing in that same campaign also saw the Americans bomb
Prague by mistake, although I don't know how accurately they did
that. It certainly upset the Russians, who were in residence by that
time!
Essentially the Norden bomb sight worked only in clear skies - not an
everyday thing in continental Europe, unlike California where it was
developed.


That's what I said.

But did you also say that there were MORE days of bad weather,
overcast in the European theatre than there were days
of good/clear weather? No I don't see thgat anywhere.

How about the bombing of Prague when the USAAF was AIMING at
Dresden.

How about the bombing of several Swiss cities
when AIMING at targets (supposedly) in Germany?





Also, to quote:

"The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet,
2/3 of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets --
even with the best of bombsights.


Which was very good compared to RAF night bombing accuracy.

Robert Sveinson wrote:

How about the bombing of Prague when the USAAF was AIMING at
Dresden.

How about the bombing of several Swiss cities
when AIMING at targets (supposedly) in Germany?


You've confused target identification/navigation with bombing accuracy.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
Robert Sveinson wrote:
How about the bombing of Prague when the USAAF was AIMING at
Dresden.

How about the bombing of several Swiss cities
when AIMING at targets (supposedly) in Germany?


You've confused target identification/navigation with bombing accuracy.



So any target will do, right one or wrong one, as long as it is bombed
"accurately"?

"Precision" is an integral part of the equation, in that it implies that
the bomber crews knew where they were going and, having got there, knew
what they had to do.

That is NOT the situation with the bombing of Prague, Schaffhausen,
Zurich and Basel.

--
Moving things in still pictures!