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Posts:
5,573
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(16 of 48)
Optimization? I don't think it would have worked
Jun 29, 2009 7:59 PM
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Before the 8th Air Force was an effective force, the British had decided against daylight raids with their larger aircraft - the Lancasters and the Halifaxes - becsue of the losses that had been incurred. The USAAF committed itself to daylight bombing and trained its crews accordingly. And, the USAAF did not pursue the kind of navigational aids necessary for night attacks. Re-arming the Lancs and Halifaxes to the level of armament of the B-17s would have been very expensive and time-consuming. I doubt there were enough long-range fighters to escort all the squadrons of the 8th AF and RAF Bomber Command. The USAAF had already found the problems of intermixing bombers of varying capabilities - the B-24s couldn't fly as high as the B-17s, which made the Libs easier targets for the Luftwaffe - so mixing Halifaxes and Lancasters with B-17s wasn't a good idea either. Bombing around the clock was probably the best the Allies could do to disrupt German production at that time.
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(17 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 5:52 AM
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In other words, if the town shows up on radar, bomb it.
Not nearly so indescriminate as you make it sound.
...large enough to produce an identifiable return on
the H2X scope
The key words here are "identifiable return". The nature of H2X was that large relatively flat areas surrounded by clutter showed up fairly well on the scope - which pretty much defines a marshalling yard. Likewise, land-water interfaces were fairly well defined on the scope so coastlines and shorelines of rivers and lakes were identifiable.
I have many mission folders for a certain 15th AF B-24 group - which operated under much the same targeting instructions as the 8th. A couple of examples:
22 June 44, the target was a major railroad bridge in N. Italy. No PFF aircraft were in the formation. The primary and alternate targets were all found to have 8/10 to 10/10 cloud cover. No attack was made and all bombs were jetisoned into the Adriatic.
25 June 44, the target was the sub pens/dock at Toulon. The formation was led by the PFF aircraft 41-28847 named "Consolidated Mess". Toulon was completely covered by cloud and the target could not be identified - all bombs were returned to base.
Granted, those targets were in occupied territory rather than Germany proper. But, on 13 June, the target was the Allach Motor Works in Munich and was found to be covered by cloud and smoke and was not attacked. The marshalling yard on the NW side of the city was attacked visually. The target of last resort was specified as the center of Munich by PFF, but that is still adhering to the specifics of bullet items 1 and 2 that you quoted.
...practice was to load up with large proportions of incendiaries and attack German city centres using radar aiming
Can you supply specific information regarding the loading of incendiaries? According to the AAF Statistical Digest, approximately 16% of the AAF bombs dropped against Theaters vs. Germany were incendiaries. Again, the bomb group for which I have records seldom loaded incendiaries, even when the primary target was oil installations.
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Illegitimis non carborundum, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell
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594
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(18 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 7:35 AM
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> In other words, if the town shows up on radar,
> bomb it.
>
> Not nearly so indescriminate as you make it sound.
>
> ...large enough to produce an identifiable return
> on
> the H2X scope
>
> The key words here are "identifiable return". The
> nature of H2X was that large relatively flat areas
> surrounded by clutter showed up fairly well on the
> scope - which pretty much defines a marshalling yard.
No, H2X was not that precise. You can see that from the accuracy achieved.
> Granted, those targets were in occupied territory
> rather than Germany proper.
There were very different rules put in place for bombing against Germany and occupied territories.
> But, on 13 June, the
> target was the Allach Motor Works in Munich and was
> found to be covered by cloud and smoke and was not
> attacked. The marshalling yard on the NW side of the
> city was attacked visually. The target of last
> resort was specified as the center of Munich by PFF,
> but that is still adhering to the specifics of bullet
> items 1 and 2 that you quoted.
The whole idea behind point 1 is that it makes any town in Germany liable to attack.
No towns or cities in Germany will be attacked ... unless such towns contain or have immediately adjacent to them, one (1)
or more military objectives. Military objectives
include railway lines; junctions; marshalling yards;
railway or road bridges, or other communications
networks;
Do you think you'll find a single town of any size in Germany without a road bridge? A railway line?
This was defining towns as military targets.
Personally I believe that was fair enough. The Germans did it first, the RAF followed, no reason for the USAAF not to do the same. But it's wrong to then pretend they didn't.
> ...practice was to load up with large proportions
> of incendiaries and attack German city centres using
> radar aiming
>
> Can you supply specific information regarding the
> loading of incendiaries? According to the AAF
> Statistical Digest, approximately 16% of the AAF
> bombs dropped against Theaters vs. Germany were
> incendiaries.
16%? that's actually pretty high, especially as it includes the Med region. Bomber Command dropped about 190,000 tons of incendiaries, which is about 20% of their total.
From Richard G Davis again:
On 16 December 1943 under this new definition, 528
bombers of the Eighth, using H2X, hit the city of Bremen as a pri-
mary target with 1,006 tons of high explosives and 514 tons of
incendiaries.
Three hundred eleven B-17s of the 1st Air Division, using vi-
sually assisted H2X, dropped 771 tons of bombs (including 294
tons of incendiaries) on Dresden.
The orders issued by the 1st
Division to its bombers clearly defined mission objectives:
• Primary Target-Visual: Center of built-up area Dresden
the Eighth sent a maximum effort—its largest
raid against a single target of the entire war—against Nürnberg’s
marshaling yards. This “area” raid of 1,198 bombers drenched
the city with 2,889 tons of bombs, including 1,169 tons of in-
cendiaries.
Contrast those with operation Clarion, an attack on rail communications in Germany, that used just 0.02% incendiaries.
When attacking French marshalling yards, or on precise operations like Clarion, the USAAF used hardly any incendiaries. When attacking German cities using radar, which was usually described as an attack on "marshalling yards", the USAAF used a lot of incendiaries. Again from Davis:
The Eighth hit two marshaling yards in Munich on 25 Febru-
ary. Although executed visually, this raid otherwise fit the pat-
tern of the other “area-like” missions of the month; its 561 effec-
tive sorties dropped 1,652 tons of bombs, 45 percent of them
incendiaries
From 27 September 1943 through 22 December 1943, the Eighth
conducted 24 authorized city area raids, dropping 12,000 tons of bombs, 40
percent of them incendiaries
> Again, the bomb group for which I have
> records seldom loaded incendiaries, even when the
> primary target was oil installations.
Incendiaries were almost never used against oil targets, by either the USAAF or RAF.
Davis:
However, none of the Allied strategic air forces employed an
overall bomb mix of higher than 3 percent incendiaries against
oil targets. That ratio shrinks to almost nil when one subtracts
Bomber Command’s marker bombs and the Eighth’s raids on
the Ludwigshafen synthetic oil plant and refineries in Ham-
burg and Bremen. Unlike the other plants, which stood alone
in isolation from major urban areas, the Germans had built
the Ludwigshafen oil plant as part of a gigantic I. G. Farben in-
dustrial chemical complex, closely associated with large blocks
of workers’ housing and in the middle of a highly populated dis-
trict.
No one would suggest the USAAF carried out as many area attacks as the RAF. It took the RAF 2.5 years to switch to massed area attacks, the war was almost over by the time the USAAF had spent 2.5 years operating in Europe. But to pretend the USAAF didn't area bomb in Europe, as Buckskinz does, is equally silly. Davis sums up:
The US Eighth Air Force allotted 22 percent of its effective
sorties towards city areas and area-like attacks. This effort,
147,000 tons in total, included 48,000 tons of firebombs for a
33 percent ratio. Area attacks consumed one-half off all in-
cendiaries dropped by the Eighth.
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Posts:
5,057
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(19 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 11:30 AM
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And Nashwan don't forget that the 100 Bomb Group of the US Eighth Air Force were told that their Initial bomb aiming point was to be the steps of that well known military target -Munster Cathedral.
This was the infamous raid when only ONE of the 100th BG Group , based in Thorpe's Abbot, England returned from he same MUNSTER raid.
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Posts:
1,829
From:
Melbourne, Australia.
Registered:
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(20 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 2:11 PM
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McCoffee,
"Again, the bomb group for which I have records seldom loaded incendiaries, even when the primary target was oil installations."
This is interesting, I wonder why they did not, it would seem logical to use them for just this purpose.
John.
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Posts:
888
From:
South Texas, where the snow never falls.
Registered:
1/12/09
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(21 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 3:12 PM
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> The end result of Britsh night bombing and American
> daylight bombing was that the Germans were bombed
> night and day. Or, would the overall effort and
> effect been optimized if both forces concentrated on
> the same part of the day ?
Greetings Pillow, The bombing and killing of German women and kids only stiffened German resolve. I'm not saying we didn't do it. However, it was virtually the only thing the RAF bomber command did throughout WW2. In the latter stages of the war with the Luftwaffa near decimated they summoned up some courage to do some military daylight targets. It was rare for downed USAAF air crews to be thrown into burning German buildings. They knew our bomber command did not pursue killing their wives, sisters, and kids as a major goal of our war effort.
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555
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(22 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 3:37 PM
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buckskinz28,
I have no doubt that if New York or Washngton or Philadelphia or Beaumont, TX were bombed indiscriminately by the the Germans without regard to civilian casualties as was London, that the USAAF would have been flying and targeting with different orders.
Its easy to see from your posts that your knowledge of WWII is much broader then my own. I just wish you would offer that knowledge in a positive way get off the anti-UK stuff. It not really amusing. If that is beneath you then consider the following.
http://www.amazon.com/tag/anglophobe
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859
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(23 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jun 30, 2009 5:43 PM
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The bombing and killing of German women and kids ... was virtually the only thing the RAF bomber command did throughout WW2. In the latter stages of the war with the Luftwaffa near decimated they summoned up some courage to do some military daylight targets. It was rare for downed USAAF air crews to be thrown into burning German buildings.
Buckskins
Still waiting for any sort of verifiable evidence to back up any one of your hysterical claims but, as usual, echo answers none.
Take comfort from the fact that up to 18% of Americans suffer from phobias - a record amongst nations. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is, apparently, recommended. Once your Anglophobia - classed as a mental illness - has been addressed you can then take measures to correct your egregious ignorance, and you can start with spelling Luftwaffa as Luftwaffe. Good luck.
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(24 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jul 1, 2009 3:26 AM
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> .. In the latter stages of the war with the
> Luftwaffa near decimated
In the latter stages of the war the Luftwaffa had been decimated several times over.
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(25 of 48)
Jul 1, 2009 8:02 AM
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and at altitude, and speed that delay in release would have a major effect on bomb hit points. Also:
The accuracy achieved at Dahlgren (test field) was never duplicated in combat. The Navy specification was for 2.5 mils (or 2.5 feet mean miss for every 1000 feet of altitude). The inherent accuracy of the 1944 Norden sights was 14 mils. By some reports, the accuracy achieved in combat was more than 50 mils.
While some used the discrepancy between design and operational accuracy to question the effectiveness of high altitude bombing, the performance of the Eighth Air Force in Europe refutes this. In the end, seven and a half million bombs were dropped from an average altitude of 21,000 feet with 31.8 percent of them falling within 1,000 feet of the aiming point.
See:
http://www.twinbeech.com/Norden-gatesArticle.htm
The mis-stated "pickle barrel accuracy" was for publicity, never even expected to appear under combat conditions.
--
Happy Trails,
Clint
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(26 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jul 1, 2009 10:20 AM
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> The key words here are "identifiable return". The
> nature of H2X was that large relatively flat areas
> surrounded by clutter showed up fairly well on the
> scope - which pretty much defines a marshalling yard.
No, H2X was not that precise. You can see that from the accuracy achieved.
Sorry, but you are incorrect. In the short range tracking mode used during the bombing run, those were exactly the features that were looked for on the scope. To quote from the "Radar Observer's Bombardment Information File":
It is not enough to recognize the target and its approaches. Often the scope picture is good enough in close-up to indicate details, such as bridges, relatively small water areas, docks, seawalls, broad airport runways, and similar objects. These may be used for more precise positioning. When they occur within the target you may use them as aiming points.
The brightest radar returns from such targets as large industrial buildings, railroad marshaling yard, and city streets are obtained by an approach at right angles.
There were numerous variables in the H2X bombing procedure that limited the ultimate accuracy of bomb impact, but marshalling yards could definitely be seen on the scope.
On the other hand, in longer scale ranges in the search mode used in navigation, smaller towns would show up only as a bright dot on the screen - hardly "large enough to produce and identifiable return". The assertion that any town with "a road bridge" or "a railway line" subject to attack is a bit of a stretch in practical terms.
There were very different rules put in place for bombing against Germany and occupied territories.
Okay, let's be specific...
16%? that's actually pretty high, especially as it includes the Med region. Bomber Command dropped about 190,000 tons of incendiaries, which is about 20% of their total.
The 16% number come from the table of number of bombs. Since you quoted tonage, the AAF percentage of incendiaries by weight was just under 8%.
And I find Davis' characterization of a visual attack on a marshalling yard as "area-like" dubious at best.
Incendiaries were almost never used against oil targets, by either the USAAF or RAF.
Of the two missions that I can find where my bomb group of interest loaded incendiaries, one was to Ploesti, and the other was the Obertraubling Aircraft Factory at Regensburg during "Big Week".
--
Illegitimis non carborundum, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell
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(28 of 48)
Re: well put "mcoffee"...Very Interesting Clint
Jul 1, 2009 11:39 AM
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about the Norden bombsight.Another factor which militated against the consumation of the ''bomb in a pickle barrel'' claim was that this claim presupposed that the skies above Europe would replicate the beautifully convenient skies above New Mexico or Arizona and the American southwest.
Which, of course, the skies above Europe rarely allow that level of air to ground visibility
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(29 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jul 1, 2009 12:50 PM
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Phillip, I never thought i would hear a British person say " Robert Emmet is sadly missed".
But don't worry old boy, 'buckskin'? is Paddy Emmet.
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(30 of 48)
Re: SO MUCH FOR PRECISION AYLIGHT BOMBING AND THE PICKLE BARREL
Jul 1, 2009 1:00 PM
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yES aNGUS COME TO THINK OF IT you could be right ''Buckskin'' has Emmet's doleful ignorance about Britain too.
By the way Angus just read the latest book published on D-Day by Antony Beevor-your old regiment the 11th HUSSARS are mentioned in it as having taken part in the Normandy action..
''Buckskin' probably thinks that ''Eton''is something that you do with a knife and fork..
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