"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 21:08:04 -0000, "Jim Doyle"
wrote:

Couldn't they find a better/safer way to take out bridges? Loss rates
like
that must've been very hard to sustain. Did they soften-up the AA with
fighter strafes, or would that give the game away too easily?

Jim D


Bridges are among the most difficult targets for manual bombing. They
are narrow, usually in a constricted area, always heavily defended.
Art's experience in WW II is typical of the very same things we
experienced in Vietnam. The Bac Giang and Bac Ninh bridges on the NE
railroad out of Hanoi claimed a lot of airplanes and the Dragon Jaw
bridge at Thanh Hoa is the stuff of legends.



617 Squadron took some of their heaviest losses attacking bridges
in Germany, it wasnt until they got the Tallboy and GrandSlam
weapons that they got weapons that could reliably knock
down a bridge as they could do it with a near miss

Keith


Is this the same (or similar) as an airfield attack? To crater a runway must
be as difficult as taking out a bridge by virtue of their shape and size
(although granted, bridges are considerably shorter), plus I guess an
airfield is likely to have the same AA protection as a bridge, if not
substantially more.
I seem to remember the Black Buck Vulcans used a optimum angle of 30deg to
attack Stanley's runway for the highest probability of a centreline hit. Is
this the same for a bridge target?

Jim