This will probably appear in the wrong place thanks to a buggy news server.

ArtKramr wrote in message ...
Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: "Geoffrey Sinclair"
Date: 4/18/04 12:15 AM Pacific

Percentage of bombs dropped by the 8th Air force using visual sighting,

1943 56.5
1944 41.2
1945 41.5
overall 42.1

Translation, Walter will ignore visual bombing was a minority of the
8ths efforts.

You miss the point. Instead of not flying at all during bad weather we flew
radar mission . These added to the visual missions dramatically increased our
destructiveness.. Your classifying radar missions as not effective fails to
recognise that we did double the damage by flying both radar and visual a
missions.

Hello Art, my problem with the Walter presentation in this case is simple.

Would you like only the best results mentioned when it comes to recording
the history of what you did? That is the story your descendants will take
as an accurate idea of what you did and therefore an insight to the abilities
of military campaigns today?

I mean ignore the problems of take off, formatting, staying in formation,
navigating, finding the target and then bombing it on cloudy days?

I did not classify the missions done using non visual bombing as
"not effective", like all bombing raids the results could vary dramatically
but overall they were less effective because of the lower average accuracy.
In the 8ths case visual bombing was a minority of its effort, and visual
bombing in very clear weather less again.

The 8th had a hard time doing radar bombing, it had the biggest need
at the very time the USAAF had shortages of equipment and trained men.

If it is allowable to only mention the best results, then presumably it is
allowable to only mention the worst results.

Walter is right.

Walter is rarely right about the heavy bomber campaign.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.