My mind boggles at the thought of a long string of B17s in single file
trail. Besides giving the flak a chance to shoot at each aircraft
individually, and the lack of mutual bomber gun support versus the
fighters, by the time the middle guys got there the target would be
obscured by smoke and dust from the bombs ahead. By late 44 most
B17/B24 bombing was executed by the lead bombardier, a man picked for
skill, and the rest of the planes in the formation dropped their bombs
when he dropped his. AMAF there was a radio system to trigger the rest
of the planes when he pressed the pickle button, but I don't know how
much it was used. FWIW I've seen bomb trails from Arc Light
(B52)strikes in the jungles of VN - three parallel lines of craters,
maybe half a mile to a mile long. The craters are not each a single
line but sort of staggered slightly from side to side as the MERs left
center and right stations kick the bombs left, down and right -
slightly. As I remember the spacing between strings is like a couple
hundred yards or so. Again, FWIW, a lot of those strings of craters
were left by F4 formations dropping off Loran birds or the RBS (MSQ)
station at NKP. That involved a lot of either close formation or night
work holding a precise heading altitude and airspeed for what seemed
like an hour meanwhile listening to the RHAW gear chirping (and now
and then rattling) away. Bombing like that was like kissing an
elderly aunt when I was a little kid.
Walt BJ