In article ,
(ANDREW ROBERT BREEN) writes:
In article ,
ArtKramr wrote:
Subject: P-47/51 deflection shots into the belly of the German tanks,
From: (Tony Williams)
Date: 8/7/03 11:41 PM Pacific Daylight Time

he evidence gathered by the OR teams indicated that very few tanks
were destroyed by air attack. A British War Office analysis of 223
Panther tanks destroyed in 1944 revealed that only fourteen resulted
from air attack (eleven to RPs and three to aircraft cannon). Dur

Of course these investigating teams belonged to the ground forces and had a
strong vested interest in elevating the effectiveness of ground fire vs air

Doubt it - operational analysis teams were pretty high-level affairs,
responsible (without checking Dyson, who was OA for bomber command) to
chief-of-staff level. The whole point of OA was to try to get a bias-free,
scientific look at what was actually happening which was as free as
possible from any bias. It was actually one of the effective tools which
Britain introduced which - in some cases at least, like routing atlantic
convoys - made a real difference to the way the war went.

OA would have been going well out of its way to try not to bring any
bias or baggage to the investigation. IIRc the conclusion was that
fighter-bombers were not effective at destroying tanks, but were very
effective at destroying tank formations, advances and distupting retreats
by destroying the supporting soft-skin vehicles, though I'd have to check
that to be sure. This, of course, meant that they were effective enough
to be going on with, though improved methods of attacking the tanks
themselves were (again, IIRC) recommended for research..

Don't be so certain about that - I've an example in one of my OR texts
("OR in World War 2, Operational Research against the U boat", CH
Waddington, Elek Science, London, 1973, conveniently enough) that
includes one of the more interesting exercizes in "Book-Cooking" to
come down the road. One of the studies involves aircraft selection
for ASW patrol. The types included are the PBY (Catalina), the
Sunderland, the Liberator, Halifax II, the Wellington XIV, and the
as-yet unbuilt Warwick. The Warwick numbers assume lethality (Pk) and
availability niumbers (Flight hrs/day) that are better than any other
British aircraft by a factor of 2, and a "Conversion Factor" that
supposedly has something to do with operating economy, but which bears
no relationship to airpcraft and equipment complexity (The biggest
driver in that situation) Looked upon with the cynical eye of a
participant and evaluator of OR studies, the document is clarly a
thinly veiled justifiacation for proceeding with Warwick production.
(As it turned out, the Warwick never reached the standards named in
the report, and in real-life service worked out to be about the same
as the Wellington, in the ASW role.)

The F-111/TFW selection fiasco is an excellent USAnian example of this
fudging of reports as well. The inital selection studies, and the
services that were to use the aircraft, indicated that the best choice
would be the Boeing design with Rolls Spey derivative engines.
Robert S. MacNamara, Kennedy adn Johnson's Secretary of Defence, and
Harold Brown, his Secretary of teh Air Force, didn't want teh Boeing,
and kept requesting more and more tilted studies until they got the
one they wanted - the General Dynamics proposal with the Pratt &
Whitney TF30 engine. While the F-111 eventually turned into a damned
good Medium Bomber, it never came close to living up to its promises
for fighter performance, Aircraft Carrier compatability, or
commonality between versions. (And I don't think that anybody regards
the TF30 as a successful fighter engine)

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster