How did the Brits do it?

I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions. Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions.
Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no
view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at
star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity
that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss
proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could
the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What
was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?


This is a complex subject and a matter of some controversy
but unusually these days is on topic so I'll give it a go.

The RAF began the war in 1939 with a plan that envisaged
daylight precision bombing of military targets only. Unfortunately
catastrophic losses on early raids, 50% and higher, proved this
to be impossible. It was quite impossible politically and from
a morale point of view to simply stop bombing the Germans
This was especially true after the Blitz.

An attempt was made to use the techniques you describe
to bomb at night and the results as you would expect were
very mixed. In 1940 raids were mainly aimed at the invasion
barges in French and Belgian Ports and these being relatively
easy to locate at night results were acceptable.

However as targets deep in Germany were attacked it was evident
that the expected results were not being delivered.

An official report commissioned by the war office from the
economist David Miles Bensusan-Butt revealed that bombing
was shockingly inaccurate. Churchill recognised the importance
of the report - "this is a very serious paper and seems to
require urgent attention" and temporarily suspended bombing while
a solution was sought. This was to consist of four parts

1) The adoption of better navigational aids
2) Better crew training
3) Larger better equipped 4 engined bombers
4) A switch of tactics

Essentially the RAF decided that if they couldnt hit precision targets
then they would switch to targetting things they couldnt miss,
this was area bombing. The idea being that if you couldnt
hit the arms factory in the city you'd settle for flattening the
entire metropolis.

As the war progressed navigational aids like Gee and Oboe along
with Radar aids like H2S and the use of Pathfinders did improve
accuracy a great deal so that by 1944 the RAF were able to
atatck and obliterate targets varying from troop concentrations
in Normandy to entire cities.

Keith

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions.
Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no
view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at
star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity
that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss
proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could
the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What
was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?

As I understand it Art, you and your fellow Americans bombed by day, the RAF
by night. This was to concentrate efforts of the two doctrines, precision
and area bombing. The British began unintentional area bombing when they
switched to night attacks, mitigating the heavy losses associated with deep
attacks into Europe with ill defended bombers in airspace without air
supremacy. I guess this was somewhat justifiable to the British Public given
the Blitz on Britain's cities in '40-'41. Yet the USA - which had not been
on the receiving end of a bombing campaign on it's own soil, directed at
it's own civilians - opted for precision daylight attacks.

The biggest advocate of Area Bombing was Lord Cherwell. He devised a very
rudimentary calculation to justify the area bombing principal based on the
anticipated bomber production, average tonnage of HE dropped by a bomber
before being shot down, average number of homes destroyed per ton of HE etc.
Essentially, if 200,000 tons of HE fell on German cities (half of that
expected to be dropped over Germany) 30 million households should be
destroyed. You remove the industrial workforce, you remove the capacity to
produce war materiel. Simple....

.... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Something in the region of 55,000 RAF aircrew of Bomber Command were killed
in action in the war. I can't even begin to comprehend that loss, as many
died in six years of Bomber Command as there are currently in the RAF. Sadly
it's both terrible and tragic.

Jim Doyle

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

(ArtKramr) wrote:

I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions. Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?

Welcome to the brass balls world of the intrepid freight dog,
barnstormer, firefighter, bush pilot, cropduster, etc.

Nothing mysterious here -- the Brits did it the same way the Yanks,
Canucks, Jerries and everyone else did it in crappy weather all over
the world (not just in Europe).

Latest weather report from the ol' teletype machine in hand, you
would launch into the nighttime "can't-see-****" conditions and fly on
instruments while staying on course via a variety of (potentially
deadly!) methods. Such methods included, but were not limited to:

1) Radioing other airplanes in the sky so they can take bearings on
your position or extend a trailing wire antenna and crank the Gibson
Girl (emergency transmitters originally developed by the Luftwaffe)
and navigate via direction-finding equipment and your not-so-trusty
mag compass, and...

2) When push came to shove, descend below the clouds to treetop
level (this, now THIS took "mas grande cajones!") and wander
back and forth across a course you "assume" to be correct while
taking fixes as quickly as possible while hedgehopping to indicate of
any deviations off-course while simultaneously scanning for possible
marker flares or fires from your comrades on the ground before
climbing back up into the soup and continuing on to your target.

In message , Jim Doyle
writes

snip

... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Letter to the Sunday Telegraph. I forgot to note the date.

As a correspondent pointed out, Dresden was bombed because it was a
military target. (Letters Feb 20). The city's destiny was sealed at the
Yalta conference (on Feb 4 1945) and, as Winston Churchill's
interpreter, I heard and watched Stalin with his deputy Chief of Staff,
General Antonov, urgently ask us to bomb roads and railways to stop
Hitler transferring divisions from the West. Antonov stressed the
importance of Dresden as a vital rail junction, saying there was a
"uzel
svyazi" - literally, "communications knot".

Churchill and Roosevelt had to agree as they were indebted to Stalin
for
relieving pressure on our front during the German Ardennes winter
counter-offensive.


Mike
--
M.J.Powell

Subject: How did the Brits do it?
From: "Keith Willshaw"
Date: 3/10/04 6:44 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions.
Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no
view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at
star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity
that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss
proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could
the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What
was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?


This is a complex subject and a matter of some controversy
but unusually these days is on topic so I'll give it a go.

The RAF began the war in 1939 with a plan that envisaged
daylight precision bombing of military targets only. Unfortunately
catastrophic losses on early raids, 50% and higher, proved this
to be impossible. It was quite impossible politically and from
a morale point of view to simply stop bombing the Germans
This was especially true after the Blitz.

An attempt was made to use the techniques you describe
to bomb at night and the results as you would expect were
very mixed. In 1940 raids were mainly aimed at the invasion
barges in French and Belgian Ports and these being relatively
easy to locate at night results were acceptable.

However as targets deep in Germany were attacked it was evident
that the expected results were not being delivered.

An official report commissioned by the war office from the
economist David Miles Bensusan-Butt revealed that bombing
was shockingly inaccurate. Churchill recognised the importance
of the report - "this is a very serious paper and seems to
require urgent attention" and temporarily suspended bombing while
a solution was sought. This was to consist of four parts

1) The adoption of better navigational aids
2) Better crew training
3) Larger better equipped 4 engined bombers
4) A switch of tactics

Essentially the RAF decided that if they couldnt hit precision targets
then they would switch to targetting things they couldnt miss,
this was area bombing. The idea being that if you couldnt
hit the arms factory in the city you'd settle for flattening the
entire metropolis.

As the war progressed navigational aids like Gee and Oboe along
with Radar aids like H2S and the use of Pathfinders did improve
accuracy a great deal so that by 1944 the RAF were able to
atatck and obliterate targets varying from troop concentrations
in Normandy to entire cities.

Keith


Of course Gee Box and Oboe came very late in the war. I flew a number of Gee
missions as the war drew to a close. But how anyone can do long range dead
reckoning when wind drift and velocity cannot be reliably determined, with no
view of the stars or gound, makes things a bit hopeless. But I would say that
90% or more of those missions were flown without any electronic or radar aids
at all. . Every time I think of those guys up there I am in awe of their
incredible courage and determination under near impossible conditions. BTW, did
they even carry driftmeters?




Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: How did the Brits do it?
From: "Jim Doyle"
Date: 3/10/04 7:41 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Something in the region of 55,000 RAF aircrew of Bomber Command were killed
in action in the war. I can't even begin to comprehend that loss, as many
died in six years of Bomber Command as there are currently in the RAF. Sadly
it's both terrible and tragic.

Jim Doyle


Their heroism is beyond comprehension. and rarely equalled in the annals of
war. To take off on a mission knowing how small the odds were that you would
ever return takes the ultimate in courage..


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: How did the Brits do it?
From: "Keith Willshaw"
Date: 3/10/04 6:44 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions.
Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was
no
view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot
at
star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning
from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity
that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss
proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how
could
the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully?
What
was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?


This is a complex subject and a matter of some controversy
but unusually these days is on topic so I'll give it a go.

The RAF began the war in 1939 with a plan that envisaged
daylight precision bombing of military targets only. Unfortunately
catastrophic losses on early raids, 50% and higher, proved this
to be impossible. It was quite impossible politically and from
a morale point of view to simply stop bombing the Germans
This was especially true after the Blitz.

An attempt was made to use the techniques you describe
to bomb at night and the results as you would expect were
very mixed. In 1940 raids were mainly aimed at the invasion
barges in French and Belgian Ports and these being relatively
easy to locate at night results were acceptable.

However as targets deep in Germany were attacked it was evident
that the expected results were not being delivered.

An official report commissioned by the war office from the
economist David Miles Bensusan-Butt revealed that bombing
was shockingly inaccurate. Churchill recognised the importance
of the report - "this is a very serious paper and seems to
require urgent attention" and temporarily suspended bombing while
a solution was sought. This was to consist of four parts

1) The adoption of better navigational aids
2) Better crew training
3) Larger better equipped 4 engined bombers
4) A switch of tactics

Essentially the RAF decided that if they couldnt hit precision targets
then they would switch to targetting things they couldnt miss,
this was area bombing. The idea being that if you couldnt
hit the arms factory in the city you'd settle for flattening the
entire metropolis.

As the war progressed navigational aids like Gee and Oboe along
with Radar aids like H2S and the use of Pathfinders did improve
accuracy a great deal so that by 1944 the RAF were able to
atatck and obliterate targets varying from troop concentrations
in Normandy to entire cities.

Keith


Of course Gee Box and Oboe came very late in the war. I flew a number of
Gee
missions as the war drew to a close. But how anyone can do long range
dead
reckoning when wind drift and velocity cannot be reliably determined, with
no
view of the stars or gound, makes things a bit hopeless. But I would say
that
90% or more of those missions were flown without any electronic or radar
aids
at all.

Not really Art

Bomber command flew its first mission using Gee in late 1941.

On March 3 1942 the first major raid that utilised gee equipped
aircraft dropping flares for the main force was made against the
Renault works at Billancourt in France. 223 of 235 aircraft
found their target). Losses were very light (one Wellington was lost)
, and damage was evaluated as 'heavy'

By mid summer 1942 almost all BC aircraft had Gee. H2S began
arriving in service in 1943.

Every time I think of those guys up there I am in awe of their
incredible courage and determination under near impossible conditions.
BTW, did
they even carry driftmeters?


Sure but how useful they were on a dark and cloudy night
is another matter.

Keith

Kieth noted in response to Art's question about driftmeters on Bomber Command
A/C:
Sure but how useful they were on a dark and cloudy night
is another matter.

As long as it was overcast not clouds below, it is/was amazing how much info
you could get from one of those suckers.
One light on the ground or the reflection off of one body of water (pond, lake,
stream) provided something to work with as opposed to nothing.
Gee and H2S were a great improvement to accuracy.
It is one pain in the rear to shoot celestial in an a/c bouncing and bucking
around in Northern European skys.

Rick Clark

"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
...
In message , Jim Doyle
writes

snip

... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to
the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there
are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Letter to the Sunday Telegraph. I forgot to note the date.

As a correspondent pointed out, Dresden was bombed because it was a
military target. (Letters Feb 20). The city's destiny was sealed at the
Yalta conference (on Feb 4 1945) and, as Winston Churchill's
interpreter, I heard and watched Stalin with his deputy Chief of Staff,
General Antonov, urgently ask us to bomb roads and railways to stop
Hitler transferring divisions from the West. Antonov stressed the
importance of Dresden as a vital rail junction, saying there was a
"uzel svyazi" - literally, "communications knot".

Churchill and Roosevelt had to agree as they were indebted to Stalin
for relieving pressure on our front during the German Ardennes winter
counter-offensive.

Dresden posed a military threat, granted.

The horrific firestorm created by the incendiaries and napalm killed 100,000
civilians - 1 in 6 of the inhabitants (given there were a large number of
refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army). The message was clear to Stalin,
even if the assault was at his request.


Mike
--
M.J.Powell