Fly tight for tight bomb patterns on the ground.

In article , Guy Alcala
writes
Dave Eadsforth wrote:

In article , BUFDRVR
writes
Dave Eadsforth wrote:

SNIP

If someone could give me a thumbnail sketch of how a series of B17
Combat Wings usually approached a target, and what specific options for
attack were possible between the IP and the RP I would be very grateful.

Depends on the period, but typically the wings would be 2-5miles in trail of
each
other. At the IP, each wing would try and get the groups in trail, by the lead
group making a regular turn and the flanking (high and low ) groups turning
early
or late. However, groups would stay at their same heights for bombing, which
made
reassembly into the wing formation after exiting the target easier.

In practice, it often was difficult or impossible for the groups to get into
trail,
so you might have the groups actually approaching the target on convergent
courses,
sometimes simultaneously. This could cause problems if one group flew under
another at bombs away - see the fairly numerous photos of B-17s or B-24s
destroyed
or damaged by being bombed by a/c of a higher group. For example, there's a
widely
published sequence showing a B-17 under another which releases its bombs, one of
which removes the left horizontal stabilizer and elevator of the lower a/c,
which
then gradually departs controlled flight and is lost.

I think I have seen it. Rather chilling...

It could get even worse,
when one or more _wings_ approached the target at the same time, usually because
someone had missed turning at the proper IP, or else one of the formations had
gone
around again because they hadn't bombed the first time (which made the lead
bombardier and the mission commander very unpopular with the other crews).

Depending on the size of the target and the number of wings, following wings
might
have the same or a different aimpoint. Later in the war with more wings, the
latter practice was more common, as it was found that smoke and fires from the
earlier groups bombs often made it impossible for the later groups' bombardiers
to
spot the original aimpoint. Indeed, the 8th Operational Research section did a
study which showed that group bombing accuracy directly correlated with where
the
group was in the sequence; the earlier a group bombed the target, the more
accurately it bombed. See Stephen L. McFarland's book "America's Pursuit of
Precision Bombing, 1910-1945," for everything you're ever likely to have wanted
to
know (and a lot more) about U.S. and other countries bombsight development and
use,
as well as accuracies achievable, production issues, factors such as the above
which caused bombing errors, etc.

If it is on Amazon or the like, I'll find it. Thanks!

In 1944 and especially in 1945 when attacking smaller, less well-defended
targets
with smaller formations, it became common to once again bomb by squadrons
instead
of groups, precisely to avoid the sort of spillover wastage that larger bombing
formations caused.

Made sense...

As to the technique of individual bombers aiming and bombing a target in a
stream,
AFAIK that was only practised by the RAF at night, from 1944 or so on (for
precision attacks, that is). This appears to have been adopted because
Churchill
was worried about French civilian casualties from collateral damage if the
transportation plan was adopted. However, it was found that Bomber Command
(well,
5 Group anyway, usually led by 617 as target markers), was able to bomb
marshalling
yards accurately and keep the collateral damage down, by bombing individually
instead of in formation. Using large formations would have caused too much
spillover damage -- even with a 100% accurate MPI, the bomb coverage area of a
big
formation was so large that numerous bombs were bound to hit outside the target
area. With individual bombers, even the occasional gross aiming error resulted
in
fewer bombs hitting civilian areas. Note that this technique was only considered
possible in areas where the defenses were rather light, i.e. over France at
night,
because the bombers lacked mutual support for defense. It's also true that such
a
risk was considered politically necessary to avoid allied civilian causualties,
whereas by 1944 (at least), none of the allied commanders cared all that much if
collateral damage from spillover due to bombing in formation killed large
numbers
of German civilians.

Guy


That's a huge thumbnail, Guy - thanks very much for devoting the time to
writing it. Archived and backed up already...

Cheers,

Dave
--
Dave Eadsforth