History Channel

Robert Sveinson wrote:

No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


How accurately was that??
All the B-17s "toggle" their loads at the same
time and only ONE bombardier doing the aiming!
Bombs scattered over an area on the ground
equal to the area of the spread of the aircraft
in the air. Of course one can claim that at least one
or two of the hundreds of bombs dropped
hit the target so there is the proof of
"very accurately"!


That's not how it was done. They did not release bombs simultaneously, each
bomber in formation released upon seeing the preceding bomber release its
bombs.

®i©ardo wrote:

No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


But when it came to the crunch?

Don't forget that the initial Dresden raid was supposed to have been
flown by the Americans but they cried off because of bad weather, so
the RAF stepped into the gap and played the lead role. American
"precision" bombing in that same campaign also saw the Americans bomb
Prague by mistake, although I don't know how accurately they did
that. It certainly upset the Russians, who were in residence by that
time!
Essentially the Norden bomb sight worked only in clear skies - not an
everyday thing in continental Europe, unlike California where it was
developed.


That's what I said.



Also, to quote:

"The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet,
2/3 of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets --
even with the best of bombsights.


Which was very good compared to RAF night bombing accuracy.

"Robert Sveinson" wrote in news:7Gm%j.31$%g5.8
@newsfe13.lga:


"GC" wrote in message
...



My question on the B17's probably related to the fact the program
totally
ignored the Dams,the Tirpitz,etc all involving a touch of precision

Yes the so called pundits with the most resources to get A message
out to the public are the ones ignoring the facts, but it is also
the consumers of these so called facts who want their
fables fed to them by spoon rather than consulting
reputable historians who are at fault as well.

There was that fairey tale about U-571 which claimed
that the US Navy intercepted secret signals from a U-Boat,
decyphered the signals and using these spectacular results
sent a force and captured said U-Boat. A true work of fiction,
however people who saw this fairey tale asked me
in all seriousness whether I had heard about this
heroic episode of the anti submarine war.


For military movie fiction you can't "The Sound Barrier"
showing the British being the first to achieve supersonic
flight.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044446/



The final raid on the Tirpitz was made by 2 squadrons
of Lancasters each carrying 1 (one) bomb each of 12,000 lbs.
and scored 3 hits, causing the Tirpitz to roll over.
Rather a precision attack, one bomb each per
Lancaster rather than the SHOT GUN method using
many smaller bombs.



I figured the shooting down of Yamamoto whilst obviously a payback was
done during wartime hence not an assassination but I see your point.

As Yamamoto wore the military uniform of his country
I believe that he was a legitimate target.

There were some incomplete plans by the British
to assasinate Hitler, although nothing in the end was
done. These same British planners were not sad
at not being able to kill Hitler, as they believed
that Hitler alive suited their purposes more
than Hitler dead.
And he wore a military uniform as supreme commander
of the German armed forces.

"Bobby Galvez" wrote in message
...


Neil Hoskins wrote:

The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an assassination..

Arguably. When they tried to target Sadam during the invasion of Iraq
there
was some discussion of this. It turns out that Churchill was reluctant
to
assassinate Hitler. Think about it: if it was legal for the USAF to
attempt
to take out Saddam, would it also be legal for the Iraqi insurgents to
send
a suicide bomber to London to target Blair? You have to be very careful
with the law and "OK" doesn't always equate to "legal".

The whole point to "insurgents" is that they operate against governments.
Nothing they do is "legal."

BobbyG

Oh, I see. So the French Resistance were "illegal"? The Yugoslav
partisans? What about the soldiers of the American Revolutionary War? And,
since Hamas were democratically elected, presumeably anybody who opposes
them is an illegal insurgent? I see, that's all so simple, thanks for
explaining. Presumeably you're one of Dubya's top advisors?

"Robert Sveinson" wrote in message
news

"®i©ardo" wrote in message
...
GC wrote:
A question to the group. Is the History channel distorting the facts?

Of course it isn't. It's just rewriting history to show the USA in a very
good light,

Robin Neillands has a paragraph in one of his books
that states that all non-American participants
in WW II have been and are being airbrushed
out of history.

How about this bit of history about Normandy?

"The stategy developed, and plan prepared for Operation Overlord by the
Allied Ground Force Commander, the British General Sir Bernard Law
Montgomery, was *flawed* in concept and failed to work in practice.
Eventually, frustrated by the failure of Montgomery's strategy and the
caution
and timidity of the British and Canadian troops, American forces under
Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton seized the initiative, revised
the plan, broke out in the West, drove back the German forces in
disarray, to win the Normandy battle-and the war.
All this they would have done much sooner if the British
and Canadians had not sat in their trenches drinking tea-American
historians never fail to mention tea-while the US forces did all the
fighting.
The outcome of the Normandy battle-so goes the allegation-would
have been far more conclusive if the aforesaid British and Canadians had
not
been "timid" and "cautious" and "slow" at Falaise, thereby allowing
the German Army to escape across the Seine."


Now that really is scandalously insulting to the memory of the men who
fought and died in Operation Goodwood.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
®i©ardo wrote:
No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


But when it came to the crunch?

Don't forget that the initial Dresden raid was supposed to have been
flown by the Americans but they cried off because of bad weather, so
the RAF stepped into the gap and played the lead role. American
"precision" bombing in that same campaign also saw the Americans bomb
Prague by mistake, although I don't know how accurately they did
that. It certainly upset the Russians, who were in residence by that
time!
Essentially the Norden bomb sight worked only in clear skies - not an
everyday thing in continental Europe, unlike California where it was
developed.


That's what I said.


Also, to quote:

"The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet,
2/3 of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets --
even with the best of bombsights.


Which was very good compared to RAF night bombing accuracy.



Not at all. If their bomb sights were useless because of local weather
conditions their accuracy was as good/bad as that of the RAF, as the
USAAF's H2X radar was somewhat imprecise.

Over Japan the USAAF just abandoned "precision" daylight bombing altogether.

http://www.tamblyn.net/academic_pres...assignment.htm

--
Moving things in still pictures!

®i©ardo wrote:

Not at all. If their bomb sights were useless because of local weather
conditions their accuracy was as good/bad as that of the RAF, as the
USAAF's H2X radar was somewhat imprecise.


Right. When the weather was poor USAAF bombing accuracy was similar to the
RAF, when the weather was good it was significantly better than the RAF.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
Robert Sveinson wrote:

No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


How accurately was that??
All the B-17s "toggle" their loads at the same
time and only ONE bombardier doing the aiming!
Bombs scattered over an area on the ground
equal to the area of the spread of the aircraft
in the air. Of course one can claim that at least one
or two of the hundreds of bombs dropped
hit the target so there is the proof of
"very accurately"!


That's not how it was done. They did not release bombs simultaneously,
each bomber in formation released upon seeing the preceding bomber release
its bombs.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
Robert Sveinson wrote:

No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.


How accurately was that??
All the B-17s "toggle" their loads at the same
time and only ONE bombardier doing the aiming!
Bombs scattered over an area on the ground
equal to the area of the spread of the aircraft
in the air. Of course one can claim that at least one
or two of the hundreds of bombs dropped
hit the target so there is the proof of
"very accurately"!


That's not how it was done. They did not release bombs simultaneously,
each bomber in formation released upon seeing the preceding bomber release
its bombs.

Well since you didn't read the following the
last time, here it is again.

The U. S. Army Air Forces entered the European war with the firm view that
specific industries and services were the most promising targets in the
enemy economy, and they believed that if these targets were to be hit
accurately, the attacks had to be made in daylight. A word needs to be said
on the problem of accuracy in attack. Before the war, the U. S. Army Air
Forces had advanced bombing techniques to their highest level of development
and had trained a limited number of crews to a high degree of precision in
bombing under target range conditions, thus leading to the expressions "pin
point" and "pickle barrel" bombing. However, it was not possible to approach
such standards of accuracy under battle conditions imposed over Europe. Many
limiting factors intervened; target obscuration by clouds, fog, smoke
screens and industrial haze; enemy fighter opposition which necessitated
defensive bombing formations, thus restricting freedom of maneuver;
antiaircraft artillery defenses, demanding minimum time exposure of the
attacking force in order to keep losses down; and finally, time limitations
imposed on combat crew training after the war began.

It was considered that enemy opposition made formation flying and formation
attack a necessary tactical and technical procedure. Bombing patterns
resulted -- only a portion of which could fall on small precision targets.
The rest spilled over

on adjacent plants, or built-up areas, or in open fields. Accuracy ranged
from poor to excellent. When visual conditions were favorable and flak
defenses were not intense, bombing results were at their best.
Unfortunately, the major portion of bombing operations over Germany had to
be conducted under weather and battle conditions that restricted bombing
technique, and accuracy suffered accordingly. Conventionally the air forces
designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around
the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey
studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at
precision targets fell within this target area. A peak accuracy of 70% was
reached for the month of February 1945. These are important facts for the
reader to keep in mind, especially when considering the tonnages of bombs
delivered by the air forces. Of necessity a far larger tonnage was carried
than hit German installations.

"®i©ardo" wrote in message
...
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
Robert Sveinson wrote:
The only one of those that is totally incorrect is Americans landing
in Rabaul during WW2.
Also incorrect.
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision
bombers not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?


No, that's not totally incorrect. When the weather was good B-17s
delivered their bombs very accurately for that period.
But when it came to the crunch?

Don't forget that the initial Dresden raid was supposed to have been flown
by the Americans but they cried off because of bad weather, so the RAF
stepped into the gap and played the lead role. American "precision"
bombing in that same campaign also saw the Americans bomb Prague by
mistake, although I don't know how accurately they did that.

Isn't their claim that they didn't damage Prague at all
because they spent all their acciracy
on the rails in Dresden.

They like to ignore their several ACCURATE bombing
of SEVERAL Swiss cities.

It certainly upset the Russians, who were in residence by that time!

Essentially the Norden bomb sight worked only in clear skies - not an
everyday thing in continental Europe, unlike California where it was
developed.

Also, to quote:

"The trouble was, precision was another Norden myth. From 20,000 feet, 2/3
of American bombs fell 1/5 of a mile or more from their targets --
even with the best of bombsights.

Meanwhile, the bombsight itself had been reclassified from secret to
merely confidential two years before Lang's infamy. In 1942 it was
downgraded to restricted, the lowest classification.

By then we were switching to the English tactic of saturation bombing. A
bomber armada flew over a city. The lead plane signaled the drop and they
pulverized everything below -- hoping to catch occasional military targets
in the general carnage."

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1004.htm
--
Moving things in still pictures!