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#1
August 24th 04, 08:57 AM
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"ArtKramr" wrote in message ... Subject: Fly tight for tight bomb patterns on the ground. From: (BUFDRVR) Date: 8/23/2004 4:13 PM Pacific Standard Time In 1937, with career Army Air Corps crews, over Arizona with little wind it worked great! In 1943 with crews that had been in service 18 months, over Germany with flak and fighters...not so well. How the hell would you know? And how would YOU know, Art? You wren't flying in 1937. Nor were you flying in B-17's at all. Looks like yet another example of Art's hypocracy. He even called himself on it in a previous post: "Let's suppose you hav never been laid but want to know what it is like. So you buy every book and read them carefully. Now you know. You feel quite expert even though you have never actually been laid. But one day you meet a guy who has been laid and he tells you what it is like. But you are outraged. That is not what it said in the books. This guy is obviously a fraud, He knows nothing and you have the books to prove it. And these books are written by expertss on sex. So you know best. Now lets take war, Yu have never been to war but read lot of books, reports etc so you feel you really have it all down cold. Then you meet a guy who has actually been to war and what he tells you doesn't agree with what you read. So obviously this guy who has been to war knows nothing while you who have never been to was know everything. You accuse him of lying and call him a fraud. Maybe you need to do two things:" Except a two mile long train of B-17s looks like donuts rolling off the production line to an Me-109 pilot. We never flew in "long trains". What rinky dink air force were you in? Not ours for sure. Too bad you never fought in a real war. So Art, regale us with all of your B-17 experiences. Whats that? You never flew in B-17's? Then your opinion is worth spit. 
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#2
August 24th 04, 03:01 PM
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ArtKramr wrote: In 1937, with career Army Air Corps crews, over Arizona with little wind it worked great! In 1943 with crews that had been in service 18 months, over Germany with flak and fighters...not so well. How the hell would you know? Except a two mile long train of B-17s looks like donuts rolling off the production line to an Me-109 pilot. We never flew in "long trains". What rinky dink air force were you in? Not ours for sure. Too bad you never fought in a real war. Arthur Kramer Good grief Art, read what he said! Dave
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#3
August 24th 04, 10:38 AM
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In article , BUFDRVR
writes Dave Eadsforth wrote: However, how did the formation attack compare with say a long string of B17s in trail, each aiming individually? In 1937, with career Army Air Corps crews, over Arizona with little wind it worked great! In 1943 with crews that had been in service 18 months, over Germany with flak and fighters...not so well. The formation attack must be all or nothing, whereas the trail attack must result in a number of well-aimed drops amongst the average ones. Except a two mile long train of B-17s looks like donuts rolling off the production line to an Me-109 pilot. Whoops - night time is not the best time for me to formulate a detailed question! I realise I said individual B17s (ouch!). What I meant to ask about was a tactic I read about a while ago where Combat Wings would shake out into individual Groups in trail at IP when a concentration of bombs was required for a particular target. Are there any analyses of the effectiveness of a succession of waves of Combat Wings over the target versus a succession of formations of bombers broken down into individual Groups? 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. Many thanks in advance, Dave BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth
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#4
August 24th 04, 03:28 PM
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Dave Eadsforth wrote:
What I meant to ask about was a tactic I read about a while ago where Combat Wings would shake out into individual Groups in trail at IP when a concentration of bombs was required for a particular target. I'm not sure I understand the formation you're talking about. At typical B-17 formation (after early 1943) consisted of three groups (18-20 aircraft) flying line a breast and staggered by altitude. There were times (I believe this was done at Regensberg) when one of the three groups would fall in behind in order to narrow the bombing pattern. Is this what you're thinking of? BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek"
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#5
August 24th 04, 11:11 PM
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In article , BUFDRVR
writes Dave Eadsforth wrote: What I meant to ask about was a tactic I read about a while ago where Combat Wings would shake out into individual Groups in trail at IP when a concentration of bombs was required for a particular target. I'm not sure I understand the formation you're talking about. At typical B-17 formation (after early 1943) consisted of three groups (18-20 aircraft) flying line a breast and staggered by altitude. There were times (I believe this was done at Regensberg) when one of the three groups would fall in behind in order to narrow the bombing pattern. Is this what you're thinking of? Thanks - yes, that was how I interpreted the brief description I read. I did not glean from the description whether it was a regular manoeuvre, and if it was, were there metrics to support its success? BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth
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#7
August 24th 04, 11:16 PM
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In article , ArtKramr
writes Subject: Fly tight for tight bomb patterns on the ground. From: Dave Eadsforth Date: 8/24/2004 1:38 AM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: SNIP Except a two mile long train of B-17s looks like donuts rolling off the production line to an Me-109 pilot. Whoops - night time is not the best time for me to formulate a detailed question! I realise I said individual B17s (ouch!). What I meant to ask about was a tactic I read about a while ago where Combat Wings would shake out into individual Groups in trail at IP when a concentration of bombs was required for a particular target. Are there any analyses of the effectiveness of a succession of waves of Combat Wings over the target versus a succession of formations of bombers broken down into individual Groups? 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. Many thanks in advance, Dave Thanks for realizing and admiting your errors Dave. B-17's flew the missions in the same way B-24's. B-26's and A-26''s did. In tight formations as entire squadrons within groups in defensive boxes. Thanks - I did not know that the same approach was followed by the heavies and the mediums. f 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. No options. We planned the mission and we flew the plan. We were not a bunch of cowboys all in business for ourselves. We were well trained and disciplined airmen. Yes, I realise that! When I spoke of options at IP I was thinking about officially planned ones. You have been listening to too many non combat wannabees making up crap When someone tells you "what it was really like up there" ask them how many missions they flew. If the answer is "none" disregard what they say. It will probably either be all or partly wrong. Flying good tight formations was essential to success. And holding those formations tight against the most vicious attacks by fighters and or flak was a matter of life and death. It's nice to read books about war. But no one ever sitting at home reading about war ever got shot down in flames.. I think that many people who did not experience air combat often wonder how they would have got on. I think I would have qualified for Section Eight at the recruitment interview... Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer Cheers, Dave -- Dave Eadsforth
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#8
August 24th 04, 10:45 PM
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Dave Eadsforth wrote:
In article , BUFDRVR writes Dave Eadsforth wrote: However, how did the formation attack compare with say a long string of B17s in trail, each aiming individually? In 1937, with career Army Air Corps crews, over Arizona with little wind it worked great! In 1943 with crews that had been in service 18 months, over Germany with flak and fighters...not so well. The formation attack must be all or nothing, whereas the trail attack must result in a number of well-aimed drops amongst the average ones. Except a two mile long train of B-17s looks like donuts rolling off the production line to an Me-109 pilot. Whoops - night time is not the best time for me to formulate a detailed question! I realise I said individual B17s (ouch!). What I meant to ask about was a tactic I read about a while ago where Combat Wings would shake out into individual Groups in trail at IP when a concentration of bombs was required for a particular target. Are there any analyses of the effectiveness of a succession of waves of Combat Wings over the target versus a succession of formations of bombers broken down into individual Groups? 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. 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. 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. 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
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#9
August 24th 04, 11:26 PM
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Guy Alcala wrote:
snip That reminds me, if you can you might want to find a copy of Martin Middlebrook's "The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Raid", as it describes the wing shift into bombing formation by groups in trail and group bombing accuracy, as well as many other tactical matters pertaining to mid-1943 era (and largely for the rest of the war) 8th Bomber Command missions. Guy
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#10
August 24th 04, 11:22 PM
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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
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