Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

Joel Ehrlich ) writes:

Or prehaps to greater effect, reinstalling the belly turrets they had removed
as "un-needed".

Did RAF bombers -ever- have belly turrets?

Certainly none of the "heavies". It was the dorsal turret which
was discontinued on some models.

--


"Cave ab homine unius libri"

"Bill Shatzer" wrote in message
...
Joel Ehrlich ) writes:

Or prehaps to greater effect, reinstalling the belly turrets they had
removed
as "un-needed".

Did RAF bombers -ever- have belly turrets?

Certainly none of the "heavies". It was the dorsal turret which
was discontinued on some models.

--


"Cave ab homine unius libri"

The only one I can think of was the Handley Page Hampden.....Didn't have a
very good reputation !!!

BMC

Bill Shatzer wrote:

Joel Ehrlich ) writes:

Or prehaps to greater effect, reinstalling the belly turrets they had removed
as "un-needed".

Did RAF bombers -ever- have belly turrets?

Certainly none of the "heavies". It was the dorsal turret which
was discontinued on some models.

That's not quite correct. Lancasters had belly turrets, but they were being
removed or left off in early '44 to improve performance, and because there was
little perceived need for them. Except for the Canadians in 6 Group, who were
re-installing them. Some a/c (Lancs for sure, I forget whether Halifaxes did also)
had a flexible Vickers K gun mounted in the (empty) radar bulge early on, when H2S
production was running behind that of the fairings.

Guy

Dozens of bombers had limped home in the preceeding
months with damage that clearly indicated the angle of the attack - the Brits
had figured it out

I'd be glad of a source. Some damaged British bombers returned, but few did if
they were attacked by SM.

Walt

Dozens of bombers had limped home in the preceeding
months with damage that clearly indicated the angle of the attack - the
Brits
had figured it out

I'd be glad of a source. Some damaged British bombers returned, but few did
if
they were attacked by SM.

I'd have to go back through a year of posts on the RAF forum and over at the 12
O'clock High forum to find it, but I will try. SM was a great weapon system
and the tactics evolved to use it made attacks far more deadly than the usual,
"slug it out with the MU and tail turret" attack. Funny that the WWII Germans
got credit for inventing slant weapons when so many other folks used it in the
Great War.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose -an- engine, not -the- engine.

In article , WalterM140
writes

As an aside, a high scoring Luftwaffe NJG ace, whose plane had received no
damage in many months, was killed in his first combat with B-24's. The Germans
are clear that the USAAF hurt them much worse than the RAF did, although many
Brits are still hyper-defensive about that.

Omigod, are you opening that can of worms again? That topic was done to
death here weeks ago.

All we need is some dickhead to suggest that GWB was a failed
nightfighter pilot and we can all shoot ourselves to put us out of our
misery.
--
Peter

Ying tong iddle-i po!

From: (WalterM140)
Date: 7/14/2004 5:42 AM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

What sort of problems faced a defender in attempting to intercept and
shoot down night bombers in 1944?

Not having enough aviation fuel was a big problem late in snip

Walt

Walt, I'm impressed, you actually DO know how to discuss military aviation
without spewing your anti bush garbage.

Are you feeling OK?


Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
What sort of problems faced a defender in attempting to intercept and
shoot down night bombers in 1944?

Not having enough aviation fuel was a big problem late in 1944. Earlier,
the
Germans had a pretty good handle on it, as the 3/30/44 raid to Nuremburg
showed.

They nightfighters whacked at least 80 Brit bombers, total lost that
night
94-96.

The British had to suspend their night ops over Germany. That's not well
known
because they were put onto invasion targets in the same time frame.

Probably because its untrue

The simple fact is that during March 1944 bomber command flew a total
of 9031 sorties with a loss rate of under 4%. Nuremburg was indeed a
disaster
but an isolated one. The following month the number of sorties was HIGHER
and losses were around 2.6%.

Raids on Germany occurred on almost every night with raids being made on
Berlin , Hanover, Osnabruck, Dusseldorf, Kiel and Cologne.

Examples include :-

Cologne - raided on 20th by 357 Lancasters and 22 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3, 6
and 8 Groups. 4 Lancasters lost. This concentrated attack fell into areas of
Cologne which were north and west of the city centre and partly industrial
in nature. 192 industrial premises suffered various degrees of damage,
together with 725 buildings described as 'dwelling-houses with commercial
premises attached'. 7 railway stations or yards were also severely damaged

Dusseldorf - heavily hit on the 22nd by 596 aircraft - 323 Lancasters, 254
Halifaxes, 19 Mosquitos - of all groups except No 5. 29 aircraft - 16
Halifaxes and 13 Lancasters - lost, 4.9 percent of the force. 2,150 tons of
bombs were dropped in this heavy attack on a German city which caused much
destruction. The attack fell mostly in the northern districts of Düsseldorf.
Widespread damage was caused. On the same evening 238 Lancasters and 17
Mosquitos of No 5 Group and 10 Lancasters of No 1 Group were despatched to
Brunswick. Few German fighters were attracted to this raid and only 4
Lancasters were lost, 1.5 per cent of the force

Karlsruhe - 24 April was attacked by 637 aircraft - 369 Lancasters, 259
Halifaxes, 9 Mosquitos of all groups except No 5 Group. 19 aircraft - 11
Lancasters, 8 Halifaxes - lost, 3.0 per cent of the force

Essen - 26 April was bombed by 493 aircraft 342 Lancasters, 133 Halifaxes,
18 Mosquitos.
7 aircraft - 6 Lancasters, 1 Halifax were lost, 1.4 per cent of the force.

Keith

Keith Willshaw wrote:

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

snip

The British had to suspend their night ops over Germany. That's not well
known
because they were put onto invasion targets in the same time frame.

Probably because its untrue

The simple fact is that during March 1944 bomber command flew a total
of 9031 sorties with a loss rate of under 4%. Nuremburg was indeed a
disaster
but an isolated one. The following month the number of sorties was HIGHER
and losses were around 2.6%.

Raids on Germany occurred on almost every night with raids being made on
Berlin , Hanover, Osnabruck, Dusseldorf, Kiel and Cologne.

To be sure, deep penetration raids much beyond the Ruhr would have been stopped
in April for the next several months in any case, because the nights were
getting too short to allow them. Post-invasion the situation changed. With
total allied air superiority by day, and allied fighters (and ground troops)
well forward on the continent (from September 1944), it was possible to go
deeper on shorter nights, at least for targets in southern Germany, because the
bombers had to spend far less time over enemy territory. And the nights were
getting longer again, in any case.

Examples include :-

Cologne - raided on 20th by 357 Lancasters and 22 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3, 6
and 8 Groups. 4 Lancasters lost. This concentrated attack fell into areas of
Cologne which were north and west of the city centre and partly industrial
in nature. 192 industrial premises suffered various degrees of damage,
together with 725 buildings described as 'dwelling-houses with commercial
premises attached'. 7 railway stations or yards were also severely damaged

Dusseldorf - heavily hit on the 22nd by 596 aircraft - 323 Lancasters, 254
Halifaxes, 19 Mosquitos - of all groups except No 5. 29 aircraft - 16
Halifaxes and 13 Lancasters - lost, 4.9 percent of the force. 2,150 tons of
bombs were dropped in this heavy attack on a German city which caused much
destruction. The attack fell mostly in the northern districts of Düsseldorf.
Widespread damage was caused. On the same evening 238 Lancasters and 17
Mosquitos of No 5 Group and 10 Lancasters of No 1 Group were despatched to
Brunswick. Few German fighters were attracted to this raid and only 4
Lancasters were lost, 1.5 per cent of the force

Karlsruhe - 24 April was attacked by 637 aircraft - 369 Lancasters, 259
Halifaxes, 9 Mosquitos of all groups except No 5 Group. 19 aircraft - 11
Lancasters, 8 Halifaxes - lost, 3.0 per cent of the force

Essen - 26 April was bombed by 493 aircraft 342 Lancasters, 133 Halifaxes,
18 Mosquitos.
7 aircraft - 6 Lancasters, 1 Halifax were lost, 1.4 per cent of the force.

Which perfectly illustrates that most of the raids were to the Ruhr or similar
distances, only Karslruhe being somewhat beyond that, on the line Kiel -
Hannover - Karlsruhe. And Karlsruhe is very close to the French border, where
shot down aircrew, at least, had some chance of evading.

Guy

Not having enough aviation fuel was a big problem late in 1944. Earlier,
the
Germans had a pretty good handle on it, as the 3/30/44 raid to Nuremburg
showed.

They nightfighters whacked at least 80 Brit bombers, total lost that
night
94-96.

The British had to suspend their night ops over Germany. That's not well
known
because they were put onto invasion targets in the same time frame.

Probably because its untrue

The simple fact is that during March 1944 bomber command flew a total
of 9031 sorties with a loss rate of under 4%. Nuremburg was indeed a
disaster
but an isolated one.

The RAF definitely was defeated over Germany by the Luftwaffe in the Spring of
1944. Being put onto invasion targets has obscured this fact.

"Bomber Command had lost 4,160 aircraft missing and crashed in England.
Harris's failure to bring Germany to her knees, and the cost of his failure,
had become embarrassingly evident to every man but himself.

And in a letter to
the Air Ministry on April 7, 1944, he came as close as ever in his life to
conceding that he was in deep trouble:

'The strength of the German defenses [he wrote] would in time reach a point at
which night-bombing attacks by existing methods and types of heavy bombers
would involve percentage casualty rates which in the long run could not be
sustained...we have not yet reached that point, but tactical innovations which
have so far postponed it are now practically exhausted....'

This was a preamble to a demand for ten suadrons of night fighters to support
his bombers. It was the final admission of defeat for the Trenchard
doctrine....Now Bomber Command had discovered that even night operations
against Germany could no longer be continued on their existing basis unless the
enemy's night-fighter force could be crippled of destroyed."

--Bomber Command, p. 308 by Max Hastings

The Americans also had to stop deep penetrations inot Germany (they had made
precious few) until they got Mustangs and longer-legged P47's and also some
P-38's.

It's a tragedy that the USAAF had a long range escort within its grasp even in
1942, and didn't see it. That was the P-38. A P-38 group was sent to England
in 1942 but wound up in Africa after Torch. The VIIIth fighter CG, Hunter,
wanted to concentrate on the P-47. This was a big mistake. It was shown that
even a few dozen P-38's could break up the massed attacks by the Germans. But
they weren't supported, nor was the idea pushed. Eaker seemed to think that
some magic number of B-17's could be self-defending. That ultimately cost him
his job.

To get back on target, so to speak, the Americans got back over Germany by
adding the long range fighter (and new commanders) to the mix. The RAF had no
such solution.

Walt