Accuracy

[billswagger]

The RAF typically bombed from a lower altitude then the U.S. 8th Air Force. That translates into a significant increase in accuracy. Perhaps more then enough to compensate for bombing at night.

I read/ am reading parts of The Fire, (i dont recall the author at the moment) a book about the bombing campaigns over Germany and it goes into a lot of the strategy and weapons of the night raids.

The advantage of the darkness allowed two things: planes, usually Mosquitos, could fly in low and get relatively close enough to identify the target area, and upon doing so could lay down flare markers that could be seen as high as the heavy bombers were. This involved the use of green a red flares to mark target area, and a bullseye area. It was still difficult to identify targets and so planes would drop one color flare on the target area until enough light could actually pick out targets, so the bombers would be instructed to avoid dropping on certain color flares.

The highest plane was referred to as the master bomber, iirc, and they could see the entire target area as it glowed up at them and his job was to correlate the different bombing patterns.

The Germans had several defenses that required larger bombers to still bomb from relatively higher altitudes.
They used flak and spotlights in such a way that several lamps could be used to light up the sky.
The book describes the use of a cone, where several lamps would focus on one plane.
This included a radar system that involved jamming the British, as well as the use of their own detection devices. Much of the night war was a see saw battle in regards to better and less detectable radar frequencies. For example, once the Germans had figured out the radar frequency they could use similar devices to not only detect incoming planes, but hone in where the british frequency was coming from.

Its a good book, and it also goes into the different uses of ordinance.
Lots of other good details about the war, too.

Bill

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Yes.

However I have no idea what sort of modernization they received between WWII and Vietnam.

They had their wings strengthened and received additional wing pylons as well as different engines. Some also had cameras installed for recon duties.
A-26 (B-26) Invader during the Vietnam War. | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[fastmongrel]

Second comment, the RAF developed an optical sight that was as good or better than the Norden.

The US developed a bomb sight that was better than the Norden the Sperry
Sperry Bombsight

 

[evangilder]

Actually, Carl Norden worked for Sperry on their bomb sights until forming his own company in 1915.

 

[michaelmaltby]

How accurate where German and Japanese bombers ... Pearl Harbor, Coventry ....? Or did the Axis "care" about "accurate" bombing ...? And I guess here we have to recognize that there is "tactical" and there is "strategic" bombing. So the question becomes: how "accurate" was Japanese and German strategic bombing ....? Or if fact did they not use strategic bombing -- as opposed to - say - for example - terror bombing.

MM



Your thoughts?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

How accurate where German and Japanese bombers ... Pearl Harbor, Coventry ....? Or did the Axis "care" about "accurate" bombing ...? And I guess here we have to recognize that there is "tactical" and there is "strategic" bombing. So the question becomes: how "accurate" was Japanese and German strategic bombing ....? Or if fact did they not use strategic bombing -- as opposed to - say - for example - terror bombing.

MM



Your thoughts?

In lieu of accuracy, how effective was these bombing in bringing the desired results?

 

[davebender]

HyperWar: The Battle of Britain--A German Perspective

Bombing Accuracy. Dive-bombing offered several advantages over level bombing. The limited bomb loads and the relative inaccuracy of the level bombers currently available required large numbers of aircraft to achieve the same level of results as dive-bombing could provide. As an example, the Ju87B-1 (the model in service in 1939-1940), "was to prove effective in the hands of expert pilots, who, in dives of eighty degrees to within 2,300 feet from the ground, could deliver a bomb with an accuracy of less than thirty yards. Even average pilots could achieve a twenty-five percent success rate in hitting their targets, a far higher proportion than that attained in conventional, horizontal attack bombers."26 By comparison, US Army air forces typically designated a radius of 1,000 feet as the "target area" aim point for the "pickle-barrel" bombing conducted in Europe. "While accuracy improved during the war, [US Strategic Bombing] Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area."27

Generaloberst Hans Jeschonnek, chief of the General Staff of the Air Force from 1939-1943, and at the time head of the operations staff of the General Staff, saw dive-bombing as "the ideal solution to the bomber problem of 1937." That bomber problem was primarily the lack of an effective bomb sight for use with the level bombers. The standard sight was inaccurate and would require considerable practice to achieve acceptable results even for area bombardment. In 1938, "even well-qualified bomber crews could achieve only a two percent bombing accuracy in high-level, horizontal attacks (up to 13,500 feet), and twelve to twenty-five percent accuracy in low level attacks against targets of between 165 to 330 feet in radius, and to make matters worse, the bomb load of the German bombers was very low; only four 550 lb. bombs were carried by the Do17 and six by the He111. Thus, if the target were to be completely destroyed, the only way to compensate for inaccuracy would be to employ large numbers of aircraft."28 The Luftwaffe General Staff announced that, "the emphasis in offensive bombardment has clearly shifted from area to pin-point bombardment."29 The best solution to inaccurate bomb sights, limited bomber payload, and economics was to adopt a dive-bomber doctrine. Eventually the twin-engine Ju88 "wonder bomber" (as the propaganda of the day called it), and even the He177 "heavy bomber" were to fall victim to the momentum of the dive-bomber craze. The original specifications and indeed the early prototypes of the Ju88 were quite good when compared to the fighters actually available during the Battle of Britain. "In March 1939, one of the first prototypes established a new 621 miles closed-circuit record by carrying a 4,409 lb. payload at an average speed of 321.25 m.p.h.."30 (The maximum speed for the Spitfire Mk 1: 355 mph, and that of the Hurricane Mk 1: 328 mph.) But, following extensive (about 25,000) modifications to meet the "dive-bomber" specifications and to provide for additional armament as well as a fourth crew member, the performance of the final production models of the Ju88 were disappointing. As an example, when the production version, Ju88A-1, arrived in September 1939 it had a maximum speed of only 258 mph, and a range of 550 miles with a 2,000-pound bomb load. With a maximum bomb load of 3,800 pounds performance was further reduced to 190 mph with a radius of just 250 miles! However, and this is significant in light of the reasons for the modifications to the original design: a production model, when properly flown under test conditions, could deliver 50 percent of its bomb load within a 50-meter circle

 

[davebender]

Good question as nobody appears to have historical data on how the fall 1940 German bombing campaign effected British seaport throughput.

 

[tail end charlie]

".
"... the RAF developed an optical sight that was as good or better than the Norden."

Can we hear more about that, please. Was it used in Lancs or just in Mosquito Pathfinders?

MM

MM

The RAF only used bombsights on mosquitos, to hit the Tirpitz with a tall boy dropped from a lancaster, bomb aimers had a cross hair tatooed on their corneas, cheaper than a Norden but obviously not as good.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Ah ... British ingenuity ..... "cross hair tatooed on their corneas".

Like the site for the dambusters - devised at a night at the theatre.

MM

 

[tail end charlie]

Good question as nobody appears to have historical data on how the fall 1940 German bombing campaign effected British seaport throughput.

Dave

What is this obsession with port throughput, if port throughput wasnt affected how can you produce data. It wasnt a topic of interest even in 1940.

 

[michaelmaltby]

".... In lieu of accuracy, how effective was these bombing in bringing the desired results?"

I'm not sure that's a fair trade-off on this thread, FBJr, but I admit it's totally in character .

The B of B - Coventry - didn't break British moral.

Hamburg, Berlin, and Dresden didn't break German moral.

And, truth-be-told - Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't break Japanese moral. The Emperor was persuaded that further resistance was national suicide .

I understand tactical bombing -- napalm, rockets, etc. - what what is the desired objective of strategic bombing if: (a) it isn't accurate and or (b) terrorizing - to break moral.

If the B-52 raids (Rolling Thunder) that got turned on and then turned off had been allowed to run their course - we might have seen a different end to the Viet Nam conflict - but I don't believe (based on the evidence above) that such raids would have "broken" the moral of the NVN people.

MM

 

[tail end charlie]

If strategic bombing was in any way accurate it wouldnt use 1000 heavy bombers, even at minimum load for a heavy bomber that is 4000 tons of bombs. A 1000 bomber raid was area bombing regardless of the bomb sight or the conditionns because otherwise the bombers would have to form a line over the target and be sitting ducks for groundfire and impossible to protect from defensive fighters.


I fail to see why the night bombing campaign is always seems to refer to attacks with the four engined bombers, for precision raids BC used Mosquitos as anyone can read in the nighly history of operations which were all against precision targets.

 

[michaelmaltby]

There are no bomber missions - besides the RAF's - anywhere in all theatres of WW2 - in my humble opinion - that can compare with the precision RAF raids using both Lancs and Mosquitos, the dams, viaducts, Gestapo prisons, etc.. The carpet RAF raids were terror - pure and simple - and I have no problem with that. Germany had to be broken. The Japanese had to be broken. Rationalization of this stuff half-a-century after the fact doesn't put anyone in the shoes of the men and women who had to make hard decisions -- with nasty consequences. The USAAF learned a lot from the RAF -- they just didn't admit it at the time.

Today - both the USAF and the Israeli AF are the masters of surgical strikes - a legacy from the RAF.

MM

 

[parsifal]

Its not possible with the data we have to determine the effects of city busting on the morale, and thence on productivity of the target population. Certainly true that bombing targets cities rather than point targets was unable to cause surrender (there is only one exception I know of to this statement....the bombing, and subsequent surrender of the island of pantelleria). However we dont know the effects of homelessness(for example) had on the productivity outputs. I do think it reasonable to say it has some effect, however. In the case of germany, we do know the various studies made into the effects of strat bombing attribute lost productionin 1943 as about 12% overall (in relation to what might have occurred in germany without any bombing). of which BCs efforts were responsible for about 9% and SAC (to use a postwar name innapropriately) for about 3%. In 1944 this turned around, with SAC being responsible for the lions share of damage, but then by the latter half of 1944 BC was diverting increasing resources to pinpoint bombing targets, and SAC was increasingly fitting the so-called "area bombing" aids like H2S and OBOE.

 

[mikewint]

FBJ, I guess I need the term "Bomber" defined. to me, a true "bomber" carrys its bombs internally such as the B-52. I never recall seeing a B-57 which means little or nothing and the B-66 was an electronic countermeasure aircraft and never used as a bomber. the famous BAT-21 rescue was from a downed B-66. The navy had a version "skywarrior" I think, which did some bombing. Other aircraft can carry and deliver bombs carried on wing pylons such as the skyraider or F4 but i would not classify them as a "bomber".

 

[mhuxt]

"... the RAF developed an optical sight that was as good or better than the Norden."

Can we hear more about that, please. Was it used in Lancs or just in Mosquito Pathfinders?

MM

I believe it was called the Stabilising Automatic Bomb Sight, SABS in any case.

So far as I know, it was only really used for high-precision attacks, such as those by 617 and 9 Squadrons, against V-weapons depots, rail tunnels, Tirpitz, etc.

The "second-best" was the Mk.XIV, which had a special version for use in Mossies due to their speed.

Night-time accuracy was a combination of factors, not simply the bombsight. By the time Oboe (or low-level marking by 5 Group), Master Bombers, running commentaries, etc were in use, the individual bombsights in individual aircraft were, IMHO, the least part of the equation.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

If the B-52 raids (Rolling Thunder) that got turned on and then turned off had been allowed to run their course - we might have seen a different end to the Viet Nam conflict - but I don't believe (based on the evidence above) that such raids would have "broken" the moral of the NVN people.

MM

But it did get the attention of the NVN leadership. As far as breaking the morale of the NVN people? Maybe those who would have been left had Nixon continued the bombing.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... guess I need the term "Bomber" defined. to me, a true "bomber" carry's its bombs internally such as the B-52. "

With respect, Mikewint, I think that is a pretty arbitrary distinction. Flights of high altitude F-105 Republic Thunderchiefs - each carrying externally what the average B-17 carried internally in WW2 - and bombing Viet Nam targets en mass "on cue" - is bombing. F-100 Super Sabres dropping napalm from low altitude is tactical or ground support bombing.

In discussion of the B-57 - keep in mind that the RAAF had Canberra's in Nam during their tours in that theatre. I cannot answer for how OZ forces used them - but they were bombers.

"... Its not possible with the data we have to determine the effects of city busting on the morale, and thence on productivity of the target population..."

That is a fair point Parsifal - but to play devil's advocate for a moment - what if we were talking biological agent warfare - air or water-born pathogens introduced into an urban environment. Unless the entire population was killed or immobilized your claim would apply equally - impossible to measure effects of action.

If one looks at Malta - the most heavily bombed urban area in WW2 - while moral did not break and productivity remained somewhat effective (whatever the measure of Maltese productivity) - when the siege was finally lifted the Island was with days of starvation. So - strategic bombing in specific circumstances can "break" populations.

Ghastly topic, but useful.

MM

 

[davebender]

What makes you think that breaking British morale was the primary objective of the Coventry bombing raid?