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- #101
Aerial Bombing Question
- Thread starter Zipper730
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Robert Porter
Senior Master Sergeant
Most of your questions can be answered here: WGBH American Experience . The Bombing of Germany | PBS it's a nice timeline that shows how when and why various tactics were used.
Do you mean why did each formation bomb on one leader/aimer rather than have each aircraft bomb independently?
The combat formations were a result of the need for mutual fire support, an inevitable result of attempting to fly self protecting formations through contested air space in daylight. It is an easy step from there to employing one experienced bombardier (or bomb aimer as we more correctly call him) to act for a close formation. It also means less of the complicated and expensive bomb sights are required.
Much is made of the lag between the leader bombing and the rest of the formation's bombardiers reacting to the fall of his bombs, but given the general accuracy of the bombing this fraction of a second is not relevant, particularly, as is often overlooked, the aircraft to bomb on this visual cue are already behind the leader.
Cheers
Steve
Edit: further to this, it is why the Americans tried to establish a pattern centre for each formation of aircraft to measure accuracy. There is quite a bit of arithmetic done to establish the expected area and dimensions of a typical pattern (which is also a measure of the concentration of the bombing) but it is the displacement of the pattern centre from the aiming point which can be used to assess the accuracy of the formation.
One obvious draw back to 'toggling on the leader' is that if he makes an error, dropping his bombs wide, then so will every other aircraft in his formation.
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It was a little more complicated than that. It was in the period immediately after Harris took over at Bomber Command that concentration of the bombers became a priority. Indeed, Harris would write in his 'Despatch'
"The tactical aim of Bomber Command in this period [February-December 1942] can be described in one word 'concentration.'"
It had become obvious that the haphazard routing of raids, almost every man for himself, was no longer tenable and that a concentration of the bombers in both time and space was desirable not just over the target but en route as well. In early 1942 data seemed to show that concentrating the bombers reduced losses, simple as that. The famous millenium raids were launched at least in part to show that a really big raid would saturate the defences and significantly lower losses. Harris wrote that
" [the] force of 250-300 aircraft was wholly inadequate to saturate the then existing defences of a major industrial town of half a million or more inhabitants...It was becoming obvious that the degree of concentration we had achieved so far was not going to be good enough, but there was no previous experience to show whether it would be practical to put many hundreds of aircraft over a target at a rate of, say, ten a minute...this was six times as high as the concentration as had been aimed at towards the end of 1941."
By mid 1942, on the back of more research, Bomber Command was aiming for concentrations of 150-200 aircraft per hour, both en route and over the target area. By late 1944 such was the concentration achieved that aircraft were passing over the target at rates of up to 900 per hour (5 Group achieved this over Dresden for example, at a time in early 1945 when the Luftwaffe night fighter force had become almost irrelevant).
It was the increased protection afforded by maximum concentration that led to efforts to minimise evasive manoeuvring, which was generally ineffective except against fighter attack and greatly reduced bombing accuracy whilst increasing the collision risk.
It wasn't until 1944 that the effectiveness of concentration in reducing losses began to be compromised. This was due in a large part to more effective technology and tactics used by the Luftwaffe night fighter forces. Concentration could hide individual bombers from GCI and AI radars, but could not prevent ground controllers directing fighters to the bomber stream during all phases of an operation, approach, attack and withdrawal. It was only now, as correctly noted by Pbehn above, that other tactics were adopted. 'Spoof' raids had worked in misleading the Germans or diluting their response, but took away from the overall weight of attacks on any given night. Bomber Command's reaction was to find ways of efficiently engaging several targets in order to reduce losses and divide defending forces whilst also increasing precision such that a target would not require subsequent raids to ensure its destruction. The command enjoyed rather more success with the former (change in tactics) than the latter (increased precision). Attacking several targets, approached by widely separated routes, attacking smaller targets with an H2S equipped force with NO sky marking (the markers were visible to fighters from very long range) were among the tactics adopted
Harris also effectively split his command, sending 5 Group with its own pathfinders, out as an independent 'second force.'
Despite this it was clearly understood that, as Dickins explained
"The success of the enemy in finding the stream is proportionate to its length, but once in the stream the successful destruction of aircraft is proportionate to the concentration. It should be possible therefore, to calculate the length of the stream and concentration which would result in the least success for the enemy."
Until now the limiting factor on the desired concentration had always been the balance between reduced losses and increased collision risk; now, for the first time the Luftwaffe was influencing the calculations.
There was no handbook for these operations, no one had ever done anything like this before. For example, you might say, as someone did at the time, an easy way of reducing the length of the bomber stream would be to increase its depth, by flying various groups at different altitudes. It seems reasonable until the effect of winds at different altitudes is taken into consideration, it was for this reason, and the inability to give reliable wind information ('Broadcast Wind') over a range of altitudes, that this method was not adopted. I suspect, and at least some senior officers at Group level did too, that experienced crews ordered to fly at lower levels would simply ignore the order and fly as high as they could, though this was never an official reason for not adopting the tactic.
Nothing was obvious at the time and everything had to be rigorously examined and then, if deemed feasible, tested. If any aspect of Bomber Command's operations could be improved, then the method would be adopted. The entire system was much more sophisticated and far less random than many understand. Everything was designed to increase the levels of destruction inflicted on Germany's cities whilst maintaining losses at the lowest possible, and sustainable, levels.
Cheers
Steve
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It is a fascinating read, some of it posted here. Advances in planes and electronics met by counter measures from the other side, changes in tactics met by new methods from the other side. For the British even at night and using window you cannot keep 1000 four engined bombers secret, I am sure they could be heard from miles away and travelling in a concentrated stream German pilots could find them simply from the turbulence they caused.
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- #108
I'd almost swear I saw in a documentary on the Schweinfurt raid that the bombers kind of went out of their combat box right over the target area; and into some kind of amorphous "formation" as they proceeded to bomb; then went back into their combat-box on their way out.
At that point it would appear each bombardier was aiming on his own
No, I get that... but over the target area, the threat stopped being the fighters and instead became the flak. The fighters usually didn't seem to attack over the target area except in specific circumstances it would appear to avoid getting blown up by flak as well, in such cases it would appear the fighters operated above a certain set altitude, and the flak below...
That I know, it has to do with the reflex time of the brain. If my reflex time is a half a second off, it doesn't matter if I'm a half a second behind you anyway.
wuzak
Captain
I believe they abandoned individually bombing a target at least 6 months earlier.
In the early heavy bomber raids over France, particularly at the sub pens, fighter opposition was not very strong and escort fighters could provide cover to the target, but flak was heavy and well aimed. As each aircraft aimed individually it had to fly a straight, level course for some time - it may have been minutes. Very good for the flak gunners to take aim.
France was occupied by the German military. In a French port with a German submarine facility they only had a real interest in that facility and presumed any raid would be against it, It is much easier to aim flak when your guns are deployed to defend one position.
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- #111
1. So until early 1943, they were using the combat box (either the 12 or 18 ship box) in and out, and breaking up to bomb individually over the target; then later on they would just bomb in the box formation as they proceeded?
2. When they bombed in the combat box, were they just using a bombardier/toggleer always?
3. Why when the P-51's and P-38J's entered the equation did they keep bombing in formation? With escort they could break up and bomb individually?
fubar57
General
LMAO
Robert Porter
Senior Master Sergeant
wuzak
Captain
I'm not sure how they did it exactly.
But it was probably before 1943.
Flak.
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- #116
Why would being in a formation reduce the odds of getting shot? I figure changing into an amorphous formation would be much harder to hit...
fubar57
General
So you would have the bombers coming in from all points of the compass trying to hit an aiming point and then as Milosh said, try to form up into a defensive box over enemy territory. Good God......
wuzak
Captain
Time over target.
Even with a fighter controller directing the night fighters to the stream successful interceptions were rare. When an experienced pilot did manage to get into and stay in the stream they did sometimes score multiple victories in a matter of minutes, but this was unusual.
During the BoB British fighters were directed to the Luftwaffe formations in daylight, needing only to be brought within visual range, generally two to three miles depending on conditions, before attempting an interception. Even so only about 60% of attempts (figures vary a bit either side of that number in different sources) resulted in successful interceptions.
The Germans were doing the same thing at night where the ground controller had to position a night fighter at least within its AI radar range of a potential target (this obviously varied throughout the war as the technology developed, but was always less than daylight visual range and always much less reliable than the human eye). The fighter then had to hope that its AI radar was working well enough to maintain contact to within visual range, which might be a few hundred feet. One of the many factors known to have caused the high losses of the Halifax was that
"the greater visibility of the Halifax exhausts namely, about 1600ft. directly astern, enables an attacking fighter to attain and maintain contact more easily."
Even in a best case scenario, where a night fighter found itself directly behind the most visible of the British bombers it had to be within about 500 yards. The single most important factor dictating the success or failure of the night fighter crews was the weather. In conditions in which, for what ever reason, the bombers were rendered more easily visible to the human eye they enjoyed more success, despite all the technology the Mk I eyeball was still the best tool available to the intercepting crews.
Against all the technology employed by the Luftwaffe to position its fighters in the stream and in a position to intercept a bomber the British were employing ever more sophisticated counter measures to prevent precisely that. This was a battle that the British eventually and conclusively won. Here is what Major Werner Hoffmann, Grupppenkommandeur of I./NJG 5 remembered of the Dresden raid.
"The enormous mass of English flew over the city , whilst all our equipment was heavily jammed. I did not succeed in shooting any of these huge bombers down, one only saw them lit up for a fraction of a second when bombs exploded down below, the next moment they were swallowed up by the darkness again, and thus it was completely impossible to catch one. By this time, early 1945, the English completely jammed our radio and radar etc. We were practically dependent on our eyes, for all practical purposes we were blind again."
I have read several accounts by night fighter pilots who knew they were in the stream, as evidenced by experiencing turbulence/prop wash, they may even have glimpsed a potential target, yet they failed to make an interception. It really was not as simple as it might seem to us. One can only admire the skill and tenacity of the relatively few night fighter crews who did achieve some considerable success.
Cheers
Steve
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The combat box keeps the bombers separated in height and width, if planes bomb individually on one target then the flak just has to set up a "box" for the bombers to fly in to.
