Recapitulation. In the 1930's the USAAF tried out external fuel tanks and decided they were not worth the peace time problems. The Luftwaffe tried them in Spain, going with the Bf110 as the long range type with drop tanks earlier than the Bf109 had them in 1940.
The late 1930's group of new USAAF fighter designs came with more fuel than most others, but it was carried in unprotected tanks, in 1940 when that was shown to be deadly the short term solution was to line the tanks, reducing fuel capacity. The P-38 for example from 400 to 300 gallons. The P-47 was the USAAF choice for its next generation single engine single seat fighter and was ordered late enough to require protected fuel tanks from the start as did the Mustang I/P-51.
P-38 were accepted from September 1940 the P-51 started production in August 1941, the first P-47 was accepted in December 1941. The P-51 began to see combat in early 1942 plus had extensive evaluation by the now combat experience RAF. The P-38 started to see combat from August 1942, in Alaska, Europe, the tropics and North Africa. The 8th Air Force had the task of introducing the P-47 with all the inevitable problems from March 1943. The P-47 was always lagging time wise. End 1941 it was 205 P-38 to 1 P-47 to 136 Mustang I. The P-38E in October 1941 and the P-47C in September 1942 are usually considered the first combat worthy versions. My personal view, without confirming documents, is Republic spent much of 1942 and 1943 keeping up with the demands for more P-47 while doing the combat bug fixes, information of which would only begin to flow back to them around April 1943 at the earliest, relegating extra range into the nice to have when time permits.
The P-47 used the new R-2800 engine, 19 built to the end of 1940, in January 1942 the R-2800 A version gave way to the B version. Pratt & Whitney East Hartford R-2800
A versions are -1, -2, -4, -5, -6, -11, -13, -15, -17, -35, -39
B 1-stage versions are -12, -16, -20, -21, -27, -31, -41, -47, -49, -59, -63
B 2-stage versions are -5, -8W, -10, -10W, -65
The B-26 from February 1941, the P-47 from December 1941 and the C-46 from June 1942 introduced the R-2800 into USAAF service. The P-47 was the introduction to fighter service, which tends to put more stress on the engine.
In late February 1942 the USAAF decided external fuel tanks were a good idea, unprotected ferry tanks and protected combat tanks, the first group inevitably arriving before the second. This new program would have to compete with a large number of other programs while trying to expand the Air Force.
The P-38F-1 from April 1942 had the ability to carry a pair of 150/165 gallon external tanks, initially ferry, then combat. The USAAF was pushing for multi engine aircraft to be flown to their destinations, not shipped. The P-38J-5 increased internal fuel from August 1943.
The P-47C-1 introduced the 200 gallon ferry tank in September 1942. The P-47D February 1943 on. D-6 allowing normal belly tank July 1943, D-15 wing shackles October 1943, D-25 more internal fuel April 1944.
As much as the P-47 was a heavyweight, coming in at 5 tons empty, the P-38 was 6 tons, adding 300 gallons of fuel had less impact on P-38 performance. Without wing racks the P-47 was limited to around 100 gallons of protected external fuel in 1943 and 150 in 1944 given ground clearance.
Thanks to the A-36 (October 1942 to March 1943) the P-51A and later came with wing racks from March 1943. The P-51B-10 came factory fitted with the rear fuselage tank from January 1944, conversion kits available for earlier models.
First 8th Air Force enquiry about the availability of drop tanks was sent on 3 October 1942. January 1943 came the order for P-47 ferry tanks, the first arrived in February. Testing soon showed their limits. Prototype 8th Air Force designed steel 110 gallon tank tested in March 1943, in May successfully pressurised. Paper 108 gallon fuel tank tested, approved on 7 July 1943. Roger Freeman: "Jettisonable fuel tanks built in the UK comprised 159 different items involved 43 companies in their manufacture."
The 10 October 1943 raid, even if all the P-47 airborne that day were escorting the bombers, and I do not think that is correct, by the Luftwaffe flying over twice as many fighter sorties as the USAAF did and concentrating on one of the two bomber formations the USAAF fighters present would be outnumbered at least 4 to 1. Even without fuel issues this time it was a numbers problem and it would be for a while, compounded by decisions to hit targets out of fighter range.
I gave a list of the 32 days 8th Air Force raid days on targets in Germany between 27 January and 20 October 1943, it would be good to pause and note it was under 1 raid a week on average, the USAAF counted percentages from the number of aircraft that entered hostile airspace, which is more than the number credited with attacking, using attacking ups the figures but look at the number of the 32 raids that had losses of 5% or less of the attacking bombers. That was a clear warning, the 28 July raids saw the first USAAF fighter penetration of German airspace and the first use of rockets by the Luftwaffe against USAAF heavy bombers, 22 missing bombers, 94 attacking. (302 sent according to Roger Freeman, plus 123 P-47) Weather poor. The 8th Air Force 7.3% of its B-17 and 11.1% of its B-24 sorties sent were weather aborts, the 15th Air Force figures 11.5% for B-17 and 13.4% for B-24 of airborne sorties, that is a lot of effort for no result. The ability of the B-17 to fly higher was an important reason for the difference. According to the USSBS of 524 8th Air Force weather forecasts about cloud cover over the target 304 were accurate, 56 the weather was better, 164 worse.
Despite all the claims Britain was a lower priority theatre for most of 1943, including for Overlord, stabilising the Pacific and starting the push back was important, no one knew if the fast carrier force covering amphibious assault ideas would work, Tarawa not a good example (1,000 USMC dead, or about 200 heavy bomber combat losses), so maybe the only way to Tokyo was via the islands from Australia using land based air cover. The Mediterranean offered great strategic prizes including bomber bases to hit key axis targets even before helping to relieve the shipping situation that was cramping allied operations. As well as the groups sent permanently the 8th Air Force lost its B-24 groups from 27 June to 8 September 1943, and after having 4 groups operational on 9 September went down to 1 on 19 September, returning to 4 groups on 4 October as Mediterranean duty once again called, 1,288 effective sorties worth from 13 December to 1 October 1943. The ETO did 50,163 effective sorties in 1943 with 24,501 by fighters, the MTO did 154,418 and 104,694. MTO sorties peaked in July 1943, ETO in December, the ETO recorded 23,442 of its sorties in the final quarter of the year.
not someone easily convinced by rambling verbosity about tangential "facts."
You need to substitute facts for opinions, and stop the above language as everyone who has contributed factual material here can easily see themselves as being the target of an insult.
I'll reduce my participation here going forward, certainly not because I've been persuaded or convinced, but because it is not profitable.
And to me that means ignoring facts that do not fit and given the above attitude any further contributions are more likely to be advertising. I am sure you are aware Greg bans people who contradict him.
Realistic peace time training could have helped with these difficulties. Although he doesn't mention it here, I've seen videos of long lines of bombers que-ed up for takeoff, and it occurred to me that the ones at the back of the line, which would later be flying full throttle struggling to catch up due to the problem mentioned above, would also be burning the most fuel on the ground waiting to get to the runway.
And where before December 1941 did the USAAF have the money and numbers of aircraft to do the 8th Air Force formation sort of training? And in what weather? Which particular formation, given there were several differing ones, as numbers of groups and numbers in squadrons changed. Bombers did routinely practice formation flying in peace time. Similarly doing planning based on the different fuel consumption between leaders and the others in the formation. And no the followers were not flying full throttle to catch up after take off, the leaders were circling.
I have chosen not to engage to some/most of those challenges.
And you wonder why people are forming their opinions accordingly?
I'm aware of the horseshoe nail, and that professionals talk about logistics, but at some point a conclusion has to be reached. Constant bifurcation of each sub element of each element of each argument seems to me to be rather argumentative and non-productive. I described some of this to my 21 year old son at dinner last night, and he remarked that the more niche the topic in an online forum, the more pedantic that the participants seem to be. I was astonished at his observation, given what I have experienced here.
My aviation friends are using this topic for comedy (multi) hour. Conclusions are quick and easy if you cut facts. Waving opinions in front of people who are knowledgeable on the topic is not persuasive.
The bottom line to me is that strategic bombing did not bring victory over Nazi Germany, it may have contributed to it, but IMHO not in a significant enough amount to justify the expense, and especially, the loss of life.
May have, how many German losses does it take to convert may have to did contribute?
What costs are being counted, there is a the famed photograph Quesada sent to Eisenhower, the allied Normandy bridgehead with dumps, men, vehicles in full sight then suddenly an empty landscape. The heavy bomber activities had so weakened the Luftwaffe day fighters near the front lines allied armies from around mid 1943 could expect little air interference, that helped a lot, including the Red Army, through Mediterranean convoys saved shipping but not if being continually attacked. The way the Germans provided the numbers to defend Germany day and night in 1944 was to largely shut down bomber production. Overlord had the benefit the bombing of Germany pushed the Luftwaffe into taking significant bomber losses in the baby blitz instead of holding them for the invasion. The Luftwaffe lost control of its western airfields pre Overlord in part as its fighters were in Germany and when the invasion came were mostly untrained in fighter bomber work.
But when seem to challenge the very person, when every single sentence is dissected, instead of the overall theme, it just seems a little over the top.
Back in message 100 you claimed "I don't have the time or interest to respond point by point" now you seem to be again substituting opinion for a factual reply. Whatever your theme is in your mind the facts contradict much of the opinion and you take that as a personal challenge and being offended using that as a reason to not reply.
The arguments should rise or fall on their own merits.
Then make some with factual material. The 8th Air Force losses in 1943 were due to a combination of lack of fighter escorts, both relative to the number of bombers and the defending fighters and deliberate decisions to go beyond escort range.
So far you started with 10 times over inflated losses. Still believe Mosquitoes and B-26 could substitute for B-17 and B-24 for example? Flak suppression sorties? How ineffective the bomber gunners were? Still believe it was under 5% of bombs within 1 mile of target? Nothing you introduced was new, nil, zero, plenty of people over the years have come in with variations on the theme, including the B-17 heavy fighter and bomber blowing through the Luftwaffe defences shattering the German economy while sheltering the P-51 under it wings, or was that Lancaster? Mosquito? So who are the USAAF bomber mafia generals?
And one doesn't have to get down to the horseshoe nail to know that the battle or the war was lost.
Most of the readership appears to be waiting for you to find the stable first.
I personally believe, and it is my opinion not supported necessarily by documentation, that number 1 is possibly true.
You need to number the statements to avoid confusion in the replies.
Saving fuel from warmup and taxi, and the first 100 miles would have put how much fuel back in the tanks?
The big engines need proper warm ups, the need to go high early because of the threat from the defences and go around in formations reduced the ability to save fuel. As the Luftwaffe fighter force was pushed back from the coast options opened up, even more as France was liberated. The P-38 in economic cruise, each gallon saved gets you 2.7 miles, the P-47 3 miles, how many gallons are saved by the new procedures?
I found the sentence I was looking for earlier, on page 97: "During the months of May and June, our fighter pilots gained experience, and modifications to equipment now gave them additional confidence in their aircraft." I don't recall if Greg talked about that at all, but when I read that I was gob smacked. So they went to war in an airplane that they didn't have very much confidence in?
Actually they went to war in a plane they had a lower level of confidence in when they started and it was all new than a few months later when they learnt its good and bad points and fixes are made. Your ability to turn a sore finger into an amputation at the neck required is quite amusing. The fighter pilots in Britain in early 1943 came from P-38, P-47 and Spitfire, they had to learn how to fly the P-47, then work out how to use it to advantage in combat.
And what modifications were made? The didn't have enough "experience" to fully exploit the range capability of the airplane? IMO, that is a very damning statement regarding the USAAF and her leadership. May/June of 43 was 18 months into the war, and 2 years after the first flight of the P47. War years are like dog years. 18 months into the war should have been like 7 years in peacetime, imo.
The P-47D went from block 1 to block 40 during its production run. Aviation was bleeding edge, no one had ever flown that many aircraft over those sort of distances at those sorts of heights in those sorts of conditions, you had better believe they were learning lots of new stuff, including new weather phenomena. Now repeat after all of us, pilots take many months to a year to train from scratch, before that someone has to provide the equipment and staff the training system with qualified instructors, who take even longer to train, after pilot (and mechanic) training comes unit training and so on. Your view indicates since 1 woman takes 9 months to grow a baby therefore 9 women can do one in a month. 30 June 1939 USAAF 22,387 personnel, up to 152,125 on 30 June 1941, 2,372,292 30 June 1944, that's right it grew a hundred fold. Oh yes on economic terms military expenditure is mostly consumption, not investment, you want investment to have the economy to support a large military when you need it, big peace time militaries tend to be a drag on the economy, see Japan and Italy in the 1930's, even Britain. As noted there is a difference between first production and first combat worthy production at times while lots of early production ends up in the training system, otherwise it has to be on the job training.
In short, I don't believe that the lies deceit and treachery involved sending the bombers out without escort. I believe that the USAAF leadership ("bomber mafia") truly believed at that time that the bombers could defend themselves much better than they actually were able to do, so they ordered the missions.
So the USAAF leadership is the bomber mafia, the statement would look so much better without those two words, then a following sentence about why the named people qualify for bomber mafia status. Name the names and the criteria for their selection.
The lies deceit and treachery came later.
So the men killed at the time were not betrayed as that came later, so who was betrayed?
That is my interpretation of Greg's narrative, parts of it sound plausible, for example that reports such as the 8th AF document would be written in a certain biased way.
Again would be written, could be written? Richard Davis: "However, the records of the U.S. numbered air forces in Europe, in spite of policy discouraging the designating of specific bombing as "city," contains numerous examples of urban strikes. The author takes the AAF at its word. If an AAF, group, wing, air division, or numbered air force report [the author has personally examined all the available mission folders for each air force] designates a raid as a city or town strike, it is counted as such. This method has unearthed many unacknowledged city attacks. American city bombing entails further caveat. The Eighth Air Force's most comprehensive target summary, prepared in May 1945, does not acknowledge a single instance of city bombing by American aircraft. It systematically changed city raids theretofore carried on Eighth Air Force books to other target categories, usually Industrial Areas (I/A). All raids on Berlin became raids on the "Military and Civilian Government area" (MCG/A). "
Things like the pickle barrel reinforce my belief that the USAAF leadership was overselling their product, that narrative sows distrust in my mind. There were many other examples of wishful thinking in the war reporting at that time, and later. Heck, McNamara knew the Vietnam war couldn't be won in what, 1967?
Remember how upsetting it was to be considered Greg or a troll, the apparent guilt by association? Like using McNamara as evidence against the WWII commanders for example? Also other wishful thinking doing the same thing?