As a crewman in the ETO, would you rather serve in a B-24 or a B-17?

Lighthunmust · Jun 14, 2011

During the planning of Tidal Wave intelligence indicated it was a heavily defended target and more importantly that the strike force designed could significantly damage known production capability. Intelligence failed in determining the actual defensive strength and more importantly the actual production capability of the various refineries. If these two factors were known, a strike on Ploesti would have been delayed, as future strikes were until resources and closer airfields were available. The strength of defense had little to do with failure of the mission. If all the bombers sent had bombed and bombed accurately it would still have been impossible to meet the strategic objective of significantly reducing production.

Sources:

Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 by James Dugan Carroll Stewart

Black Sunday: Ploesti by Michael Hill

Target Ploesti by Leroy W. Newby

Ploesti: Oil Strike by John Sweetman

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Jun 14, 2011

Readie said:
We have had this discussion before
You know I mean the size of bombs that I referred to in my earlier post.
The B29 was a great bomber, but in WW2 the Lancaster did more.
Cheers
John

You and me and will just have to agree to disagree...

(Besides the size of the bombs is innacurate as well. The B-29 could carry bombs just as large, but that is not for this discussion and I do not want to get this off topic).

Lighthunmust · Jun 14, 2011

davparlr said:
I suspect that the data was somewhat skewed by the carpet bombing of B-52s. Also, the amount of precision guided weapons may have been limited. With the advent of GPS guided weapons and their cheaper procurement, precision strikes have become all important and non-precision strikes are probably now in the background, unless we see another heavily fortified line we have to cross.

I agree with you 100%. It only took 80 years for doctrine to match reality. The number of precision weapons available was small, but dramatically increased by 2000.

P-40K-5 · Jun 14, 2011

' The strength of defense had little to do with failure of the mission '

oh my Lord... are you serious? so if the Germans didn't defend the oil fields
with 88's, Me109's, Me110's, the romanians with there IR80's, it would still
have been a failure for the allies? give your head a shake man. they were planning the raid
for weeks in the desert of Lybia, right down to mock ups of the buildings.

Lighthunmust · Jun 14, 2011

P-40K-5 said:
' The strength of defense had little to do with failure of the mission '

oh my Lord... are you serious? so if the Germans didn't defend the oil fields
with 88's, Me109's, Me110's, the romanians with there IR80's, it would still
have been a failure for the allies? give your head a shake man. they were planning the raid
for weeks in the desert of Lybia, right down to mock ups of the buildings.

Yes I am serious.
Yes even if flak or fighters had at the last moment miraculously failed to appear that day it would have failed its strategic mission.
Inaccurate intelligence is the norm not the exception, the degree of inaccuracy is often a deciding factor for success. Weeks of planning using mockups is useful but pointless without accurate and fresh intelligence. Son-Tay is the first thing that comes to mind.
They had mock-ups for Tidal Wave and weeks of rigorous training, but inaccurate intelligence of what was really there and what its capabilities were. The latter is why Tidal Wave was a failure.

It may just be me, but I get the impression you are very sensitive to any comment that may or may not imply that the Luftwaffe and the Bf109 were anything but spectacular in their performance. My comments about Tidal Wave in no way impugn the performance of the Luftwaffe or Bf109.

If you would like to discuss this further please PM me, start a new thread, or read the books I referenced so we do not drift this thread further. I am done responding to Tidal Wave in this thread.

Readie · Jun 14, 2011

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
You and me and will just have to agree to disagree...

(Besides the size of the bombs is innacurate as well. The B-29 could carry bombs just as large, but that is not for this discussion and I do not want to get this off topic).

I just want to say...

We will, The B29 is the next generation and although considered for other theaters, and briefly evaluated in England, the B-29 was predominantly used in World War II in the Pacific Theatre. Not in Europe....so, the comparing the ETO bombers and the Superfortress is a bit pointless. The use of YB-29-BW 41-36393, the so-named Hobo Queen, one of the service test aircraft flown around several British airfields in early 1944, was thought to be as a "disinformation" program intended to deceive the Germans into believing that the B-29 would be deployed to Europe.

Enough said.
Cheers
John

Mustang nut · Jun 14, 2011

edited

Readie · Jun 14, 2011

Mustang nut said:
The statistics quoted here were only really known after the conflict finished.

True, oh for hindsight in advance eh.
Cheers
John

Lighthunmust · Jun 14, 2011

Mustang nut said:
I probably would want to be in a B 17 because it was perceived as being stronger. The statistics quoted here were only really known after the conflict finished.

Yep. Statistics as in Mark Twain's comment "there are lies, damn lies and statistics". Neither choice is something a sane man knowing the reality of the war would want to be in position to have to make. I guess it would be a better position than being a U-Boat crewman after 1941. Those guys really had a terrible loss rate.

Jabberwocky · Jun 14, 2011

P-40K-5 said:
yes, the Bf109 was better at altitude. Funny though about the USAAF records concerning the 109 vs 190 in shooting
down their bombers.. the vast majority were shot down with 109's ( their 9% chance according to the USAAF).

JG 1, JG 4 and JG 11 all preferred to use FW 190s against US bombers while the Bf 109s were tasked with engaging the fighters.

Do you have any statistics on Bf 109 bomber claims, vs FW 190 bomber claims?

gjs238 · Jun 14, 2011

Jabberwocky said:
JG 1, JG 4 and JG 11 all preferred to use FW 190s against US bombers while the Bf 109s were tasked with engaging the fighters.

Do you have any statistics on Bf 109 bomber claims, vs FW 190 bomber claims?

I assume the BF109's weren't quite good enough at holding off the fighters to permit Bf110's to engage the bombers (?)

P-40K-5 · Jun 14, 2011

almost every dedicated Luftwaffe website out there. also, lots of books on the subject. too much
to list here. sorry.

Readie · Jun 15, 2011

P-40K-5 said:
Give credit where credit is due. the Luftwaffe Flak crews did there job, with stunning results.

'Stunning results'? I think that that is borderline comment.

gjs238 · Jun 15, 2011

Readie said:
'Stunning results'? I think that that is borderline comment.

That's right, after all, they weren't using Merlins

seesul · Jun 15, 2011

Timppa said:
Willi Reschke ("Jadgeschwader 301/302 "Wilde Sau") wrote:

"It was a fact that German fighter pilots would rather attack a Liberator than a Flying Fortress. As a rule, one well executed attack was sufficient to cause a B-24 to go down, but that was not always the case with a B-17. Two attacks were often required to down a B-17, and there were cases when a German pilot expended all his ammunition on a B-17 with no apparent effect."

Yes, and that says a lot. He´s got 20 4 engine bombers on his credit...

Readie · Jun 15, 2011

gjs238 said:
That's right, after all, they weren't using Merlins

haha ...perhaps the USAAF should have 8)

What I meant was that gloating over so many of your countryman's deaths is inappropriate in my humble opinion.

There's a time and a place

Cheers
John

davparlr · Jun 15, 2011

gjs238 said:
I assume the BF109's weren't quite good enough at holding off the fighters to permit Bf110's to engage the bombers (?)

That is problem the Germans had after December, 1943. They did not have fighters that were capable of holding off the allied fighters until the fall of 1944 and then they did not have the number of the capable fighters to stop the bombing.

Because of the higher cruising speed of the B-24, if used correctly, its exposure time was less than the B-17. For a 300 mile ingress and egress distance, the B-24 mission would be 15 minutes less than the B-17. That does not sound like much but I suspect that under fire 15 minutes feels like a lifetime, maybe literally.

P-40K-5 · Jun 15, 2011

Readie said:
haha ...perhaps the USAAF should have 8)

What I meant was that gloating over so many of your countryman's deaths is inappropriate in my humble opinion.

There's a time and a place

Cheers
John

who's gloating.. not me. and I take extream OFFENCE if thats your implication.
I'm proud of my country and herritage (German for one).. sorry if its idiologies
don't agree with you.

Readie · Jun 15, 2011

P-40K-5 said:
who's gloating.. not me. and I take extream OFFENCE if thats your implication.
I'm proud of my country and herritage (German for one).. sorry if its idiologies
don't agree with you.

I think you posted 'Give credit where credit is due. the Luftwaffe Flak crews did there job, with stunning results' deliberately to cause offence Mister.
If you agree with historical German ideologies then you really are out of touch with reality.

John

P-40K-5 · Jun 15, 2011

Readie said:
I think you posted 'Give credit where credit is due. the Luftwaffe Flak crews did there job, with stunning results' deliberately to cause offence Mister.
If you agree with historical German ideologies then you really out of touch with reality.

John

I SEE reality everytime I watch an episode of COPS.

As a crewman in the ETO, would you rather serve in a B-24 or a B-17?

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