Best Bomber of WW2 -- #3

Is it me or did he just state that American aviation was superior in the 50s and 60s to British aviation? Of course because the USAF had a fighter capable of intercepting a Tu-95 "Bear" at 58,000 feet during the early 60s...

...wait a second, no they didn't! But come to me Mr. Bear for I am an English Electric Lightning the best interceptor in the Cold War. Top speed Mach 2.3, intial climb rate 50,000 feet per minute, (recorded) ceiling 60,000 feet - American aviation better than British? Mind while I roll around in laughter.

And by the way, your bomber argument is just running out of steam. The Lancaster did anything and everything you could ask of a heavy bomber. You seem so attached to those ten .50cals, go pay attention to 1943 when the B-17 lacked escort and study how it got blown out of the air with great ease by German interceptors when there were no escort fighters around.

How about when the RAF had the unpleasent experience of using B-17s during the day in the early years. They could defend themselves couldn't they!? No, no they couldn't because the B-17 couldn't defend itself. No bomber could, no bomber will ever be able to defend itself. They never have been able to, never will be able to. In fact, notice how everyone praises the Mosquito bomber variants for being UNARMED!? Because an unarmed bomber is a revolution in bomber design, they aren't fortresses in the sky...they're sitting ducks with the added weight of guns and ammo.

You take all the ammo and guns out of a B-17 and rely solely on a decent, numbered roaming escort and you've got a faster and more capable bomber with about five crew.

Lanc, the B-17 could carry the Tall Boy on wing racks. That is were the Disney bombs were carried.

It would only be able to carry one, since the load of a B-17 was 17,600 lbs. I've seen the B-17 with two JB-2 "Loon" bombs.

Yes, but there would be a rack on each wing. I did not say Tall Boys (plural).

The Lanc dropped far more bombs on Germany then the B-17...It dropped them on apartment blocs, hospitals and kindergartens....As a killer of civilians it ranked second only to the gas chambers at Auschwitz....Because of it's longer range, it was able to slaughter civilians throughtout the Reich and it sure got the firebombs to the targets quicker then any B-17 could have....Because of it's almost total lack of armor and weak defensive firepower, it was forced to fly at night which made strategic bombing virtually impossible..(The Lanc day raids resumed near the wars end when the Luftwaffe had been swept from the skies)..So it burned down cities killing a million or more civilians.
The lancs were also the toughest of any bomber to escape from, which accounts for it's crew survival rates being even less then B-17s and B-24s despite flying in a less hostile combat environment, ( There's really no threat comparison between German nightfighters and the hordes of Me's, FW's and even jets faced by the daytime bombers)..
Revisionist historians have slammed the US daylight raids as ineffective, pointing out that German war production actually increased as plants were dispersed as the war progressed...They conveniently ignore the fact that fuel production was sharply curtailed by the daylight raids, ( 80 + %)...This meant that much of that increased weapons production never saw combat...The majority of the ME-262s produced, some 4/5, never fired a shot....Their wasn't enough fuel to properly train young pilots in the flying of such a complicated aircraft....In 1942, German fighter pilots were the world's best...By 1945 they were the world's worst and Anglo/ American aces fattened their scores against hapless rookies who totally out of their depth...During the Battle of the Bulge, the tide turned when German panzers ran out of fuel..Indeed the Germans first objective had been to secure the huge allied fuel dumb at either Antwerp or Rotterdam...They didn't make it...During a crucial tank battle on the Eastern Front, the Germans were prevailing....until their panzers ran out of gas...The inferior soviet tanks then overwhelmed them...
And what had happened to that outstanding cadre of German fighter pilots of the early war???Will, they didn't die throwing themselves against Lancaster formations..But some 12000 Germans fighters were lost in trying to stop the American daylight raids, either shot down by the bombers, (6000+) or their escorts,( another 6000+)...or sometimes even their own flak...
I recently read an account of the airwar by an old ME-109 pilot. He described what fun it was to dogfight spits and hurricanes early in the war...He said that the only thing that really scared him was attacking a combat box of B-17s and that he lost most of his compatriots that way. In 1942, the Luftwaffe ruled the skies over the eastern front..By late 44 the Soviets did bacause the majority of German fighter squadrons had been pulled home to protect the fatherland from the American daylight raiders..This withdrawal of german fighters in the east allowed the Stomovicks to roam unmolested over the battlefields and exact a punishing toll on the panzers...
It was in early 44, ( I believe) when virtually the entire german aircraft industry was given over to fighter production to replace the staggering losses suffered in the futile attempt to stop the US daylight raids..This meant that late in the war after the Stukas had proven to vulnerable to fighter attack, the Germans had no effective ground attack A/C...
The b-17s flown by the RAF early in the war and the B-17s flown later by the US were different birds..The later models had much better armament and more powerfull engines..There has probably never been an aircraft able to take the damage a B-17 could and still fly.There are instances of them getting rammed headon, kamakazi like, by German fighters and still making it home.Despite the frightfull losses, no B-17 raid was ever turned back by enemy action..Structurally, it was incredibly strong with very low wing load( The weight supported by the wing was spread over a very large area)...The B-24 and Lanc had high wing load which meant that their wings were more vulnerable to catastrophic failure caused by battle damage.
The combat life of a B-17 was 35% longer then a B-24...Had Lancs flown in the same daylight combat environment as the B-17s and B-24s I've no doubt that their average combat life would have been less then even the B-24...The B-17 with it's tougher, simpler radial engines required much less maintence then a lanc...Can you imagine a lanc squadron trying to operate in conditions like those found in the Aleutians, Solomons or New Guinea, or N Africa...There's a reason Lancs weren't deployed outside the UK...The simple B-17 was far cheaper to produce then a Lanc, and required less man hours and material, very important considerations during wartime when both are severely limited...

As for Mosquitos carring the same bomb load as a B-17...The Mosquito was a fantastic plane, great at low level hit and run raids like the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen..But can you imagine 800 or 1000 of them trying to fight their way through to the oil refinery at Merseburg......
In short, the measure of a WWII bomber is much more then bomb load, range and speed...Even the mighty, but complicated B-29 was a maintence nightmare in the Pacific and more vulnerable to battle damage then the B-17....

Some good points there.

As for Mosquitos carring the same bomb load as a B-17...The Mosquito was a fantastic plane, great at low level hit and run raids like the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen..But can you imagine 800 or 1000 of them trying to fight their way through to the oil refinery at Merseburg......

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But, can you imagine those 800-1000 Mossies flying at least half as fast again as the slow B-17s and spread out over a vast areas; not all clumped together like the American heavies. The few LW fighters basically had a hard time (mostly weather related) intercepting the slow American heavies so try to imagine them trying to intercept Mossies over a much larger area and not knowing what the primary target was. Also, remember that those 1000 bomber missions of the heavies usually had several targets they went to.

Just for Lanc,

An official British report states that heavies last an average of 28 missions and Mossies 92, and that taking average payload and build costs into account it can be calculated that Mossies are at least four times as cost effective as heavies in delivering a given tonnage of bombs

yes but the mossie was effective because of the relitively small numbers used, if you put hundreds, thousands even up on a bombing raid, they loose one of the advantages that made them so sucessfull.............

There's really no threat comparison between German nightfighters and the hordes of Me's, FW's and even jets faced by the daytime bombers

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er, yes there is the german night fighters were equipt with radar and very heavy calibre weapons, and often allot of them, they were very deadly at night.........

and you state that it was because of the daylight raids that the flak guns were bought back to defend the home front, wasn't this also because of the RAF bombing the cities before the US were even in the war??

either shot down by the bombers, (6000+)

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check your figures again, and i believe you will find they're CLAIMED kills, very, very different to actual kills.....

The b-17s flown by the RAF early in the war and the B-17s flown later by the US were different birds

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they're still B-17s the lancaster was a sucess as soon as it entered service and needed no modification, by the time the B-17 entered the war it'd had years of development and still wasn't at it's best......

There has probably never been an aircraft able to take the damage a B-17 could and still fly

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i'll assume you mean in WWII and even then the B-29 is, at the very least, equal in this catagory..........

Lanc had high wing load

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go one then, let's hear the B-17's wing loading, do you actually know what the lanc's is or are you just quoting this all from some ill-researched and very incorrect american dribble they called a documentary??

Can you imagine a lanc squadron trying to operate in conditions like those found in the Aleutians, Solomons or New Guinea, or N Africa

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yes, because post war they were used all over the place, including asia, and in fact one lancaster, PD328 "Aries" operated all over the world, you know, when she circumnavigated it

There's a reason Lancs weren't deployed outside the UK...The simple B-17 was far cheaper to produce then a Lanc, and required less man hours and material, very important considerations during wartime when both are severely limited...

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that is complete BULLSHIT!! if you had anything that slightly resebles a clue as to what you're talking about here you would know there's only one reason the lanc wasn't during the war, deployed outside the UK, it's quite simply that bomber command got them all, why?? because they were such great bombers! other air arms were screaming out for lancs but they could only supply them to bomber command..........

The simple B-17 was far cheaper to produce then a Lanc, and required less man hours and material

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can i just check this, how many parts to a B-17 was there?? i mean surely you must know this if you're willing to make a claim like that....

and fitting a tallboy to a B-17, the tallboy weighed 12,000lbs, was 21ft long and 38 inches across, have you got some sort of plan view or something one which you could show where you intend to put this bomb?? and may i take this oppertunity to remind you that it managed to fit in the lanc's huge bomb bay without a problem

Guy's The B-17 is/was a great bomber and did the jod it was asked of it.
It could have, like the Lanc did, been converted to many roles had that been desired.
Had the rolls been reversed the Lanc would have been fitted with more armor, armament and crew and it would have carried less and required an escort.

The Lanc was a newer design with prior knowledge allowing a better initial design. That the B-17 design could be up graded as much as it was shows it is as flexable a design as the Lanc. I'm not saying the B-17 is better than/or that the Lanc is undeserving in any of it's accolades. To someone who doesn't know better (looking at some of these pages) would think the B-17 is barly acceptable and underserving of the accolades it's earned. I just think the planes are much closer in capabilities than the obvious look shows.

I've read the B-17 had a huge handicapp in weight from armor etc that the Lanc did not carry. I have to research this because I'm not sure of the context and specifics but I do know, looking at these aircraft in opposite roles is not fair. Trimmed like the Lanc the B-17 could have easily carried twice the load it normaly carried and fly further and faster too. Still not as much as the Lanc but I'd bet, a lot closer than you might think.

wmaxt

While WorkinStiff brings up some good points, I've gotta go with Lanc on this one. Sure you could say the B-17 was easier to build, IT WAS SMALLER! The AAF was recognizing limitations in the B-17 as early as 1942 and intended to replace it with the B-32 (see the other thread). Personally the only big fault I find with the Lancaster was the lack of a co-pilot. I believe that if a second pilot was added to the crew there would of been better cockpit management and the Lancaster would of walked away with a better loss rate.

I think I am right is saying that when Lancasters and Halifax's flew in daylight raids their loss rates were similar to those suffered by the B17's and B24's.
If anyone has any pointers on this I would appreciate some help with this.

Also a B17 may be able to carry a Talboy type bomb, but does anyone know how far?

In answer to Lancs Kicks Asses, (LKA) questions and the questioning and disbelief of my assertions above, I'd like to cite some sources for my assertions..The First is the eminent ENGLISH historian, Max Hastings author of some 18 books on military history including the seminal and award winning book; Bomber Command....The other is American Aviation historian, Eric Bergerud, author of: Fire in the Sky, the air war in the South Pacific...Another source is the comparitive study between B-17s and B-24s done by the AAF in 1944, which can be found at http://www.uk-us.org/stinet/warproduction.pdf
LAK thinks that the combat environment over the Reich, was as deadly at night as it was during the day.....Mr Hastings disagrees, (From his latest work: Armageddon)p, 310; "American A/C were more strongly built then their British conterparts which relied on darkness for protection." Furthermore, If there was no safety advantage to flying at night, when bombing accuracy was severly degraded, why did the RAF go to night raids?.The whole reason the RAF abandoned day raids early was that German night defenses were very less formidable then their daylight defenses..I think it's very telling that towards the wars end after the Luftwaffe had been utterly smashed, the RAF very gradually started sending Lancs and Halifaxes on day raids...
As far as 6000 kills by bomber gunners...Those are not claimed kills..(Indeed, kill claims by US bomber gunners far exceeded 6K)...The Germans were meticulous record keepers..As Nuremburg showed,They recorded every person sent into the gas chambers, every village razed on the Eastern front...Their records of A/C losses were reconciled with allied claims after the war and 6000+ for heavy bombers and 6100+ for US fighters is what is generally agreed upon according to several sources I've come across...(Fighter jocks also inflated their kill claims, even English ones...)
The US began the Daylight campaign in the summer of 42..The Mustang escorts didn't really make there presence felt until the spring of 44...Before that time, the Luftwaffe fighter pilots usually just waited until the short range escorts turned back before attacking..German records show that the Luftwaffe lost thousands of fighters attacking Fort Lib formations between summer 42 and spring 44...There was nothing in the sky other then US Heavys, to have shot them down...
My claim that the B-17 was the toughest A/C certainly of WWII and quite possibly of all time: Above is a link to a site called: Battle damaged B-17s,(not battle damaged Lancs or B-24s or B29s) There's a reason the B-17 has such a WELL EARNED rep for toughness...In the AAF study cited above found that B-17s had a 35% longer combat life then a B-24 and that when similar targets were attacked the B-17s had a 40% less loss rate then the B-24s...Yet the B-24 was, as Mr Hastings stated, "more strongly built" then it's unarmored and undergunned British "counterparts"....( After the 44 study most Libs were sent to the Pacific where their longer range allowed them to reach targets a Fort couldn't reach while all Forts were sent to the far tougher combat environment of the ETO...)
Gliders assertion that Halifaxs and Lancs had similar loss rates to B-17s during daylight raids is incorrect...The Lancs and Halifaxs didn't come out from the cover of darkness until the Luftwaffe threat level had been reduced to almost nothing late war, so a real comparison is impossible...
CMDR Mitsugu Kofukuda, commander of the IJN 6th air group: "The B-17 was the most difficult aircraft for the Zeros to shoot down.They were extremely difficult to set afire with the Zero's 20 mm cannon shells. Our pilots soon learned that they could rarely be destroyed unless the pilots were hit..The fierce resistance with which they opposed our fighters was a serious problem. In my opinion, which is shared by many Japanese combat pilots, the ability of the B-17 to defend itself and carry out their missions, despite fighter opposition, was a deciding factor in the outcome of the war.....and from Commander Masatake Okumiya, staff officer, IJN CARDIV 2....:" By Sept 42 the B-17s had become a grave problem and the Japanese Navy tried every means to destroy the troublesome raiders. Our fighter pilots became desperate but failed to increase the number of destroyed bombers..The Boeings flew undaunted despite the attacks of Zero fighters, which the enemy's heavy machine guns too often destroyed"....(There's similar testimony from Luftwaffe pilots but my book on the ETO Air War is loaned out...).
Not only did Forts which had been rammed headon by FWs traveling
300 plus knots, make it home but there was a case over Hamburg in 44 where a flak burst sent a fort up into the one above...They became locked together like two mating dragonflies..The top Forts engines were feathered while the botton Fort supported them both on only 3 good
engines...They were actually flown down to a landing in a field in which several crew, who hadn't bailed, walked away and were taken prisoners by some amazed German soldiers.....(Oops gotta go, more later..

You know LKA your ranting response to my initial posting misquoted me on several points....Maybe you could calm down, wipe the spittle from your monitor and read what I actually said....I never claimed that a Fort could carry a Tall boy nor did I claim that the reason the nazis pulled 10,000 88s home to defend the fatherland was because of the daylight missions alone...
What I said was that in response to the daylight raids, the Luftwaffe withdrew many fighter squadrons from the Russian front, as well as Norway and the Med Theater, home in a futile attempt to stop the US daylight raiders...In doing so it not only opened things up for the Russians, but it also bled the Luftwaffe dry of it's best pilots and thousands of fighters..Hastings states: 'From the spring of 44 on, the daylight bomber offensive brought the luftwaffe to it's knees"...
The measure of the best WWII bomber is the effect it had in the real world of WWII combat, and not, simply the plane which flew the fastest and the furthest with the mostest bomb load....Hastings states: "The USAAF recieved less credit then it deserved for this success", ( the defeat of Germany).......Later he states: "The USAAF strategic offensive achieved formidable success in crippling Nazi oil production and transport links.By contrast, the RAF's area offensive against German cities contributed little to the defeat of the Naziis and instead, cast a moral shadow over the allied victory"....He also states that Nazi Armaments minister Albert Speer reported to Hitler in Jan 45 that the German economy was mere weeks away from total collapse largely because of the collapse in oil production and the destruction of the rail system...
What havoc did the B-17s and B-24s wreak on Nazi oil production???The Nazi War machine needed 300K tons of fuel a month..By April 44, they were operating on 180K tons, by years eng 10K tons...Meanwhile the mighty Lancs were burning cities to the ground....
Yea, I know, the mighty lancs sank the Titpitz....Here's what Hastings says about that: "All military achievements can be judged in the wider context of grand stradegy..For instance, if the RAF's Bomber Command had suceeded in it's efforts to sink the Tirpitz in 41 or 42 or even 43, this would have made a notable contribution to the the war. Yet, by the time the RAF destroyed the Tirpitz in Nov 44,it's sinking had become strategically irrelevant, A MERE CLEVER CIRCUS TRICK." (That's your own esteemed war historian speaking....)
Still more Hastings: "The success of the USAAF could have been swifter and more complete if the RAF had also committed themselves to the oil campaign." Of course to do that the unarmored and undergunned Lancs would have had to come out from the protection of the darkness and fly daylight raids into the teeth of the formidable German defenses....

While there are some good points raised there, I think there is a big emphasis on what the Americans did. It was a team effort, plain and simple. The Brits said Americans were crazy for daylight bombing. The losses that were experienced in the 8th AF before escorts were available were atrocious.

In this case, I think that he is giving too much credit to the daylight bombing campaign. Calling it a "great success" made me laugh. I know a handful of B-17 crewmen that would say the same thing. Yes, it was the bombings of the oil industries that did the trick, but how many raids were made to take out aircraft factories, ball bearing plants, tank plants, etc. If you call sending thousand plane raid for months at a time to put an end to oil production a great success, I don't.

The RAF also destroyed rail junctions and factories. Accuracy improved with H2S, but still dropping an iron bomb from high altitude is not very accurate, period. You can get close. I don't care if it was day or night. You may want to revisit the strategic bombing survey and see how inaccurate daylight bombing was. Blaming the RAF alone for killing civilians and bombing out cities is completely inaccurate.

It was the combined effort of the USAAF and the RAF together that beat the Luftwaffe.

Why Was the Fort So Tough??????Well according to Bergerud, there were many reasons..The B-17 was the only 4 engined bomber that was designed with "Low wing configuration."The downside was that the spar or wing root, extended into the fuselage constricting the room available for a bomb bay...But it was a hell of a long stronger at the root, which is why all fighters and the tough old c-47 were built that way......
The B-17 also possessed the biggest wings and tail, relative to it's size weight, of any WWII bomber....Compare photos of B-17s with those of other 4 engined bombers and notice how much more wing and tail area (and a bigger wing root) a fort has, relative to the total size and weight of the A/C....Bergerud states that it had the lowest wing load of any WWII bomber.."THe clean but conventional design also contributed to tremendous structural strength." The b-17 was amazingly stable, especially at low speeds, a big advantage when trying to land a cripple, or trying to land on one of the slanted, muddy or icy strips in the Aleutians, New Guinea, or the Solomons...Yet according to Bergerud;" The B-17 had very good performance at high altitude, and for a heavy bomber, manuvered well."
The B-17 required less maintence then it's other 4 engined counterparts, a factor born out in the 44 AAF study.....It was, I believe, the only heavy which could, (and did!) operate successfully under the extremely bad conditions found in the Aleutians, Solomons and New Guinea early in the Pacific campaign..There, fields were mud (with ice in the aleutians), often not level, ( some actually slanted downhill!), and maintence was poor as both spare parts and trained air technicians were in very short supply...Those fields were also under frequent attack and it's hard to maintain a plane when you're being bombed by Bettys, strafed by Zeros and shelled by cruisers...The few B-24s which operated in that environment had a much higher accident, crash and break down rate then the B-17s... which was, again, born out in the AAF study....Again the simpler, less complicated, ( with fewer parts),and tougher b-17 was the best plane under the real wartime conditions existing at that time, and in those places....
Later when the Japanese Navy and Air Arms were decimated, when there were plenty of spare parts and trained technitions, when the Seebeas showed up and were able to grade out nice LEVEL concrete runways, the more tepermental b-24 and b-29s showed up...They were then able to operate from the new bases and the shorter ranged b-17s were then sent exclusively to the much tougher combat environment of ETO daylight raids.....
The fact that POSTWAR, the lancs also operated in many parts of the world proves little....LKA makes a false comparison..They operated from nice level concrete runways, had plenty of petrol, spare parts and technicians to maintain them.Nor were their bases under near constant attack, ( they weren't under ANY attack.Did Lancs see any combat after WWII???like in Korea...B-24s and B-29s did)..Hell, b-52s operate successfully all over the world...Can you imagine b-52s, ( or b-29s or lancs) trying to operate from henderson field on Guadalcanal under nighty shelling, or the aleutians or New Guinea with its downhill runways.....
So what did the humble, slow, simply built but incredibly tough, 1930s designed B-17 accomplish in WWII...Well, in the Pacific it held the line, operated under terrible conditions, and turned the tide against the Japanese...Was it effective?....Read what the two Japanese officers said above.....
In the ETO,( with substantial help from the B-24) it merely destroyed nazi oil production, the rail system and bled the Luftwaffe dry of pilots and AC...It was more responsible for the destruction of the Luftwaffe, ( The Worlds greatest air force in 41) then any other single allied aircraft.. Between the staggering losses in planes and pilots suffered in the futile attempt to stop the Fortress formations and the destruction of oil production, the Luftwaffe was finished.....The diversion of fighter resources from the Russian and other fronts brought home, only to be lost in attacks against American combat boxes opened things up for the Soviet AF and helped swing the tide on that front....I've read in several accounts that more german A/C fell to B-17 gunners then fell to any other single allied A/C......It was the one bomber consistently tough enough to punch its way through the toughest air defenses of WWII...It was NEVER turned back....
As for the lanc,, It was grossly missused, hostage to Bomber Harris's obsession with burning German cities...Hitler commented that he welcomed the destruction of his cities because it made the survivors, who'd lost their homes and families, hardcore bitter enders who had nothing to lose and would fight to the death...( according to Hastings, page 312)..The lanc sunk the Tirpitz, (Big Deal!) and destroyed the dams on the Ruhr...( Now THAT was Incredible, no other bomber in the world could have pulled that off!)Had the Lanc been given armor and 50cals, ( at a somewhat diminished bomb load), It could have joined the Forts and Libs on daylight raids that really accomplished something, and the war might have ended sooner....

UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
SUMMARY REPORT
(Pacific War)

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm

The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: European Theater of Operations

http://www.angelfire.com/super/ussbs/

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm

WStiff, could you make some paragraphs in your posts. As they are now, they are hard to read.

KraziKanuK said:

WStiff, could you make some paragraphs in your posts. As they are now, they are hard to read.

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Yeah, they are just a bit hard to read the way they are. Maybe you could just space them slightly from now on?
But they're very interesting. 8)

the lancaster kicks ass said:

yes but the mossie was effective because of the relitively small numbers used, if you put hundreds, thousands even up on a bombing raid, they loose one of the advantages that made them so sucessfull.............

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They would? How so?

My purpose in this post has not been to denigrate the Lanc..It was a wonderfull bomber, superior to the B-17, ( B-24) in virtually all respects..The Fort was updated 30s technology. It could no more compete with a Lanc in the measurable areas of fastest, furthest mostest bomb load, the a Lanc could compete with a 50s technology b-47..........
................My point was to point out the considerable strengths of the B-17,and show how those strengths played out well in the savage, "real world"combat conditions of WWII...I also wanted to counter the denigration of it's capabilities and record by previous posters on this thread..Indeed, to have read this thread is to come away believing that the B-17 was no more capable and played no more significent role then the Lockeed Hudson...
.........After the war, there began an ongoing dismissal and denigration of the USAAFs strategic daylight bombing campaign in Europe...It was seen as largely ineffective, a waste of men and resources.....Indeed, Some of the USAF's own studies and surveys buttressed this conclusion..Even as the war raged the Daylight campaign came to be seen in an unfavorable light by the likes of Eisenhower Churchill.....This was partly due to the inflated claims and predictions of it's advocates. Bomber Harris consistently made exaggerated claims of the effectiveness of his night area raids.Some AAF general blithy stated that a ground campaign wasn't needed, The B-17s would bring Germany to it's knees by the end of 43....well okay, the end of 44.....
............In the Pacific, the mighty B-17 was going to rout the Imperial Japanese Navy single handedly, bombing from 15K and 20K feet...That proved so ineffective that Japanese naval officers became contempuous, and some didn't even bother with evasive manuvers when the Forts were overhead.....( One IJN Captain lost his destroyer, because he ignored the Forts and one of them got lucky and blew his ship out of the water).After tactics changed, the forts became more effective....The first skip bombing success by any a/c was achieved off Buin, New Guinea in Nov 42, when a battle damaged Fort, made a low level run on a destroyer...The Bombs fell short and skipped into the side of the ship, sinking it...("Golly Gee, We discovered something")...Later a skip bombing fort heavily damaged the cruiser Aoba, knocking it out of the war for a year...Skip bombing was then perfected and became a devastating tactic, though more suited to and usually carried out by A-20s, B-25s and Aussie Beaufighters.........
...Back to Europe............Lately, Some noted Historians have come to see the AAF daylight strategic campain in a much more favorable light, as is shown by Mr Hasting's quotes above...Many of the successes and secondary benefits of the daylight bombing campaign which were not apparent during and right after the war have only come to light after years of diligent research by folks like Mr Hastings...
.......Many critics claimed that although the AAF enjoyed "some success" against the nazi oil and rail infrastructure, the other attacks against sub pens, arms factories, steel mills and A/C factories were mostly futile and did little to win the war.....After all, production of arms, tanks and A/C actually increased in the face of the AAF bombing campaign....Well, where the sub pens were concerned, the bombing had little effect.....But lets look at the other catagories...........
..........In 1942-43, Nazi armaments minister, Albert Speer had to overcome three considerable problems.....
..1...For the germans to win the war he had to increase arms and industrial production dramaticly.....
..2....the US 8th AF was coming through and plastering his factories.....
.3.....Despite beefing up their air defenses and inflicting high losses, the Luftwaffe had proved unable to stop the B-17s...
and a 4th point......German intel indicated that 1000s more forts and libs were coming to England and that the Yanks and Brits were suceeding in their attempt to design a long range fighter, ( the Mustang and a new long range version of the p-47)....It was only gonna get a hell of a lot worse......
....He decided to widely disperse his industry to smaller, hidden, often underground locations....And he certainly increased production...but at what cost........It took alot of resources and time to reassemble his factories underground an disbursing his factories into smaller units meant that the assembled components had to be brought to a central location for final assembly...That was less efficent...and it took oil and rail lines to bring them together....
......In 43, the 8th AF was plastering the giant Focke Wulf complex at, Regensburg,( ? I think)...It was broken down and it's components reassembled elsewhere in smaller, seperate units...The building of Focke Wulfs was made more difficult, less efficent and more resource consuming because of the bombing campaign....Yes, in the face of all that, the industrious Germans still managed to increase production....But how much MORE would German War production have increased had the Germans not been forced scatter and hide their factories......
.....Another factor;...In the prebombing Germany, those above ground factories were largely manned by hard working, patriotic Germans....In the later underground factories, much of the work was done by starved, ill treated, slave labor, who not only were less efficent but often actually sabotaged the arms they were producing...