Best bombs against Oil and Industrial Targets

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Thanks for that Wuzak. I was unaware that BC attacked oil targets with all Mosquito forces. Previously, I had been in communication with an individual whose father had been a navigator on Pathfinder Mosquitoes, and he had said Scholven was a hot target. I now understand he was referring to these raids. Note the "coned by 20/25 searchlights" comment!.

Dad also went to Scholven Buer, December 29, 1944. two aircraft from his squadron were lost that night.

Jim
 
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I remember reading about these as a kid. The German rescue service was far in advance of the RAF in 1940 in many aspects. It took awhile for the RAF to catchup but eventually they did provide their own version
 

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For the Light Night Striking Force to bomb accurately they needed Oboe, which meant a predictable course, speed and height. In the first 6 months of 1944 1.7% of Oboe Mosquitoes reported damage from heavy flak, in the 8 attacks using Oboe on the Scholven-Buer plant in July 1944 the Oboe Mosquitoes reported 25% were damaged by heavy flak.

The Germans called the Oboe aircraft Boomerang aircraft, the track was that distinctive. The small number of Oboe stations, the need to fly at a minimum height to receive the signals from Britain over the Ruhr, the size of the target and the distinctive track gave the German gunners a much better chance of hitting than if it was visual bombing for example, the trade off for the accuracy Oboe gave. There was only a small patch of sky where the Oboe Mosquitoes could bomb the oil plant from, and they had to do it one aircraft at a time, with all the aircraft on a given raid using the same track or maybe couple of tracks. The uncertainties were still enough to keep the gunners from destroying more than 1 Mosquito but it was clear the odds had shifted in favour of the defences. Wonderful what a known aircraft track can do for your flak accuracy

Also that was the result after about two weeks of raids, you can assume the gunners would become better with more practice. As Oboe was the best chance for a main force raid on the plant being accurate, giving the gunners practice against possible pathfinders seems to have been considered a bad idea. G-H was used later.
 
Some context is needed to the use of Oboe and other bombing aids in Mosquito squadrons.

Of the eventual 11 Mosquito squadrons making up the Light Night Striking Force which was part of 8 (Pathfinder Force) Group, only 2 were equipped with Oboe (105 & 109). These squadrons would place Target Indicators on targets for both the LNSF and main force operations.

139 squadron operated with G-H from late 1943. It began experimenting with an H2S equipped Mosquito Mk.IV from Jan 1944 before taking on H2S equipped Mk.XVI in March which eventually made up about half the squadron strength. These were designated 'Y' aircraft. It was later joined by 162 squadron, which began flying H2S operations at the beginning of March 1945.
 
The small number of aircraft on "mosquito only" raids also meant that they could not saturate and snuff out the flak defences to the same degree as could the larger Lancaster and Halifax forces.

Scholven was a small target. Easily defended.
 
JDCAVE said:
The small number of aircraft on "mosquito only" raids also meant that they could not saturate and snuff out the flak defences to the same degree as could the larger Lancaster and Halifax forces.

Scholven was a small target. Easily defended.
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As the Mosquito force in 8 Group built up from 3 squadrons with 64 aircraft in May 1943 to an eventual 11 squadrons from Jan 1945 so did the number of sorties. So 119 were flown in May 1943. It reached 1,343 in May 1944 (generated by 6 squadrons; the first month over 1,000) until in the last 3 full months of operations in Feb-April 1945 there were 2,404, 2,950 & 2,324 sorties respectively generated by the 11 squadrons.

It is virtually impossible to detail numbers of sorties for pathfinder for the main force and those which relate to Mosquito only operations.
 
EwenS said:
...It is virtually impossible to detail numbers of sorties for pathfinder for the main force and those which relate to Mosquito only operations.
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Actually, it isn't. Both the 8-Group ORB's as well as the night raid reports detail the numbers of Mosquitoes sent to individual targets as compared to those that accompanied Main Force Operations. I have all of the ORS Night Raid Reports for June 1944-May 1945. Granted you have to page through them all. That said, the "All Mosquito" raids on Oil Targets seem to be directed primarily at the beginning of the attempts on oil. Excerpt from the Night Raid report for 30 June/1 July 1944 (AIR 14/3412, Operational Research Section: final reports on operations, night raids, Nos. 621-914 | The National Archives):

In addition, the "Day Raid Sheets" include the numbers of bombs dropped by type. Again, tedious to go through but it can be done.

Jim
 
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So what is the "small number" that you referred to on "Mosquito only" raids?
 
EwenS said:
So what is the "small number" that you referred to on "Mosquito only" raids?
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My point was: 40 Mosquitoes with 72 tons of bombs, are less effective at saturating/overwhelming the Flak defenses of a small target, than a force of 315 Lancasters and 22 Mosquitoes dropping 1621 tons of HE on the same target. It just is! I can dig out a reference somewhere from the ORS material about saturation of flak defenses as an attack progresses.

From the night raid report of the Raid on Scholven Buer, 29/30 December 1944:



As mentioned above, Dad was on this raid and 2 aircraft from his squadron were shot down by flak over the target. As also mentioned, I was told by a colleague whose father was a navigator on Oboe Mosquitoes and who flew to Scholven, he remarked that it was a nasty target because he felt the the flak crews were targeting Oboe Mosquitoes.
 
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There where a lot of oil targets so sending massive waves to a single target would be a problem. Amateurs study aircraft design. Professionals study oil production.
 
Snautzer01 said:
There where a lot of oil targets so sending massive waves to a single target would be a problem. Amateurs study aircraft design. Professionals study oil production.
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There are a lot of "oil targets", but if your goal is disabling the Luftwaffe there are actually only about 13, and of those, even the most important six or so would do it,as
no single plant made all the ingredients necessary for B4 and C3 fuels.

In fact, you would even have been able to do it with just two targets, both Tetraethyl-lead plants, and there was only one Dibromide plant, (you
need to add dibromide to the fuel to stop the TEL deposits settling inside the combustion chamber of the engine and eventually shorting out
the spark plug contacts, which stops the engine).

I`ve made a reasonable overview of the impact of the synthetic bombing campaign here:

 
Snautzer01 said:
There where a lot of oil targets so sending massive waves to a single target would be a problem. Amateurs study aircraft design. Professionals study oil production.
Click to expand...
It wasn't. The historical records do not support your statement. You didn't need massive waves. 200-300 bombers per target was sufficient and the USAAF and the RAF had more than sufficient heavy bomber forces for the task and still attack other targets. The problem in November-December 1944 was the weather. In the case of heavy overcast only Oboe and GH directed forces were able to conduct raids with accuracy suffice for oil targets. The German production records show that the strategic bomber forces made a serious impact on these targets.

Jim
 
I've read this through carefully and it is an excellent treatise on the subject and raises new points and questions. Very well done! In my opinion, this should be submitted in a peer reviewed journal for broader distribution.

I'm not sure would I agree that an "all Mosquito" force would have the capability to put the necessary plants unless it was targeted at one or two specific plants as you allude. More significantly, perhaps the aircraft and ordinance of choice would be Tall-boy equipped Lancasters. Production of Tall-boys was particularly limited throughout the war, but perhaps specific knowledge would have elevated its use on specific oil targets. I'm only aware of a couple of raids where it was used on oil targets.

I want to make clear that I do not have "hate-on" for the Mosquito. It was a highly capable aircraft for the roles in which it was used. It was highly versatile and marvellously useful. However it had its limitations and a very large mosquito force to replace the capability of Lancasters was not realistic. It would have required more airfields, and more pilots and navigators—the most highly trained aircrew members.

On Oboe: a review of the 8-Group ORB's show that about 56% (*edited from 75% earlier) of Mosquito stories on Main Force operations were abortive. The ORBs do not provide details as to why. However the records suggest that increase use of, or expansion of Oboe capability was not achievable during the latter stages of the war.

Jim
 
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