Best WWII Air-Force

[drgondog]

Remember adler though it was great pressure being bombed around the clock imagine it nailed by the Yanks in the daytime and by the Pomes at night time. It would have been hell to be in berlin at the time...

Imagine the RAF quitting night bombing in early 1944, join the 8th and 15th and 12th, concentrating on all strategic targets including Dusseldorf, Koln, Munster - inside the radius of P-47s while USSAF going deep with Mustangs and Lightnings - and expanding their (escorted RAF heavies) radius as more Mustangs and P-38s came into theatre and RAF Mustangs joined.

In one stroke the twin engine fighters lose their effectiveness (both day and night) and even more pressure is put on daytime German pilots to fly multiple sorties a day trying to take on twice the bomber count - and worthwhile targets get pounded more efficiently.

THAT would have been the real nightmare...

 

[Aussie1001]

Did the americans have the planes to support and cover both the AAF and the RAF the raf bombers would have needed more cover because of their much decreased armament compared to the B17's, B24's and B25's the lancaster if i recall correctly had 8 .303 machine guns compared to something like the b17 with chin turrents which had something like 15 .50 cal machine guns.

 

[syscom3]

Imagine the RAF quitting night bombing in early 1944, join the 8th and 15th and 12th, concentrating on all strategic targets including Dusseldorf, Koln, Munster - inside the radius of P-47s while USSAF going deep with Mustangs and Lightnings - and expanding their (escorted RAF heavies) radius as more Mustangs and P-38s came into theatre and RAF Mustangs joined.

In one stroke the twin engine fighters lose their effectiveness (both day and night) and even more pressure is put on daytime German pilots to fly multiple sorties a day trying to take on twice the bomber count - and worthwhile targets get pounded more efficiently.

THAT would have been the real nightmare...

Actually, I think the night bombing was more effective than the day bombing, as the RAF spent hours bombing their target, allowing fires to take hold.

The USSBS did mention this as a key to the better effectiveness of the RAF as compared to the AAF.

And then, the nightbombing does force the LW to divert significant resources to fight at night.

 

[Aussie1001]

My point exactly Syscom3.

 

[pbfoot]

I believe Syscom is correct the CEP was about the same between Bomber Command and the USAAC except the RAF was dropping a much larger load per aircraft . Now imagine if you had tied the Lanc instead of the Fort and Lib with the 51 that would have been the combo

 

[syscom3]

I believe Syscom is correct the CEP was about the same between Bomber Command and the USAAC except the RAF was dropping a much larger load per aircraft . Now imagine if you had tied the Lanc instead of the Fort and Lib with the 51 that would have been the combo

Well, that was thought of but the Lanc did have some key weaknesses that would not have allowed it to be as effective during the day as opposed to the B27/B24.

The Lancs element was during the night.

Now just imagine a Spitfire with drop tanks that would allow it to escort the bombers to berlin!

 

[Hop]

I just think its unfair to directly compare BoB with BoG, both were very different battles with very different conditions variables.

Of course they were, I'm not suggesting otherwise. Just pointing out that the "circumstances" of the two battles actually favoured the Luftwaffe, due chiefly to the distances involved. What it boils down to is the Luftwaffe had an air force 20 miles from the British border with 1940 radar technology (actually a bit older as CH was built in 1936/1937), whereas the USAAF had an air force 250 miles from Germany, with occupied territory in the way for most targets.

For that reason you can't excuse the Luftwaffe defeat by circumstance, because the circumstances were in their favour. (as they usually are for the defence).

Fwiw, I don't think the Luftwaffe had a hope in hell of winning either battle, Germany was just too weak militarily. I just think the Luftwaffe performance was poor in both cases.

The RAF attacked and fought at night because it did not have the equipment to fight in the day. Everyone knows that. But they never went back to Strategic Day bombing.

They did. BC actually dropped about 27% of their total tonnage in daylight, 262,078 tons in day sorties, 691,858 tons at night.

They never developed a long range fighter to go deep into Germany and destroy the LW. The US produced three (P38, P47, P51). The effectiveness of each of them varied, but they all fought over the enemy's airbases. That makes the air superiority fighters. Not interceptors as is found in the RAF and LW. Both airforces created aircraft that were point inteceptors or local defense fighters.

Not really true. The USAAF developed long range fighters when they found a need for them, in 1943. The RAF did the same, although the range requirement was never as great. The basic 85 gallon fuel tankage of the Spitfire was increased to 213 gallons in the Spitfire VIII with drop tank, 260 gallons in the Spitfire IX with rear tank and drop tank.

For an Airforce to be considered great in WW2, it had to have the ability to both bomb and dogfight effectively over the enemy's bases by day as well as destroy strategic targets.

You could equally argue it has to be able to do the same at night. The USAAF never developed much of a night fighting force, for the simple reason that the RAF did most of the night fighting. But that hardly makes the USAAF incapable.

The LW tried it and failed in 1940, switching to night bombing. Same with the RAF. Only the USAF/USAAF managed to do it by day to the point of Air Supremecy.

Well, the Luftwaffe was alone when it tried it, so was the RAF. The USAAF was one of three airforces fighting in 1944, and they were fighting an already badly depleted Luftwaffe. As Williamson Murray put it, by the beginning of 1942 they had lost two complete air forces. They lost another 1.1 in 1942, another one Jan - Jul 1943, and another Jul - Dec 1943. By the time the USAAF began their campaign to smash the Luftwaffe in late summer 1943 the Luftwaffe had already been destroyed 4 times over. By the time that campaign got in to high gear in 1944 the Luftwaffe had been lost 5 times over.

As Murray puts it:

The attrition of pilots and skilled aircrews was perhaps the most
important factor in the destruction of the Luftrvaffe as an effective fighting force.
The rise in the attrition rate for pilots resulted in a steady reduction in the skills and
experience of those flying German aircraft . While the losses among the fighter
pilots may have been somewhat heavier than for other
categories, they undoubtedly reflected what was happening throughout the force
structure . The increasing attrition of pilots forced the Germans to curtail training programs to fill empty combat cockpits . As a result, new pilots with less skill than
their predecessors were lost at a faster rate. The increasing losses, in turn, forced
the training establishments to produce pilots even more rapidly. Once they had
begun this vicious cycle, the Germans found no escape . One of the surest indicators
of the declining skill of German pilots after the 1940 air battles was the rising level
of noncombat losses. By the first half of 1943,
they had reached the point where the fighter force suffered as many losses due to
noncombat causes as it did to the efforts of its opponents . Thereafter, the percentage
of noncombat losses began to drop. The probable cause of this was due less to an
awakening on the part of the Luftwaffe to the need for better flying safety than to the
probability that Allied flyers, in their overwhelming numbers, were shooting down
German pilots before they could crash their aircraft .
By the beginning of 1942, the Germans had lost the equivalent of two entire air
forces . The result was that the Germans had to curtail their training programs to
meet the demands of the front for new pilots . By January 1942, of the pilots
available for duty in the fighter force, only 60 percent were fully operational, while
the number in the bomber force was down to 47 percent. For the
remainder of the war, the percentage of fully operational fighter and bomber pilots
available, with few exceptions, remained below, and at many times substantially
below, the 70 percent level. Further exacerbating this situation was the fact that the
Germans were forced to lower their standards for a fully operational pilot as the war
continued . There was, one must note, no decisive moment in this decline in
expertise. Rather as Winston Churchill has suggested in another context, the
Luftwaffe had entered the descent from 1940 "incontinently, fecklessly. . . . It is a
fine broad stairway at the beginning but after a bit the carpet ends . A little further
on, there are only flagstones ; and a little further on, these break beneath your
feet . The graph for the number of training hours for new pilots clearly reflected
such a course. In the period through the late summer of 1942,
German pilots were receiving at least as many training hours as their opponents in
the RAF. By 1943, that statistic had begun a gradual shift against the Germans until
the last half of the year when Luftwaffe pilots were receiving barely one-half of the
training hours given to enemy pilots . In terms of flying training in operational
aircraft, the disparity had become even more pronounced: one-third of the RAF
total and one-fifth of the American total . But those Luftwaffe pilots who had
survived the attrition of the first air battles of the war had little difficulty defeating
new Allied pilots no matter how many training hours the latter had flown. In fact,
the ratio of kills-to-sorties climbed as those Luftwaffe pilots who survived built up
experience. However, few German pilots survived the attrition
of the first war years, and thus the Luftwaffe became, in fact, two distinct forces: the
few great aces-the Hartmans, Galands, and Waldmans-and the great mass of
pilots who faced great difficulty in landing their aircraft, much less surviving
combat.

No actually the need was there. They wouldn't have needed to jump to Nighttime sorties if they had had the long range escorts. Therefore there was a need for them.

But nobody had an effective long range fighter at the time. The Luftwaffe had the 110 which proved itself incapable, the Japanese were still working on the Zero which got in to service a year later, but lacked vital equipment by European standards.

Effective long range fighters required more powerful engines, which simply weren't available at the time.

 

[Aussie1001]

Ho do you type that much man ???

 

[comiso90]

Ho do you type that much man ???

LOL

Finally some one else said it.. I have alot to say but I'm too lazy to type that much... I wish i could!

 

[Aussie1001]

Ditto

 

[comiso90]

I' greatful for the information and insights... keep on writeing!

 

[Aussie1001]

Agree again !!

 

[Hop]

Ho do you type that much man

Cut n paste

 

[Aussie1001]

Plagerising Bast**d !!!! (grin)

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

But nobody had an effective long range fighter at the time. The Luftwaffe had the 110 which proved itself incapable, the Japanese were still working on the Zero which got in to service a year later, but lacked vital equipment by European standards.

Like anythink you have to develop them. The need was there, they could have done it.

 

[Aussie1001]

The phrase "that there is nothing quite like war to give technolagy a kick in the ass " probably applies here.
Wherever there is a need for something bigger or better if the need is great enough sooner or later someone will come up with an answer.

 

[The Basket]

If the RAF had built a long range fighter, for 1940...it most certainly would have been a Bf 110 lookalike. Engine power would have been tight and so twin was the way to go. Lockheed thought the same and built the P-38.
Also more fuel needs a big aircraft which needs more power and so on.

Of course, The RAF did have powerful twin fighters like the Beaufighter and the Mosquito but they weren't dogfighters.

It must be remembered that the P-51 was designed in 1940 when actual combat use was known. And any later technology added. The Spitfire was a 5 year old design then.

When the first prototypes first flew of the Spitfire, it was widely believed that the bomber would get through. Its speed and defensive armment would do the job. This of course turned out to be rubbish.

By the time the RAF realised they needed an single engined escort fighter...they didn't have one and any new design would take about 4 years to come through. So buy yank ones instead.

The Spitfire was always tight on range but with drop tanks could go quite far. Why this wasn't pursued was because of the new yank fighters.

 

[drgondog]

Actually, I think the night bombing was more effective than the day bombing, as the RAF spent hours bombing their target, allowing fires to take hold.

Rather than quibble over the phrase 'effective', are we talking about destruction of German industry or cities?

Speer comments about the former, stating that Daylight Strategic Bombing was the ultimate force destroying German Industry and particularly the Oil Industry and more feared than RAF city busting campaign.

It is also true that the RAF moved a significant percentage of ops in late 1944 and 1945 to daylight bombing with excellent effectiveness - and probably had a better bombsight than the Norden..they did a very good job on those missions

The USSBS did mention this as a key to the better effectiveness of the RAF as compared to the AAF.

Syscom - I have a copy of that report and could not find reference to the concept of RAF "being more effective" - can you direct me to the page? It would clearly make more sense to bomb cities over time and space with big loads of incindieries and that certainly was the strategy for B-29 ops also - but a poor choice for targets inside a 200x500 foot structure? -

I'm talking about decentralized German industry - not inner city shops like Tokyo and Nagoya.

And then, the nightbombing does force the LW to divert significant resources to fight at night.

Mixed bag on the latter. the plus is that that the LW could fight at night w/o dealing with escort fighters meaning they could use equipment that would not survive in the daytime, nor did they experience the losses. They were also relatively more effective per fighter assigned to night ops - always having far fewer fighters that Daylight ops.

The negative is that if the RAF had gone all daylight, in mid 1944, given escort fighters like a long range Spit or RAF Mustangs, those same ships (German Me 110's, DO 217s, Ju 88's and He 219s) that were so effective at night are useless against Tempests, Spits Mustangs, etc..and you then have to put more talented t/e fighter pilots and crews into daylight fighter ops where they get slaughtered or convert them to s/e, where most get slaughtered.

I think (obviously my opinion only) the attrition on LW would have far exceeded the RAF incremental losses - and doubt that RAF would have suffered as much in daytime in 1945.. particularly if they started out bombing industry in the 300 mile radius and got all the support they needed from the available Tempests and Spits and Mustang III's. The primary force to resist over western Germany would have been primarily JG26 and Jg2 in LuftFlotte III - while Reich would have had their hands full with 8th and 15th AF deep in Germany on the same days?

What would you cite as examples of RAF strikes at night from June 1944 to end of war that were materially more effective (meaning speeding up collapse of German industry or shortening the war) than USSAF attacks during the day? I'm not saying they didn't exist - just am not aware of them.

So, the root question is whether shifting RAF ops from area bombing to strategic bombing would have quickened the collapse of Germany? I think it would have, but pure speculation on my part

 

[lucanus]

One of the reasons the RAF daylight/night bombing was so costly was that they bombed in train, giving both nightfighters and flak ample time
to zero in.

America used the Blackwidow in Europe with success.

My Uncle who was on the longest raid from the UK to Krynski, Poland,
to bomb aircraft plants...said that 'On that day the LW was sending
brand new JU-88s up....The planes didn't even have paint jobs '

 

[syscom3]

DRGONDOG:

I dont have it handy, as it is buried in a thread somewhere (I think it was the "most effective bomber" thread).

Flyboy and Deradler can vouche for it, as I was proven wrong in my assesment that daylight bombing made for better accuracy.

There is a segment of the USSBS on the oil plant attacks that clearly stated that bombs of 4000 Lbs or more were needed to destroy the industrial machinery in the plants. The 500 and 1000 pounders could bring down the roof and maybe the walls, but not inflict permanent damage.

The RAF method of bombing a target over a extended period of time was found to be far more usefull than the AAF daylight attacks due to all the repair crews (at the targets) having to stay in their bunkers for hours on end.

I believe the accuracy of the RAF crews was better than the AAF due to them bombing at lower altitudes, and not relying on a single bombardier in a whole squadron to determine the bomb release points.