Bomber offensive vs. Gemany: you are in charge

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Shortround6 said:
It may have been a common practice by many countries.
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Indeed,the Luftwaffe dropped thousands of "delayed action" bombs on us. They were also fitted with anti handling devices to make defusing them more difficult. The clockwork mechanisms were jammed by pumping in saline solutions to stop them a hair raising procedure. Drilling holes around the fuse pocket of a weapon fitted with an anti handling device,let alone withdrawing the fuse,would not have a happy outcome.
Cheers
Steve
 

We're still digging them up in Plymouth.
John
 

According to Flowers the loss of power to industry was almost immediatlely covered by redirecting power from other sources, and reducing the power available to the general public.

The repairs on the Möhne didn't start until July. And it didn't reach full capacity until the following year. The restoration of hydro power was due to a network of pipes that could direct water from other sources to the generating plant.

Hydro power relies on pressure head. The higher the water the higher the pressure head (measured in metres) the more potential energy is available. Reducing the level of the lake has an effect on the potential power that can be generated.

I think you are concentrating on the direct results. The indirect effects of the raids were widespread and lasting. One was to delay/slow the construction of the Atlantic wall. Without the raid more of that may have been completed and D-day would have been even tougher.

I'm not sure that the RAF planners expected anything from the raids. The certainly knew that breaching the Sorpe wa sunlikely with Upkeep but they attacked it anyway. They even used a different technique for the Sorpe - flying parallel to the dam wall and drop the unspinning Upkeep on the top.

Many RAF raids in 1943, and probably after, definitely before, lost 8 or more highly trained crew for even less results. Note that the 617 crews weren't the elite crews as portrayed in the film. They were normal bomber crews who did some extra mission specific training.
 
tomo pauk said:
If you take a look at the excerpts Hop kindly provided, the determined campaign against the radar sites was quite successful, despite the measures of protection.
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These assualts were conducted just prior to the Normandy landings. They were an exceptional all out effort and costly in terms of losses of fighter bomber or required heavy investment eg 100+ heavy bombers.

Had these attacks, which were expensive in terms of losses, commenced earlier the German response would have fairly quickly nullified the allied campaigne and compromised the effect of an assault on radar sights prior to the invasion. The allied effort was a once of effort too support d-day and I would argue could only be justified in terms of supporting the invasion.

The very long range early warning radars such as "Wassermann" (a phased array height finding radar) were several stories high obviously hard to conceal and also to protect from say blast or rocket hits though the electronics and contol room could be protected. They were also well protected by anti aircraft defenses and it is likely that a few of the attackers would not be gong home with their collegues. In all probabillity smaller, concealed radars would take over much of the functioning of these larger radars. There was very thick bomb proof concret at the base of these and the crews and electronic were well protected from even a direct hit.



Mummut (Mammoth) ultra early warning radar and left the tall structure is the Wassermann (Aquarious) height finding early warning radar (300km) probably the best in the world till mid 1944) Advances in power output meant much smaller radars could do the job from 1944 onwards though the height finding function was not there which was based on phased array beam opperation in the vertical plane. These were all based on Freya technology.


As it was the problems of German radar at the time were primarily that they simply didn't have electricity due to fuel shortages: few were opperating. Much of the allied work on deception and jamming was superflous, though we are still told how clever their deceptions and jamming was there is evidence to suggest that many of the radars were just plain switched off.

Had these assualts commenced earlier in 1942 say the German initial response would simply have been to increase FLAK protecton, bunker the radar better and maybe conceal it better and make more fake/decoys.

After the Bruneval raid in which an outmoded Wurzburg-A was captured the Luftwaffe became somewhat paranoid and excessively guarded their installations which tended to make them prominent in aerial reconaisance.

The second line of response would be to make the radars themselves easier to conceal and bunker. Placing the Wurzburg aerial atop a hydraulically errected tower to make the "Mainz" radar was slightly inconvenient due to the need to provide remote control power drives to point the antena but it make the radar more comfortable for the opperators and provided more options for concealment, protection. I was relatively easy to produced and would have been no impediment to make in the thousands.

If you google "FuSE 63 Mainz" you will see some copyright pics on axis history forum.

Another response would have been to compell the Luftwaffe to demand smaller more concleable antena, this might have the fortunate side effect of promoting the German 25cm and 5cm microwave work which would be the only way to provide that. Martini would have grabbed at any opportunity to find a reason to continue work. The radar would have been known as "Mannheim K" and could have replaced the giant Wurzburgs and provided much better jamming resistance due to a narrower beam. It was based on planar disk triodes alredy in production.

In 1944 German radar was progressing rapidly. The fairly low outputs of Freya were reaching 400kW, then 1MW and even 1.5MW. The effect was to allow the large "Mammut" style and to a lessor textent Wassermann radars to be replaced with smaller one that also had much greater jam resitance and could provide easy backup.

Ansbach was a remote aerial to help protect the crew. There was even a version of Wuraburg/Mannheim that had seperate transmit and receive antenas so that the expensive and valuable electronics were seperate from the transmitting aerial while the crew were in a remote cabin. If there was an attempt to home on the radar only a fairly basic and small aerial could be found and destroyed.
 
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Good call about the water height as the main 'asset' of the dam, wuzak, I've remembering the lessons from my high school (electrotechnics/electroenergetics, spent 4 years there). IIRC the most of the hydro-power in the USA comes from Columbia river area, since the dams can be tall there.

Siegfried said:
These assualts were conducted just prior to the Normandy landings. They were a unique all out effort and costly in terms of losses of fighter bomber or required heavy investment eg 100+ heavy bombers.
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The attacks were being made in 3-Squadron size (RAF's wing), and 100+ heavy bombers is hardly an all-out effort. Actually, many of the sites were attcked by Spitfires.


They were not expensive, as it can be read in the Hop's excerpts. What Germans could do to protect the radars, while avoiding that does not show on another field of their military activity? That such raids were not made in 1943, but in 1944 is a mistake of Allied high comanders.


Thanks for the info about the radars. That bombers would be less numerous going home than going to the radars is nothing new, the losses were dealt and received in daily basis anyway. As for concealing a radiating radar, isn't that an oxymoron?


Were those radars being switched off after the jamming started, or before? What time frame would that be?

Had these assualts commenced earlier in 1942 say the German initial response would simply have been to increase FLAK protecton, bunker the radar better and maybe conceal it better and make more fake/decoys.
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I was proposing early summer of 1943 as a begining of an all-out offensive, 1st step being an attack at radar sites. After a week or two, the offensive would went to another targets, radars revisited as needed. The Germany was hardly in position to install more of it's units around radars (unless it withdraws them from somewhere else), and the ETO was pretty much full of Flak anyway.


The erected tower would have hard time vs. an incoming Typhoon firing the rockets. If the aerial is really secured, it doesn't do it's work. Of course, the heavy bombs would've made the site as good as Moon's surface in order to kill the radar. The more complicated radar auxiliary equipment, the easier is to kill it and more expensive to replace, esp. for a country playing a rough null-sum game.


Some other things need to happen - that people high up really act as they should, and that producers have machines, manpower and material to carry out the work. Maybe easy thing to do in 1939, but not from mid 1943 on? The radars produced would need trained men to install operate them - not the easies task in the light of many of operators technicians ... harmed in previous attacks.


Thanks for the input, it would be nice to have a good thread about the radars.
On topic, the advances in German radar technology in 1944 would mean little with air defences crack open from Autumn of 1943, with cumulative effects of bomber campaign vs. other targets.
 
Please Seigfird , the Germans were a tough foe but not supermen like you are inferring , yeah they had some good stuff but not any where near enough of the people needed to run it unless you pick the kiddies from the HJ , radar , oil transportation and communication and you guys would be looking for guys trained to send smoke signals to the transportation crew which would have to saddle their horses to get there. The Germans were cooked in late 43 just to dumb to know it
 
pbfoot said:
...The Germans were cooked in late 43 just to dumb to know it
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"The Germans were cooked in late 43 just to dumb to know it "


Nice generalization. Myself and family members who are German, and grew up during WWII Germany, fought in WWII Germany, and braved the aftermath of WWII Germany wouldn't appreciate that comment.

Alot of Germans knew that the goose was cooked in late 1943 (actually much earlier then that). But they had a duty to do and FAITH that somehow it would end soon. SO please, refrain from generalizing the German people. Or, at least be more specific of which Germans.

Most Kind Regards.
 
I had lots of family in WW2 , most with RCAF but several infanteers one who walked the length of Italy and then NW Europe , the Germans were good troops but didn't realize that when you are going backwards all the time you are losing ,
 
The note that German coastal radars were shutdown due to fuel shortages for their generators is noted in books by Fritz Trenkle on German radar. I have the book but not with me. I think only 2 of the 58 radars in and around the Normandy coast were opperational. Hardly any at all.

Continuing to fight beyond 1943 etc made a total sense. The allies demanded total and unconditional surrender which meant show trials and executions of Germany's leadership of undefined extent. What would one expect them to do?

The genocidal Morgentau plan was being promoted by Harry Morgentau and I suppose the equivalent of the AIPAC of its day the committee for the Prevention of WW3. Dr Goebells made much of this and who was on it when he became aware of it. Henry Stimson, the US secretary of State (he decided the atomic bomb targets, Kobe was spared because he honeymooned there) described it as " A Cartheginian Peace." Ex US president Herbert Hoover also opposed it. Carthage was the city that Hanibal came from. The Romans executed all of the people in it and the country and raised the city. This is what Stimson was refering to when he used the measured term "Cartheginian Peace". It is unequivical. Roosevelt by then was then physically and psychologically sick according to those around him and laughing and agreeing with Stalin, one of the architects of the genocidal Holdamoor. Churchill was disagreeable but pressed to go along for the sake of more lend lease and loans. On top of that it seems Nazi attempts to negotiate something was it seems ignored. Fighting on in the face of these indications made perfect sense. You would be deliberatly self deceptive to not see this is no basis for a surrender of any kind. No nation would surrender in these terms. The Morgentau plan was almost executed and its opponents in the USA and UK barely avoided its implimentation. Germans had become aware of it. Many Germans, yes many were Nazis though not as in the hollywood stereotype that many would think, consciously sacrificed their lives fighting for their nation for the people, the family, sibblings, to avoid what they quite reasonably anticipated and expected would be anhilation. By sacrifice I don't mean getting involved in combat and taking a chance when a situation was dire; I mean consciosly taking actions that were almost certain death. In the circumstances fighting on was rational.

I found three atricles
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/736/1/Campaign_Harsh_Peace_History.pdf
Books: Vengeance v. Vision - TIME

I also don't see that 1943 was the end for Nazi Germany. We can make such judgement today only in hindsight. A number of things might have changed; the code breaking that had compromised the German war effort from the disclosure of Eagle day during the battle of Britain through to the parachute drop zones in crete as well as shiping and supply flight toutes to Nth Africa and so much more might have been secured. It might even have shifted the Normandy invasion. A device called UKWD (Umkehr Waltze D) or rewirable rotor reflector was issued in 1943 and could have if it had been widely issued closed down Blecheley parks code breaking. The Me 262 Jet fighter was at one point expected in 1943 and there was no P-51B yet, the US 8th airforce was bloodied in its air raids.

I would also add that by 1943 the allied Jamming effort against German radar was not yet effective.

There is no doubt that by 1943 the German radar effort was feeling overwhelmed for lack of resources, promissing radar prototypes had to be culled from development for instance to concentrate on improvement on basic types while skilled technical staff ended up in Military service.

However German radar development efforts had anticpated the possibillity of a concerted anti radar attack strategy by allies and they came up with the following solutions.

1 Placement of the parabolic aerial on a stand that allows the radar 'trailer' to be bunkered below ground. The radar FuSE 63 Mainze was on of these radar of which about 58 were produced between late 1941 and mid 1942.

Presuming that a 3m aerial, partially camaglauged could be hit let alone even seen easly is fantastical. Rocket firing typhoons had a mininal chance to hit a tank or bunker in combate conditions.

2 Opperating the aerial by remote control so that the crew and the bulk of the expensive electronics were well away from the danger zone.

3 seperating the transmission and reception aerial to create a bistatic radar to confound attempts at radar homming. (Itself compicated to all but the most sophsiticated equipment due to automatic frequency changing comming in 1943)

4 Measures such as dummy radars and concealment.
All of these radars were built and tested. They were not made of difficult technology. It was merely decided that these measures were not neccesary.

Attacking radars deep inland, in the Reich itself, is also unlikely to work, at least untill after the Normandy landings.

This means that the only radar vulnerable are large early warning radars such as Mammut and Wassermann. The electronics and crews were deep underground in bomb proof concrete. This only leaves the aerials vulnerable; the FLAK around them was obviously going to be of a high order. Large Wurzburgs, deep in the Reich, are also vulnerable but in reality also protected targets likely to take a price.

The smaller radars are much easier to conceal and protect. Even if a large early warning radar is attacked and put out of action, its likely to be the aerial only, smaller more easily concealed radars will provide a substantial backup.

As far as a jamming effort agains German radar in 1942 or even early 1943 forget it. The technology didn't exist and such an clumsy effort would merely have redoubled and informed the already under way German anti jamming effort.

The key failure of German radar was the abandonment of microwave work in late 1942 against considerable opposition from within. These radars would have opperated at 25cm instead of 50cm and at 120kW power instead of 8kW. They were based around a ceramic disk triode called the Telefunken LD60 already in existence at that time, the technology could be pushed down to 20kw and 9cm. There was another effort based around 5cm tunable magnetrons. The effect of the shorter wavelength is to sharpen the beam which in the case of a halving of wavelength would allow a reduction by a factor of 4 in the amount of jamming energy intercepted while the power would burn through jamming. Instead German radars were to be based on existing frquencies and a 20 fold increase in transmission power along with more refined anti-jamming circuits. Technically the Germans did catch up by the end of 1944, they managed to deliver about 100 microwave radars, however any large scale deliveries and opperations were prevented by the collapsing manufacturing sector and allied armies post Normandy.
 
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It would be cool if the name calling politics are left out of this thread. Thank you.

In oder for all of these measures (after the radars are hit on the large scale) to be made, Germans need men, to install the material, without interference by Allied planes. In order to have all of these changes for their radars, they need items designed, produced, transported. In the same time, the defending fighters need to scramble on short order to combat the invaders (since the radar coverage is lacking). That should put them into disadvantage, inducing more losses than it would be so if they have had time to climb to 30-35000 ft and then to dive at their prey. Even the mid-altitude fighters (Spit XII, Typhoon, P-51A) are not in disadvantage now. In the same time, the bombers can make more damage.
I'd like to repeat again that the radar sites would've been 'visited' again, in order to prevent repair of destroyed sites and installment of new ones. Allies can afford to trade, say, 2 planes lost per radar destroyed (they would save even more because German fighter force is lacking good overview at situation), but that ratio is Germans cannot sustain that tempo.
With Germans loosing 5 ground radars per day, after the initial anti-radar onslaught, the production is ill able to keep up with the losses.
 

The very large German radar effort was to an extent fumbelled by betting on shorter wars at points and just insufficient prioritisation. It needed a much more massive prioritisation.

1944 is probably too late to turn the course of the war with better radar but more advanced sets in 1943 might have made a big difference.

Radars with high tracking and range accuracy that are relatively jam resistant can greatly increase the success of FLAK, at least at moderate altitudes (say 15000ft) where shell dispersion is not too broad. The most sophisticated German gun laying radar of the war was "Mannheim FuSE 64" Ausf 2 (issue 2) which could automatically track a target to withing 6m range and could track it in bearing by 0.15 degrees. It opperated at Wurzburg frequencies of around 50cm, had a 3m dish, could pass tracking data straight into the FLAK predictor. Wurzburg only offered 25m-40m accuracy at 0.3 dgrees, except for the larger Riesse versions. The radar was opperational in early 1943 without auto tracking and latter in the year with. Had the German microwave effort continued Mannheim would have been issued as Mannheim K opperating at 25cm probably in early 1944.

A concerted jamming effort using 'windows' degraded the accuracy of these radars. A variety of solutions restored the functionality of the radar the most effective were systems based around coherant pulse doppler. However the systems worked poorly with frequency changin methods. The reason for this was that after the danger of "Duppel" was established by German experiments so much secrecy was applied no effective counter measures were coherantly applied. The pulse doppler solution came out of secondary radars work designed to detect low flying aircraft in clutter. So it comprimised other jamming methods such as frequency changing. Hence the combination of "Windows" and Noise Jamming seriously degraded German radar.

Hence it would seem that the effort was managed somewhat poorly and so the German effort denied itself radars opperating at twice the frequency with well intergrated anti-jamming methods against both tin-foil and noise jamming. A version of Manheim K called FuMO 231 Euklid survived due to German navy demands for a FLAK gun laying radar for its destroyers but it progressed slowley due to it being a minimal effort. It might have been installed in a destroyer at the end of the war but the destroyer was never launched. Euklid worked very well and handled sea clutter very well as well.

There was also a German proximity fuse effort, they were actually succesfully launching shells. Had it not been suspended in 1940 it might have been opperational around 1943 as the allied fuse was. It used a type of tube called a 'cold gas thyratron' already tough from being used in time delay fuses in German bombs.

It's often small, seemingly inconsequential actions, that can have big impacts latter on. The failure to pursue anti windows circuits and the low prioroty given to the proximity fuse certainly had that effect. Accurate jam resistant radars combined with proximity fused ammunition changes things. Of course we have the benefit of hindsight.

AFAIKT proximity fuses trebble FLAK effectiveness. Wurzburg, when it wasn't being jammed certainly greatly increased FLAK effectivensss as well. I suppose Allied bomber losses to FLAK would be around 5% instead of 1% had the German anti-jamming effort worked better and had they issued a proximity fuse.
 
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What I'm inferring is the same Tomo , with planned attack on LW Radars the Germans would have been forced to mount standing air patrols \etc. I do believe you need to look up the siting of radars , its all well and good that they were able to communicate to flak , command and the such but its a spider web of wires and such which could have easily been knocked out by anyone with a chainsaw , I do not believe they had satellite communications or data links , you make it sound so easy to plop down a radar and hook up the communications well it isn't . You need designated phone links and the such and if you take the phone links away you cause grief. It would be far easier to "carpet bomb " a radar site from altitude and losses would be IMHO slim to nil . The Germans were smart but not as smart as you think. Its easy to figure out where radar is by simply triangulating the various radio wave emitted by the units even near misses would upset the delicate gear and it was delicate.
 
Being doing some reading about the Spit, so here it goes:
According to the Pilot's notes for the Spit VA, VB and VC, the plane was carrying, under the 'long range' guise, 29 imp gals in rear hull tank, in the same time the 170 imp gals drop tank was there, and it was droppable*. So, by late 1942, all the ingredients for the Escort Spitfire were there.

*though I like more the 90 gals, seem more ... practical
 

But not eight out of nineteen,that kind of percentage loss is totally unsustainable in any kind of ongoing operation. It's bad enough in a one off like "Chastise" but the idea that this was repeatable over and over again as part of some kind of specialised campaign would have been too much for Bomber Command to swallow. Those young airmen famously had a roughly 50:50 chance of surviving a 30 mission tour of duty with Bomber Command but barely better odds on a single mission?

617 Squadron were not a selected elite but all members of any WWII bomber crew,including the air gunners,were highly and expensively trained. Bomber Command took the best from both Britain and the entire Commonwealth/Empire and invested a lot of time and treasure in them.

Cheers
Steve
 

Sure the loss of 8/19 is unsustainable, but it was a special mission so a higher loss rate is to be expected.

The USAAF 8th AF lost 7 aircraft the following day, from 152 attacking aircraft. On the face of it much more acceptable losses. But what did they achieve?

They attacked U-boat pens at Bordeaux and Lorient, and the port facilities in Lorient. They carried 375 ton of bombs compared to 68 by 617. I know that, in general, 8th AF bombing of sub pens caused little impact on the German war effort. The Dams raid impacted the war far more, both directly and indirectly.
 
Looking at Mhuxt's excelent spreadhseets on the bombing campaign, it looks as though there were very few losses in the days either side of the Dams raid. Maybe the raids were "safe" and didn't risk large losses.
 
wuzak said:
Looking at Mhuxt's excelent spreadhseets on the bombing campaign, it looks as though there were very few losses in the days either side of the Dams raid. Maybe the raids were "safe" and didn't risk large losses.
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Are the spreadsheets available on-line?
 
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