Bomber offensive vs. Gemany: you are in charge

Many thanks. Would you be so kind to re-post that table, covering LW strengths losses in 1943 and '44?

tomo pauk said:

Many thanks. Would you be so kind to re-post that table, covering LW strengths losses in 1943 and '44?

Click to expand...

This is one source that may be of interst


Attrition and the Luetwaffe

tomo pauk said:

Many thanks. Would you be so kind to re-post that table, covering LW strengths losses in 1943 and '44?

Click to expand...

I have the 8th and 9th victory credits table (by qtr) going into my book, as well as the 8th AF FC tables (victoty credits and losses, by type, in total) but the latter is not organized on a month by month basis.

Many thnaks, parsifal.

Bill (or anyone that can chime in), if I can describe the table right: the strengths of the LW Jagdwaffe are listed in, with columns containing the strengths losses in ETO, MTO and Eastern front. The rows are separating the years (quarters?) - 1943-45.

here Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen, Jagdverbnde there is the losses for the luftwaffe unit unlucky there were not distinton on losses on ground and in air and from bomber or fighter only a generic enemy related losses

Thanks, Vincenzo.

Greetings, I am a new member and have a question, not really a response to this thread. Can anyone tell me why the US used .50 caliber machine guns to defend the heavy Bombers like the 17 and 24. Why didn't it occur to anyone to use cannons with exploding shells like flak. OK, maybe there would have been fuse timing issues. Then why didnt they simply use grapeshot like old Naval cannons. 500 MPH ME-109's can't outrun huge ammounts of steel ball bearings traveling at 1000 feet per second. Seems to me the Bomber Crews would have been so much more sucessful in self defense if the Gunners simply had better guns firing huge ammounts of grape shot or shrapnel. Please bear in mind I'm a newbie on this site.

Tomo - can you design us B-17's B-24's with Blunderbusses?

Shotguns of about any managable size are very short range weapons, the fighters would just stay beyound that range and shoot the bombers down.

Any kind of Flak weapon requires a method of estimating time of flight to where you want the flak to explode, that would be a constanly changing value with a fighter attacking a bomber. A about impossible computation with the state of electronics in the WW2 era. Plus a shell big enough to explode as in a timed flak shell requires a big shell, big shell = big gun = big turret impossible to fit on a aircraft.

Still very much the newbie: I wonder if it might reduce the complexity of analysis, and the disagreements, to ground the dream combined command in historical events?

In May-June 1942 Arnold went to Britain as a trusted and welcome freind of Britain in general and Portal and Harris in partcular, Andrews was still alive, Doolittle I believe was just about to leave, Eisenhower was new in post and Eaker was only just warmng up the charm offensive for formation day bombng. Is that the earliest or only time such a dream command might be arrived at by a deal?

The deal would have to satisfy FDR, Churchilll and Stalin so would have to include a major and convincing effort by both commands against the subs. The promise would be that afterwards it would be time to reshare the air-resources to high performers, hand out promotions, give commanders the procurement they desired and the willing poltical encorgagement to try theories in practice.

Eaker/Spaatz might get access to the load bearing lancs and their wide arsenal, Harris drools over the prospect of mighty numbers of B 17s and Libs in a bomber stream. And natch, both think they will be best as sub busters and Condor killers - as long as no concrete is involved. Would you go for it?

The first commander would have to be - who? It would have to be a very senior American: Andrews? and (after sad loss) if possible Doolittle then Eisenhower personally - reasons in order being politics; protocol; American public acceptability; to save face for Portal, enough natural authority as an airman to make even Harris nod and... politics again.

That gets us to an equlibrium point: De housing vs choke points vs aerial attrition parsifal style vs ANother set of orders - real politcal infighting included. All with a neutral but authoritatve commander with no air-power axe to grind, political sponsors satisfied for now, all bomber theories with an equal kick off date and combined capacities suffcient in scale and capabilties wide in scope to follow any strategy. At the first time hstorically that contemporary loss-kill numbers etc are available for each aircraft type on most mission types.

Say we agree to start the clock at 31st August 1942 assuming the subs had been temporarily routed? Perhaps in historical context - orders of battle just as they were, (need to agree natural phases? that is, no piling 'what if' upon 'what if' to frustrate the numbers analysis) - just that one specific real deal - or a better one.


How good could Air power be, ETO, stage by stage.

Is that any help? Or is all that assumed already?

[ ....The first commander would have to be - who? It would have to be a very senior American: Andrews? and (after sad loss) if possible Doolittle then Eisenhower personally - reasons in order being politics; protocol; American public acceptability; to save face for Portal, enough natural authority as an airman to make even Harris nod and... politics again."...

That could have been better expressed. Apologies to anyone who can't understand what i say or finds offence. None meant I assure you.

I thought we might be starting into some statistical analysis phase in the thread. On other sites I've seen kill/loss ratio arguments hotly disputed or claims of 'well in my scenario that formation would have been destroyed by now". I was looking for agreement about the common base of comparision and a way of limiting the number of events to be considered (there were so many in the real world). So a fixed start date, defined command, defined aircraft types and short historical stages (Dieppe to Torch for example) and no 'accumulated gains' might limit the chaos. That way the carefully compiled tables might give some light.

I was assuming that it is the strategic command we're interested in (historial 8th AF plus BC plus some limited 'co-operation'). that is the varying 'air power' strategies dehousing, chokes etc. are of interest not Overlord. That is i think we're comfortable with 9th AF and 2nd TAF, fighter command and coastal command as partners not actuallly part of the command. Or not?

The Subs were the highest priority in pre Pointblank and Pointblank and 8th AF wasn't deployed in force ETO before around August 42. Thus the rest of the set up.

I hope that is clearer.

joeviking61 said:

Greetings, I am a new member and have a question, not really a response to this thread. Can anyone tell me why the US used .50 caliber machine guns to defend the heavy Bombers like the 17 and 24. Why didn't it occur to anyone to use cannons with exploding shells like flak?

Click to expand...

Hi, and welcome to the site.

There are a host of considerations, including weight and space and the feasibility of aiming and, as you've mentioned, fusing, as to why a flak style weapon wasn't considered for a defensive armament.

Weight: A fully-powered Sperry ball turret on a B-17 with 2 .50 cals and 250 rounds per gun weighed a little under 1200 lbs, gunner included.

The smallest US flak gun with an exploding shell was the Bofors 40 mm. A single, unpowered mount weighed about 2,440 lbs. A mount with a full power traverse and range finder set-up weighed about 4,200 lbs, not including ammunition or the five to six men it took to properly operate the thing.

Space: A B-17 fuselage is a maximum of 3.5 m (11 1/2 ft) in diameter). A 40 mm Bofors is 3.8 m (12 ft) long, without including the mount. Getting the 5-6 men necessary to operate it into a cramped bomber fuselage is only going to work for 1 gun, maximum.

Then why didnt they simply use grapeshot like old Naval cannons. 500 MPH ME-109's can't outrun huge ammounts of steel ball bearings traveling at 1000 feet per second. Seems to me the Bomber Crews would have been so much more sucessful in self defense if the Gunners simply had better guns firing huge ammounts of grape shot or shrapnel.

Click to expand...

A 'grapeshot' round has a very limited effective range (depending on a number of considerations like shell design and firing pattern). Firing a shotgun/canister-like round, even from a large calibre weapon, is going to limit the size of the defensive fire envelope, leaving US crews unable to return fire effectively.

Even a modern 120 mm canister round has an effective range of only 600-700 There is a reason why shotguns are considered a close quarters weapon.

As German fighters got heavier weapons (like the various 30mm cannon) the range they fired from increased. By 1944, the average German fighter pilot began firing at about 900 m out from their bomber target.

1000 fps sounds like a lot, but an M2 round left the barrel at around three times that velocity.

A Wellington was fitted with a trials 40mm gun turret using the 'S' gun used in Hurricanes. No idea what it weighed but it was a good size.

MILITARIA • Toon onderwerp - Wellington with 40mm Vickers.

The Vickers S gun was actually designed as a bomber defensive/offensive gun. It was based around the RN's 40 x 158R ammunition, basically the same that was fired from the famous 2 pdr 'pom pom'. As such, it was much smaller and lighter than a 40 mm Bofors, and fired fixed rather than fused ammunition.

The S gun was about 2.9 m in length, vs 3.8 m for the Bofors. The S gun and turret would have weighed in less than half of that of the Bofors.

The original idea was that a 40 mm turret armed Wellington would act like a super-heavy Defiant, using its heavy armament to destroy enemy bombers from well outside the range of defensive fire.

As to the idea of canister or Grape shot. The American 37mm AT gun ( and light tank cannon) had a canister round. It contained 122 3/8in steel balls. It's effective range was considered 250yds (against men). The projectile weighed 1.94lbs and had MV of 2500fps. Round ball looses velocity at a truly appalling rate. A 3/8s steel ball weighs about 3.5 grams, 1/2 to 1/3 of what a rifle caliber bullet weighs. Going to a 1/2in ball gets you 8.4 grams but a lot fewer balls per round. A 1/2in ball at sea level can loose 1/2 of it's velocity in under 250yds. Since energy depends on the square of the speed that means 1/4 the striking energy. Things are better at high altitude where the air is thinner but canister or grape shot is a very short range weapon with close to an all or nothing hit probability. You are only going to get one or two shots per attacker (and one of them WILL be at a less than optimum distance).

The 37mm AT gun was good for 20-25 rpm with a 3 man crew. One to aim/fire, one to load and one to hand the rounds to the loader.

The USAAF can use the 37mm M4, if they're too desperate to have a cannister shot fired with decent rate of fire. But even then the one crew member would be needed to forward in the fresh ammo (be it in trays, or clips, or whatever). The range would be even less, though, maybe some 200 yds, and unlikely to harm the sturdy Fw-190s.
I'd rather go for a proper escort performed by capable fighters, thankyou.

...and i'd rather go at night when interception is always from the rear, you have some hope of being escorted by an effective fighter even at max range, final closing speed of interceptor is slow, and if you spot the attacker even for a split second you have a chance to evade (what i can make of the tabular data i think shows lower losses per long range mission flying by night....)

And daylight bombing degrees of accuracy are not needed for - my next move.

I believe the fallacy of bombing with the heavies on the industries is fairly apparent, be it day or night against a determined and suitably equipped foe was proven over and over again. Not that the industries, transportation network and power generation stations shouldnt be attacked, but I do believe a different priority might have been more effective.

When Doolittle took over the 8th AF, he got the mustangs he wanted for escort, but also turned them loose to hunt down enemy fighter formations.

Lemay saw the weaknesses of the early B29s, stripped them of most of their guns, loaded them up with incendiaries an GP bombs and sent them in at night. He didnt of course have to deal with an extensive radar detection system as was in place in the ETO, so what I propose is....

Begin the attack against the radar sites with intruder type aircraft, such as the Mosquito and other twin engined light bombers. The technology was available to convert what was at hand to detect search radars. You cant whip what you cant see.

Pair the escort fighters with fighter/bombers to go after the airfields, transportation (trains and yards), and flak sites during the daylight hours. If they have no transportation network, they have no way to move raw materials or finished parts to where they need to go.

Once their defenses are knocked back some, send in the heavies to hit the munitions, dams and such both day and night.

There were better solutions than direct attacks, though this was an integral part of the attack strategy. Window and 100 Group were both tasked with defeating German defences by ECM. Serrate and mousetrap were technologies devoted to overpowering the German electronic defences (serrate was designed to counter airborne radars). Some technologies were more successful than others, others were very successful for a while and then tended to fall away as the Germans got a hold on the technology. Some efforts, like mousetrap, were hardly worth the effort

Serrate was a what we could today call a RWR - radar warning receiver. It used the emissions of LW NF radars to detect them.