British bomber weapons.

It is great, but I can't find it on the 'net.

I'll get the ISBN No shall I?


Its available in handbook form or large.

Glider said:

WM. I don't want to dissapoint you but at night only a fool would try flying in a formation at night, the accident rate would be huge.
Also a 303 firing at a mile would be lucky to penetrate the skin of an aircraft let alone do any damage. The ranges I had in mind would be around 50 to 100 yards at night.

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Are you really telling me they sent 1,000 planes 1 at a time? Some type of formations were normal wheather in weather, fog, or at night. I'm not talking daylite style formations, but at a minimum they were in squadron groupings. Most if not all will be in range of the .50 cal wepons.

That was EXACTLY my point. A .50 will still inflict considerable damage at a mile.

wmaxt

WM They didn't fly formations at night. The planes were given a route and a flight-plan to ensure that the maximum number of aircraft were over the target at roughly the same time to try and swamp the defences but they didn't fly formation.
This is why you hear about bombers being in the bomber stream, and the importance of the night fighters getting into the Bomber Stream. When our countermeasures were effective in stopping the ground radars vectoring the fighters onto individual fighters, Ground control tried to vector the fighters into the stream so they could use their own radars to find the bombers.
If it was a very large raid then they would be timed to arrive in waves or groups but it wasn't in formation. The number crunchers worked out the chances of mid air collisions and found then to be acceptably low, and people took their chances. Crude I agree, but effective and it worked.

Also the point about a .50 at a mile is missing the argument. An aircraft gunner will not see another plane at night at anything like a mile so the damage it would cause at that distance is irrelevant. Camouflaged planes, flying at night, over blacked out countryside, often on moon free nights with cloud around simply will not see each other at a mile unless there were exceptional circumstances.

A gunner was lucky to see an opposing fighter at anything over 100 yards and at that range there is a good argument for saying that the 303 was as useful as the .50. In fact, a number of people would probably say that a gunner was lucky to see a fighter at night at any range. This is why I was talking of ranges of 50 to 100 yards.

Hope this helps

Glider said:

WM They didn't fly formations at night. The planes were given a route and a flight-plan to ensure that the maximum number of aircraft were over the target at roughly the same time to try and swamp the defences but they didn't fly formation.
This is why you hear about bombers being in the bomber stream, and the importance of the night fighters getting into the Bomber Stream. When our countermeasures were effective in stopping the ground radars vectoring the fighters onto individual fighters, Ground control tried to vector the fighters into the stream so they could use their own radars to find the bombers.
If it was a very large raid then they would be timed to arrive in waves or groups but it wasn't in formation. The number crunchers worked out the chances of mid air collisions and found then to be acceptably low, and people took their chances. Crude I agree, but effective and it worked.

Also the point about a .50 at a mile is missing the argument. An aircraft gunner will not see another plane at night at anything like a mile so the damage it would cause at that distance is irrelevant. Camouflaged planes, flying at night, over blacked out countryside, often on moon free nights with cloud around simply will not see each other at a mile unless there were exceptional circumstances.

A gunner was lucky to see an opposing fighter at anything over 100 yards and at that range there is a good argument for saying that the 303 was as useful as the .50. In fact, a number of people would probably say that a gunner was lucky to see a fighter at night at any range. This is why I was talking of ranges of 50 to 100 yards.

Hope this helps

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I can't say I'm the best versed in Brittish nite tactics but every account I've read has mentioned a formation and or visual sightings of other aircraft in their group.

Wheather you call it a groupe or a formation its the same thing. I was never even hinting at a defensive box type formation ( even daylite raids in defensive boxes were called "bomber streams") but having a groupe within a mile radius is still a formation and there is no other way to coordinate 1,000 aircraft to a single target and back to 30 bases+/-. I know the AAF flew night formations as far as Japan, that's more than 4,000mi.

My point is that yes 50/100 yards is the effective AIMING range the bullet flies further. At night you can't see friendlies so the .50 would be a killer to other aircraft in the Groupe.

wmaxt

WM. We will have to differ. I am very confident about the approach to organising a night bombing operation during WW2, which I explained in my previous posting and it didn't involve flying in formation.
The crews were given the course to follow, hights, times over the targets and various checkpoints. The crews made their own flightplans based on the information given at the briefing, but once they were in the air, they were on their own.

As for the range my point is clear in that you wouldn't see another plane and wouldn't know if it was there or not. If you did see another bomber you still wouldn't know which unit it came from, a Lancaster outline from one unit is the same outline as any other unit.
The argument in the RAF for rearming the Bombers with .50 was more to do with the extra penetration of the .50 compared to the .303 theoretically increasing the chances of shooting down the Nightfighter. As for hitting other friendly planes, it would be lousy rotten luck if it happened to you. Its still a big sky with a lot of space. Even if it did, even a Lanc took a number of hits from the 30mm to go down. You would be really unlucky if a stray .50 did any serious damage.

Glider I am not sure in what book this is in but Prices ? or some other there is a profile view of the RAF bomber formation shall we call it in flight with Mossie nf's and jammers also in flight above and behind. what is given is distances in the amount of feet or ? between the bombers as well as the RAF nf's. Are you familiar with this diagram ??
this may help to clarify

E ~

Sorry for interrupting.

Here you are elmilitaro:

ISBN 1-86147-047-9

Erich said:

Glider I am not sure in what book this is in but Prices ? or some other there is a profile view of the RAF bomber formation shall we call it in flight with Mossie nf's and jammers also in flight above and behind. what is given is distances in the amount of feet or ? between the bombers as well as the RAF nf's. Are you familiar with this diagram ??
this may help to clarify

E ~

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Thanks Eric, but I think he may just be spoofing me to see how far I'll go with this.

wmaxt

friend, personally I want a pic or scan of that profile. I've seen it before and it indicates the formation of heavies with the Mossies....I'm still looking

E `

I don't go in for spoofing. If I am incorrect I will be more than happy to acknowledge the fact as everyone learns on this site. I have done in the past and will no doubt do so again, in this or another thread.
The crux of the debate is this. To fly in formation you need in my mind to know where the other planes are in the formation. The position I have is that at night over occupied land which is blacked out, on a night without a moon you cannot see the other planes. If you cannot see the other planes then you cannot be in formation. If someone can explain how you can fly in formation, without radar, without visibility of the other aircraft, without accurate navigation aids such as exist today, plus cloud, with planes of different performance then I will happily agree. But without that explanation, then flying in formation is simply not possible.

With that truth in mind, all the planners could do as per the previous post, is to give the navigators the route, heights, windspeeds, timings and other navigational data to get them to the target and other way ponts at the time and altitude you want them to be there. As a result the planners know roughly where the bombers SHOULD be at a particular time and plan the support around that assumption.

As for the british escorting nightfighters. I have just finished reading the book Nightfighter where the planning of the nightfighter support is described and it matches the above.
The nightfighters were given patrol points along the route of the Bomber Stream to try and stop the German nightfighters from getting into the stream. As you would expect special attention was given to the German Beacons where the German fighters may gather and airfields. The orders were very clear, that the patrol areas were to be maintained if at all possible as to leave them would leave gaps in the cover. After a time they could free range presumably once the stream had past.
I haven't seen the diagram or profile so cannot comment, but my sources are sound and logical.

I suspect that the debate is about the definition of formation. As explained above, in my view for aircraft to be in a formation they have to be able to see the other planes in the formation. To fly at a set height on a course that has been given, is in my mind at least, is not to fly in a formation, it is to fly in a stream.

Feel free to comment, but please don't just accuse me of just spoofing. The points are logical and laid out.

do you have "confound and destroy", Glider ? i do believe that the pic/profile is in that particular volume. Sadly I do not own a copy.........I should. will keep looking

Glider, If I steped on your toes, I appoligize.

My understanding of the definition of a formation includes a group of aircraft (more than 1) from the same point of origin to the same destination on the same basic route, speed and roughly the same altitude. Lastly there is some order to their flying positions in relation to other aircraft in the group.

Two fighters in a combat spread that could be up to a mile is still a formation.

A group or a wave is still an ordered assembly of aircraft, therefor a formation. When its not ordered it is usualy reffered to as a Gaggle.

A bomber stream is defined as a number (greater than one) of groups/waves following the roughly the same path to a given target. B-17/B-24 in tight formations but many formations following eachother are also called bomber streams because they would fly by a single point for an hour or more.

At night in WWII the technical knowledge and equipment (transponders) that could handle 1,000+ individual planes did not exist. Another thing is that to bomb a target, a bomber must drop it's load every 8 seconds to be done in 3.5 hours. The accounts I've read mention exaust flames, shadows etc to identify aircraft in the group. Without groupings to the planes its an impossible situation to manage.

I'd like to see Eric's diagram it will be interesting as I have nothing solid to back ststements up, just stuff I've read and no longer have access to.

wmaxt

Glider said:

WM. We will have to differ. I am very confident about the approach to organising a night bombing operation during WW2, which I explained in my previous posting and it didn't involve flying in formation.

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While I think there was more than individual missions, my research indicates that they were more individual than I could imagine. The pressure must have been enormous knowing someone else had to be in the same place you were every 8 seconds or so.

wmaxt