Defensive armament for night bombers: was it worth it?

JoeB said:

In many cases night bombing units adopted the doctrine of not firing on night fighters until fired on, in case they saw the night fighter but it didn't see them, so again gunners as lookouts as much as anything else.

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Read the same thing today in 'FLAK' by Michael Vietch. The account is by Pat Dwyer, a wireless operator on a Lancaster from 626 squadron...

coffincorner said:

Although Germany seemed quite good at fighting on her knees. Numerous Hamburgs later those nachtjägers were still bleeding the RAF dry.

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I think you will find that after Hamburg, for many months, the RAF concentrated fruitless effort on Berlin. If the effort had been concentrated on targets closer to home, the accuracy, and therefore the effect, of the bombers would have been far more deadly. If three or four more cities had been levelled in rapid succession after Hamburg, Germany would have been in grave economic danger.

And I always get a wry smile when people say that the Luftwaffe was shooting down the RAF, suggesting by that statemjent that the losses were all one way. They generally get a bit of a shock when they realize just how high the attrition rate for the Night Fighter force actually was. Whilst the Bombers were suffering a monthly attrition rate of about 3-6% in the latter part of 1943 and into 1944, the Night Fighter forces were sufering attrition rates in the region of 10-20% per month. So exactly who was bleeding who dry is wide open to debate......

The B-17s flown by RAF 100 Group had the ball turret deleted. And the waist guns I think.
http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/b/439/9/0/8

Pardon me, finger trouble.

Some RAF BC operational stats: BC Operational Stats

Check out the link for other stats: BC Main Page

parsifal said:

And I always get a wry smile when people say that the Luftwaffe was shooting down the RAF, suggesting by that statemjent that the losses were all one way.

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Wryness aside not sure how my statement that the Luftwaffe inflicted terrible losses on the RAF suggests I don't think the Luftwaffe also suffered losses. How high was the casualty rate on both sides from accidents alone - 10%?

parsifal said:

Whilst the Bombers were suffering a monthly attrition rate of about 3-6% in the latter part of 1943 and into 1944, the Night Fighter forces were sufering attrition rates in the region of 10-20% per month.

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Didn't bomber command suffer those attrition rates per raid? That would put the monthly rate far above that.

parsifal said:

If three or four more cities had been levelled in rapid succession after Hamburg, Germany would have been in grave economic danger.

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If it's not too off-thread to ask, which 3/4 cities would you have targeted and what do you think would have been the effect on the course of the war?

coffincorner said:

Didn't bomber command suffer those attrition rates per raid? That would put the monthly rate far above that.

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Did you look at the links I provided?

For example, in 1944, BC monthly losses went from 5.6% in Jan to 1.2% in Dec.

Milosh said:

Did you look at the links I provided?

For example, in 1944, BC monthly losses went from 5.6% in Jan to 1.2% in Dec.

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But I believe the mission changed and there were more daylight missions in Dec 44 with fighter escort from aircraft based in Low Countries and France

I suggest some caution when you use those figures, its not that they are wrong, but I suspect that those Bomber Command stats include Mosquito missions which had much lower losses.

I want put the attention that % of loss for sorties and % of loss for force (on hand or ready) are not comparable

Quite right Vincenzo! ---- I was also about to say that. (Yeah yeah that's what they all say, I know )


Kris

pbfoot said:

But I believe the mission changed and there were more daylight missions in Dec 44 with fighter escort from aircraft based in Low Countries and France

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Did you look at the link pbfoot?

11239 night missions, 1.2% loss
3656 day missions, 0.8% loss

Here is what someone who was there had to say about it. He flew as a rear gunner in Lancasters.

"The theory of curve of pursuit attacks deflection shooting was the practice for daylights, there being earlier identification. of the attacking a/c. Depending upon the circumstances, it was sometimes preferable to modify the corkscrew so as to keep on turning towards the attacker. This caused the atacker to tighten it's turn with luck to skid past us.

At night typicaly speed was of the essence. So many poor souls never knew what hit them for various reasons, such as radar homing out of visual range, the fighter being able to hold back out of our .303 range open fire with cannons, attacking from underneath etc.

In each of our combats we believe that a combination of Lady luck possibly inexperienced fighter pilots silhoueting themselves against a lighter background helped.

Our engagement times were mainly of few seconds duration. My immediate action being to shout corkscrew in the given direction, where the attacker was from astern Johnny asked me to always call out "corkscrew port" this gave him better sighting below minimising collisions.

When sighting, I kept the sighting graticule very dim just under my direction of search.
As soon as I saw I saw an attacker, I opened fire in the general direction calling corkscrew. It was very rare for a night foghter to give us a point blank target which meant that we had to work out the deflection ie. how far ahead of the fighter to aim in order to hit it. This could only be done by following it through it's apparent direction' speed as seen through the reflector sight &assessing the required deflection This direction changed so rapidly through several speeds directions due to the "rollercoaster" effect in the rear turret of the corkscrew the manouvering of the fighter. We measured the deflection in "Rads" (the radius of the graticule). The term "hosepiping"I believe being our firing in the general direction whilst trying at the same time to work out the deflection. The advantage of opening fire let the night fighter know that we had spotted it. The firepower of the reat turret was 4600 rounds per minute, we carried 12000 rounds. The recommended bursts being in 3 second increments.

I was pleased to learn recently, courtesy of a book recommended by Max. that the fighter pilots had great respect for our firepower that their night fighter losses were very heavy.I wish that we had known that at the time."
Dennis

So there you go. Essentially the gunner operated as a look out. By firing in the general direction of the night fighter he let them know they had been spotted and hoped they would look for a less alert target. Elsewhere Dennis says that the corkscrew manouevre was effective in preventing night fighters achieving a firing resolution and they would not press home an attack once spotted.Cut and run was the order of the day. Dennis again.

"3 seconds was the recommended duration. Assuming that there was sufficient time to engage in combat, the first burst enabled the gunner to judge by the tracer any sighting correction. I again stress that as far as our crew were concerned, it was unanimous that we "cut run" (short bursts corkscrew)

The Lanc. mid-upper from memory had a total of 1000 rounds stowed in the turret, 500 per gun each firing @ 1150 per min. gave a max firepower of less than half a minute whereas the rear turret was duct fed 12000rounds giving a firepower of just under 3 minutes.

In the rear turret the 4 guns were near to ones face when we bent forward into the sight. The noise vibration was quite something."



Steve

Thanks Steve. What a terrifying experience. A rear gunner my Dad knew told him their crew kept a very low profile. He 'followed a few round' with his turret but thankfully never had to open fire.

People looking at the night fighter statistics would surely need to differentiate between the different types of fighters and their tactics.
The RAF aircrew at least were not so concerned about the single engined "wild boar" fighters.

"I used to question the viability of such a method myself as it seemed illogical to me. We did in fact have one combat with a FW 190 at night over the target during one of our Bomb Aimers infamous "Go round again's. There was another single engined a/c. in my view some distance on the beam but I believe that it was just one of several that we subsequently saw searching the target area. They must have been very inexperienced as they were in the light part of the target. The one that attacked us was unable to maintain the tight turn of our corkscrew, it obviously lost sight of us.

The single engine a/c. pilots had poor visibility would have found it very hard to position themselves safely to stalk an a/c., there being so many other a/c. in the vicinity, the gunners of whom would have seen it before it saw them."

Steve

"Wryness aside not sure how my statement that the Luftwaffe inflicted terrible losses on the RAF suggests I don't think the Luftwaffe also suffered losses. How high was the casualty rate on both sides from accidents alone - 10%?"


For the RAF, the average monthly loss rate over the duration of the war was 2.7%. This was the monthly loss rate, from all causes. The losses due to non-operational causes, eg accidents etc, were roughly 10% of that total, or 0.27% overall


"Didn't bomber command suffer those attrition rates per raid? That would put the monthly rate far above that."

Short answer is no. As detailed above, the average monthly loss rate for the war was 2.7%. This is a spomewhat misleading figure however. Prior toi 1944, the loss rate bounced between 3.5% and 6.5%. After April 1944, the loss rates droped to an average of less than 1%, per month, with the spread of result being 0.5% through to as high as 3%.

Luftwaffe losses were generally in the range of 10-20% per month, with combat losses accounting for about 70% of those losses. The high attrition rate arose in part from the extreme fear of the marauding Mosquitoes Intruders that were decimating the German Night Fighters, the use of day pilots with no Blind Flying training, the general low standard of Blind flying training brought about by the ruinous loss of instructors over Stalingrad (coupled with the fuel shortages which throughout 1943-44 were cutting ruinously into Luftwaffe training regimes. Lastlyt, as a result of these other factors, coupled with the absolute need to keep defending fighters airborne for as long as possible (because of the pressure the bombers were placing on German cities and other infrastructure) the Luftwaffe often resorted to deliberate policies of deadstick landings, that inevitably dramatically increased the accident rate in the Luftwaffe Night Fighter Squadrons



"If it's not too off-thread to ask, which 3/4 cities would you have targeted and what do you think would have been the effect on the course of the war?"

A good question, and Im not sure what to suggest. What I do know is that any cities within a 250 mile radius of the British "Cat" and "Mouse" stations would have been far better choices than Berlin. If the RAF had opted for shallow penetration raids instead of deep penetration raids, their bombing accuracy would have gone up 3 or 4 times, and the ability of the luftwaffe to intercept would have basically halved. I think any cities with Industrial potential within that 250 mile radious would have qualified.

The destruction of Hamburg caused 50000 casualties, and at least 250000 made homeless. Not shown in these well known statistics are the hundreds of thousands of casualties, many requiring the attentions of the rehabiltation services for many months or years. It was a conflagaration without parrallel until the dropping of the atomic bombs over Japan. This level of devastation was never inflicted on another German city until the very end of the war....if it had, as i said, been repeated 3 or 4 times in succession, the war may well have been greatly shortened. Note that this opinion does not come from Allied intel .... Hitler himself felt that three or four more raids like it would force him to the surrender table....Wiki has this to say about the issue...."No subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show that German officials were thoroughly alarmed and there is some indication from later allied interrogation of high officials, that Hitler thought that further attacks of similar weight might force Germany out of the war".

A good general reference that you can gaiun some basic stats on this issue is here:

NOTE Best viewed with screen realization 1024 x 768,

"If it's not too off-thread to ask, which 3/4 cities would you have targeted and what do you think would have been the effect on the course of the war?"

Speer was extensively interviewed after the war to assess the effects of allied bombing on German war production. His outstanding criticism was that the allies failed to return to strategic targets and this allowed time for recovery/repair or sometimes distribution of tools to other plants which in turn lessened the long term effects of the raid. Railway yards and petro chemical plants were apparently quickly repaired.
He also mentions Shweinfurt as an example of a target that, had it been subjected to a longer series of raids, would have had a disastrous effect on production - nearly all machines need bearings! This despite the fact that the Germans did manage to find other sources (SwedenIIRC).Whether the allied air forces were capable of doing this is a moot point, maybe for another thread!
He was more concerned by these strategic raids than the area bombing of cities.
Steve

parsifal said:

Luftwaffe losses were generally in the range of 10-20% per month, with combat losses accounting for about 70% of those losses. The high attrition rate arose in part from the extreme fear of the marauding Mosquitoes Intruders that were decimating the German Night Fighters, the use of day pilots with no Blind Flying training, the general low standard of Blind flying training brought about by the ruinous loss of instructors over Stalingrad (coupled with the fuel shortages which throughout 1943-44 were cutting ruinously into Luftwaffe training regimes. Lastlyt, as a result of these other factors, coupled with the absolute need to keep defending fighters airborne for as long as possible (because of the pressure the bombers were placing on German cities and other infrastructure) the Luftwaffe often resorted to deliberate policies of deadstick landings, that inevitably dramatically increased the accident rate in the Luftwaffe Night Fighter Squadrons

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i repeat if the luftwaffe night fighter losses are loss for force not for sorties aren't comparable with losses for sorties on bomber command

Hi Vincenzo

In terms of absolute numbers, your right, ther is no comparison. However in terms of the percentages of overall numbers, my sources say a different story.

In 1944 for example, I believe the RAF was credited with the destruction of over 800 Luftwaffe Night Fighters. Estimated strength of the Night Fighter forces was approximately 600 aircraft in that time (give or take). That means that the Luftwaffe replaced its overall Force structure at least once in that period.

In the same period, Bomber Command and its associated subordinate elements stood at about 5000 aircraft at any given time. Bomber Commands losses for 1944 were about 3000 aircraft give or take. That means that in that year Bomber Command replaced about 50% of its Force Structure in that period. That means, that as a member of the German Night Fighter Forces you were more about twice as likely to be shot down compared to the target bombers

Milosh said:

Did you look at the link pbfoot?

11239 night missions, 1.2% loss
3656 day missions, 0.8% loss

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one I would assume would have to take into account the fact that the time the bomber was over hostile territory and the shorter reaction reaction time to marshall forces would be much less simply because the perimeter of the Reich was shrinking quickly ,