Did the RAF have designs for a long range escort fighter?

[stona]

consider a marksman with a rifle, to hit, at 600 yards, a man on a horse (man or horse) with a rifle without a telescopic sight would be a fantastic shot. To hit the same man on a galloping horse would be unbelievable. Now put the marksman on a vibrating platform moving in all directions by small amounts and change the man on the horse for an aircraft which relative to the marksman can be doing zero MPH or 600 MPH (200 MPH bomber speed and 400 mph fighter speed in opposite directions) and also it can move in any direction. Additionally in a dorsal or ventral turret the wind speed varies from approximately 200mph head wind, tail wind, side wind and the effect of gravity varies from maximum in a horizontal shot to zero on a vertical shot. The use of a machine gun instead of a rifle is to compensate for inaccuracy, a sniper always uses a single shot rifle.

A man using a computing gun sight in a turret is not having to make all those complicated calculations and compensations himself. The analogy to a marksman using an iron or optical sight is not relevant. This is also why I said above that I'd be amazed if the gunners in a US bomber who were using iron sights ever hit anything.

The use of an automatic weapon rather than a single shot in the context of aerial combat is not to compensate for inaccuracy. It is to try to ensure enough hits to destroy the target. One hit will knock a man of a horse, it almost certainly won't knock an attacking fighter out of the sky.
The British leapt through all sorts of hoops in the 1930s to work out how many rifle calibre machine guns were required in their fighters to ensure enough hits on a bomber (their intended target) to destroy it with a two second burst. It's why the Spitfire and Hurricane carried eight machine guns.

Cheers

Steve

 

[fastmongrel]

I have often wondered if a semi fixed armament was considered. Work out what position in the Box the bomber would be in and set each gun to only fire in one direction. Set the guns of the whole Box of bombers so that an attacking fighter has to fly through at least several streams of bullets to get into a firing position. The gunner doesnt aim the gun he simply fires on command of a lead gunner and obviously doesnt fire if he is in danger of hitting a friendly. If the bomber becomes detached from the box or loses its position obviously the gunner would be able to take over and use his sights. It would have taken fantastic organisation and flight and crew discipline for it to work and I can see many drawbacks but someone must have thought of it.

 

[stona]

You'd need thousands of guns to cover all the sky through which fighters could approach.

The fields of fire you propose are fixed and predictable, to the Luftwaffe as well.

Aircraft cannot carry enough ammunition to lay down what an infantryman would call supressing fire for more than a few minutes, never mind the hours they might be exposed to attack. There were many instances of bombers running out of ammunition as it was, and also carrying more than officially permitted. This when individual gunners were only engaging individual targets.

The bomber 'boxes' actually encompassed far more sky than most imagine and flying the kind of formations proposed is impractical. The 54 aircraft of a wing box occupied a volume of sky about 1000m vertically, 650m across and over 2000m deep.

The command and control required for such a scheme was beyond the technology of the day.

What would the psychological effect be on a gunner who could not swing his gun to follow a target attempting to kill him, how ever ineffective his fire actually was ?

Apart from that it's a brilliant scheme

Cheers

Steve

 

[Elmas]

In my youth I had the pleasure to have long chats with a former RAF Navigator that flew in Lancs during the war.
In this photo taken not far from Tobruk, 1967, he is in the upper row, third from left.

A thing that I clearly remember is the very poor consideration he had about YB 40s.....

 

[BiffF15]

A man using a computing gun sight in a turret is not having to make all those complicated calculations and compensations himself. The analogy to a marksman using an iron or optical sight is not relevant. This is also why I said above that I'd be amazed if the gunners in a US bomber who were using iron sights ever hit anything.

The use of an automatic weapon rather than a single shot in the context of aerial combat is not to compensate for inaccuracy. It is to try to ensure enough hits to destroy the target. One hit will knock a man of a horse, it almost certainly won't knock an attacking fighter out of the sky.
The British leapt through all sorts of hoops in the 1930s to work out how many rifle calibre machine guns were required in their fighters to ensure enough hits on a bomber (their intended target) to destroy it with a two second burst. It's why the Spitfire and Hurricane carried eight machine guns.

Cheers

Steve

Steve,

Pardon my lack of knowledge on this, but did any of the bombers have computing gun sights for the turret mounted guns? I know that the B-29 had a fire control system (GE IIRC) which I "think" had some sort of compensated aiming system (since the gunner was not in the turret or looking down the barrel).

As for the offensive perspective (fighter pilot / plane) I have been operating under the assumption that tracer rounds were put in to help the pilot "fly" his rounds onto the target. Is that a good assumption? Also reference the 600 yard sniper shot versus a fighter firing his weapons there are some pro's con's there. First, a sniper is usually shooting at something stationary from a stationary position using an advanced sighting system with no bullet dispersion. Prior to the lead computing gun sight fighter guys were doing a bit of Kentucky windage with a dynamic (moving) gun platform against a dynamic target with feedback coming from tracer rounds and or strikes on the target aircraft (with the target sometimes obscured by the nose of the aircraft) with a weapon that has some bullet dispersion (inaccuracy) built in.

The problem in my opine was teaching guys how to hit what they were shooting at. Modern fighters have a feedback mechanism built into the Heads Up Display (HUD) or Helmet (F35) that will teach you where to point in order to properly lead fire and compensate so that when you don't have a radar lock you can still hit something. It's actually quite simple as it often boils down to "put him here and squeeze the trigger" and you will hit him. I do have the luxury of having been "trained" with both radar feedback as well as a computing (no radar lock) gun sight video, which means I'm looking "backwards" at their problem. However, if a guy watched a lot of successful guns tracking films I think he would have been able to increase his accuracy.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[stona]

They did. It was manufactured by Sperry and designated (from memory) K-4, but I can't look up the details at the moment. It was supposed to be saved from the ball turret in the event that it had to be jettisoned, so the Air Force put considerable value on them.
The K-4 was a genuine computing gun sight, not like the earlier compensating sights.
Cheers
Steve

Edit:
I guess this is the bit that was supposed to be saved.

 

[stona]

As for the offensive perspective (fighter pilot / plane) I have been operating under the assumption that tracer rounds were put in to help the pilot "fly" his rounds onto the target. Is that a good assumption? Prior to the lead computing gun sight fighter guys were doing a bit of Kentucky windage with a dynamic (moving) gun platform against a dynamic target with feedback coming from tracer rounds and or strikes on the target aircraft (with the target sometimes obscured by the nose of the aircraft) with a weapon that has some bullet dispersion (inaccuracy) built in.
Cheers,
Biff

That's correct. I'm not sure that there was always time to 'walk' the projectiles to the target but they were certainly to indicate where the fire was going.

The biggest problem in gunnery training for all air forces before the more sophisticated sights arrived in fighters towards the end of the war was teaching pilots to estimate angle off and hence the required deflection. The second and nearly equally serious problem was estimating range to the target.

The first RAF gun camera footage showed that on average pilots were under estimating angle off by at least 50%. Unsurprisingly they couldn't hit anything with any kind of deflection shot and this is reinforced by research carried out on downed Luftwaffe aircraft which showed that the vast majority of strikes were fired from within 10 degrees of dead astern.
These are examples of exercises and examples which an RAF pilot was supposed to complete in an effort to help him better estimate those two most important parameters, angle off and range.

For a waist gunner in a US bomber the target, or attacking fighter(s) would most likely be following some kind of pursuit curve and at some considerable speed relative to the bomber. I reckon that makes it a nigh on impossible target for someone firing over iron sights whilst battling the slip stream of his own aircraft.

I've seen gun camera footage of Luftwaffe fighters making all sorts of attacks, but head on seems to minimise the chance of being hit by the bombers defensive fire whilst also making for a very short window in which the fighter can engage. Obviously the Luftwaffe 'shooting school' film only shows the ones where the fighters hit the bomber, usually in the cockpit area.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Greyman]

 

[BiffF15]

Steve,

The three things needed to effectively employ the gun is, "in range, in plane and in lead".

Here is a pretty good paper on the K-14. Of note is the pictures on the last page showing how to track a target once you have the wingspan / sight dialed in. If you look at the pictures you will also notice a small plus sign, which according to the paper is called the cross.

In the aircraft I have flown that is the point where the guns are harmonized, or where the bullets will be at a certain range. In the F-15 the gun is in the right wing root, canted up and in, and the bullets hit that cross at a known range at 1g.

The way to use the cross with the computing gun sight on is to put it (the gun cross) in front of the target (in lead), along in his plane of motion, IOW "in plane" (or along his flight path), with him filling the sight (in range).

To determine his plane of motion draw an imaginary line from his tail through the prop hub out the front and beyond (it's where he is flying). In use, with the gun sight in computing mode, imagine and elastic string going from the gun cross to the reticle. If you pull positive g's, the gun sight will move away from the cross as if pulled down (it is compensating for a higher g, which requires being further in lead to hit the target). If you push forward on the stick it will move closer to the gun cross.

Practical use will eventually get a shooter to where he dail in the size, then will put the cross in lead on the bandits flight path, put the pipper over his cockpit, wait one second and then squeeze the trigger. As with shooting a gun, one must be smooth on the trigger as you can actually be too aggressive when "pulling" the trigger to cause a miss. It's called squeeze to remind you to be gentle or smooth.

It sounds like a LOT to do, but you can get good at it quickly with practice. I will never forget the first time I merged head on with a different type of plane (F-16C), maneuvered to a guns position, and whaled on him.

There is no kill like a guns kill.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[stona]

It's easy to see why gunnery accuracy increased so much with the introduction of the more sophisticated gun sights. Many pilots simply couldn't make the correct and by no means easy calculations/estimations themselves.
There were few successful WW2 pilots in the early years who employed deflection shooting. They simply out flew or surprised their targets and engaged from minimal angle off hence minimising or eliminating the deflection required.
There were of course some notable exceptions. Many of Marseille's comrades commented on his ability to score hits at high angles off for example.
Cheers
Steve

 

[BiffF15]

The guys who could shoot high deflection shots probably shot skeet, or hunted birds (practiced lead computing). Same concept, shoot where the target will be in a moment and if you time it right there will be a collision of rounds / pellets and the target. The slower the target the closer to its nose you shoot, the faster it's going the farther ahead you shoot (range also factors into this).

Some guys quickly master the "be the plane", and learn to aim it instinctively. Others require some practice, and a few never really get it.

From what I have read of Marseille he was quite a shot (I wonder if he hunted prior to the military), plus he did "min range maneuvering" and employment. The process which was described sounded to me like a guy doing a methodical training to define the inner edge of what he and his machine could do.

The high angle (high aspect) shots aren't hard after some practice. The downside to them is the amount of rounds you will get on target do to it's rapid movement through your shower of lead. Stabilized shots (you have closure under control, in range, plane and in lead) are the best for achieving a kill however you have to be cognizant of foreign object debris(FOD)from his plane hitting yours (even more so for jets as their engines really only like air going through them).

High angle shots are also good for when you are leaving the fight. Maximize heading crossing angle, shoot at him to get him off his game, and select full power and leave using gravity if required to help build speed / increase range.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Juha]

Hello Biff
in fact RAF got its first pre-production gyro sights, Mk I GGS, in 1941 but after trying FC turned it down because it was a bit like a scope and so it was thought it gave too restrictive view for a fighter pilot, BC turned it down because it didn't suite for night use but some CC sqns elected to use it. BC began fairly widespread use of the improved GGS Mk IIC gyro sight in early 45, it was a turret version of the Mk IID, which also USAAF accepted as K-14 and USN as Mk 18 sight.

Juha

 

[stona]

I'd like to point out from a jingoistic point of view that the Sperry K-14 was a US version of the Gyro Gun Sight Mk II developed in the UK by Ferranti

By 29th May 1944 300 Mk IX Spitfires were fitted with the Mk II gun sight. Installation was not easy, requiring various 'black boxes' and a new throttle system with the control that altered the diameter of the sighting graticule (to match the wingspan of the target aircraft) on it. The wingspan had been entered in the sighting system and thus the sight could calculate the range.

The gyroscope measured the attacking aircraft's rate of turn which is proportional to the deflection required to make a successful shot. A mirror tilted to move the sighting graticule to allow for this deflection.

For the result see the K-14 attachment in Biff's post above.

Cheers

Steve

 

[pbehn]

Hello pbehn
so you don't have sources to back up your claim. The need of an escort rose from the inherent advantages of fighters over bombers but that is a different thing than your claim that the gunners didn't aim to individual attacker. And why the LW adopted the more difficult head on attack over the tradiotional stern attack after first contacts with B-17 formations? Why they shunned down individual attacks against the USAAF heavybomber formations and went to formation head-on attacks? If 10 or 25 fighters attacked line abreast there weren't 100 mgs firing at each of them.

The company front head on attacks were as much a response to the escorts as bomber defensive fire and from posts I have read here were in retrospect probably a mistake.
Are you saying that using 25 fighters to attack a formation of 1000 bombers is "ungentlemanly conduct" Squadrons of fighters fight together, 25 fighters is half of the Big Wing used by the RAF in 1940.


If the guns were aimed as accurately as you say then they would hit the target frequently and an escort would not be required because any aircraft coming within 600 yards would be hit and between 5 and 8 hits (I read here) would normally destroy the attacker. Despite all the "computerized" gun sights no deep penetration raid was attempted after the disastrous losses suffered. That you could say is my "source"

I didnt mean that bullets were thrown up at random but that the aiming even with so called computerised sights was not good enough to hit enough fighters to repel attacks, again I say that if the aiming was accurate an escort would not be needed, it was introduced because a bombers defensive fire was not as good as everyone from the "bomber doctrine" thought it would be. In this conflict it was hard for a bomber to destroy a LW plane and even harder to kill a LW pilot but relatively easy for a LW fighter to destroy a bomber and crew. Germany was losing the war but without escort fighters they would have won the daylight bombing battle IMO.

As far as night fighter defense goes I think a different game played out. A night fighter was in a different position, it is almost impossible to make a forced landing at night and parachuting out in complete darkness is no picnic either, any bomber showing an alert rear gunner was avoided and an easier target looked for. Schrage music put an end to that.

 

[pbehn]

A man using a computing gun sight in a turret is not having to make all those complicated calculations and compensations himself. The analogy to a marksman using an iron or optical sight is not relevant. This is also why I said above that I'd be amazed if the gunners in a US bomber who were using iron sights ever hit anything.

The use of an automatic weapon rather than a single shot in the context of aerial combat is not to compensate for inaccuracy. It is to try to ensure enough hits to destroy the target. One hit will knock a man of a horse, it almost certainly won't knock an attacking fighter out of the sky.
The British leapt through all sorts of hoops in the 1930s to work out how many rifle calibre machine guns were required in their fighters to ensure enough hits on a bomber (their intended target) to destroy it with a two second burst. It's why the Spitfire and Hurricane carried eight machine guns.

Cheers

Steve

I agree steve but even with the assisted aiming it just decreased a very large margin of error. The most sophisticated system was on the B29 which could concentrate 3 turrets on one target, good if it is working and targeted well but if it isnt then all three are off target. I am well aware of the discussions about how many hits were required to take down a bomber. There was a very informative diagram posted here about harmonisation of guns on RAF fighters. The RAF and the FAA had different philosophies, do you concentrate the fire on a single point 200 or 400 yards ahead or have the guns firing in a pattern so you get some hits based on the accuracy of the average pilot. That is on guns nominally all firing in the same direction, do you try to hit a point and destroy it or lay out an area of fire to have the best possibility of serious damage.

 

[buffnut453]

I discounted the Stirling as it was a sitting duck on night time raids I doubt if the LW would bother doing anything except keeping the box tight to allow ground fire to blow them away. How many of the 7,400 lancs had air cooled engines 350? 400? The Halifax had approx 30% with hercules engines and what does that mean? How do you make a protective formation with so many different aircraft, the only answer is to fly at the speed and altitude of the lowest performer. Add in the loss of speed and altitude of a ventral turret if fitted to some or all and there is no way the British could mount a daylight campaign without crippling losses. The USA took a time out and came back with a new bomber force and escort fighter force.

I accept the technical argument about gun sights, if you accept that the gunner aims and hits a target. In most cases they fire in the general direction and someone gets a lucky hit, in that case the sight doesn't matter it is the effectiveness of the round.

Just because you "discounted the Stirling" doesn't make your statement about all RAF heavy bombers having in-line engines any more correct. Rather like your question on "How do you make a protective formation with so many different aircraft?" Bomber Command didn't fly in formation during night missions because it was impossible. I also fail to understand the point you're trying to make with "there is no way the British could mount a daylight campaign without crippling losses". The RAF had already decided that daylight operations were impractical, hence the switch to night ops. There was never any consideration of flying in daylight.

 

[GrauGeist]

The RAF had already decided that daylight operations were impractical, hence the switch to night ops. There was never any consideration of flying in daylight.

The first bombing missions by BC were in fact, daylight raids. And they suffered terribly for a couple reasons:
First, this was early in the war and BC was using older types (Battles, Wellingtons, and so on).
Secondly, they were unescorted in airspace that was, at this stage of the war, dominated by the Luftwaffe.

Virtually all of the daylight missions BC conducted ended with a serious mauling of the bombers.

Even later, when the USAAF initially started thier daylight mission3, they suffered such losses that the missions were stopped while the brass evaluated the situation.

The RAF's decision to move their bombing missions to night-time was a sound move, but it wasn't the original plan.

 

[Airframes]

RAF Bomber Command carried out quite a number of daylight missions later in the war, with 'heavies', apart from the costly Augsburg and Le Cruesot ops, albeit in more favourable conditions, due to Allied air superiority. Although Harris fought against it, his Command was tasked with transport and troop targets, as well as 'No Ball' sites, prior to D-Day, and a continuing campaign after June 6th, 1944, against troop concentrations, transport etc., which involved quite large daylight 'gaggles', not all of which were fully escorted.

 

[stona]

Head on attacks were adopted by some Luftwaffe units because of the bombers defensive , it had nothing to do with escort fighters.

This method of minimised two factors, the number of guns the formation could bring to bear on the attacker(s) and the time of exposure to those weapons. Both these work in favour of the attacker. It also minimised the time that the attacker could line up and engage his target. This made it a difficult attack to carry out successfully particularly for less experienced pilots. This worked in favour of the bombers.

Having a computing sight of the type used in WW2 does not guarantee hits on the target. It had to be used correctly, tracking the target smoothly for long enough for the computing to be done, and various inputs had to be made correctly too. It was by no means a simple or fool proof system.

Not everyone thought a head on attack was a good idea, particularly flying an Me 262 when the closing speed must have been astronomical!

"I did not understand the attack tactics of many other pilots who attacked a close formation of such 'flying fortresses' from the side, below or the front. Only if you fly in the direction of the bomber stream and attack from above, can you moderate somewhat the effect of their concentrated firepower. Although the bomber gunners could fire at us effectively from 700m, we had to close to 300m for our four MK 108 cannons to be effective."
Oblt. Walther Schuck 3./JG7

Head on attacks were not the norm and reading many combat reports and pilot accounts, they were not the most frequent method of attack. Sometimes, when more than one pass was made at a formation, different methods were used.

"After I had twice attacked the leading Pulk of the formation from the front, I made my third attack from the low rear."
Fw. Herbert Zimmer 8./JG3

Even when a head on attack was intended it was not always possible.

"The enemy's altitude was reached in quadrant CQ-5. The prolonged turn of the enemy formation made a head on attack impossible, so the Gruppe prepared an attack from the high rear."
Unit Combat Report JG 11

The attack from the front was an officially sanctioned tactic, but it was not the only one. It was a method developed by Hauptmann Mayer of JG 2 in conjunction with other commanders of the units of Luftflotte 3. Mayer argued that such an attack stood the best chance of hitting the cockpit of the bomber and killing its crew, thus effectively destroying the bomber. He also reckoned that the defensive armament of the bombers was weakest in this area. Being an active combat pilot he put his theory to the test and reported to Galland.

As a result Galland sent the following memo to all Luftwaffe fighter units. It was titled 'Kamfanweisung fur die Jagd und Zerstorerverbande', Roughly 'Battle instructions for the fighter and destroyer units'.

"1. The diving attack from the front by Hptm. Mayer was very effective and resulted in the immediate destruction of a B-17.

2. His Nos. 2 and 3 were seriously damaged when they pulled up behind the formation after the attack. This is not recommended.

3. Hptm. Mayer's second attack was also successful. In this case he dived in front of a bomber, pulled up to make his attack, and dived away in a tight bank, climbing back up ahead of the formation. He received no defensive fire.

4 General conclusions.

a. Attacks from the rear on close formations are seldom successful and bring heavy losses. If it is necessary to attack from the rear, fire at engines and fuel tanks from a steep bank.

b. Attacks from the side can be effective. These require training and a good firing angle.

c. Frontal attacks at low speed from straight ahead, above, or below are the most effective of all attacks. Prerequisites for success are flying skill, good aim, and continuous fire up to the closest possible distance.

d. Withdrawal is permitted only by a tight diving bank in the direction of the attacked bomber. This maximises the angular velocity and makes it impossible for the enemy gunners to draw the correct lead.

e. It is essential that fighter units attack repeatedly in great strength and mass. The defensive fire will then be dispersed and the bomber formation can be split apart."

You could say that the head on attack was favoured but it was not the only option open to a commander.

Note that attacks from ahead and astern do not involve the estimation of angle off and deflection shooting, or at least minimise these parameters. Attacks from the side do and Galland's point in 4b above about such attacks requiring training and a good firing angle refer to this perpetual problem for all WW2 air forces.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Glider]

The first bombing missions by BC were in fact, daylight raids. And they suffered terribly for a couple reasons:
First, this was early in the war and BC was using older types (Battles, Wellingtons, and so on).
Secondly, they were unescorted in airspace that was, at this stage of the war, dominated by the Luftwaffe.

Virtually all of the daylight missions BC conducted ended with a serious mauling of the bombers.

Even later, when the USAAF initially started thier daylight mission3, they suffered such losses that the missions were stopped while the brass evaluated the situation.

The RAF's decision to move their bombing missions to night-time was a sound move, but it wasn't the original plan.

I think its also worth noting that the RAF bombers in the early part of the war had no armour or even more importantly self sealing fuel tanks and finally were often outnumbered.
In the Battle of Heligoland Bight 24 bombers were up against (I think) 40 fighters. RAF losses were heavy about 19 bombers were shot down or crash landed, but the fighters didn't get away scot free. Three 109's were shot down, three 109/110 badly damaged and eight more damaged. If you were to put up 24 unescorted B17 against 40 late war German fighters I doubt the result would be very different.