Effectiveness of Heavy Bomber defensive fires vs LW Fighters

[Readie]

Hitler had exactly the same reasoning on 4 September 1940 in the Sportpalast, stona, as you do.

Ich habe drei Monate lang das nicht beantworten lassen, in der Meinung, sie würden diesen Unfug einstellen. Herr Churchill sah darin ein Zeichen unserer Schwäche. Sie werden e3 verstehen, daß wir jegt nun Nacht für Nacht die Antwort geben, und zwar steigend Nacht für Nacht. Und wenn die britische Luftwaffe 2000 oder 3000 oder 4000 Kilogramm Bomben wirft, dann werfen wir jetzt in einer Nacht 150 000, 180 000, 230 000, 300 000 und 400 000. Und wenn sie erklären, sie werden bei uns Städte in großem Ausmaß angreifen - wir werden ihre Städte ausradieren!

Er, yes.... sow the seeds Mr Hitler and you will reap the whirlwind....

 

[Hop]

Firstly because nations have agreed to the principle in several international treaties that the people who make the weapons that kill your people (aka civillians) should be immune from attack. There are several moral and practical considerations to that, but it largely works because when you start to do that, the other side will start to do that to you as well.

It's something that many seem to forget. If there had been treaties banning bombing of enemy towns, would they still have been in effect by the time BC launched its first area attack in December 1940? After the Blitz had already killed more than 20,000 in Britain, wouldn't Britain have been able to argue convincingly that the Germans had already abrogated the treaty?

Secondly because it just not works, its not a viable military strategy, and never was since the stone age. From the cold and calculating POV randomly killing people, the workers includes is a lot harder to do than destroying the industry itself. The Allies have killed about half a million German civilians, more than half of them women and children who did not contribute much, if anything to the war. How many German workers were killed - 10.000, 50.000, maybe even 100.000 at worst?

I'd say they killed a lot more than that. Don't forget bombing was aimed at industrial cities, which have a much higher percentage of industrial workers. Many women and children had evacuated the large cities by 1943. So the percentage of industrial workers killed was probably quite high.

But civilian deaths was never the aim. Destruction of cities was. If you look at Hamburg, whilst around 50,000 were killed, hundreds of thousands of industrial workers fled the city, driven not just by fear but by the destruction of houses, water supplies, shops, trains, electricity supplies etc.

Randomly killing a couple of Krupp workers in every raid on Essen for years seem to be very very ineffective compared to just ground the Krupp factory itself.

But on the other hand, cutting the power to not just Krupp but every factory in the area, and blocking the roads, destroying bridges, cutting off the gas supply, destroying the telephone exchanges, destroying the worker's house so that he doesn't turn up to work, cutting the water supply, destroying the back street garage that made small brackets, destroying the bank that held the funds to pay for parts and workers wages, and all the other disruptions that an area attack brought, was very effective.

From The Battle of Hamburg by Middlebrook:

But the R.A.F. bombing was meant to achieve indirect rather than direct results. There were other ways of preventing the building of U-boats, for example, than of bombing the slipway on which a U-boat was being built. Preceding chapters have illustrated the general breakdown of life in Hamburg — the destruction of services and communications, the destruction of workers' housing and the killing or putting to flight of the workers themselves. This was the industrial side of the R.A.F.'s offensive. The exact extent of such indirect loss was the subject of much investigation immediately after the war. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey and the smaller British Bombing Survey Unit both did much research in Hamburg. The general conclusion was that the Battle of Hamburg caused a loss of war production equivalent to the normal output of the entire city for 1.8 months of full production. Output returned to 80 per cent of normal within five months but full recovery was never achieved. Taking the production of U-boats, again, as a specific case, it was estimated that between twenty (the American estimate) and twenty-six or twenty-seven U-boats (the British estimate) were never produced because of the July and August 1943 bombing.

The important part about the production losses, whether of U-boats or whatever other type of war material or even of the everyday type of commercial production that a nation needs to sustain itself, was that the Hamburg losses were mainly caused by the indirect methods of the great R.A.F. raids. There are interesting figures available for the number of units of electricity consumed in the city's war industries and for the number of workers reporting at their factories. Electrical consumption in Hamburg's war industry fell by 56.9 per cent in August 1943 ! The following tables show the numbers of people reporting for work before and after the battle, both in the entire armaments industry of the city and in the Blohm Voss shipyard.

From the tables he references:

Workers in Hamburg war industries:

30 June 1943 - 634,000
1 October 1943 - 331,300

Workers in Blohm Voss:
Before the raids - 9,400
After the firestorm - 300
1 August - 1,500
1 September - 5,000
1 October - 7,000
1 November - 7,500

And from Irvine (who is certainly no friend of BC):

The raid on Kassel provided a classic illustration of the theories
underlying the area offensive. There was a chain-reaction of dislocation, which first paralysed the city's public utilities then stopped
even the undamaged factories: The city relied for electricity on the city
power station and on the Losse power station; the former was
wrecked, the latter halted by destruction of its coal-conveyer; the
city's low-tension grid was also destroyed. With the loss of only
three gas-holders the undamaged gas works was not in itself unser-viceable and the gas mains were not beyond repair. But without
electricity to drive the gas-works machinery, the whole Kassel
industrial area was deprived of both gas and power supplies.
Although the five water pumping stations were undamaged,
without electricity they too were paralysed. Without gas, water, or
power supplies Kassel's industry was crippled.
The physical damage to the factories was considerable: nine prin-cipal factories, including the Fieseler aircraft plant now manufac-turing the Fi. flying bomb in Kassel-Waldau, were seriously
damaged; the dilapidations to the three Henschel locomotive and
tank plants amounted to forty-two million Reichsmarks.

Speer, the
German armaments minister stated at his July interrogation
that although the tank assembly plants had already been slowed
down by shortages in components caused by bombing raids on
other cities, the October reduced production of the formi-dable new Tiger tanks from 100-150 monthly to only fifty or sixty.

Area bombing wasn't about killing people, it was about taking an area of a city and doing as much damage to it as possible.

That is because a marshaling yard is an easily identifiable target, and does not equal to what Bomber Command referred to as 'area (=terror) bombing' of city centres. Marshalling yards are not in the most densely populated city centers to start with, but further out, well before the large 'head' RR stations typical of the era. They are also perfectly valid targets (and in fact the most vulnerable part of any RR system).

Marshalling yards are typically in cities, but the point is the 8th AF disguised most of their area bombing with the euphemism "marshaling yards".

Incendiaries aren't much use against marshaling yards. You need to blow up the tracks and crater the ground, and incendiaries don't do that. As a result the RAF only used about 2% incendiaries when they attacked marshaling yards. The 15th AF used a similar percentage. Even the 8th AF used about 2% incendiaries when they attacked French marshaling yards, and on special operations where they were ordered to attack enemy transport.

But the 8th disguised their area attacks by claiming they were attacking marshaling yards. They loaded up an average 20% incendiaries and used radar bombing to hit German towns, and claimed they were after the marshaling yards.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Folks, this is moving way off subject and is starting to get political. Let's get this thread back on track!

 

[stona]

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them.
At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naive theory into operation.
They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.
Cologne, Lubeck, Rostock—Those are only just the beginning.
We cannot send a thousand bombers a time over Germany every time, as yet.
But the time will come when we can do so.
Let the Nazis take good note of the western horizon.
There they will see a cloud as yet no bigger than a man's hand.
But behind that cloud lies the whole massive power of the United States of America.
When the storm bursts over Germany, they will look back to the days of Lubeck and Rostock and Cologne as a man caught in the blasts of a hurricane will look back to the gentle zephyrs of last summer.
It may take a year. It may take two.
But for the Nazis, the writing is on the wall.
Let them look out for themselves. The cure is in their own hands.
There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war.
Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, and we shall see.
Germany, clinging more and more desperately to her widespread conquests and even seeking foolishly for more, will make a most interesting initial experiment.
Japan will provide the confirmation."

You can't say that we didn't warn them. Sir Arthur Travers Harris,much maligned but one of the greatest commanders this island has produced.

Steve

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Folks, my last warning. If this thread doesn't get back on track I'm going to lock it!

 

[davparlr]

I agree. I don't think I ever found out how effective bomber defenses were in numbers. What is a reasonable number, of course estimated, of LW fighters downed by bomber defensive guns? How many bombers were shot down per loss of a an attacking fighter? Numbers impossible to know but maybe not to estimate.

 

[Tante Ju]

It's something that many seem to forget. If there had been treaties banning bombing of enemy towns, would they still have been in effect by the time BC launched its first area attack in December 1940? After the Blitz had already killed more than 20,000 in Britain, wouldn't Britain have been able to argue convincingly that the Germans had already abrogated the treaty?

I don't think so. It makes a very poor argument that you are bombing a cities in December 1940 after the other guy retaliated in September for your attacks in May. It's like when little children argue in the kindergarten that it all started when he hit me back!

But civilian deaths was never the aim. Destruction of cities was. If you look at Hamburg, whilst around 50,000 were killed, hundreds of thousands of industrial workers fled the city, driven not just by fear but by the destruction of houses, water supplies, shops, trains, electricity supplies etc.

Yes but Hamburg raid was a one-off because its novelty. It shocked both the population, civil defense, the Nazi leadership, and probably even Bomber Command. But it couldn't be repeated, even with many times the bombers. Certainly randomly wiping out half the city on a grand scale will have its side effects, but BC just could not do that. Certainly not cost-effectively.

But on the other hand, cutting the power to not just Krupp but every factory in the area, and blocking the roads, destroying bridges, cutting off the gas supply, destroying the telephone exchanges, destroying the worker's house so that he doesn't turn up to work, cutting the water supply, destroying the back street garage that made small brackets, destroying the bank that held the funds to pay for parts and workers wages, and all the other disruptions that an area attack brought, was very effective.

Yes that was the theory, but it simply did not work... hitting fuel plants and marshalling yards did work.

Area bombing wasn't about killing people, it was about taking an area of a city and doing as much damage to it as possible.

At least this is how people in modern days want to explain it. But back in the day, on record, the people who were responsible were quite frank about it was been all about killing people. Delicate calculations were made on what was the most effective mixture to maximize casulties etc.

Marshalling yards are typically in cities, but the point is the 8th AF disguised most of their area bombing with the euphemism "marshaling yards".

I respectfully disagree with this theory and agree with drgondog instead. IMHO it's baseless con-theo about marshalling yard really meaning "a city". The USAAF did sanction from 1944 the random bombing of cities if the primary or secondary target - which was in 99% the cases a valid military target - wasn't found (how often did this happen, really?) but this is a far cry from habitually designating cities as primary targets. It's just an arguement to spread an inconvinient legacy around. The USAAF did resort to such in the PTO quite willingly, but not in ETO, there's absolutely no evidence to that!

Incendiaries aren't much use against marshaling yards. You need to blow up the tracks and crater the ground, and incendiaries don't do that. As a result the RAF only used about 2% incendiaries when they attacked marshaling yards. The 15th AF used a similar percentage. Even the 8th AF used about 2% incendiaries when they attacked French marshaling yards, and on special operations where they were ordered to attack enemy transport.

But the 8th disguised their area attacks by claiming they were attacking marshaling yards. They loaded up an average 20% incendiaries and used radar bombing to hit German towns, and claimed they were after the marshaling yards.

As I said. I don't buy into the 'marshalling yard is really a city' theory. The only place I saw that theory was a con-theo book from serial con-theo author..

Incendinaries can be pretty effective against wooden railroad waggon and rolling stocks, actually. Actually rails are a very difficult target, most trains can cross as much as 1 meter of a gap in the rail w/o much problem.. and it's a relatively easy fix.

P.S. Sorry FB didn't see the note before i typed it.. now noted.

 

[Readie]

The aerial assault on nazi Germany was a simply matter of mass.
The combined resources of America, Britain and the commonwealth would over come the germans. No matter what the loss rate was America could build bombers fast enough to replace all losses.
A crude tool? maybe...certainly the aircrew loss rate beggars belief. No wonder it was 'volunteers only' in BC.

Any thread on this still contentious subject is almost bound to get a tad political Joe. Its not personal.
We are trying to look at facts not trying to rewrite history to suit new sanitised versions of WW2.

Cheers
John

 

[kettbo]

I agree. I don't think I ever found out how effective bomber defenses were in numbers. What is a reasonable number, of course estimated, of LW fighters downed by bomber defensive guns? How many bombers were shot down per loss of a an attacking fighter? Numbers impossible to know but maybe not to estimate.

I'm looking, tough go. Could be a lifetime project just for numbers. USAAC mission record to see where the fighters attacked from, ie, 12 o'clock high. Maybe comments on the formation. Then the German records for losses, if you can get a clear read on which units were engaged

 

[davparlr]

I'm looking, tough go. Could be a lifetime project just for numbers. USAAC mission record to see where the fighters attacked from, ie, 12 o'clock high. Maybe comments on the formation. Then the German records for losses, if you can get a clear read on which units were engaged

I certainly agree that it would be tough. But this seems an important statistic that is missing from WW2 history. Something well worth the effort since the air battle against Germany is probably one of the most important and costly battles in history and this would make a piece of the puzzle that is missing.

 

[Jabberwocky]

RAF SOP in 1942 and early 1943 was to divide USAAF bomber gunner claims by six for the processing of intelligence estimates. I'd suggest that this figure only got higher as the ETO air war intensified through 1943 and 1944.

USAAF heavy bombers were officially awarded claims for 6098 enemy aircraft destroyedto gunfire in the ETO. Another 3178 claims were credited as kills in the MTO, although there would be a fair number of Italian and other nations' (Romanian, Bulgarian ect) aircraft in the MTO claims.

 

[wuzak]

As I said. I don't buy into the 'marshalling yard is really a city' theory. The only place I saw that theory was a con-theo book from serial con-theo author.

Donald Miller notes that area attacks on civilian areas were often described as precision attacks on rail yards.

Incendinaries can be pretty effective against wooden railroad waggon and rolling stocks, actually.

Sure, the superstructure of the wagons was wooden, but the chassis was steel. Using the 8th AF formation bombing technique most incendiaries were bound to fall on things other than rail stock. Like houses, in fact.

Actually rails are a very difficult target, most trains can cross as much as 1 meter of a gap in the rail w/o much problem.. and it's a relatively easy fix.

I suppose it depends on the size of the loco and wagons. And whether or not the rails remain neatly lined up before and after the gap.

The fix may have been relatively easy, but it was a case of can it be fixed fast enough before it is damaged again?

 

[wuzak]

As to the original question, I would think you could describe the effectiveness of heavy bomber defensive fire as being sufficient to require the LW to alter its tactics, but not sufficient to prevent horrendous losses.

 

[CobberKane]

As to the original question, I would think you could describe the effectiveness of heavy bomber defensive fire as being sufficient to require the LW to alter its tactics, but not sufficient to prevent horrendous losses.

And as the aim of the defensive fire waas to prevent unaccepatable losses it was therefore ineffective, I guess. Regarding the number of LW fighters shot down, I don't doubt that there was some major league overclaiming going on here, as inevitably multiple gunners would be targeting any given fighter when it was hit. Bear in mind too that confirmation protocols would have been pretty lax; the USAAF was taking a hammering from the LW in 1943 and doubtless head office would have been alert to anything that might help maintain morale with the aircrew - such as painting lots of little crosses on their bombers.
Of course, the Germans were in a much better position to how many Allied aircraft were destroyed - they could count the wrecks.

 

[kettbo]

ok, so we have had a few weeks here to think about the defensive fire. surely dangerous, sometimes lethal, ALWAYS FRIGHTENING to see tracers whizzing by your head.
Again, the original question was designed to get info for my small scale gaming. Something realistic but quick
THINKING
4 in ten take hits if attacking from the rear, various damage
Frontal, very likely less, 2 in ten
Side, 3 in ten

then various damage on a d6 with a 2nd die showing variety
1-3 light (progressively longer repairs)
4 medium damage (hmmmm, think that hurt
5 crippled bird (several reasons incl pilot wounds, probably a good time to bail out as a chance things could get worse)
6 shootdown (streaming coolant or oil, or control cables parted flopping about, trailing fire, explosion, pilot killed, wing blown off)

so rolling a 66 would be a spectacular shootdown, probably claimed by everyone in the bomber box! (old Lee Burkhalter down the street where I grew up told some rather graphic stories about his missions on Liberators, so want this to be as realistic as I can in his memory)

now against a single bomber, lower the chance of a hit by the bomber's gunners considerably 2 in 20, 3 in 20, 4 in twenty

will run with this and get back to you

 

[wuzak]

I would think that side attacks would have lower issues with defensive fire than either frontal or rear, particularly the latter. Frontal attacks were started because that is one area where the B-17s did not have very good protection, but that changed with the -G.

The reason I suspect the side gunners were less effective than front and rear guns is that the attacking aircraft would be moving at an angle to the gunner and therefore require more lead than a tail or frontal attack.

 

[drgondog]

Wayne - with both a B-17 and B-24, attacks from 9 and 3 o'clock would be exposed to one waist gunner and either a Ball turret or top turret gunner for a single ship encounter. True, the combination is slightly reduced from nose or tail with minimum of 4 guns available (tail) unless just above the horizon where the rudder interferes with the top turret.

Attacking from the side IMO leads to the more difficult deflection shot for the attacker But also the more difficult 'pursuit curve' tracking for the bomber gunners who have to shoot as a seemingly skidding target rather than zero.near zero deflection shot.

 

[Milosh]

from: "Gunner" ISBN 1-55046-332-2

Testing done by the USAAF found that the bullet pattern from a B-17 during ground testing had the following results for 12 rounds to 600yds:

ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
upper turret > dia. 21' - 11.7mils
chin turret > dia. 23' - 12.6 mils
waist(closed) dia. 26' - 14.3mils
side nose > dia. 34' - 18.7mils
tail turret > dia 45' - 25mils

For the B-24 it was:

ball turret > dia. 15' - 8.3mils
upper turret > dia. 20' - 11.2mils
nose turret > dia. 23' - 12.9mils (Emerson)
nose turret > dia. 35' - 19.3mils (Motor Prod.)
waist(closed) dia. 23' - 12.9mils
waist(open) dia. 63' - 35.6mils
tail turret > dia 35' - 19.3mils

**************************

Attacks and hits on B-17s and B-24s, Jan - May 1944

Distribution according to direction of origin in azimuth

B-17 % distribution of 3585 attacks and 441 hits whose direction could be determined

12 - 20.2/15.6
1 - 12.5/9.3
2 - 5.9/6.7
3 - 4.5/3.9
4 - 5.7/4.0
5 - 9.1-9.2
6 - 20.7/15.6
7 - 5.9/6.6
8 - 3.8/2.7
9 - 3.9/2.9
10 - 3.7/3.9
11 - 10.4/10.3

B-24 % distribution of 1042 attacks and 102 hits whose direction could be determined

12 - 21.6/17.6
1 - 12.7/8.4
2 - 3.9/5.2
3 - 2.9/5.4
4 - 3.0/3.6
5 - 7.7/7.8
6 - 20.7/15.6
7 - 19.6/20.6
8 - 11.0/6.9
9 - 3.1/2.0
10 - 6.9/3.4
11 - 11.9/7.8

 

[tyrodtom]

It's surprizing to see how much difference there was in the stability of the gun mounts or sights of the different gun positions.

It's also surprizing that the B-17 got hit in about 11% of it's attacks, but the B-24 only about 1%. But there's that qualifier "hits whose direction could be determined" which I guess the B-24 got hit more, but they couldn't determine which direction it came from. Some statistics just don't tell you much.

From those figures it appears they attacked from straight ahead about as much as from straight behind, and got almost the same % of hits from each.

 

[kettbo]

keep the comments coming!

here is what I was thinking. naturally I could be waaaay off here:
low hit chance frontal due to quick closing time of the fighter to the target
high chance to hit the fighter due to the fighter being exposed as it closes from astern
medium chance from the sides as moderate closing rate but all the angles to throw in

yes, less frontal return fire early on AND less exposure time...that to me is critical

I have fired a lot of .50 cal in 20 years in the Army....really cannot see how effective Bomber side gunners could be; strange compound angle firing solutions, high speeds, 'free' gun, Friendly Bombers you're trying not to shoot at...no Bullets are Friendly by the way, pitfall of all your guys in formation near you. Add to this, the gunners are probably freezing cold or sweating their arse off in the heated suits (or both), scared, etc. Obviously the USAAC thought there was a need for waist guns and gunners, thinking this was a waste.
Believe late war, the waist guns were sometimes not manned? Sure I saw this somewhere.

Wonder how many bombers were lost to accidental Blue on Blue fire?