Greatest aviation myth this site “de-bunked”.

[33k in the air]

lol I do, how can a person read an article on the raid to get the numbers right and then put Frankfurt instead of Nuremburg?

Sometimes, on the journey from the brain to the fingers, the electrical impulses get . . . confused.

Blame it on some random cosmic ray knocking it off course!

 

[buffnut453]

lol I do, how can a person read an article on the raid to get the numbers right and then put Frankfurt instead of Nuremburg?

By thinking of sausages for dinner, perhaps?

 

[pbehn]

Sometimes, on the journey from the brain to the fingers, the electrical impulses get . . . confused.

Blame it on some random cosmic ray knocking it off course!

I had my second jab two weeks ago, is the microchip kicking in?

 

[33k in the air]

I had my second jab two weeks ago, is the microchip kicking in?

Some people would say yes! I remain agnostic on that possibility.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Percentages and chosen dates can deceive, the 12% loss was March 30 1944 against Nuremburg, 95 planes lost from 795.

That's brutal.

 

[33k in the air]

That's brutal.

The book "The Nuremberg Raid: 30-31 March 1944" by Martin Middlebrook might be worth a look if you're interested in reading more.

 

[fastmongrel]

The Nuremberg raid was a shining example of Murphy's Law. When you read about the raid in more detail you will be left wondering not how so many crews were lost but how so many made it home safely.

 

[Greg Boeser]

By thinking of sausages for dinner, perhaps?

But Nuernberger Bratwurst mit Bratkartoffel und Speck is unforgetable.

 

[buffnut453]

But Nuernberger Bratwurst mit Bratkartoffel und Speck is unforgetable.

No matter how hard we try!

 

[Graeme]

I'd like to bust the myth that the Luftwaffe used Yak-18s as fighters in WW2.

From a recent article on how Speer increased war production.

(PS - are the tank and sub silhouettes even valid?)

 

[pbehn]

The Nuremberg raid was a shining example of Murphy's Law. When you read about the raid in more detail you will be left wondering not how so many crews were lost but how so many made it home safely.

In the grim world of loss statistics the answer to that may be how many started the mission. It could be that the 95 planes lost represent what the LW could shoot down in ideal circumstances on a raid of that distance. So if 400 were used losses would be 25% and if 100 were used maybe a handful get home with losses close to 100%.

In another raid that went FUBAR for different reasons on Mailly le Camp (80 miles east of Paris) 43 planes were lost from 346 which is also 12% but is a much shorter distance.

 

[pbehn]

I'd like to bust the myth that the Luftwaffe used Yak-18s as fighters in WW2.

From a recent article on how Speer increased war production.

View attachment 638310

(PS - are the tank and sub silhouettes even valid?)

Looks like a Tiger II picture from wiki

 

[GrauGeist]

I'd like to bust the myth that the Luftwaffe used Yak-18s as fighters in WW2.

From a recent article on how Speer increased war production.

View attachment 638310

(PS - are the tank and sub silhouettes even valid?)

The tank is definately a King Tiger, but that sub looks to be a miget sub.
I'm not a submarine expert, but that doesn't appear to be any type Germany used in WWI or WWII.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Speer in his memoirs makes exactly this point, that had the Allies coordinated and practiced closer follow-up, their raids would have been more effective. If I remember he points out that Bomber Command attacked Peenemunde rather than following up on our useful -- but disastrous -- American raid on Schweinfurt.

I can imagine other possibilities where a pot-stirring Hamburg-style event could happen. The Brits were absolutely right to target the Ruhr, and we Americans should have supported. We Americans were right to target U-boat slips, and BC should have followed. But it seems our efforts were disjointed.

All this is just my opinion.

The raids on the Uboat pens in France accomplished very little. Once the pens were constructed nothing short of a Tallboy could damage them. Later in the war the construction of Uboats was somewhat slowed by bombing, but the real problem was the switch to prefabricated production for uboats simply didn't work. Nothing lined up in the yard requiring a lot of rework defeating the purpose of prefabricatio.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The raids on the Uboat pens in France accomplished very little. Once the pens were constructed nothing short of a Tallboy could damage them. Later in the war the construction of Uboats was somewhat slowed by bombing, but the real problem was the switch to prefabricated production for uboats simply didn't work. Nothing lined up in the yard requiring a lot of rework defeating the purpose of prefabricatio[n].

Agreed, bombing the U-boat pens was a fool's quest without the RAF's special bombs (and even then was, pardon the pun, hit-and-miss). But bombing the shipyards building them was a much better use of the American bombers with their smaller load-outs of GP bombs, I think.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

There are numerous possibilities that could have been pursued but weren't, for various reasons. The following passage from The Crucible of War illustrates one, regarding the withdrawal of G-H from Bomber Command heavy bombers.

That may have been a strategic error of considerable consequence. Perhaps heavy bombers equipped with G-H should have been directed against German aircraft factories within its range in the fall of 1943. For although they understood the significance of electronic counter-measures in evading night-fighters, a number of officials at the Air Ministry argued such devices were nevertheless an unsatisfactory method of dealing with Bomber Command's main opponent. If enemy fighter strength grew, cautioned Air Vice-Marshal N.H. Bottomley, Harris would be 'unable to maintain the night offensive' no matter what jamming took place; and the DCAS therefore called for a sustained effort against aircraft manufacturing and assembly plants in Brunswick, Stuttgart, Hanover, Kassel, and Leverkusen, for example.

The director of bomber operations, now Air Commodore S. Bufton, vice Baker, concurred. Although he had not objected to the three operations against the German capital, hoping that Bomber Command could mount a successful repetition of the Hamburg raid 'on any industrial area, Berlin or anywhere else,' it was still essential that Harris 'start towards the specific targets [of Pointblank] eventually.' For if Bomber Command and the Americans did not between them destroy the Luftwaffe's capability to resist, he cautioned ominously, postwar analysts would regard the bombing offensive as a failure in their strategic employment of air power. Observing that it might be time to hold a conference with Harris and Eaker, Portal seemed to agree.

Harris had the chance to make a real difference and likely shorten the war but he blew it with his quixotic Battle of Berlin. If he had kept his boot on Germany's throat, the Ruhr, the war may have been shortened. So much of the German economy depended on the Ruhr. The bomb loads were greater, the accuracy much better, the losses lower. It is ironic that Harris, who disparaged panacea targets, was seduced by the ultimate panacea target, the enemies capital.

 

[33k in the air]

Harris had the chance to make a real difference and likely shorten the war but he blew it with his quixotic Battle of Berlin. If he had kept his boot on Germany's throat, the Ruhr, the war may have been shortened. So much of the German economy depended on the Ruhr. The bomb loads were greater, the accuracy much better, the losses lower. It is ironic that Harris, who disparaged panacea targets, was seduced by the ultimate panacea target, the enemies capital.

The available evidence certainly suggests that is the case.

Harris, while indispensable in forging Bomber Command into a formidable striking force, was too much of an ideologue wedded to the prewar theories of air power.

 

[drgondog]

I would offer the oft repeated fable that the LW was always outnumbered '10:1' by US escort fighters. Because of the 8th/15th AF relay escort system the actual escort until May was a maximum of two P-51 or two P-38FGs to cover an entire Bomb Division during target escort leg.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

I would offer the oft repeated fable that the LW was always outnumbered '10:1' by US escort fighters. Because of the 8th/15th AF relay escort system the actual escort until May was a maximum of two P-51 or two P-38FGs to cover an entire Bomb Division during target escort leg.

I would add the American version of this fable that the P38 was facing odds of 10 to 1 before the P51 showed up. Both sides typically fought in similar size formations. And as I have pointed out before escorted deep penetrations of German airspace didn't start until Big Week, with the exception of the January raid on Ludwigshafen. Incidentally the P51s flew the final leg over the target on that mission.

 

[drgondog]

I would add the American version of this fable that the P38 was facing odds of 10 to 1 before the P51 showed up. Both sides typically fought in similar size formations. And as I have pointed out before escorted deep penetrations of German airspace didn't start until Big Week, with the exception of the January raid on Ludwigshafen. Incidentally the P51s flew the final leg over the target on that mission.

I don't recall seeing 20th or 55th FG claiming odds of 1:10 vs LW. Source?

As to Ludwigshafen being only LR escort prior to Big Week? How about multiple strikes to Halberstadt, Hamburg, Ludwigshafen, Bordeaux in December 43; Bordeaux 1-5, Halberstadt/Oschersleben/Bruswick 1-11; Brunswick 1-30 & 2-10; Ludwigshafen 2-11?