AWPD-1 was drawn up in 1941 as the theoretical USAAF war plan, AWPD-42 about a year later more an actual plan but the latter ran into the reality it had to defer to a joint Army/Navy plan. Both assumed it would take at least 2 years from start of hostilities to being able to invade France, raising the profile of air power.
Has a nice map of the proposed AWPD-1 deployments.
For a summary of AWPD-42
Plan 1 assumed deployments to existing British controlled areas with a mixture of 10 medium (B-25/26), 20 heavy (B-17/24) and 24 very heavy (B-29/32) strategic bomber groups, with army support provided by a separate force based in England, no fighter units were allocated to the strategic forces as no fighter had the range to reach the chosen targets and the bombers could defend themselves well enough, with the usual provisos about things could change. It meant accepting heavy losses of 20% of the force per month until the German defences cracked mostly due to a lack of replacements. It was the culmination of pre war USAAF thought. You can see the echoes in 1943, the early losses for a big later gain, the fighters going elsewhere, the ideas of 300 bombers (say 15 groups) forming the main raid, the defences being "only coastal" and unable to replace losses as fast as the US could.
By mid 1942 it was clear the 1,000 mile fighters were not needed, one with a 400 mile combat radius would cover much of western Germany, 600 miles all of Germany, but effective ranges depended on tactics, bomber speed? Fighter speed? As much of the B-17 did not have Tokyo Tanks in early/mid 1943 they were limited to around 320 miles to target.
Williamson Murray puts the 8th AF monthly heavy bomber losses during 1943 as low/mid teens to April, mostly above 20% to October, then back to the teens, however as the units had more bombers than crews the crew loss percentage May to October 1943 was heading to twice the bomber losses. For 1944 around 20% or above bomber losses per month until July.
I have yet to see anything that presents Arnold's side of the story and very little that presents anyone else's.
Yet seem to have found plenty of other commentary? Arnold's autobiography is called Global Mission. In summary the USAAF went into 1942 thinking its bigger, faster, higher flying, heavier defended, unescorted heavy bombers could strike deep with acceptable losses, the 8th Air Force was the last to abandon the idea.
I don't believe Vlaun at face value because he has given me no reason to believe him. He's very confident about his incredibly partisan claim and that's all.
What qualifies as an acceptable reason? Meantime others can note the number and strength of the raids and see how the USAAF was overestimating the effects of bombing, when you strip out the adjectives that leaves what Vlaun is saying. Machine tools proved remarkably resilient to explosives, fire on the other hand did bad things to precision machinery. The USAAF was not as bad as the RAF in 1940/41 but it was still over estimating. Similarly the ability to work around problems or shortages was underestimated.
Where did this come from? The reason I ask is that I'm looking for a reasonably brief volume on the Eighth's campaign, from say 17 August, 1942 to the end of the war. I'm not looking for a blow-by-blow, mission-by-mission account.
Yet to obtain what went right and wrong to say end 1943 requires the detailed data, to show the difference between escorted and non escorted raids, to see the trends in loss figures. You queried monthly figures but now want less detail?
In the meantime though, what you have said sounds like what I suspected: that the right arm didn't know what the left arm was doing. But that's true of any organisation and doesn't prove any malfeasance, incompetence, or agenda.
No, it is more you have a set of pre existing beliefs and are invoking the blue pencil against contradictory evidence. Humans are bad at predicting the future, war is one of the costliest ways to find that out. The evidence to decide how good or bad the commanders were and why is what they actually did, then look at their training, how much the system was saying they made the right decisions even if the results were bad, then their explanations.
I'm trying to be polite here and I'd appreciate the same in return, thanks.
"p-47 thunderbolt drop tanks"
Question; paper drop tanks, were they used in the southwest pacific ie New Guinea, Dobodura, Nazdab etc…. The ranges were long and when the P-38's were pulled from the 475th they got the 47D's.
"p-47 thunderbolt july 1943 ferry tank"
Hallo My basic question is concerned to the surface of the P-47. We know, that two basic options are there. Olive Drap or metal. To the metal option: Are there parts of the wings like on the P-51 which are covered with lacquer? Is the wing surface realy pure metal or are some parts grinded and fi...
Both search strings require less typing than the claim of rudeness. It is also often considered rude to ignore people, in this case the information on P-47 drop tanks, internal fuel and force mix, all of which contradict your claims. For 28 July 1943 the war dairy notes 123 P-47 sent with the 120 B-17 claiming 9 kills, while the 36 B-26 on diversion raids had 119 P-47 escort sorties, no claims made
If you have a reference, I'd appreciate you simply pointing me to a reliable one,
Sorry, I cannot do that as it is clear the ones I have are not considered reliable, I will put a list of the ones I have used to you can avoid them.
Nothing I have seen suggests that the ferry tank could get anywhere near operational height.
Well, that is wrong, perhaps define operational height? The P-47D clean is reported as using 101 gallons during Warm-up, Take-off, and Climb to 25,000 feet, covering 57 miles. The clean P-38J 90 gallons/42 miles, P-51B 46 gallons/50 miles.
When I see a quote or two from a senior USAAF commander - like Arnold - that says something like, "We have to keep going with this to prove that our bomber theory works and we will do that by bombing targets and never mind the casualties as long as we are proven right", then I'll believe it's doctrine.
So no conviction without a confession. It was doctrine to send unescorted heavy bombers into contested airspace, otherwise expect Eaker to be rapidly relieved of command for obvious reasons. It was assumed numbers would break the enemy, which actually happened but needed a lot more than was available in 1943 and could not be done by the bombers alone.
But the silence is deafening. All the people involved have been presented as "faceless men". Un-personed. What's also deafening is the noise made by people like Vlaun and Greg, who can speak so confidently about this without presenting any sort of balance. The idea that "doctrine" was prioritised over operational or mission objectives is so incredible to me that they might as well be accused of spreading communism. That's how it comes across.
Actually the USAAF was influenced by the Dutch Royal Family, the house of Orange, the softer Reds. Operational and mission objectives for the bombers were destruction of key ground targets, shooting down enemy fighters was an expected bonus. That many such targets were beyond fighter range was accommodated via the doctrine of the self defending bomber. Eaker was following doctrine.
I'm afraid that the list that went with this quote really didn't tell me anything, other than um... a list of targets and tonnages dropped.
You gave a sub list of USAAF targets, I gave the full list since you asked for what to bomb within escort range, I ignored reply was find targets the Luftwaffe was willing to fight over. You have also ignored how few bombs were actually dropped and what that means for the idea the raids were worth it.
It seems to me that the mainstream boilerplate picture of this is incredibly one-sided.
No.
I outlined my reasons and my concerns in the first part of this post.
Yes, and they are now considered immovable
My reasons for believing that the P-47 drop tanks issue is just noise remain in tact.
By employing a blue pencil.
I think too many people have made too many assumptions of what might have been - or worse, what "would have happened", all without much understanding of what did happen. I'm trying to find out the latter,
I started with the day to day data, built that up and noted how there were trends, I then saw what the 8th Air Force thought was possible to start with and how that changed. I found in the many thousands of words written by people like Arnold and Eaker support for and against the self defending bomber idea, for and against long range fighters, some good but mostly over estimates of bomb effectiveness and accuracy and so on. All quite expected. The conclusions often contradict your ideas.
rather than accepting a technical argument as a substitute for a historical one. Many people have done this.
Ah, the famed "other" or "many" and interesting sounding phrases. Technically speaking Eaker had choices, prioritise the air to air war and look for what the Luftwaffe would defend within US fighter range, while learning and growing, or accept heavier air losses in exchange for damage to designated key targets deep inside enemy airspace. Strangely enough over the year or so involved he switched between the two but kept pushing towards self defending heavy bombers were.
Theoretical aircraft ranges, especially at 16,000ft, don't do much for figuring out actual escort ranges.
Yes, I am sort of surprised no one commented on the P-47 range being superior to the P-51 or that the final 25% of power was worth around 100 mph but the point was about how fuel consumption went up with speed.
The references used so far
AIR 22/321 8th Air Force Statistics
AIR 8/750 USAAF strength in England, weekly reports.
USAAF Statistical Digest
America's Hundred Thousand Francis Dean
P-51B Mustang — North American Bastard Stepchild that Saved the Eighth Air Force James William "Bill" Marshall and Lowell F. Ford
Plate from a historical document entitled Extension of Combat Radius
Eighth Air Force Tactical Development — August 1942–May 1945
Tactics and Techniques Developed by the United States Tactical Air Commands in the ETO.
Mighty Eighth War Manual Roger Freeman page 221
"Case History of Fighter Plane Range Extension Program, Parts I and II," USAF Historical Research Document 202.2-11, 22 February 1945, Enclosure 1.
P-38F fuel US Archives Record Group 342 Entry P26 Box 2237.
Mighty Eighth War Diary
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN LONG-RANGE ESCORT FIGHTER BOYLAN, BERNARD LAWRENCE
https://www.dafhistory.af.mil/Information/Studies/Numbered-USAF-Historical-Studies-101-150/ number 136
Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907-1964, by Robert F. Futrell (1971; revised 1974). 511 pages. Study 139
To Command The Sky by McFarland and Newton
Americas Pursuit of Precision Bombing, McFarland.
The USAAF official history, Craven and Cate,
Bomber Offensive, Noble Frankland.
Air War Europa, Hammel
RAF Fighter Command Intelligence Summary
18-Jul-43 German fighters confirmed carrying air to air rockets
13-Aug-43 German fighter strength, Single engine 620 in west out of 1,350, twin engine 470 in west out of 610.
E R Hooton, Eagle in Flames (Based on the figures in K Gunderlach Die Deutsche Luftwaffe in Mittelmeer 1940-45. Band I 1940-1942. Band 2 1943-1945, page 716).
Alfred Price Luftwaffe Data Book
Fighter units
Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen, Zerstörerverbände
Day Fighters in Defence of the Reich - Caldwell
Arnold paper, Arnold papers, General Arnold, WAR PLANS DIVISION, as search strings. You need to order the files to read them.