High Altitude Bombing: how useful?

pbehn · Dec 10, 2013

The B29 wasn't successful at high altitude the early raids were close to disastrous high losses and almost nothing hit. The Americans switched to night time incendiary raids at 8,000 to 15000ft not exactly what it was designed to do. The B29 still needed escorting in daytime and couldnt really hit much from 30000 ft I cant see that using it un Europe would have had any more effect than the B17s and B24s.

Two main problems with high altitude bombing in Europe
1 an obscured target even if it isnt always raining here its often cloudy.
2 at high altitude there are frequently very high winds making estimates of ground speed difficult, I frequently fly across the North sea and these winds can change the flight time by plus or minus 10 minutes on a 55 minute flight

stona · Dec 10, 2013

pbehn said:
at high altitude there are frequently very high winds making estimates of ground speed difficult, I frequently fly across the North sea and these winds can change the flight time by plus or minus 10 minutes on a 55 minute flight

And these winds, though known, were little understood at the time. The US bombers attacking Japan encountered winds of a jet stream which more or less made their fancy bomb sights useless. If you don't program the sight with the correct information it won't give you the correct solution. 'SISO' as the old computer saying goes!
The people most aware of these winds were, ironically, the Japanese.
Cheers
Steve

stona · Dec 10, 2013

davebender said:
Alkett was seriously damaged during the "Battle of Berlin", one of the most effective bombing raids of the war. Was that intentional or did the RAF just get lucky that night?

Just to come back to this raid (22/23 November 1943). Not only was the Alkett tank works damaged, having only recently moved from the Ruhr as a result of RAF operations against that region, but amongst numerous industrial premises destroyed or damaged were 5 factories of the Siemens group. 175,000 people were bombed out, an express objective of area bombing, and 50,000 troops were brought into the city to help manage the damage and clear up, some from over 100 Km away. The latter points are some of the effects of the bombing campaign which are very difficult to quantify, but certainly didn't help the German war effort

This raid was also the swansong of the Stirling, the type never flew to Germany again.

The RAF lost 26 aircraft (11 Lancasters, 10 Halifaxes, 5 Stirlings) equivalent to 3.4% of the 764 aircraft sent on the raid.

Cheers

Steve

mikewint · Dec 10, 2013

Can't add much to your discussion of WWII but I can tell you that even by '65 using sophisticated electronics, radar, and the B-52 bomber, bombs did not always fall where they were supposed to. Each B-52 droping 84-500lb bombs and 24-750lb bombs were supposed to hit the river and its treeline. Two missions and two misses.

stona · Dec 10, 2013

Unlucky !

Luck did play a role.

On the night of 27/28 March 1943 the RAF attacked Berlin. It didn't go well. No bombing photographs were plotted within five miles of the aiming point (the centre of Berlin). Most bombs fell short of the target by between seven and seventeen miles!

As luck would have it a major concentration of bombs fell in the woods at Tetlow, eleven miles from Berlin. This just happened to be the position of a secret Luftwaffe stores depot and a large quantity of valuable radio, radar and other technical stores were destroyed. The Germans convinced themselves that this was the real target of the raid and the Gestapo was involved in an enquiry when someone claimed to have seen a signal being flashed from a nearby house at the bombers. There was no signal and it was just luck that the depot, eleven miles from the real aiming point, was hit

Cheers

Steve

buffnut453 · Dec 10, 2013

Or bad luck if you were one of the poor blanket-stackers responsible for not issuing the stores at the depot (since supply staff seem to be the same the world over!), and hence you were on the receiving end of the bombing raid.

stona · Dec 10, 2013

buffnut453 said:
Or bad luck if you were one of the poor blanket-stackers responsible for not issuing the stores at the depot (since supply staff seem to be the same the world over!), and hence you were on the receiving end of the bombing raid.

I can't tell if anyone was killed at Tetlow. 102 people were killed in the Berlin area. 80 of these were military personnel on a train bringing them on leave from the eastern front which was hit by two bombs at the Anhalter station. That's not unlucky, it's tragic.

An additional 70 service personnel were killed at Templehof and Staaken including members of a flak crew (at Templehof) and personnel of the flying school (at Staaken). The rest of the casualties were presumably civilian, though only 16 houses were counted as completely destroyed.

The Germans estimated that one quarter of the bombs dropped were duds.

Cheers

Steve

parsifal · Dec 10, 2013

stona said:
Just to come back to this raid (22/23 November 1943). Not only was the Alkett tank works damaged, having only recently moved from the Ruhr as a result of RAF operations against that region, but amongst numerous industrial premises destroyed or damaged were 5 factories of the Siemens group. 175,000 people were bombed out, an express objective of area bombing, and 50,000 troops were brought into the city to help manage the damage and clear up, some from over 100 Km away. The latter points are some of the effects of the bombing campaign which are very difficult to quantify, but certainly didn't help the German war effort

This raid was also the swansong of the Stirling, the type never flew to Germany again.

The RAF lost 26 aircraft (11 Lancasters, 10 Halifaxes, 5 Stirlings) equivalent to 3.4% of the 764 aircraft sent on the raid.

Cheers

Steve

This was very intersting for me. my stepfather was a toolmaker employed by Simens at its Berlin Factory before the war. In '41 he was drafted, notwithstanding his highly valuable trade skills. Attached to 6th Army, he was involved in the Summer drive on Stalingrad, but was wounded in a sharp firefight with Russian forces at a place called Kalach. Sent back to the military hospital in Lublin, he was then sent to Silesia to build parts for Night Fighters. a change in policy prevented him from convalescing in his home town of Berlin. If he had, he would almost certainly have been given light duties at the Siemens Plant. In his conversations he has had with me, he always mentioned how the Siemens factory had been flattened in '44, and still wasnt operational at wars end. I dont know if that is true or not, but if so, it was a major loss to the German wartime economy

High Altitude Bombing: how useful?

More options

pbehn

Colonel

stona

Major

stona

Major

mikewint

Captain

Attachments

stona

Major

buffnut453

Captain

stona

Major

parsifal

Colonel

Users who are viewing this thread

Similar threads