Most hated Axis interceptor for American bomber crews
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Wonder if the US bomber formations just got too large and unwieldy.
To a point, growing formations in size to compensate for poor accuracy seems to make sense.
But then growing them to a size that reduces accuracy seems counter-intuitive.
I don't know if I'm articulating this well, but something just seems "off" about this technique.
To a point, growing formations in size to compensate for poor accuracy seems to make sense.
But then growing them to a size that reduces accuracy seems counter-intuitive.
I don't know if I'm articulating this well, but something just seems "off" about this technique.
They sank the Tirpitz for Hors D'oeuvres, sorry couldnt resist.
The British had been bombing in daylight but not on deep penetration raids into Germany. Harris was frustrated with the way he was projected when BC had eliminated the Tirpitz and most of the extremely well protected concrete U Boat pens V3 sites etc.
I thought we had a thread here where it was said that some of the German bombsights performed better than the Norden?
There is a story that info stolen before the war on the Norden was used to develop the German Loft 7 bomb sight.
That may be the case, hitting a battleship with a single massive bomb shows the British sights weren't shoddy either. I remember seeing a programme about the US bombardiers, after each mission the sight was removed and placed under lock an key in a restricted security area. The US didnt know the ins and outs of German design but felt they had a technical edge and wanted to protect it. I am sure by the end of the war the Germans had more norden sights than they could wave a stick at.
It seems they spent most of their time jiggering around between different formations to avoid flak and deal with interceptors.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
All Bomber Command's bombers carried a sight and bombardier. Most bombers used a Mk XIV bomb sight a version of which (T1) was manufactured for the British by Sperry in the US. In August 1943 the SABS MkIIa was developed and this was the 'precision' sight used by 617 squadron on its attacks on the Tirpitz and similar targets. Less than 1,000 of these were produced.
In early 1945 squadrons equipped with the Mk XIV achieved an average radial error of 195 yards, comparable to the Norden. The SABS gave an error of only 125 yards, better than the Norden which might explain why the RAF declined the Norden when it was offered, late war, by the Americans.
Cheers
Steve
In early 1945 squadrons equipped with the Mk XIV achieved an average radial error of 195 yards, comparable to the Norden. The SABS gave an error of only 125 yards, better than the Norden which might explain why the RAF declined the Norden when it was offered, late war, by the Americans.
Cheers
Steve
Good stuff
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Or didn't understand that it was a primitive electro-mechanical computer to which SISO applied just as surely as it does to the machine I'm typing on now
If you programmed it wrongly or with the wrong information it could not possibly resolve the calculations correctly and the bombs would miss, potentially by a wide margin.
Cheers
Steve
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight
In practice it was not possible to achieve this level of accuracy in combat conditions, with the average CEP in 1943 being 370 metres (1,200 ft). Both the Navy and Air Forces had to give up on the idea of pinpoint attacks during the war. The Navy turned to dive bombing and skip bombing to attack ships, while the Air Forces developed the lead bomber concept to improve accuracy. Nevertheless, the Norden's reputation as a pin-point device lived on, due in no small part to Norden's own advertising of the device after secrecy was reduced during the war.
I've just been going through some of Harris' comments about German defences. He wrote, after the war, that German air defences "crumbled to pieces" in September 1944. In the last three months of 1944 flak downed an average of just 18 aircraft a month and the night fighter force 31.
There are many reasons for this but the redeployment of flak batteries may very well be one of them. In the case of the night fighter force it was a lack of experienced crews (1,295 night fighter aircrew were lost that year) and a lack of fuel (only 50 of the night fighter wing's nearly 1,000 aircraft were allowed to operate on most nights at the end of 1944).
You could argue that just as Bomber Command was on the verge of being able to resume daylight bombing due to the defeat of the Luftwaffe by their American colleagues it had finally managed to wrest control of the night skies from the Germans. You could also say that the Germans had given it up.
Cheers
Steve
Jabberwocky
Staff Sergeant
Derailing the flow of the conversation here, but I'd like to bring this vaguely back towards the original topic.
I don't know which fighter US crews hated, or even which of the main German fighters was more effective.
However, there is a US document that is a post-war analysis of German gun-cam footage on attacks on the US heavies. It shows that the FW 190 was VASTLY more dangerous on any give attack run that any other piston or rocket powered fighter. Me-262s weren't considered - but the document covers the Bf 109, Me 110, Me 410 and Me 163, from what I can recall.
I'm sure its still available online - I've posted it here a few times myself over the year - but I don't have it handy at the moment (old computer died about three or four months ago).
From what I remember, for any given attack run, the FW 190 was much more likely to hit a heavy bomber, put many more rounds on target when it did hit and their attack runs were more likely to start fires on a bomber.
FW 190 pilots opened fire closer to bombers, made longer attack runs firing a lot more rounds and broke of their attacks closer to the bombers than any other German fighter type.
Depending on the attack profile (front, rear, sides ect), I seem to recall the Fw 190 put anywhere from two to six times as many rounds on target per attack run as the Bf 109.
Did that make it a more effective fighter? Yes, and perhaps no.
What's missing from this picture is a key piece of information - attacks per sortie per aircraft type. If a Bf 109 was much more likely to penetrate the escorts and make an attack, then it claws back much of the deficit to the FW 190. Given the FW 190's engine shortcomings above 24,000 ft, the Bf 109 might be a much more effective fighter at higher attitudes.
I don't know which fighter US crews hated, or even which of the main German fighters was more effective.
However, there is a US document that is a post-war analysis of German gun-cam footage on attacks on the US heavies. It shows that the FW 190 was VASTLY more dangerous on any give attack run that any other piston or rocket powered fighter. Me-262s weren't considered - but the document covers the Bf 109, Me 110, Me 410 and Me 163, from what I can recall.
I'm sure its still available online - I've posted it here a few times myself over the year - but I don't have it handy at the moment (old computer died about three or four months ago).
From what I remember, for any given attack run, the FW 190 was much more likely to hit a heavy bomber, put many more rounds on target when it did hit and their attack runs were more likely to start fires on a bomber.
FW 190 pilots opened fire closer to bombers, made longer attack runs firing a lot more rounds and broke of their attacks closer to the bombers than any other German fighter type.
Depending on the attack profile (front, rear, sides ect), I seem to recall the Fw 190 put anywhere from two to six times as many rounds on target per attack run as the Bf 109.
Did that make it a more effective fighter? Yes, and perhaps no.
What's missing from this picture is a key piece of information - attacks per sortie per aircraft type. If a Bf 109 was much more likely to penetrate the escorts and make an attack, then it claws back much of the deficit to the FW 190. Given the FW 190's engine shortcomings above 24,000 ft, the Bf 109 might be a much more effective fighter at higher attitudes.
I'd love to see an explanation of this.
With the exception of the 'Sturmgruppen' who did develop their own tactics, only possible due to the heavy armour their aircraft carried, all Fw 190, Bf 109 and other fighter pilots went to the same training schools, learnt the same tactics, and operated aircraft with broadly overall similar armament. There is an argument that the Bf 109s centreline cannon was part of a better armament arrangement than that of the Fw 190s.
The number of hits on target would be related to some extent to the fighter's armament, but much more to the ability of the pilot and there is no evidence that Fw 190 pilots were any better than Bf 109 pilots. The heavy 'Sturm Jager' interceptors probably did pose a greater threat than other fighters (including other Fw 190s) but they were also easy meat for the US escorting fighters.
A US bomber was probably more likely to be attacked by an Fw 190 (though I've not seen any statistical evidence for this) as often the Bf 109 units flew high cover for them for the same reason as the RAF tried, unsuccessfully, to have the Spitfire do for the Hurricane during the BoB.
I think the question was answered some time ago. The most hated or feared interceptor was the one pointing its nose at you. Flak had a more insidious, psychological, effect.
Cheers
Steve
The designer of the Lotfe 7 was interrogated and in American Raiders Book by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel he said he only saw the plans after the Lotfe 7 was in service in 1942. The Germans did obtain Norden plans by espionage in an amateurish, wasteful and foolish operation that compromised an asset.
The ideas go back to,the Royal Navies Dreyer table, it's even more elaborate Pollen table and the USN own superb ford range keeper. The Germans had their own computers on ships as well such as the Bismarck K37 system.
There was nothing special or mysterious about the Norden. It used computational techniques used in naval gun fire, FLAK predictors and torpedo computers that go back to WW1. Certainly the U.S. stole a march on other nations by developing such a system for aircraft use many years earlier and then basing doctrine around it. The Germans had caught up by 1941 and by 1942 when the Lotfe 7 was in fairly wide use.
The Lotfe 7C the Germans used differed in having the computer and tracking optics integrated in one device making it more compact and easier to keep calibrated. It probably suited their smaller aircraft better. The bomb aimer sighted through a short periscope. You can see a flat piece of glass eg on the ventral gun bondola of the Ju 88 and other German bombers. I doubt it was more accurate but it supposedly had the slight advantage of being able to track at much greater angles thereby establishing actual ground speed earlier. There was a Lotfe 8 that was under priority development at the end of war, don't know what it added. The Norden eventually received attachments to allow bombing in shallow dives.
The Norden was an outstanding bomb sight. If there was no cloud cover results could be outstanding.
To,an extent it was an outstanding moral booster and piece of propaganda.
The British generally did not use these kinds of sights because what they required was tracking the ground or target to establish wind drift which is no so practical at night.
Nevertheless their own version, the SABS Mk 2 worked well enough. When they hit the stationary Tirpitz with it in late 1944 from medium altitude it was actually a trivial target at around 900ft by 100ft (about 5% to 0.6%) for the altitudes in question.
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Had a quick check of the "Dresden flak had been transferred" thing. Frederick Taylor, Goetz Bergander, David Irving all say the city's heavy batteries had been transferred away by the time of the raid. (I know, I know, Irving, but he also cites the OKL order that stripped the batteries from Dresden and from other cities.)
Taylor points out that the batteries had also been transferred away from Chemnitz, giving the lie to the claims that the flak left Dresden because it was so unindustrialised as to be patently not worth attacking - Chemnitz was quite the opposite. He also notes that the flak defences of the Brux refinery had also been reduced from 260 to 160 guns during the same period. It seems much of the flak not only went to the eastern front, but also to Berlin and to the Ruhr.
Taylor points out that the batteries had also been transferred away from Chemnitz, giving the lie to the claims that the flak left Dresden because it was so unindustrialised as to be patently not worth attacking - Chemnitz was quite the opposite. He also notes that the flak defences of the Brux refinery had also been reduced from 260 to 160 guns during the same period. It seems much of the flak not only went to the eastern front, but also to Berlin and to the Ruhr.
Now the question is, were the Allies aware of this via Ultra and/or other methods?
Without wishing to start a slanging match / go too OT, it's an interesting question, though I suppose they would have been aware of the nightfighters at the Dresden airfield (Klotze?). The fact the latter were kept on the ground wasn't down to any action taken by the RAF. Also, didn't the USAAF come under attack from Fws on the following day's raid?
