mosquitoman
Master Sergeant
An RAF bomber formation wasn't tight at all, each plane bombed seperately and it was called a 'gaggle'.
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a small thought from a small brain today, still cannot understand even with RAF day light bombing in 1945 why the Lancs were not equipped with a belly rotating turret knowing full well the LW was going to find this out and take full advantage as they did on at least 2 ops with JG 7 me 262's which came from underneath with deadly accuracy.
But when the Lancs were without escorts (missed rendezvous etc) their losses were heavyThe technical reason was that H2S took the place of the belly turret. But I don't think they were particularly concerned about the Luftwaffe on daylight opps late in the war.
From Jul 1944 to the end of the war, BC flew about 63,000 daylight sorties. Losses ran at about 0.5%, and most of those were to flak.
Looking at Jim Perry's claims list, the Luftwaffe day fighters only claimed 108 Lancs and Halifaxes from July 1944 to the end of the war. Probably only a few of those would have been saved by a belly turret, and the reduction in bomb load would have required more sorties.
OMG A freggin genius!USA we could hit a gnats left nut with the bombing techniques we used its just really foggy and our targets were visual
I wouldn't doubt that most of the daylight sorties were the short range missions to bomb the V1 launch sites in the Netherlands and Belgium.
But when the Lancs were without escorts (missed rendezvous etc) their losses were heavy
USA we could hit a gnats left nut with the bombing techniques we used its just really foggy and our targets were visual
It says much for the state of the Luftwaffe by this time that on 4 October 140 Lancs and Halifaxes were sent to bomb U boat bases around Bergen in Norway. The escort was 12 Mosquitos. 1 Lanc was lost.
I must agree with you mostly V1 sites and aid to groundpoundersHop, look at the taregts the RAF was bombing in the daylight....... they were not deep penetration misisons like the 8th and 15th were doing.
All those targets in Germany were within range of the Spitfires (and masses of 8th and 9th AF fighters).
Am I mistaken or did not the RAF fly in line astern formation(bomber stream) rather than in formation like US day bombing?