I have to agree with Geoffrey Sinclair on this. The bombing of the oil plants required precise navigation. Wasn't it the Butt-report that showed how poor BC navigation worked? Even in good weather conditions. In the last year and a half of the war the results of many attacks were poor even with Oboe and other navigational means from occupied France.
The Winning Strategy - WW2 air campaign against Germany
- Thread starter Bergjon12
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Thumpalumpacus
Colonel
A big advantage, I think, that Bomber Command had over 8th AF in attacking oil facilities was that RAF bombers could carry much larger bombs. The 500- or even 1000-lb bombs carried by 8th AF weren't sufficient to deliver longer-term damage like some 4000-lb Cookies and a bunch of smallers to rip up the works.
American bombs were pretty ineffectual in killing refineries, in Europe at least.
What navigational problems had been solved by May 1944 that would have prevented the bombing of Leuna in 1943? As I understand it, the 8th Air Force didn't want to fly deep into the Reich without a fighter escort, but what prevented the RAF from doing it at night with H2S? We're talking about an object on the order of several square kilometers - that's about as big as a town, and not the smallest one. Also, it is difficult to camouflage - there will be torches to burn some by-product gases, etc. In addition, the main bomber losses in the raids on the area of Leuna suffered from the AAA fire, not fighters, and the losses can be characterized as very moderate.
Any bombs were quite effective against synthetic fuel plants, as confirmed by the Germans themselves. You just had to bomb. Large scale chemical plants are much more vulnerable than any steel or metal plants.
A video by someone from a week ago discussing this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1lH7sl1rbE
My takeaway is it's hard to see the difference caused by the bomb size alone, as the USAAF and RAF were using different fuses as well. RAF was using instant fuses whereas USAAF delayed fuses. The argument is that, yes, a delayed fuse is better if you manage to hit some equipment protected by reinforced concrete. But if you don't score a direct hit, the delayed fuse bomb will penetrate into the earth, and most of the blast and fragments will be absorbed by the earth doing little damage to surrounding equipment.
I suppose you could make the argument that with instant fuses, you need a big bomb like the 4000lb cookie in order to cause sufficient blast damage from near misses or even direct hits to reinforced structures?
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 1,271
- Sep 30, 2021
The Leuna plant measured 11,600 by 3,500 feet, works out to about 3.8 sq km, 930 acres (though another figure is 737 acres) or about Wuppertal-Elberfeld size, the 40th largest city target listed in the Arthur Harris Acreage of destroyed city areas table, the smallest was Friedrichshafen at 148 acres of at least 40% built up area H2S was not good at clearly identifying pure land targets.
Wuppertal-Elberfeld had its first and only main force raid on 24 June 1943. Of the 40 smaller targets 25 were attacked once.
First attacks in 1942, Lubeck, Rostock, Emden, Saarbrucken, Osnabruck, Oberhausen, Kassel
First attacks in 1943, Bochum, Mulheim, Gelsenkirchen, Remscheid, Hagen, Wuppertal-Elberfeld
First attacks in 1944 Schweinfurt, Friedrichshafen, Darmstadt, Konigsberg, Bremerhaven, Neuss, Kaiserslautern, Bonn, Solingen, Coblenz, Harburg, Freiburg, Giessen, Heilbronn, Hamm, Ulm, Trier
First attacks in 1945 Hanau, Wiesbaden, Worms, Pforzheim, Dessau, Wurzburg, Witten, Hildesheim, Plauen, Potsdam
Harris also has a loss percentage table for heavy bombers attacking Germany, running at 5% end 1942, dipping to under 3.5% in early 1943 with use of the first counter measures, up to 5.5% in June 1943 (the shorter, brighter nights effects) down to 3.5% in July with "window", back to 4.8% in August, down to 3.9% in November after more counter measures, then to 6.3% in January 1944, trending down to 4.4% in April, thanks to more counter measures, the start of night fighter support, winter grounding the Luftwaffe and spreading targets, up to 6.6% in June, steep decline to 4.7% in July, further steep decline to under 1% in October, back up above 1% in November, staying between 1.1 and around 1.6% for the rest of the war.
Bomber Command dropped 107,175 long tons of bombs June to December 1943, it dropped 48,043 long tons on oil targets June to December 1944, a year later, there would be casualty rate increase from becoming that predictable in 1943.
The sort of Navigation errors that has the accuracy table of night bombing of German cities excluding Berlin, via plotted photographs in good to moderate weather, within 3 miles of the aiming point, an area of 28 square miles, 18,000 acres, looking like 23% in April 1942, moving to 33% in June, back to 25% in December, then 27% in April, big jump to 50% in June, mid 50%, then a jump to 62% in April 1944, 60% in July, near straight line to 87% in December 1944. On that basis you could expect the average raid in the second half of 1944 to put at least 50% more bombs on target, pushing the tonnage needed in 1943 for the same effect to over 72,000 tons, or around 70% of total effort.
Leuna had smoke screens. While the oil plants could self destruct the piping was designed to take 10,000 lb/square inch pressures and temperatures of several thousand degrees, direct hits were usually needed. The day raids using H2X had all causes missing of an average of 2.38% of attacking, one strike had no losses, one 12.5%, then when visual bombing was possible the average loss rate was 3.3%, varying between 0.45 and 13.86%, the one H2X/Visual strike 2.61% losses.
The day raids on Leuna dropped 85,074 short tons of bombs, 10% landed within the site, 16% of them failed to explode, the best strike was 33% of 1,383 tons on the site, worst was when only 6 out of 8,000 bombs hit, the nearby decoy site received a lot that day. Leuna was back in some sort of service on 22 May after the 12 May 1944 strike, 3 June after the 28 May strike, 9 July after the 7 July raid, after 9 strikes it still had 28% capacity.
In terms of accuracy the 8th found, according to McFarland and Newton in To Command The Sky, Flak caused 61.4% of the 8ths bombing error, based on the 8th Air Force operational analysis, 39.7% was due to "nerves", reduced efficiency and evasion, 21.7% by the need to fly at an increased altitude to minimise Flak exposure. At 10,000 feet 26% of the bombs would land within 500 feet, dropping to 6% at 26,000 feet. Another 8th Air Force paper calculated the effect of each flak gun as forcing the average bombing error up by 4.5 feet per gun, rather alarmingly precise, a smoke screen adding an extra 281.9 feet to the bombing error.
Despite all the experience and navigation aids navigation errors kept occurring, the 8th Air Force bombing Basel in February and March 1945 and Zurich in March 1945. Switzerland usually received a number of RAF bombs every time Bomber Command attacked an Italian target.
The B-17s and B-24s forced the upgunning of the Luftwaffe interceptors, one interesting way of measuring this was to count the holes in damaged but safely returned bombers, then calculate the ratio of cannon to machine gun hits.
8 to 12/42 40 Cannon to 100 Machine gun hits
1 to 4/43 77 to 100
5 to 8/43 70 to 100
9 to 12/43 81 to 100
1 to 2/44 88 to 100
3 to 4/44 127 to 100
5 to 6/44 135 to 100
In Q4/42 5.8 Heavy bombers were lost per 100 cases of reported combat, in Q1/44 the ratio was double that. Both sides were learning.
In February 1944 radio interception teams were first flown in the bombers, their job was to intercept German fighter traffic and then try and tell the 8ths escorts where the Luftwaffe was, the first interception using this was in April 1944, not a great success but useful. The ground based interception stations had been doing the same thing but the fighting moved out of their range.
1. You have confirmed the size of the object.
2. It was not "pure land target" - it was a pile of metal structures of huge mass, the height of which could reach many dozens of meters. This radically distinguishes Leuna and similar production areas from any other German town with 2-3 storey buildings.
It was not necessary to disperse forces on pointless attacks on cities and towns, it was necessary to concentrate forces exclusively on bombing chemical plants, which 1) were more vulnerable; 2) gave a greater integral effect, since a large number of militarily critical industries depended on them.
Considering the vulnerability of chemical plants, this accuracy was quite sufficient to achieve a tangible effect. At the same time, huge manpower was diverted to rebuild the chemical plants.
If you heat any body to a temperature of several thousand degrees, it will glow brightly. It is impossible to make long pipes resistant to strong vibration loads a la bomb blast. They start to break, the contents of these pipes are usually flammable organic liquids. Already one raid in May 1944 had caused enormous damage to the plant, which, despite the labor of thousands of workers, could not be repaired. The concentrated air attacks on the chemical plants were much more sensible than the bombing of Hamburg - not because I feel sorry for the people of Hamburg, but purely from the point of view of military expediency.
So in terms of navigation, nothing much has changed. So why not bomb Leuna in 1943?
Conclusion: the bombing should have started earlier.
Well, 1943 is some four years after 1939. I agree that H2S was a very difficult tool to identify a target without larger water surfaces in the vicinity. H2S was first used large scale during the large attacks on Hamburg in july 1943, a city with a very large system of water surfaces. H2S operated on the 9,1 cm wavelength which gave only a vague picture of the landscape below. The introduction of H2S Mk III, which operated at the 3 cm wavelength, was far more precise, but that was introduced only in december 1943. That was also the time that the Luftwaffe improved their tactics to fight the night attacks and took a heavy toll of the bombers.
I am not sure what exact targets were designated by Bomber Command in that period other than target Berlin or other cities. The ORB's give only the city's name, but no specific Aiming Points. In the case of Essen, for instance, it usually was Kruppstadt, which by the way was larger than the old city center. And that centre has been also destroyed thoroughly. So it may well be that transportation networks or specific industrial targets were actually intended in other cases.
However, the attacks on cities were the easier approach. And they cost the civilian population heavy. But they tied down enormous numbers of people who fed the homeless, took care of the wounded, cleared the streets and railroads, repaired the water mains and other infrastructure. Above that they tied down about two thirds of all artillery Germany produced in flak batteries. Guns that were sorely missed at the fronts. As well as the shells they used. An entire industry was set up to prepare prefab dwellings for the 'de-housed'. A huge effort was made to disperse production over the entire country. That caused great difficulties for the co-ordination of production and the transportation of all the components to the place where they were assembled. And if the different parts arrived at the place of assembly, very often they lacked the standards of precision needed to fit them actually together. There are many examples of these difficulties. Furthermore some production couldn't be made elsewhere. Just look at the giant sumbarine factory that was built on the Weser River near Bremen. Under the name of 'Bunker Valentin'. The construction started in the summer of 1943. It consists of an enourmous structure with a roof of concrete of 15 to 20 ft thick. 500.000 cubic metres of concrete were used. Tens of thousands of tonnes of steel were used. Tens of thousands of POW's, prisoners and forced labourers were involved in the project. In March 1945 No 617 Sqn plastered it with Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs. This is just one example. There were many more. Surely, the Germans wouldn't have gone through all this trouble if not the bombing offensive forced them to it?
And there is always the other argument. What other possibilities did Harris have say in early 1943? He was rapidly building a bomber force that was to pummel Germany. The instruments, the training of the crews, the whole effort was geared to that aim. I believe it is very simple in hindsight to say what should have been done otherways. But that's war. The tremendous loss of lives, monuments, libraries, hospitals and what not in Germany was terrible. Of course terrible mistakes were made. Of course many things could have been done better. But consider the circumstances under which these decisions were made. And don't forget that the losses of a gound campaign without the strategic bombings would have been monumental also.
The offensive against the oil production reached its peak after the Normandy landings. Considering the above, I can't see how that could have been otherwise.
I am not sure what exact targets were designated by Bomber Command in that period other than target Berlin or other cities. The ORB's give only the city's name, but no specific Aiming Points. In the case of Essen, for instance, it usually was Kruppstadt, which by the way was larger than the old city center. And that centre has been also destroyed thoroughly. So it may well be that transportation networks or specific industrial targets were actually intended in other cases.
However, the attacks on cities were the easier approach. And they cost the civilian population heavy. But they tied down enormous numbers of people who fed the homeless, took care of the wounded, cleared the streets and railroads, repaired the water mains and other infrastructure. Above that they tied down about two thirds of all artillery Germany produced in flak batteries. Guns that were sorely missed at the fronts. As well as the shells they used. An entire industry was set up to prepare prefab dwellings for the 'de-housed'. A huge effort was made to disperse production over the entire country. That caused great difficulties for the co-ordination of production and the transportation of all the components to the place where they were assembled. And if the different parts arrived at the place of assembly, very often they lacked the standards of precision needed to fit them actually together. There are many examples of these difficulties. Furthermore some production couldn't be made elsewhere. Just look at the giant sumbarine factory that was built on the Weser River near Bremen. Under the name of 'Bunker Valentin'. The construction started in the summer of 1943. It consists of an enourmous structure with a roof of concrete of 15 to 20 ft thick. 500.000 cubic metres of concrete were used. Tens of thousands of tonnes of steel were used. Tens of thousands of POW's, prisoners and forced labourers were involved in the project. In March 1945 No 617 Sqn plastered it with Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs. This is just one example. There were many more. Surely, the Germans wouldn't have gone through all this trouble if not the bombing offensive forced them to it?
And there is always the other argument. What other possibilities did Harris have say in early 1943? He was rapidly building a bomber force that was to pummel Germany. The instruments, the training of the crews, the whole effort was geared to that aim. I believe it is very simple in hindsight to say what should have been done otherways. But that's war. The tremendous loss of lives, monuments, libraries, hospitals and what not in Germany was terrible. Of course terrible mistakes were made. Of course many things could have been done better. But consider the circumstances under which these decisions were made. And don't forget that the losses of a gound campaign without the strategic bombings would have been monumental also.
The offensive against the oil production reached its peak after the Normandy landings. Considering the above, I can't see how that could have been otherwise.
pinehilljoe
Staff Sergeant
The question in my opinion is less what choice did Harris have and more what choice did the Combined Chiefs have in directing war production. Should more tactical aircraft have been produced, and less strategic bombers? More tactical aircraft would kill more German soldiers and less civilians. If you could build and deploy three Mosquitos, A-20s or B-25s for every two Lancasters or B-24s not built (the ratio is a guess) would the war have been shortened?
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Dear Pinehilljoe,I think you have a point. But my point is, the RAF started before the outset of the war to build this enormous strategic bomber force. This after the doctrine of Mitchell, Douhet and Trenchard. The development of the large four engined bombers started in the late thirties. Once this force became operational I believe it was virtually impossible to change that course. The industry was rigged up to produce the heavies. But maybe more important was the mindset of so many people involved in the entire operation. And consider the effect of the first 1000-bomber raid on Cologne in 1942. Britain had suffered a dismal series of defeats and setbacks. The Germans were racing over the Russian plains (although in the wrong direction). When the world saw that Britain was able to mount such an attack they saw that the cause of freedom wasn't lost. The propaganda effect was great. Churchill tried - although unsuccessfully - to impress Stalin that this was truly a Second Front. And do not forget the immense influence on the people in the German occupied countries who heard night after night the sound of hundreds of bombers thundering over their heads.
I really wonder if that could have been achieved by using medium bombers as you mention. Still remain the difficulties of hitting the targets on the spot. Tactical bombers have no advantage on the heavies here.
I really wonder if that could have been achieved by using medium bombers as you mention. Still remain the difficulties of hitting the targets on the spot. Tactical bombers have no advantage on the heavies here.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 1,271
- Sep 30, 2021
And no notice taken of when targets of this size were attacked by Bomber Command and how many of them were classified as easy to find, like ports and that Leuna was the biggest of the oil plants
So where was the nearby reasonably large, well defined shore line, lake or sea?
So what was the radically distinguishing feature as displayed on the H2S/X scopes? And why was radar bombing so inaccurate? Did the dummy site replicate the return?
Bombing of the largest three German synthetic oil refineries, Leuna, Zeitz and Ludwigshafen, 509,000 USAAF bombs at an average weight of 338 pounds, 264,000 RAF bombs at an average weight of 660 pounds, 27,000 tons of bombs, 3,376 tons landed within the installation fences, of this 3,376 tons 473 tons (14%) failed to explode, 2,093 tons (62%) did little damage and 810 tons (24%) did vital damage. The sites were hundreds of acres in size. The USSBS noted the lighter the bomb the less accurate it was, the higher the attacking altitude the less accurate it was. The USSBS bombing accuracy for these raids was
8th Air Force, visual bombing 26.8%
8th Air Force part visual/part instrument 12.4%
8th Air Force full instrument 5.4%
Bomber Command at night 15.8%
Weighted average (by bombs dropped) 12.6%
The loss rates and weather conditions state otherwise, the Battle of the Ruhr in 1943 was helped by being just within Oboe range, Leuna was out of range. Who decides pointless, what level of damage is required?
So what sort of loss rate will occur when the enemy knows the attackers are only after a definite list of targets? Bomber Commands loss rate was continually heading to unacceptable through 1943. Also a number of plans were out of range during summer, not enough darkness.
Straight out of the 1930's theory. The USSBS is 1940's fact. The results would be a Battle of Berlin defeat of Bomber Command in 1943.
Except the USSBS contradicts this. Simply put Bomber Command could hurt some of the oil installations in 1943, but without anything like the effect of 1944, meantime the 8th Air Force was worse off. While the Germans obtain a year or maybe more to do something about passive and active defences. For example smoke screens, and what they would do to the good weather attacks.
From the combined attack damage, not just Bomber Command in 1944 and the fact the damage was much greater than anything possible in 1943, and occurring more rapidly.
Is the idea the Germans ware that foolish? Or that these sections were large?
Would you please read the USSBS, which makes clear damage to the actual plant was one thing and difficult to achieve, while being repairable, the disruption of water and gas pipelines etc. was a major factor in loss of production?
Having your bomber force suffer a heavy defeat is not sensible and in July 1943 Leuna was largely out of range for a night raid.
Nothing quite like using USAAF day navigation outliers in 1945 to decide that Bomber Command could do in 1943 at night.
France collapsed in 6 weeks in 1940, conclusion the bombing of Fighter Command airfields should have started earlier, say mid May, surely given the factors assumed for the attackers in 1943, a similar result will be obtained, Fighter Command bombed into dire straits before the historical Battle of Britain?
Bomber Command H2S raids from 30 January 1943 with 99 bombers credited with dropping 379.6 short tons of bombs on Hamburg, just over half of all bombs dropped in 1943 used H2S, trial raids using Oboe began on 20 December 1942, using a few heavy bombers from 31 December. 8th Air Force H2S raids from 27 September to 30 November 1943, H2X from 3 November. In 1942 Bomber Command says around 82.5% of its effort was against cities, in 1943, nearly 90%, then 37% in both 1944 and 1945, in 1943 that includes around 63,000 short tons of bombs aimed using Oboe which usually had a specific target picked out, but still classified as a city raid. Given creep backs and average accuracy calling Oboe raids city strikes instead of specific target ones was more accurate. The thousand Bomber Raid against Cologne in 1942 had 3 aiming points, all transport related, classified as a city strike.
Despite his well known opposition to the oil campaign Harris was pleased with the 3 Group GH raids on the smaller Ruhr fuel plants, mostly benzol.
The 8th Air Force went after Ball Bearings in 1943 as the size of the industry was understood to be small enough the number of bombers available could cause significant production losses, the oil industry was considered too big at that stage.
The economics of buying twin versus four engine bombers tend to work out at under 1.5 twins to the heavy for the western allies, partially as the twins used newer technology, like more powerful engines.
average dollar cost by model for aircraft purchases in 1944.
B-17 204,370
P-39 50,666
P-40 44,892
P-38 97,147
B-25 142,194
B-24 215,516
B-26 192,427
P-51 51,572
B-29 605,360
P-47 85,578
A-26 192,457
C-46 233,377
C-47 88,574
C-54 285,113
If you use manpower in the combat units as a guide then the planned 1945 USAAF group had 2,078 men for 45 B-29s, 2,261 men for 72 B-17/24s, 1,759 men for 96 B-25/26, 1,304 men for 96 A-26, 994 men for 111 to 126 P-39/40/47/51 and 1,081 men for 111-126 P-38s. Works out to 46.18 men per aircraft in a B-29 Group, 31.4 for a B-17/24 group, 18.32 for a B-25/26 group and 13.58 for an A-26 group.
Assuming the above group strengths, for the 9th Air Force A-26 group average bomb load actually dropped per sortie per man was 2.6 pounds, for a B-26 group 2.1 pounds, for the 8th Air Force 2.3 pounds, for the 20th Air Force 5.6 pounds. If you assume the A-20 groups were the same size as A-26 ones, 1.8 pounds per sortie per man.
Bigger aircraft tend to be more economic per amount of bombs dropped in both money and manpower terms. The usually longer range of the larger aircraft force a bigger investment in air defence by the enemy as there are more targets within range.
When only the best will do,
The USAAF raid on the German synthetic rubber plant at Huls on 22 June 1943 was one of the most successful for the war in terms of loss of output, 224 B-17s despatched plus 11 YB-40, 183 attacked, 15 B-17s and 1 YB-40 lost. A couple of thousand sorties and there goes German rubber supply.
After the raid the bomb craters were found over an area of 12 square miles, 20% of the bombs dropped hit the 541 acre (0.84 square miles) site. If the site were a square then each side fence would be 4,650 feet long. Visual bombing.
The Bomber Command raid on Berlin on 22/23 November 1943 was rated by the Bomber Command war Diaries as the most effective for the war, made in weather so bad most night fighters were grounded, complete cloud cover. Lots of bomb scatter. There was a follow up raid the next night so damage reports tend to merge. The Alkett Stug III works were hit on the first raid and the damage was substantial (as an aside apparently the plant was so important many fire crews were directed to it, and it ended up there were crews mainly being in each others way at Alkett rather than fighting the other fires). It looks like the loss of production was, as a minimum, 200 to 300 vehicles or around 10% of the years production. Another benefit was the switching of one factory making Panzer IV tanks to Stug IV, the Stug III superstructure on a Panzer IV chassis, to make up for the loss of Stug III production. Several thousand sorties later and there goes German AFV production.
On 21 January 1944 two Halifaxes, each with a 2,000 pound bomb and 874 4 pound incendiaries took on the Lignose Sprengstoff Werke Schoenbeck explosives plant. Both 2,000 pound bombs scored direct hits on buildings and then the incendiaries went to work. The TNT plant suffered 50% permanent damage, that is not rebuilt, the electric fuse plant took 10 months to return to full production. There were 35 powder and explosives plants, times 4 sorties, say quadruple this to allow for bigger plants and losses, 560 sorties and Germany is totally without explosives, oh what the heck, make it 1,000 sorties.
Just a thought.
As much as I like the concept of the concentrating your power on one (selected few, selected segment or category) targets, I have to admit that this concept can be hard to implement in real combat. For various reasons, including the predictability for the enemy as mentioned earlier and complications for own forces.
The practicality of this concept sometimes is debated in the analysis of todays war in Europe. I assume it was debated in WWII as well.
As much as I like the concept of the concentrating your power on one (selected few, selected segment or category) targets, I have to admit that this concept can be hard to implement in real combat. For various reasons, including the predictability for the enemy as mentioned earlier and complications for own forces.
The practicality of this concept sometimes is debated in the analysis of todays war in Europe. I assume it was debated in WWII as well.
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