WW2 Strategic Bomber Characteristics

[nuuumannn]

I think we are straying off topic by a considerable margin; the idea that the Mossie could have replaced the RAF's heavy bombers was a feasible one in principle, but not in practise; Bomber Command heads had adopted their area bombing policy and were sticking to it, regardless of what came along and they stuck to doing so until the very end.

Since this thread is about WW2 strategic bomber characteristics I re-iterate what I stated in a previous post; accuracy was they key here, not necessarily size of payload - depending on the role, of course. A Mossie can't carry a Tall Boy. Nevertheless, the economics are obvious, using fast high speed bombers in lieu of a four engined heavies makes more sense if the job can be done with them, which the Mosquito demonstrated that it could.

As for heavier bombers dropping more bombs, this depends solely on the target itself and this is not a sole consideration, you still need to think about getting to and from the target area with minimum wastage and other factors.

 

[davebender]

I doubt it. That's the sort of accuracy one could expect using dive bombers to attack a factory.

 

[parsifal]

I doubt it. That's the sort of accuracy one could expect using dive bombers to attack a factory.

Mosquitoes achieved superior levels of accuracy, as demonstrated by their attack on the SS Gest6apo Headquaters. not only did they have to hit just one building.....they had to hit one side of that building.

Stories of how accurate the Mosquito were are legion.

 

[wuzak]

I doubt it. That's the sort of accuracy one could expect using dive bombers to attack a factory.

Doubt all you want.

When I say low level, I mean tree-top height.

Usually when they missed from that altitude it was because they mistook the target.

 

[davebender]

Stories can say anything the story teller wants them to say. I want historical bombing accuracy tests.

 

[wuzak]

Stories can say anything the story teller wants them to say. I want historical bombing accuracy tests.

Posted by Jabberwocky on another forum:

Mosquito bombing at low level was considered very accurate for the time. The CEP for target market level bombing at low altitude was on the order of 120-150 meters, at least within Oboe range (around 270 miles). The most common figure that I've found is 50% of bombs within 130 meters.

Mosquito shallow dive bombing was also considered very accurate, both by fighter bombers and straight bomber aircraft. Standard fighter-bomber technique, developed in late 1942, was to go in at 4-5000 ft, enter a shallow dive and release at 2000-1500 ft, using 11-second delay fuses. Bombers would drop from higher up, usually about 4000-5000 ft.

CEP for fighter-bomber 500 lb wing bombs released at 6000 ft was 150 yards (135 meters) in late 1943. Against 'Noball' V1 sites in 1944, CEP for Mosquito fighter bombers was as good as 110 meters.

CEP for a 4000 lb MC (not a cookie) released at 5000 ft was 200-220 yards (182-200 meters).

In comparison, Typhoon fighter-bomber attacks in Normandy had a CEP of 150-130 yards (135-120 m), so low-level accuracy is comparable to that of a fighter-bomber.

However, the environments (summer dust and heavy flak vs level bombing on unobscured targets) aren't really that similar. Later in N/W Europe campaign, Typhoon and Spitfire CEP was about 70-100 yards - an indication of how much experience and an easier combat situation has on accuracy.

Also in Normandy, medium altitude attacks by the RAF heavies had a CEP of about 620 yards. USAAF bombing showed a similar (lack of) accuracy.

US VIII AF CEP in early 1943 was 3,400 ft (1040 m), getting down to 825-1175 ft (250-360) by late 1944 when bombing from 15,000 ft. Theoretical best CEP was about 500 for a B-17, 515 ft for a B-24 (150-155 m), but real life tends has a tendency of messing up theory. Rough rule of thumb for the USAAF was that heavy flak over a target cut bombing accuracy by half.

EDIT: Found one more accuracy statistic: A single attack in 1944 had a CEP of 137 meters from an average bombing height of 18,000 ft when bombing with Oboe.

 

[parsifal]

Thanks for the correection about FBXVI. I should be more careful. It was the Mark XVI something....if not FBXVI, it was the BXVI.


I really should not get into the deep end of the pool sometimes

 

[parsifal]

I think the main point of dispute here is whether the Mosquito, in its historical form could undertake or replace the role occupied by the traditional heavy bombers. I would say not. It was too light to undertake the task of "area bombing". Its another question whether, given its capabilities and suvivability it needed to have such muscle. If it is considered that it (the Mosquito) needed to be "heavy" to complete all the functions of a strategic bomber, then I wonder if a four engine version of the same basic concept was ever considered or investigated?

 

[stona]

Mosquitoes achieved superior levels of accuracy, as demonstrated by their attack on the SS Gest6apo Headquaters. not only did they have to hit just one building.....they had to hit one side of that building.

I presume you mean Operation Carthage,the attack on the Gestapo headquarters in the "Shellhus" in Copenhagen.
That was a specialist low level raid carried out in daylight. Try attacking the heavily defended targets of the Ruhr like that and you wouldn't last five minutes. This is one of the raids I referred to earlier as having mixed results,particularly for the 86 school children killed at the school mistaken for the target after one of the attackers crashed onto a garage close to it.

Look at the logistics too. 18 Mosquitos (plus two filming) to attack one building,plus a large fighter escort. 4 of the 20 Mosquitos were lost. That's a massive 20% of the attacking force. Completely unsustainable in a long term strategic campaign. 1 escorting Mustang was also lost.

Despite toting 44 bombs all the way to Copenhagen only 8 actually hit the target building. 6 bombs hit the Western wing,instantly killing 6 of the 9 prisoners held there. A 7th died jumping from a top floor window.2 bombs hit the East wing in which no prisoners were held.14 of the 18 surviving prisoners were in the South wing of the Shellhus which was not hit by any bombs.

Apart from the 86 school children and 16 adults killed at the school about another 100 people,including 50 Germans,lost their lives.

Once again the reality does not exactly match the post war myth.

Cheers

Steve

 

[davebender]

This aircraft has the range / payload to be considered a strategic bomber by WWII standards and unlike level bombers it has the accuracy to hit factory size targets. Why couldn't a similiar aircraft be designed 5 years earlier and powered by Jumo 222 or R2800 engine?

Off-the-Shelf Killer Bees: making do with what you got?

 

[stona]

This aircraft has the range / payload to be considered a strategic bomber by WWII standards and unlike level bombers it has the accuracy to hit factory size targets. Why couldn't a similiar aircraft be designed 5 years earlier and powered by Jumo 222 or R2800 engine?

It couldn't be designed five years earlier because the design incorporates lessons learnt during those five years. You might as well ask why couldn't an operational jet have been designed five years earlier. Whittle's first engine ran in 1937,should be up and running by 1940?

Given technology available in 1943-5 how exactly was this aircraft,if available,going to hit factory sized targets.

I'd prefer a Mosquito,simply because I don't fancy cruising at less than 200mph through skies contested by the Luftwaffe nightfighters and defended by the highest concentrations of anti aircraft artillery the world had ever seen.
Or are you considering doing this in daylight? At least you'd have a better chance of identifying your target,assuming that you managed to survive long enough to reach it.

Cheers

Steve

 

[davebender]

Given technology available in 1943-5 how exactly was this aircraft,if available,going to hit factory sized targets.

Dive bombers could hit factory size targets during 1939. Why wouldn't A1D be just as accurate using a WWII era dive bombing sight?

 

[stona]

We're talking about a strategic bombing campaign.
Time and time again both here and in other places the vulnerability of dive bombers operating with anything other than local air superiority,which for deep penetration missions of the type needed for a campaign against Germany means total air superiority,has been debated.
It might theoretically have been possible after mid 1944,say for the last nine months of the European conflict,had either of the Western Allies had the slightest interest in dive bombers,even in a tactical sense.Of course without the preceding Anglo-American campaigns it might not have been possible even then (a different topic).
Dive bombing is irrelevant in the context of a strategic bombing campaign which started many years earlier.
Cheers
Steve

 

[parsifal]

I presume you mean Operation Carthage,the attack on the Gestapo headquarters in the "Shellhus" in Copenhagen.
That was a specialist low level raid carried out in daylight. Try attacking the heavily defended targets of the Ruhr like that and you wouldn't last five minutes. This is one of the raids I referred to earlier as having mixed results,particularly for the 86 school children killed at the school mistaken for the target after one of the attackers crashed onto a garage close to it.

Look at the logistics too. 18 Mosquitos (plus two filming) to attack one building,plus a large fighter escort. 4 of the 20 Mosquitos were lost. That's a massive 20% of the attacking force. Completely unsustainable in a long term strategic campaign. 1 escorting Mustang was also lost.

Despite toting 44 bombs all the way to Copenhagen only 8 actually hit the target building. 6 bombs hit the Western wing,instantly killing 6 of the 9 prisoners held there. A 7th died jumping from a top floor window.2 bombs hit the East wing in which no prisoners were held.14 of the 18 surviving prisoners were in the South wing of the Shellhus which was not hit by any bombs.

Apart from the 86 school children and 16 adults killed at the school about another 100 people,including 50 Germans,lost their lives.

Once again the reality does not exactly match the post war myth.

Cheers

Steve

Actually that wasnt the raids I was thinking of, though I think you omitted to point out that Gestapo records were destroyed, which was the primary target of that raid, and probably saved many hundreds of lives. The deaths of the innocent danish civilians is a tragedy, but by that logic, the Allies should not have attacked into France, since that attack also caused the tragic deaths of many frenchmen. Of course, in the end, it saved many more from a murderous, rutless regime, but people seem to forget that in their eagerness to attack the allies due to unavoidable collateral damage. I would suggest you get a grip, this was total war, and the Germans were using the whole of Europe as a human shield. They were murdering innocent people by the thousand, but that seems to be forgotten whenever this morality claptrap regarding RAF operations is raised.

Plus, despite the collateral damage, the raid still can be shown as an excellent example of just how accurate Mosquitoes could be. What chance would the school, the building, the prisoners, indeed, the whole city have had, if the raid had been the subject of a raid by a sizable force of four engined bombers

Mostly i was thinking of the attacks undertaken by Nos 138 and 140 wings, where the actual deeds certainly do live up to the post war "myth".

Both wings were involved in the campaign against the V-1 launch sites in the Pas de Calais early in 1944. The Mosquito was the ideal aircraft to attack these small targets, needed only a quarter of the sortie rates required by any other aircraft to destroy each site. This is borne out by the previous mounts used by these wings in these attacks Mitchells, Venturas, Bostons and Wellingtons (I think) by the same outfits, achieved nowhere near the accuracy that was achieved by the same unts after conversion. Mosquitoes were four times more accurate to be precise

These squadrons were involved in two of the most famous of all Mosquito raids, pinpoint attacks on Amiens Prison and on the Gestapo records in The Hague. Amiens Prison (which was the one I was thinking of) contained over 700 French prisoners, many from the resistance. When it was discovered that the Germans were planning to execute these people enmasse, Nos. 487 and 464 Squadrons were sent to knock down the walls of the prison, and give the prisoners a chance to escape. This required some of the most precise bombing ever attempted, but the Mosquito crews were up to the task. On 18 February 1944 the walls of the prison were duly destroyed, and 255 prisoners escaped. Only one Mosquito was lost. I calculate that to be a loss rate of about 0.5%....to paraphrase your earlier opinion....."Completely sustainable in a long term strategic campaign".

The second raid hit the Kunstzaal Kleizkamp Art Gallery in The Hague. This building was being used by the Gestapo to store the Dutch Central Population Registry. Destruction of these records would be a great help to the Dutch resistance. Accordingly, on 11 April 1944 No 613 Squadron was sent to attack the Gallery. Once again, the required building was hit, and most of the records destroyed. There were no recorded aircraft losses

That was a specialist low level raid carried out in daylight. Try attacking the heavily defended targets of the Ruhr like that and you wouldn't last five minutes. This is one of the raids I referred to earlier as having mixed results,particularly for the 86 school children killed at the school mistaken for the target after one of the attackers crashed onto a garage close to it.

Are you claiming the Mosquito did not undertake raids into Germany by Daylight????/ If so, you have got to be kidding...... BC had in fact been undertaking exactly that since 1941. Why would the Mosquito be any less likely than any other type to undertake such raids. Further, Mosquitoes were tasked to undertake daylight missions over Germany, in daylight against heavily defended targets. Are you saying they didnt. sheesh....For example, the two wings mentioned above were involved in the daylight component of operation Clarion, which involved many daylight attacks against heavily defended high value targets like railway sidings and the like with the characteristic low losses for the type.

Some examples

The first bomber squadrons to receive the Mosquito B IV used it for several low-level daylight raids throughout the summer of 1942. On 29 August 1942, Mk IVS of 105 Squadron RAF undertook a bombing mission against Pont-à-Vendin. They were attacked by Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. The Fw 190s attacked head-on before turning to attack from the stern. The Mosquitos used their speed to outpace the 190s. On 19 September, Mosquitos attacked Berlin for the first time in daylight. Once again, when a Mosquito piloted by D.A.G George Parry was attacked by Messerschmitt Bf 109s, he was able to outrun them. One Mosquito failed to return. One of the first missions was the Oslo raid on 25 September 1942, carried out by four aircraft of No. 105 Squadron RAF, after which the Mosquito was publicly revealed for the first time.

So much for the type not being able to penetrate and successfully attack targets within Germany in Daylight. You have got to be kidding.

Two notable daylight missions were carried out on 30 January 1943, when Mosquitoes carried out two attacks on Berlin timed to disrupt speeches being delivered by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels. It is well to note that in the upcoming months the defences of Berlin very nearly defeated BC again.

The first attack, in the morning, comprised three Mosquito B Mk. IVs from 105 Squadron, which carried out a low-level attack on the main Berlin broadcasting station, at 11:00, when Göring was due to address a parade commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis' being voted into power. It was a nuisance raid, carried out for proaganda purposes, but Göring off the air for more than an hour, and it demonstrates in spades that Mosquitoes could, and did attack heavily defended targets, wityh far less chance of loss than their larger cousins.

Mosquitoes from 139 Squadron went to Berlin in the afternoon of the same day to attempt to interrupt a speech by Goebbels, and once again bombed at the exact time. However, Berlin's anti-aircraft defences were on alert and a Mosquito flown by Squadron Leader D.F. Darling was shot down, both Darling and his navigator being killed.

Göring, however, was not amused: If you are seriously claimimg the Mosquito was not up to undertaking daylight penetrations, I expect neither will you.

 

[davebender]

I agree.

Objective is to destroy enemy industrial infrastructure. Which requires hitting factory size objects with bombs of 500 to 2,000 lbs.

 

[Shortround6]

Dive bombers could hit factory size targets during 1939. Why wouldn't A1D be just as accurate using a WWII era dive bombing sight?

It might very well be just as accurate, given an undefended target in clear weather.

If you have low clouds or ground fog the high altitude bombers are bombing blind and so is the dive bomber. The Dive bomber has the added problem of not knowing where the ground is and when to pull out. (In actuality when faced with an obscured target the dive bomber has three choices, 1, return home with the bombs, 2, find alternative target, 3 jettison bombs into the murk.)

Smoke Generators are just as effective (if not more so) against dive bombers than level bombers. Level bomber formation MAY be able to key off a visible feature out side the smoke screen and drop a pattern of bombs in the area of the target.
Dive bombers usually don't practice group drops and don't have usually have the tonnage of bombs to make "blind" bombing practical.

Barrage balloons around strategic can force the dive bombers to release from much higher altitudes, greatly reducing accuracy. The Germans fitted cable cutters to a number of their twin engine bombers to enable low level attacks.

Camouflage offers some protection against dive bombers.

Dive bombing becomes near suicidal against a good AA gun defense. Works great against poor AA defenses. It puts the plane on a steady, almost constant speed course for a number of seconds in full view of practically every AA gun within range. The Dive bomber release point is within the effective range of practically anything more effective than a Lewis gun. And even the Lewis may get lucky.


Now lets throw in a few defending fighters

 

[Glider]

This aircraft has the range / payload to be considered a strategic bomber by WWII standards and unlike level bombers it has the accuracy to hit factory size targets. Why couldn't a similiar aircraft be designed 5 years earlier and powered by Jumo 222 or R2800 engine?

Off-the-Shelf Killer Bees: making do with what you got?
View attachment 222095

It would be a sitting duck for fighters by day, didn't cruise any faster than a Lanc/Halifax by night and I doubt if it had the range / payload of the RAF heavies when bombed up with all those external stores. Plus of course it was five years too late.

Apart from that. it would have been a huge success.

Now as a GA, no contest

 

[davebender]

A price that must be paid if you want to hit the target. However a single squadron would be adequate for attacking a factory. So even if you lose the entire squadron it's cheaper then losing 40 or 50 heavy bombers on a typical RAF Bomber Command mission that will probably miss the factory.

 

[stona]

None of the above leads up to anything like a strategic bombing campaign. I don't see your point. Undertaking specialist low level penetrations with small forces and,by the overall standards of the Mosquito,high losses,is hardly going to cause significant damage to your enemies means of production.

You originally said an attack on SS Gestapo headquarters. The only attacks on a Gestapo headquarters were those at The Hague,Aarhus,I think Oslo and Operation Carthage in Copenhagen. These attacks were in support of or at the direct request of the various resistance movements. The Copenhagen raid was launched after repeated requests and pleading from the Danish resistance movement who were on the point of collapse. I do not count the dead prisoners as collateral because the Danish resistance was itself happy to see them killed.

Amiens prison was not a Gestapo HQ.You omitted to mention the 102 prisoners killed an 74 wounded who might not have regarded the attack as a sparkling success. Only 79 escapees were political or resistance prisoners and the majority were soon recaptured. The rest were simply criminals.
Don't get me going on the French Resistance factions,S.O.E. and why this raid actually took place at all. I'm happy to concentrate on the magnificent effort of the RAF crews involved.
Incidentally the objective was not just to destroy the walls but to bomb the prison. I have never seen any evidence for the purported mass executions. Bombing the prison would have helped with that!

The records were the target at Aarhus,which was a more successful effort and had the added bonus of killing SS Sturmbannführer Kriminalrat Eugen Schwitzgebel, head of the Aussendienststelle der Sipo and SD in Aarhus.

You'll notice that none of these operations required flying hundreds of miles across German air space, some did. The 105/139 Sqn raids are obviously two such.There were other raids at more strategic targets. A really deep penetration raid to attack the Schott glass works and Zeiss optical works at Jena, near Leipzig (105 and 139 again though with less success).The raid on the diesel engine factory near Copenhagen which I can't find my reference for,but which was successful. There was an attack on the Molybdenum mines at Knaben and many more.These are all pin pricks and there were losses.

These were skillfully executed raids,carried out by some very brave men but what effect did these raids have on Germany's capacity to wage war?

Cheers

Steve

 

[davebender]

How many bombers were involved? Bomb load per aircraft? What was typical bombing accuracy at typical attack altitude?