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I'm having a discussion on the other forums about a naval mod. I stated that I was unaware of any major air raids that missed their target all together. Others suggested that there where "plenty of them". So far we have come up with two.

So I turned to the internet and got bupkis from there. Answering the following question could be a huge factor in how WW2 naval air raids are simulated.

How many major naval air raids failed to find their target all-together? What percent?

At the Battle of the Philippine Sea at least two of the Japanese strikes launched that day went completely awry. One group was diverted too far north by a garbled report, and another followed.

The carrier Enterprise almost got finished off in the Eastern Solomons battle while circling helplessly. However, the Japanese strike planes veered to the south at the last minute and missed the task force, though they were quite visible to radar on the Enterprise.

What was more common was mis-identification. In the Coral Sea battle both sides mistakenly launched full strikes against minor targets after searching in the wrong direction. The Japanese planes that sank the oiler Neosho and destroyer Sims thought they were going to be attacking a task force of US carriers.

How about the Swordfish attack on their own light cruiser, the Sheffield, when they were looking for the Bismarck?

Channel Dash; Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Run the British Blockade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj-3ntOMLys

What do you mean by Missed their targets altogether? Do you mean setting out for a specific ship or group of ships and failing to find - or are you including finding but failing to hit the target(s)?

Okay, as to missing the target altogether, there was a B-17 unit that bombed a Belgian town when they were supposed to attack another target - I think an an airfield. The lead bomber accidentally let its unarmed bombs drop and the rest of the bombs dropped their armed bombs. Word came back, it was congratulations for hitting the housing that held a German battalion.

Hornet's Air Group at Midway.

Wait, Torpedo 8 did the job of distracting the Japanese CAP.

Attacks on the Tirpitz - mostly the early raids failed to find the target:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... ip_Tirpitz

bah. sometimes u get lucky

Yeah, but Stanhope Ring found bubkis.