B-17's No Longer Effective From High Altitude?

[mogami]

Hi, I usally go in at 16k during the night. I lower once target has been getting damaged for a while (AA groups tend to run out of guns if base is one of the forward ones)

[Cap Mandrake]

The 8th Air Force raid on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing plant in Germany in Oct '43 consisted of 376 B-17's with relatively experienced crews, the improved Norton bombsight, radar vectoring to target and bombing from 30,000+ ft. They lost 147 and had to go back ~20 days later to try to finish the job. They weren't completely successful the second time either.

I suspect they would have gladly accepted the UV B17 hit calculation algorithm

[mdiehl]

High-altitude strategic bombing was never effective in the Pacific theater. The most important single thing Curtiss LeMay acheived was the lowering of strategic bombing altitudes.

This is not *entirely* correct although it is substantially on. There was one very effective very high altitude raid (19-01-45 on the Kawasaki plant, 90% destroyed; With Courage, Nalty et al, 1994:288). USAAF results in the ETO were more varied and the chief determinant of accuracy (bomb within 1 mile of ap) was weather. Some of those raids on bearing and airframe factories achieved 60% damage, and were instrumental in forcing the dispersal of German airframe and engine mfg. (Resulting in lower production rates than they would have otherwise achieved and higher production costs and waste).

The chief complaint I heard from a B29 veteran (an interpretive volunter at PASM) was that they were forced to firebomb from low altitude (and face the flak) in lieu of very high altitude raids. He felt that the B29s, given a chance to bomb from 24-28K feet, would have been very devastating.

[worr]

Originally posted by Cap Mandrake
The 8th Air Force raid on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing plant in Germany in Oct '43 consisted of 376 B-17's with relatively experienced crews, the improved Norton bombsight, radar vectoring to target and bombing from 30,000+ ft. They lost 147 and had to go back ~20 days later to try to finish the job. They weren't completely successful the second time either.

They flew at 20,000 feet and stacked up from there.

This was the typical altittude...stacked up to 25k for the B-17 in the ETO. In the PTO alts were lower.

Worr, out

[Cap Mandrake]

Worr is right. A brief excerpt from a pilot of the the 390th BG of the 8th USAAF from the 1st Schweinfurt raid..


..Each of the three Squadrons in our Group will bomb at slightly different altitudes -- our Squadron A Lead, at 22,300 feet; Squadron B High, at 22,700 feet; and Squadron C Low, at 22,000 feet. As we head toward the IP, our altitude is holding steady at 22,300 feet and our airspeed is holding steady at 150 mph.


The operational ceiling of the B17 G was about 35 K, slightly lower than the F model (because of higher weight). The point is, it's not easy to hit a big collection of indutrial buildings let alone a dirt runway. BTW..I also found information that B24's were involved in the raid, so I'm not sure if the the total figure applies only to 17's or to the heavy bombers.

[mdiehl]

The chief reason for the ineffectiveness of 2nd schweinfurt was not the bombers, the crews or the bombsight. The 390th was strung out over a distance of something like 10 miles, largely owing to several procedural violations by the group commander that resulted in the 390ths failure to form up.

There is an excellent volume devoted solely to the 390th's attack called, "Wrong Place, Wrong Time! The 390th BG and the 2nd Schweinfurt Raid" analyzing the raid in detail, turn by turn, plane by plane.

[SamRo]

Dam cool, going head to head against a friend he bombed Rabul time and again with between 18 & 37 B-17F from Aus, his 17's were @ 20,000 feet some times in cloud... My A6m's took more loss in air combat than the 17's in fact in all the raids on 1 was shot down, many were damaged... But the damage they in flicked on the ships in port!!!! well thank goodness M. Hikaywa had already sailed!!!! 3 DD were knocked out & 2 PC's sunk 3 Damaged, 2 MSW sunk, 1 Damaged... that said the distances & altitudes involved in the raids meant damaged forts rarely made it home so he had to suspend them all together... he had lost 21 17's most on there way home after taking battle damage 2 over the target 1 to AAA & 1 to fighters, + he lost 2 on training & transferring missions... he flew about 6 missions to Rabul thats 3.5 plains lost per mission... that said 1 mission he did not lose a singal plane & shot an a6m down!!!!