Night bombing

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Look at post 8. 6000 ft.

You got some historical comparatives for attacking airfields at night at 6,000 ft.?

How high were the Japanese when they bombed Wake at night from hundreds of miles away?

Not saying it couldn't happen, but I don't know if I could speak for accuracy with this approach. It didn't seem to work well for bombing factories at night, radar gizmos notwithstanding, but I don't know if this (B-29 attacks on airfields) was done at all.

Bombing in a dense urban area night or day is hard. There are plenty of photos and movies on-line of what German cities looked like from miles up. Radar has clutter problems too, but it gives excellent fixes in real time if there are any raised terrain features, like hills. Not having a good real time fix is the hardest part of the bombadier's equation. Own plane's location is the only moving variable in the problem.

But we're taking in most of these cases about AFs in jungle, or away from cities. At least not in dense urban as industry is. Not many steel mills on the runway. Even WWII radar, coupled with good eyes and a mile up, ought to be able to tell a cleared air field from jungle. Or Wake Island from ocean. After that it's volume of bombs, not aiming at a particular building. And Japanes eplayers don't have anything even in the same county as the B-29's bomb load.

Again-some aspects of night bombing seem OK with me. Some underpowered. Some overpowered / unlikely. Some inexplicable (night fighters ineffectiveness). Par for the course.

I agree on night fighters. But I also disagree that NAtes ought to ever get a shot off, but they do when flying night CAP. My posiiton on night bombing is documented. I just push back when JFBs comlain about late-war Allied bombers because trhey don't have anything like them. I think they'd like it a whole lot less if incendiaries and fire were fully modeled.

Actually bombing cities by night, using RADAR is childplay.....depending on the city. A city on the coast , along with having a coast line has bridges and built up areas. In my youth I reguarlly "Bombed" Boston and it's area towns at night (obviously practice...no real bombs) and it was simple as comparing a map to my PPI screen. Bombing inland cities are very tough. Most major Japanese cities were on the coast.

[ctangus]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
In my youth I reguarlly "Bombed" Boston and it's area towns at night.

Somerville I can understand, but Boston! [:-]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: crsutton


Well, actually it is the night bombing issue all across the board that is an issue. 30 Bettys can hit a major airfield with a lot of aircraft and do a lot of damage as well. There are many issues involved-especially with stock. Weak flak and the non working Allied night fighters to mention a couple. High accuracy, too many bombers finding the target also comes to mind.

I have night bombed a good bit in my game; I don't think 1Eyed has at all. I can count on 30-50% of every strike getting lost and RTBing.

Quite frankly, I think massive night attacks really do more damage to the Allies in the early war if the Japanese player concentrates on it.

I do too. They have a lot more bombers.

Even with restrictions Ark was able to torpedo quite a few key ships at night with his Emily's. We just reached a point where it did not feel right to either of us and made some accommodation on the fly.

Naval atacks at night are a different kettle of fish. We're talking land targets which aren't moving and have a known location before, during, and after the mission.

As for the B29-even with radar precision bombing of specific targets was not easily done. They were bombing at night but it was area bombing. (And damn effective at that)

Bombing an airport IS area bombing. I'm not talking about hitting a single building. I'm talking about bombing a square mile or more from 6000 feet.

That is why I would suggest limiting Allied night bombing attacks to fire bombing. We have yet to get to that stage so I really do not know the effects or how easy it is for the Allies to bomb. But there is nothing a-historical in my mind about pounding the mainland to dust in 1945.

I've done it several times versus the AI. Manpower attacks work, but they don't hit specific industries. Regardless, that's a different mechanism again. Talking here about night bombing ports and air fields. B-29s didn't do a lot of that IRL. But radar navigation can find an airfield.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy




You got some historical comparatives for attacking airfields at night at 6,000 ft.?

How high were the Japanese when they bombed Wake at night from hundreds of miles away?

Not saying it couldn't happen, but I don't know if I could speak for accuracy with this approach. It didn't seem to work well for bombing factories at night, radar gizmos notwithstanding, but I don't know if this (B-29 attacks on airfields) was done at all.

Bombing in a dense urban area night or day is hard. There are plenty of photos and movies on-line of what German cities looked like from miles up. Radar has clutter problems too, but it gives excellent fixes in real time if there are any raised terrain features, like hills. Not having a good real time fix is the hardest part of the bombadier's equation. Own plane's location is the only moving variable in the problem.

But we're taking in most of these cases about AFs in jungle, or away from cities. At least not in dense urban as industry is. Not many steel mills on the runway. Even WWII radar, coupled with good eyes and a mile up, ought to be able to tell a cleared air field from jungle. Or Wake Island from ocean. After that it's volume of bombs, not aiming at a particular building. And Japanes eplayers don't have anything even in the same county as the B-29's bomb load.

Again-some aspects of night bombing seem OK with me. Some underpowered. Some overpowered / unlikely. Some inexplicable (night fighters ineffectiveness). Par for the course.

I agree on night fighters. But I also disagree that NAtes ought to ever get a shot off, but they do when flying night CAP. My posiiton on night bombing is documented. I just push back when JFBs comlain about late-war Allied bombers because trhey don't have anything like them. I think they'd like it a whole lot less if incendiaries and fire were fully modeled.

Actually bombing cities by night, using RADAR is childplay.....depending on the city. A city on the coast , along with having a coast line has bridges and built up areas. In my youth I reguarlly "Bombed" Boston and it's area towns at night (obviously practice...no real bombs) and it was simple as comparing a map to my PPI screen. Bombing inland cities are very tough. Most major Japanese cities were on the coast.

Yes, but this is going off the track. Look back at post #6. We're talking about the air field at Pisanuloke, not Tokyo's industrial zone.

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Actually bombing cities by night, using RADAR is childplay.....depending on the city. A city on the coast , along with having a coast line has bridges and built up areas. In my youth I reguarlly "Bombed" Boston and it's area towns at night (obviously practice...no real bombs) and it was simple as comparing a map to my PPI screen. Bombing inland cities are very tough. Most major Japanese cities were on the coast.

Yes, but this is going off the track. Look back at post #6. We're talking about the air field at Pisanuloke, not Tokyo's industrial zone.

Airfields have an interesting characteristic. They are flat. And if they are covered with asphault they are really easy. Let me put it this way. Do you know how you ID a mountain on search RADAR? A very strong leading built up edge and then a BIG empty space behind it. (That's cause the moutain blocks anything from seeing behind it.) An air field is quite often the opposite. There is a lot built up around it then nothing. Airfields have buildings around them (hangers , control towers , barracks, fuel tanks and such). Also if the airfield is in the middle of a jungle , then you get a different reflection from vegatation than hard surface.

By the way , someone said hitting Wake would be hard by RADAR. Nope. If your naviguessor nets you within RADAR range you have a large hard surface surrounded by less hard water. Easy. And a tropical island often has luminescence as well, making for visual confirmation.

I have no problem with the concept of finding a city, airfield or island with RADAR at night. I used to do it for a living. And I was a normal , competant RADAR operator , not someone specially trained (as a matter of fact I had less formal traing then most). Most of my early training to do this was OJT with "elderly" reservists some of whom were WW2 Vets (Some had flown the Liberator,Privateer, and Black cats...one had been a Radio gunner in a SOC , but that's another sea story).

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: ctangus

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
In my youth I reguarlly "Bombed" Boston and it's area towns at night.

Somerville I can understand, but Boston! [:-]

Somerville was harder to find. And too dangerous a neighborhood if we were forced down. [:D] Actually I did have motivation to find it (my then girlfriend lived there) but it really was hard to pick out. Boston was really easy (bridges).[:D]

[ctangus]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Somerville was harder to find. And too dangerous a neighborhood if we were forced down. [:D]

[:D]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: koniu

3 B-29 score 16 hits and destroy at lest 3, i think 5-8 fighters (FoW)
40 B-29 will close that AF and destroy 20,30 or more planes.

And that was during Overcast

Here we go again.

It's a shame Japan can't build planes like B-29s. But it's also laughable when Japanese historical purists who decry night bombing fail to recognize that B-29s were optimized for night operations. They had radar bomb sights. They had immense bomb loads. So yes, 40 B-29s at 10,000 feet could close an AF and destroy 20-30 planes. Easy. Trivial really. Don't like it? Don't let the Allies get AFs close enough to do this. Or move your planes and AFs away. But don't try to claim it's borked.

cities? yes. airfields? [&:]

please don't screw up strategic bombings with tactical attacks

[bigred]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: koniu

3 B-29 score 16 hits and destroy at lest 3, i think 5-8 fighters (FoW)
40 B-29 will close that AF and destroy 20,30 or more planes.

And that was during Overcast

Here we go again.

It's a shame Japan can't build planes like B-29s. But it's also laughable when Japanese historical purists who decry night bombing fail to recognize that B-29s were optimized for night operations. They had radar bomb sights. They had immense bomb loads. So yes, 40 B-29s at 10,000 feet could close an AF and destroy 20-30 planes. Easy. Trivial really. Don't like it? Don't let the Allies get AFs close enough to do this. Or move your planes and AFs away. But don't try to claim it's borked.

cities? yes. airfields? [&:]

please don't screw up strategic bombings with tactical attacks

Actually, the 40 plane attack broke into 3-5 plane parcels. hard to coordinate at night. I mentioned this thread to my playing partner, he said "no effect on his game".

[Barb]

Well, had B-29s been used on airfield attacks, their commanding officer would be commanding only latrines thereafter, unless specifically requested by higher echelons (and that only against rough opposition!). Having thousands of fighter bombers, light bombers, medium bombers and regular heavy bombers around I see no reason to employ VHB units on such missions.

I can think of only one time deviation of VHB against airfields - that of Formosa (and in bright daylight):

The B-29's began moving up to Chengtu on 9 October, and 5 days later 130 of them got off without incident, though carrying an average of 6.8 tons each of 500-pound GP's and incendiaries. During the noon hour 104 bombers dropped about 650 tons on Okayama. Weather was good and so was the bombing, though late arrivals were hampered by smoke. Task Force 38 had destroyed or cowed the island's defenders: the few fighters sighted offered no resistance and flak was meager.24 Five B-29's bombed Swatow, two the Japanese-held airfield at Hengyang (named last resort target at Chennault's request) and six bombed targets of opportunity. A dozen planes made emergency landings at friendly fields in China, one crashed near Changteh whence its crew walked out, and one was listed as missing. This was a cheap price to pay for very severe damage done to Okayama installations.

Indeed, that damage appeared so heavy that LeMay considered it unnecessary to send back all of the available planes for the mop-up on the 16th. Halsey, with a couple of wounded cruisers for bait, was trying to lure the Japs into a fleet action and Formosa needed policing, but at Washington's suggestion, LeMay divided his forces: the 444th and 462d Groups were to return to Okayama on 16 October while the 468th hit Heito, an air base and staging field located just east of Takao, where there was an air arsenal that performed repair and final assembly of fighters. Next day the 40th Group was to bomb Einansho Air Depot near Tainan.26 The twin mission went off less smoothly than that of the 14th. Of forty-nine planes airborne against Okayama, only twenty-eight bombed there, but they were aided by five stragglers from the 468th Group. To even things up, a formation of eleven planes from the 444th flew calmly by its Okayama target and struck at Heito through an error by the lead bombardier. Other B-29's bombed alternate or chance targets at Takao, Toshien, Swatow, and Sintien harbors; at Hengyang; and at several airdromes, including Taichu on Formosa.
Source: The Army Air Forces in World War II: Volume Five - THE PACIFIC: MATTERHORN TO NAGASAKI JUNE 1944 TO AUGUST 1945

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: koniu

3 B-29 score 16 hits and destroy at lest 3, i think 5-8 fighters (FoW)
40 B-29 will close that AF and destroy 20,30 or more planes.

And that was during Overcast

Here we go again.

It's a shame Japan can't build planes like B-29s. But it's also laughable when Japanese historical purists who decry night bombing fail to recognize that B-29s were optimized for night operations. They had radar bomb sights. They had immense bomb loads. So yes, 40 B-29s at 10,000 feet could close an AF and destroy 20-30 planes. Easy. Trivial really. Don't like it? Don't let the Allies get AFs close enough to do this. Or move your planes and AFs away. But don't try to claim it's borked.

cities? yes. airfields? [&:]

please don't screw up strategic bombings with tactical attacks

Could you please read the thread before weighing in with your "helpful" input?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Barb

Well, had B-29s been used on airfield attacks, their commanding officer would be commanding only latrines thereafter, unless specifically requested by higher echelons (and that only against rough opposition!). Having thousands of fighter bombers, light bombers, medium bombers and regular heavy bombers around I see no reason to employ VHB units on such missions.

I can't see any use either in real life. In real life planes needed avgas, not rice, to fly, and by the time of the B-29 offensive Japanese avgas was hard to come by. Had Japan possessed the thousands of flying, late-war fighters we see in AE you can bet your bippy B-29s would have been bombing airfields.

[AW1Steve]

I think the major reason the B-29 was not used was simply political. The B-29 is sometimes called "The 1st strategic bomber". Not because of it's abilities, but because of who controlled it. As A "Strategic asset" it WAS NOT under the command of the theatre commander , but directly to the joint chiefs of staff via Gen. Hap Arnold. They didn't want either MacArthur or Nimitz getting control of it. In Europe , IKE had on several occassions diverted both 8th AF heavy bombers and Bomber Command for tactical missions in direct support of ground troops (such as D-Day , and the breakout from the Normandy beach heads).

I'm sure that if you could convince Arnold or Marshall that the need was great enough , you'd have no problem getting tasking. Especially to 1) remove a Kamikaze threat, 2)kill fighter bases that might threaten the same B-29's.

And since this game makes you "grand poo-bah" , you get to tell Marshall what you want.

As I said , heavy bombers have been used for tactical support , from 1943 Italy , to Arc-light raids in Vietnam , and attacking Republican Guard units in BOTH Iraq conflicts. And heavy's are being used for forward air support in Afgahanistan presently.


If the need is great enough , the political will follows. And things happen. [:)]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58



Here we go again.

It's a shame Japan can't build planes like B-29s. But it's also laughable when Japanese historical purists who decry night bombing fail to recognize that B-29s were optimized for night operations. They had radar bomb sights. They had immense bomb loads. So yes, 40 B-29s at 10,000 feet could close an AF and destroy 20-30 planes. Easy. Trivial really. Don't like it? Don't let the Allies get AFs close enough to do this. Or move your planes and AFs away. But don't try to claim it's borked.

cities? yes. airfields? [&:]

please don't screw up strategic bombings with tactical attacks

Could you please read the thread before weighing in with your "helpful" input?

well, was reading until I came to the point when I was reading your helpful input as quoted above and I repeat myself, don't screw up strategic and tactical attacks. Hitting a level 2 or 3 airfield at night using radar guided bombing? Are you serious? If so, no further comment is needed. Glad you posted a serious of "helpful" statements though.

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: castor troy




cities? yes. airfields? [&:]

please don't screw up strategic bombings with tactical attacks

Could you please read the thread before weighing in with your "helpful" input?

well, was reading until I came to the point when I was reading your helpful input as quoted above and I repeat myself, don't screw up strategic and tactical attacks. Hitting a level 2 or 3 airfield at night using radar guided bombing? Are you serious? If so, no further comment is needed. Glad you posted a serious of "helpful" statements though.

Sorry Castor. The answer is sometimes you can , some times you can't. I've discussed the mechanics of night bombing by RADAR else where in this thread. I can't fight your wealth of knowledge on this subject. All I can rest on is 23 years of experince in doing it.

It all depends on where the airfield is. Like most things in war, geography matters. [:)]

[Chickenboy]

Steve: I'm sure you'll admit that the machinery / equipment that you used for peacetime 'radar bombing' plots differed significantly from wartime late war B-29 equipment / capabilities / training / navigation / wartime exigencies. I'd say that while your peacetime experiences are interesting and relevant to 1980s+ approaches to the topic, they probably don't represent the reality in WWII.

All: I concur with Castor Troy on this one. Don't conflate the two issues-strat bombing with tactical bombing. XX and XXI air corps both tried the latter equivalent-it didn't work. Full stop. They adapted and switched tactics to the former and it did work-very well. Whatever the equipment / training / devices / altitude they used to try to implement nighttime tactical bombing, they deemed it unsuccessful. Who the heck are we to argue with the reality that they experienced and their conclusions?

The game doesn't model nighttime tactical bombing well. That's OK. It doesn't model some other things terribly well either. Trying to rationalize that the game reflects historical capabilities and outcomes for this act is arguing against the conclusions of several USAAF General officers of the time. Second guessing these men from my POV is pointless.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: castor troy




cities? yes. airfields? [&:]

please don't screw up strategic bombings with tactical attacks

Could you please read the thread before weighing in with your "helpful" input?

well, was reading until I came to the point when I was reading your helpful input as quoted above and I repeat myself, don't screw up strategic and tactical attacks. Hitting a level 2 or 3 airfield at night using radar guided bombing? Are you serious? If so, no further comment is needed. Glad you posted a serious of "helpful" statements though.

Green button time, idiot.

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Steve: I'm sure you'll admit that the machinery / equipment that you used for peacetime 'radar bombing' plots differed significantly from wartime late war B-29 equipment / capabilities / training / navigation / wartime exigencies. I'd say that while your peacetime experiences are interesting and relevant to 1980s+ approaches to the topic, they probably don't represent the reality in WWII.

All: I concur with Castor Troy on this one. Don't conflate the two issues-strat bombing with tactical bombing. XX and XXI air corps both tried the latter equivalent-it didn't work. Full stop. They adapted and switched tactics to the former and it did work-very well. Whatever the equipment / training / devices / altitude they used to try to implement nighttime tactical bombing, they deemed it unsuccessful. Who the heck are we to argue with the reality that they experienced and their conclusions?

The game doesn't model nighttime tactical bombing well. That's OK. It doesn't model some other things terribly well either. Trying to rationalize that the game reflects historical capabilities and outcomes for this act is arguing against the conclusions of several USAAF General officers of the time. Second guessing these men from my POV is pointless.

Andre, just because I told you I flew in the 1980's with the P-3C , doesn't mean it was my 1st plane. It wasn't . In 1977 I was a 19 year old kid assigned to a Boston area reserve unit . The squadron was finishing transitioning to the P-3a. The P-3a was state of the art in 1962. But it used a lot of old equipment. While the airplane itself , a lot of its gear had just be shifted over from the retiring P2's (AKA P-2v Neptune, a plane that 1st saw service in 1945 , and had been designed earlier). My MAD actually was WW2. My EW gear was state of the art 1951. And a very large number of the reservist who were training me were veterans of the very war we play at.

The APS-20 had been the WW2 era RADAR used in the P2. Some P-3's did as well. But we had the APS-80, a RADAR that was constently bemoaned as not as good as the APS-20 and even WW2 systems. (It was cheap,reliable,very easy to fix,smaller and basically "good enough").

My point is , that as a stupid kid just out of high school with barely enough training to avoid killing myself and others , I could with an inferior RADAR (But the priceless help of WW2 veterans) easily do what others here have called impossible (are any of them RADAR engineers, former B-29 crew or have they even seen what an airborne RADAR display looks like in operation?).

After nearly four years of war, an experinced GROUP (LEAD) RADAR bombardier using a specially designed ground bombing RADAR can't find an airfield which has been flown over many times by special reconnassiance aircraft? Which has been photographed and mapped and a overlay made to set over the scope ? To the point you really only need overfly the target till the map and RADAR plot match?

Things have not changed all that much. Except for GPS , navigation is navigation. (We still train navigators to find their way by the stars).And untill the developement of ISAR type RADARs in the mid 1980's (Inverse synthetic apeture RADAR) RADAR PPI type plots hadn't changed much. Would it surprise you to know that as late as 1997 (when I left flight staus) that most of the ASW and other tactics we used dated from WW2? And others that hadn't been used since the 60's were making a comeback?

Don't make the mistake that a lot of people do. We assume that because we came later, that we are smarter than our ancestors. By 1945 the USAAF had a lot of experinced and smart people. Just because they didn't choose to do so (as I touched on earlier), doesn't mean they couldn't. [:)]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Green button time, idiot.

Bullwinkle58-you'd better settle down too. Vitriolic name calling of long-standing (in good standing) forum members will not do you any favors, I don't care how much you disagree with their positions.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Steve: I'm sure you'll admit that the machinery / equipment that you used for peacetime 'radar bombing' plots differed significantly from wartime late war B-29 equipment / capabilities / training / navigation / wartime exigencies. I'd say that while your peacetime experiences are interesting and relevant to 1980s+ approaches to the topic, they probably don't represent the reality in WWII.

All: I concur with Castor Troy on this one. Don't conflate the two issues-strat bombing with tactical bombing. XX and XXI air corps both tried the latter equivalent-it didn't work. Full stop. They adapted and switched tactics to the former and it did work-very well. Whatever the equipment / training / devices / altitude they used to try to implement nighttime tactical bombing, they deemed it unsuccessful. Who the heck are we to argue with the reality that they experienced and their conclusions?

The game doesn't model nighttime tactical bombing well. That's OK. It doesn't model some other things terribly well either. Trying to rationalize that the game reflects historical capabilities and outcomes for this act is arguing against the conclusions of several USAAF General officers of the time. Second guessing these men from my POV is pointless.

Andre, just because I told you I flew in the 1980's with the P-3C , doesn't mean it was my 1st plane. It wasn't . In 1977 I was a 19 year old kid assigned to a Boston area reserve unit . The squadron was finishing transitioning to the P-3a. The P-3a was state of the art in 1962. But it used a lot of old equipment. While the airplane itself , a lot of its gear had just be shifted over from the retiring P2's (AKA P-2v Neptune, a plane that 1st saw service in 1945 , and had been designed earlier). My MAD actually was WW2. My EW gear was state of the art 1951. And a very large number of the reservist who were training me were veterans of the very war we play at.

The APS-20 had been the WW2 era RADAR used in the P2. Some P-3's did as well. But we had the APS-80, a RADAR that was constently bemoaned as not as good as the APS-20 and even WW2 systems. (It was cheap,reliable,very easy to fix,smaller and basically "good enough").

My point is , that as a stupid kid just out of high school with barely enough training to avoid killing myself and others , I could with an inferior RADAR (But the priceless help of WW2 veterans) easily do what others here have called impossible (are any of them RADAR engineers, former B-29 crew or have they even seen what an airborne RADAR display looks like in operation?).

After nearly four years of war, an experinced GROUP (LEAD) RADAR bombardier using a specially designed ground bombing RADAR can't find an airfield which has been flown over many times by special reconnassiance aircraft? Which has been photographed and mapped and a overlay made to set over the scope ? To the point you really only need overfly the target till the map and RADAR plot match?

Things have not changed all that much. Except for GPS , navigation is navigation. (We still train navigators to find their way by the stars).And untill the developement of ISAR type RADARs in the mid 1980's (Inverse synthetic apeture RADAR) RADAR PPI type plots hadn't changed much. Would it surprise you to know that as late as 1997 (when I left flight staus) that most of the ASW and other tactics we used dated from WW2? And others that hadn't been used since the 60's were making a comeback?

Don't make the mistake that a lot of people do. We assume that because we came later, that we are smarter than our ancestors. By 1945 the USAAF had a lot of experinced and smart people. Just because they didn't choose to do so (as I touched on earlier), doesn't mean they couldn't. [:)]

Good post, Steve. [:)]

I didn't realize the aged equipment you spec'ed out on. Wouldn't that mean that you are....nah...forget it. [;)]

I'd never make the mistake of believing that we're smarter than our ancestors. I know too many young people to make that mistake. However your point is taken about didn't / couldn't determinants.