Parafrag Bombs

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

excuse my ignorance... what is the benefit of a parafrag bomb? better accuracy?

Allows you to fly low and drop bombs which fall slower and more in a straight line, so better accuracy and allows you to have flown a few more feet away before it goes off and shreds you as well as the target - is my assumption.

This is fascinating pictorial stuff which shows how low the attacks could be.... but they are all (understandably) daylight raids so my question raised elsewhere, is would low level bombing be done at night??

Thread on low level night bombing

Roger

And safer. Although it seems counter intuitive, very low level bombing gives fewer AA guns the opportunity to fire and vastly shortens the TOT for any one AA gun. It is also much more difficult to train a gun on a low flying aircraft unless the aircraft is flying directly towards or away from the gun. Things such as hills, buildings and trees can provide some cover from AA fire as well. Bombers would go in low and fast and in line abreast thus saturating the area with targets while delivering a maximum load in the fastest time. One pass and that was it. Giving gunners very little time to react.

Not to say it was not dangerous though.

Jimmy Doolittle had read that manual.

[jeffk3510]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3



Allows you to fly low and drop bombs which fall slower and more in a straight line, so better accuracy and allows you to have flown a few more feet away before it goes off and shreds you as well as the target - is my assumption.

This is fascinating pictorial stuff which shows how low the attacks could be.... but they are all (understandably) daylight raids so my question raised elsewhere, is would low level bombing be done at night??

Thread on low level night bombing

Roger

And safer. Although it seems counter intuitive, very low level bombing gives fewer AA guns the opportunity to fire and vastly shortens the TOT for any one AA gun. It is also much more difficult to train a gun on a low flying aircraft unless the aircraft is flying directly towards or away from the gun. Things such as hills, buildings and trees can provide some cover from AA fire as well. Bombers would go in low and fast and in line abreast thus saturating the area with targets while delivering a maximum load in the fastest time. One pass and that was it. Giving gunners very little time to react.

Not to say it was not dangerous though.

Jimmy Doolittle had read that manual.

You mean Alec Baldwin?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: crsutton




And safer. Although it seems counter intuitive, very low level bombing gives fewer AA guns the opportunity to fire and vastly shortens the TOT for any one AA gun. It is also much more difficult to train a gun on a low flying aircraft unless the aircraft is flying directly towards or away from the gun. Things such as hills, buildings and trees can provide some cover from AA fire as well. Bombers would go in low and fast and in line abreast thus saturating the area with targets while delivering a maximum load in the fastest time. One pass and that was it. Giving gunners very little time to react.

Not to say it was not dangerous though.

Jimmy Doolittle had read that manual.

You mean Alec Baldwin?

Oooooh, look at the brave man, Canoerebel on vacation and all . . . [:)]

[fodder]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

text

Looks like a test drop, those are U.S. jeeps and trucks on the ground with men just standing there watching.

[bigred]

Is it possible to change combat load on a20 or b25. Instead of 6x500lb bombs use 24x 100lb bombs. If attack catches defender in move or rest then what would be the effect?

[Dili]

The problem is game engine. Since it appears doesn't have the two necessary checks:
Check nº1: Is it over target?
Yes>go to check nº2
No> No hits

Check nº2: Odds to hit.

The game appears to have only check nº2, so many bombs almost always assures that one hit.

[sandman455]

My thoughts on this thread an the other on night bombing in the War Room
tm.asp?m=3366301&mpage=2&#3368970:

100' Bombing Setting in Game:

The altitude isn't real. It's a number that the game engine uses to calculate your hit chance among other things. This selection signifies that you are requesting the airgroup maximize its hit chance by bombing at the LOWEST possible altitude for the terrain, weapon, fuse settings, etc. It does not represent 100' AGL. A selection of 1000, 5000, 10000, etc would mean that you are requesting they use an altitude that much above the lowest possible. Your hit chance will be modified accordingly from best altitude setting of 100'.

I've dropped a few bombs and you can't drop anything significant @ 100'. You would need special ordnance with special retard/fuse settings like a parafrag which was 20-something lbs. Any issues/failures with your retard mechanism or fuse could lead to serious trouble if the weapon has a substantial frag pattern. Read about Operation Chastise - they used long fuses and special ordnance. They planned for months. They hand picked very skilled pilots. They lost 8 of 19 aircraft and many were to their own bombs. Yes they were brave and IMHO stupid. I've posted about skipping a bomb before. You don't do it any more - water or land. Just too dumb. Back then, with a good fuse (they had no retard mechanism) you'd need to be 200-400' off the water for some margin of safety from your own bomb bouncing right back up and smacking the bottom of your plane. If the fuse fails, hope your life insurance is paid up. If there is AA present, may luck be kind to you.

Parafrags:

The parachute is the retard mechanism for the bomb. That is all. It bestows no special benefits to the weapon and actually severely degrades its accuracy. It mandates that the bomb be dropped at tree-top level or you will have no hope of hitting anything you were aiming at.

If you want them in your game - simply use the editor to give the aircraft that load out. You can use the switches to control the mission if would like. Use a generous quantity on the extended profile since a non-attack bomber 2E would be using this for the mission. It will require that you remember to opt for the 100' selection on missions. Good luck against a target with any real AA.

IMHO the parafrag was not a successful weapon. I'm guessing they were not well received by the aircrew. If you think about the delivery requirement to make them work you will begin to understand why. You simply can't load these things up and kick the tires and light the fires. The planning required is far greater than the normal stuff. If your target is operational and with AA, you will need some waypoints to get surprise. You'll need a rock solid IP that you can easily see on the deck and under combat conditions. You'll need to fly dangerously low and maintain course/speed numbers so you know where you are on your delivery. Mess any of it up and the least you will do is miss the target or bring your bombs back home. On the other end of the possible outcomes is a smoking hole. If you lose surprise for whatever reason, your AA problems will give you nightmares. I can honestly tell you that all of these issues are big morale hits even before the bombs get loaded on the plane.

I posted something about this before. These low level missions are not what was going on in 1944-45 that you see pictures of and read about. Those missions were CAS and interdiction. Totally different stuff. In CAS you tool around at altitude waiting for someone to call you in and give you a mark. Easy, fun and if you don't see the mark you don't drop ordnance. Interdiction is even better. There you tool around at altitude and you pick the target. Anything moving on the roads or RR tracks and you dive in for your glory. Both of these missions are characterized by just loitering around waiting for your target to appear or get marked. These two missions are actually a big morale boost for units. And they are nothing like a low level mission such as dropping parafrags. A low level mission is really a strike on a fixed position - not so much a target. If the target is mobile, you may miss even with a flawlessly executed mission. Additionally, that target will often have a prepared defense. Not the case at all with CAS and Interdiction stuff - it is a cake walk in comparison.

Night Bombing:

Tactical night bombing in WW2 was pretty limited. You could do some if you had everything working for you and some good landmarks. But this is the Pacific theater and unless your target is an entire island, you aren't going to be able to use all the wonderful stuff they had in Europe to guide the way. A jungle, beach or the backcountry of Asia isn't going to cut it.

Bombing a city or town, sure. Bombing a port - maybe with some moonlight and great weather. Bombing an airfield - ugh - only with some help from dropped flares or star shells (IJN at Wake for example). And again you need a great moon and perfect weather. Everything other mission is out of the question IMO.

BTW - I'd have to recommend no low level night bombing unless you tell your opponent your plan a month before so he can stack the deck against you. It is that bad. Plus the player should research the hex. Find the highest peak in that hex - and then select the next highest altitude for your mission height. A mountain trumps AA everytime.

Thanks for reading.

[Bullwinkle58]

I can comment with some authority on submarines, but for the air stuff I like to read posts like yours from someone who has more than book learning. I think you make several very good points which are often forgotten or unmentioned in these many threads about the game's bombing modules.

--100 feet doesn't mean 100 feet. Yes, the button says that. But players are too literal.

--two massively important air mission types--important especially to the Allies from mid-war on--are CAS and interdiction, and they are largely missing from the game. Troop bombing while in route march is available, but no infrastructure attacks on transport structure. Also, several ordnance types very prevalent in the PTO are not in the game. These include air-to-ground rockets, napalm, and white phosphorous devices. These were CAS and interdiction weapons more or less, and Japan did not use them or used less perfected versions of them. To some extent players should see the bombing modules as designed to include these missing mission types inherently and at a second-order, and not take the mission name literally and in isolation.

--the beta code at present includes stiff penalties in coordination and RTBs for night attacks, these attacks nevertheless consuming the supplies a successful mission would. Night bombing is far from a panacea for the attacker.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: bigred

Is it possible to change combat load on a20 or b25. Instead of 6x500lb bombs use 24x 100lb bombs. If attack catches defender in move or rest then what would be the effect?

In game terms, my prior testing showed that with bombs, bigger is always better.

[jmolyson]

Airfield attacks by 5th Air Force using parafrags were extremely successful in destroying Japanese aircraft,
field equipment and airfield personnel. The bombs supplemented batteries of forward-firing
.50 caliber machine guns retrofitted to A-20s and B-25s. The bomb was so successful in the
particular environment in which 5th AF operated that the commander, MG Kenney, essentially
asked for the entire stockpile.

Kenney himself had invented the bomb to do exactly what his airmen did with it -
destroy Japanese airpower on the ground. In one attack it essentially destroyed
the Japanese 4th Air Army, chewed to pieces by strafing and parafrags at Wewak
on 13 Aug 43.

As for skip bombing, it was also extremely effective as seen in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
Again A-20s and B-25s fitted with batteries of 50 caliber machine guns in the nose sunk 8
transports, 4 destroyers and some 4500 troops.

The game may not model the ordnance nor the tactics properly, but that's a game engine problem,
not a reflection on the actual ordnance or its effectiveness.

I don't know how the campaign in the Southwest Pacific could be properly simulated without
this ordnance.

32 years - Air Force Operational Intelligence
60 years of reading history

read General Kenney Reports, Fire in the Sky or the Flying Buccaneers for more info.

[Panther Bait]

Considering that the parafrag and the skip bombing successes were in the same general vicinity and likely performed by air units, couldn't that success be due as much to a highly trained group of low-level attack specialists as opposed to a superior ordinance type?

Mike

[m10bob]

The real reason for parafrags was to allow extremely low level attacks and slow the bombs to prevent damaging the friendly planes.In theory the planes would be gone prior to explosions. Some had timers to prevent premature detonation as well.
Parafrag attacks were not done by planes following each other, but flying in a line abreast formation.(Hit and leave at once).
Consider these attacks to be the land version of the very succesful skip-bombing attacks sometimes carried out by the same units.


http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/P/a/Parafrag_Bombs.htm

[AW1Steve]

Of course they ARE obsolete. We don't use them anymore. The "Snake-eye" system ("retarded bombs" , no not mentally disabled , although then again they are "dumb" bombs) that is a kit that affixes rotor type wings to slow the bomb up. It has the added advantage that you can use (allegedly)any size bombs. (I don't think a "Tall Boy", "Grand Slam" or MOAB would work thought).

[robinsa]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

text

I understand it is hard to hide a plane, especially with limited resources but I have to say they did a terrible job at hiding this one.

[m10bob]

Forgot to mention....Some of the para frags had timers on them. The timers would allow the bombs to go off when an enemy ground crew might be out repairing planes and damaged runways.
Japan was always short of trained ground crew and mechanics, (which is the main reason nearly every captured Japanese airbase had damaged planes which only needed a part or two to repair. The parts might be there, but the skills to put them on the damaged plane just might not be there and it was literally easier to replace the whole plane)..

[jmolyson]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Considering that the parafrag and the skip bombing successes were in the same general vicinity
and likely performed by air units, couldn't that success be due as much to a highly trained
group of low-level attack specialists as opposed to a superior ordinance type?

Mike

The same could be said for the Zero, an outstanding weapon combined with superbly trained pilots.
Was the Zero successful because of the weapon or because of the crew? It was both reasons of course.

The 5th Air Force crews were well trained, there weren't a lot of them and they flew a lot of
missions. The parafrag and phosphorus bomb were extremely effective because the Japanese had
large numbers of poorly protected aircraft crowded together at the target airfields (little
motorized transport for the ground crews), and because they were repeatedly surprised (the
available supply of parafrags did not allow for their continuous use).

[jmolyson]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Considering that the parafrag and the skip bombing successes were in the same general vicinity and likely performed by air units, couldn't that success be due as much to a highly trained group of low-level attack specialists as opposed to a superior ordinance type?

Mike

As for skip-bombing, crews were specifically trained in this technique by Major Bill Benn, who had been MG Kenney's aide.
He went to the 43rd BG/63rd Bomb Squadron (B-17s) and made them believers. The crews were trained on a reef-stranded ship
at Port Moresby, the SS Pruth. Once successfully employed against the Japanese, the technique spread throughout the 43rd BG
and then to the B-25 and A-20 units. The smaller bombers were better platforms for this tactics that the Fortresses, and with
installation of more forward-firing ordnance could sweep the enemy deck of AA crews. Bomb delivery from 200–250 ft at 170–220 kn,
releasing a stick of 2-4 500lb demo bombs with 4-5 sec time delay fuzes. Bombs would "skip" over the water, bounce into the side
of target or submerge and detonate along side.

This later evolved into "mast-height" attacks. Bomb delivery approaching at 200–250 ft at 250-300 kn, dropping to 10-15 ft 600 yds
from the target, releasing two 500lb demo bombs with 4-5 sec time delay fuzes into the target from 300 yds and zooming over it.
Sometimes skip and mast-height bombing were used together depending on the target and situation. This was actually safer and cheaper
than using a torpedo.

[jmolyson]

ORIGINAL: robinsa

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

text

I understand it is hard to hide a plane, especially with limited resources but I have to say they did a terrible job at hiding this one.

Note the poor bastard trying to get into the cockpit between the right engine nacelle and the fuselage. Not a good day to be
in the Japanese aviation business. Japanese aircraft were often pretty crowded together due to inadequate transport for limited ground
crews and an over-reliance on AAA.

[jmolyson]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

The real reason for parafrags was to allow extremely low level attacks and slow the bombs to prevent damaging the friendly planes.In theory the planes would be gone prior to explosions.
Some had timers to prevent premature detonation as well. Parafrag attacks were not done by planes following each other, but flying in a line abreast formation.(Hit and leave at once).
Consider these attacks to be the land version of the very succesful skip-bombing attacks sometimes carried out by the same units.


http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/P/a/Parafrag_Bombs.htm

The timers were not there to prevent premature detonation, that was the parachute's job. They were there, as you said in a later post, to disrupt post-attack recovery efforts.

[jmolyson]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Of course they ARE obsolete. We don't use them anymore. The "Snake-eye" system ("retarded bombs" , no not mentally disabled , although then again they are "dumb" bombs) that is a kit that affixes rotor type wings to slow the bomb up. It has the added advantage that you can use (allegedly)any size bombs. (I don't think a "Tall Boy", "Grand Slam" or MOAB would work thought).

They are obsolete and so are all the planes and pilots that dropped them:-) The dumpy demolition bombs of WWII have been replaced by a series of low-drag Mk-80 series and other aerodynamic bombs.

The Snake Eye kits on Mk 80-series bombs are also obsolescent, having been introduced to combat in Vietnam.
Snake eye refers to bombs with pop-out air brakes (retarders) which slow the bomb. This allows better clearance
of the attack aircraft from the subsequent explosion. The fin kits have been largely replaced with balutes,
balloons that rapidly inflate and do the same job. These days the Mk 80 series are most often delivered from medium altitude and
stand-off ranges used precision-guided laser or GPS-kits with glide fins installed on the bombs, the so-called "Smart" or "Precision Guided" weapons.