ORIGINAL: Apollo11
Hi all,
Bill, German medium bombers (He-111 and Ju-88A) had sufficient range to bomb almost all UK without any issues (they bombed Northern Ireland for example) so the Manchester was no problem at all (and it was heavily bomber during "Blitz")!
The "Kampfgruppe 100" was operational and very very capable.
All german bombers were trained for night bombing and had adequate equipemnet.
The concentrated night attacks against few selected aircraft / airframe factories would, therefore, be no problem at all!!!
Also the daily raids would be done by fighters (which would, of course, not be involved in night operations) and remaining bombers (i.e. not used for bombing raids so no overusing existing force at all). The attacks should be done the way Allies attacked German airfields in 1944 (i.e. patrolling over the bases and waiting for the opportunity to strike when enemy is landing / taking off - the attacks on grassy meadows serving as landing strips was 100% inefficient and useless.
This is, IMHO, quite feasible and achievable possible usage of German air strength (Germans had the strength - they lacked strategic vision and proper tactical usage of force)!
Leo "Apollo11"
RAF Bomber Command found that night bombing was terribly inaccurate. They gave up trying to hit individual buildings at night fairly early in the bombing campaign and switched to area bombing entire cities. By 1944, Bomber Command was the best at night bombing of any air force in history to that date, and they still couldn't hit individual buildings at night. That technology wasn't really perfected until the 1980s.
I just don't see how the Germans could have had any hope of hitting a factory building in Manchester at night in 1940 when night bombing was still in its infancy when RAF Bomber Command would be hard pressed to do it 4 years later with vast advancements in technology.
German fighters didn't have the loiter time to patrol over British airfields and wait for opportunities. Even Mustangs rarely loiter over German airfields waiting for planes to take off and land. If fighters were loitering over airfields, planes landing would usually be diverted to other fields, planes on the ground wouldn't take off, and fighters from somewhere else would be vectored in to deal with the loitering fighters.
The only place where I've read Allied fighters did loiter were over the Me-262 fields. The Me-262 couldn't be diverted to many other fields and the goal was to keep them on the ground even if it did tie down a lot of Allied fighters to achieve that.
American fighters were cut loose to sweep targets of opportunity returning from escort missions and many times they would sweep over a German airfield while planes were taking off or landing and scored some easy kills.
The German bomber force at the Battle of Britain was much smaller than what the Allies had even by mid-1943, bomber payloads were on average smaller than later war Allied bombers, their fighters had shorter range than the P-47, night bombing was in its infancy and all the predictions of accuracy from all the experts was way over what was achievable by the end of the war, and their bomber force had to serve as both tactical and strategic bombers.
I don't see where what you propose was even remotely possible for the Germans in 1940. I may be missing something, but the US Strategic Bombing Survey, done just after the war, lays out pretty clearly what was and wasn't achievable by Allied bombers with 1945 capability. Even daylight bombers were found sorely lacking in accuracy. Night bombers were lucky to just be able to hit the right city.
Bill
