Night Bombing Overpowered?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy


city bombing only at night sounds like a reasonable hr. With manpower only targetted, the industry would get damaged by fires (if fires actually work in AE which I haven´t seen evidence for yet).

And the last ime this topic reared its head there was documented evidence introduced of night bombing of islands at 1000+ mile ranges by the Japanese (Wake maybe?) Dead reckoning is pretty good over water, an island's borders can be seen from altitude against sea even with minor moonlight, and a lot of islands were small enough that the airfield could be IDed.

So what about night bombing of islands? Do we over-complicate a working system that much again?

Why do players who think night-bombing is overpowered or ahistorical DO IT, then come here to complain about it?

Just Say No. Be happy.

[Dobey455]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

ORIGINAL: Dobey
Simply incorrect.
In the early years, yes the night bombing was terrible.

First you say Im incorrect, then in the next sentence, you agree with me?

But improved techniques and especially navigation technology (Oboe, H2S) and Pathfinder units meant that by the time the allied bomber forces were bombing transportation targets in France in 1944, prior to Overlord, it was discovered that Bomber Command was actually bombing more accurately by night than the 8th AF was by day. (this was because at night each bomber aimed individually, where as by day they bombed as a single formation perhaps a mile, or more, wide and several miles long.)

No one is arguing that BC was as bad in 44 as they were in 41. I am saying though that they were absolutely appalling in 41, and somewhat better in 44. I will need a source for the statement that ye average Lancaster at night was more accurate than ye average B 17 (with Norden-sight no less!) at day. Especially since the Lanc will be "aiming" at a patch of black surrounded by absolute darkness...unless it is aiming at a pathfinder-marker. Or perhaps a radar echo... But still, to claim that they were more accurate than the Norden sight-B17s is news to me. So what is the source for that statement?

You are confusing results with potential. Even after BC proved they had the ability to hit pin point targets at night they continued to bomb cities.

What is the size of this "pin point target" you claim the BC could hit in 44?

Actually if you read what we both said, I disagree with your first statement - that BC could barely even hit a city let alone anything else, but I agree with yor second statement, that airfields are not a legitimate target at night particularly not AF in the middle of dense jungle as in the pacific.

As to what I am referring to in terms of "point" target. I am talking about predominantly marshalling yards and road junctions. I'm sure your definition of "point" will vary....

As to my sources, I happen to be at a friends house for the nest few days, (we have a public holiday tomorrow), but I spent about 16 seconds searching the web to find, for example, this: http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index. ... -strategy/

quoting the 14th paragraph

"By the fall of 1944, Bomber Command’s Halifaxes and Lancasters were at least as accurate as the Flying Fortresses and Liberators. In the cloudy weather so common in the fall and winter months both air forces were required to use navigation aids and target marking by master bombers. Bomber Command had more experience at this than the USAAF."


- EDIT: Also BC's major part in the Oil raids campaign (late 1944) is very widely know and reported. An oil refinery is not a small target, but certainly shows that by that time they could hit the same targets as the 8th AF was hitting.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

The units which "historically mastered the concept" were only aiming at massive targets...like Berlin or Tokyo. They often managed to miss even that. Bomber Command had enormous problems with what they called "bomb creep" meaning that later aircraft in the bomber stream aimed at fires already caused by earlier bombers, this multiplied with every new aircraft, leading to long strings of bombs moving back along the bomber stream-route away from the city that was targeted. Often the Germans would find such bomb-alleys running several kilometers out into the countryside after a BC attack.

Pathfinders and radar made accuracy better of cource, but they too were aiming at cities, not smaller targets. Before pathfinders, I believe the BC accuracy was something along the lines of "less than 5 % of bombs landed within 5 kilometers of aimpoint" or something ridiculous like that.

You are mixing quotes and data from a 5-year period. The actual situation was the RAF started out in 1940 being lucky to hit the right country..., but by the spring of 1944 (the "Transportation Plan" attacks) they were much more accurate and effective bombing railway marshaling yards (in the middle of cities) at night than the Americans were during the day. This resulted from the introduction over time of numbers of technical and doctrinal improvements.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

No one is arguing that BC was as bad in 44 as they were in 41. I am saying though that they were absolutely appalling in 41, and somewhat better in 44. I will need a source for the statement that ye average Lancaster at night was more accurate than ye average B 17 (with Norden-sight no less!) at day. Especially since the Lanc will be "aiming" at a patch of black surrounded by absolute darkness...unless it is aiming at a pathfinder-marker. Or perhaps a radar echo... But still, to claim that they were more accurate than the Norden sight-B17s is news to me. So what is the source for that statement? REALITY! What your analysis leaves out is that each bomber of BC bombed individually..., while the B-17's were forced to fly and bomb as "formations" due to German air defenses.


What is the size of this "pin point target" you claim the BC could hit in 44?
As I mentioned in the post above, the railway marshaling years (often located in the center of friendly French cities) were certainly as "pinpoint" as any airfield..., and Bomber Command shattered the targets it was allotted.

[Puhis]

European spring/summer nights and nights near equator are rather different, I think...

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Why do players who think night-bombing is overpowered or ahistorical DO IT, then come here to complain about it?

To answer you're question, becuase I'm on both sides of this one. I have a game as the Allies and a game as Japan. In my Allied game I conducted precisely one night attack (the 1st set of results above) and then volunteered to give it up. I considered 100 hits on an airbase with 21% moon in severe thunder storms to be 100 hits too many.

Before asking my other opponent for some concession I thought it best to see whether I'm away with the faries.

[Yakface]

There have been various comments here:

1. Most attacks are wimpy
2. My 100 plane night attack was ahistorical
3. If the Allied player managed to mass that number then they should be rewarded
4. Results are reasonable/supported by European experience.

my thoughts:

1. Here's some hard numbers (obvioulsly subject to FOW). Averaged out each bomber is achieving 2.3 hits per attack (sample size is 43 attacks). In my most recent turn one attack achieved 83 hits from 24 bombers and the other 42 from 9 bombers! Rates of 3.4 and 4.7. These are decent daytime results achieved at 3% illumination after flying 6 or 700 miles. The average over a few days is curtains for any base.

2. Why....er becuase it didn't happen during the war. OK fine - why didn't the allies do it?

I ask because quite frankly, given no. 1 above, if I hadn't given up night bombing in my Allied campaign I would never do anything else. Decent results at no cost to my bombers.

3. Any allied player who tried to but couldn't put together this sort of attack is quite frankly incompetent. I've got 350 4E bombers on the map (Jan '43) with at least another 5 groups able to convert (PDU's are on). That number is only going to increase. I could also use 2E bombers at night. The problem is not the 4E bit, but the night bit IMO.

4. I'm not interested in European experience. Are there any reports of the effectiveness night time attacks on airbases by bombers in the Pacific theatre. Not just one-off's, but persistent campaigns. I am not knowledgeable enough to answer that one myself. If no reports I would suggest it didn't happen. If it didn't happen might that suggest it wasn't practical?

I think there is merit in a number of the fixes suggested - 75% rest for groups at night, 15,000ft, just say no. Would rather the model worked though.

I want to avoid a game which devolves into night time obliteration of bases in an area and then invasion......becuase that is not how the war went (and more importantly that would be the most god aweful game). The way things are working at the moment, that's what I could do as the Allies

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Yakface
3. Any allied player who tried to but couldn't put together this sort of attack is quite frankly incompetent. I've got 350 4E bombers on the map (Jan '43) with at least another 5 groups able to convert (PDU's are on). That number is only going to increase. I could also use 2E bombers at night. The problem is not the 4E bit, but the night bit IMO.

I play the AI, so I'm of course incompetent. I bomb at night in Burma, and am lucky to get 10 RAF bombers onto Mandalay on a good night, moslty from Imphal. The AI normally has at least one fighter unit flying night CAP, as I said, often Nates. My losses are low, as are my results.

Could you give me, for instance, a list of Allied 1943 bases where one can:

A) launch 100+ 4E strikes on multiple nights, and
B) are in range of Japanese bases with the dense populations of grounded planes your results point to.

As you say, we're not in Europe, where airports were thick as fleas. Where in the PTO can you routinely mount these sorts of strikes against these sorts of dense sitting ducks?

[Dixie]

For what it's worth, Bomber Command in Europe was a vastly different organisation to the RAF operating out of India.  For most of the war in India/Burma there just wasn't the support to mount mass raids, not even on the scale you've managed here, for a few reasons.

Navigation over a featureless jungle with (from what I remember) poor maps at 7000 was not (is not) a good idea, and pretty difficult.  If they aren't flying over jungle then they're flying over the sea instead, which is just as featureless.
There just wasn't the number of aircraft available to mount the size of raid we're talking about.
The aircraft were, in the main, tired and overworked.  Both factors lead to more u/s aircraft and thus a decrease in available numbers.
Spares and ground crews were lacking, especially compared to Europe, in combination with the tired aircraft you've got more a/c u/s.
For RAF units in particular, long range types were often required to keep some aircraft on standby to search for downed aircrew over the Bay of Bengal.
Weather would curtail ops, no-one would send up 100+ heavy bombers at night in heavy storms to fly at 7000 feet.

Most of those aren't the fault of, or controllable by, the player.  Except altitude.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Dixie

For what it's worth, Bomber Command in Europe was a vastly different organisation to the RAF operating out of India.  For most of the war in India/Burma there just wasn't the support to mount mass raids, not even on the scale you've managed here, for a few reasons.

Navigation over a featureless jungle with (from what I remember) poor maps at 7000 was not (is not) a good idea, and pretty difficult.  If they aren't flying over jungle then they're flying over the sea instead, which is just as featureless.

They have navigators who can use the radio systems someone described above, celestial navigation, dead reckoning, landmarks, and whatever else I don't know, all depending on what was available due to weather, etc. I'm not saying it's easy, but the game does not give anywhere near as good results to night bombing as it does to day bombing. Pilots have posted on these forums about what you can see with even little moonlight if the moon is high enough. Again, I'm not saying it's easy, but there is no way that the results the game gives to night bombing is anywhere near as good as it gives to day bombing.

There just wasn't the number of aircraft available to mount the size of raid we're talking about.
The aircraft were, in the main, tired and overworked.  Both factors lead to more u/s aircraft and thus a decrease in available numbers.

Not a night bombing issue.

Spares and ground crews were lacking, especially compared to Europe, in combination with the tired aircraft you've got more a/c u/s.

Not a night bombing issue.

For RAF units in particular, long range types were often required to keep some aircraft on standby to search for downed aircrew over the Bay of Bengal.

Not a night bombing issue.

Weather would curtail ops, no-one would send up 100+ heavy bombers at night in heavy storms to fly at 7000 feet.

Barely a night bombing issue - really a weather issue. The game does account for the effects of weather. As we well know by now, the game engine has a lot of variables and you might get a good outcome in bad weather. This represents breaks in the clouds, openings in the storms, etc. that allow a raid to go in. As we see from many posted combats bad weather is definitely a limiter on combat results as well (and often spawns complaints like "Why don't my planes hit anything?"). The weather displayed in the combat report is the weather over that hex during that phase of the turn, and does not reflect the 'die rolls' built into the game to provide uncertainty about the exact nature of the weather at the time and point of attack (those breaks in the clouds, let-ups in the storms, etc.).

As for the decision process "no-one would send up..." how exactly is that carried out? Based upon the forecast (press the '3' key or the 'K' key)? That is very often wrong. I suggest that the weather as listed (meaning during that phase of the turn in that hex) is not known for any certainty to the (little electronic) commanders that the player delegates to during turn execution at the time they make that decision. The decision to go or no go is (as I see it) two steps. First, the human player either gives the orders or does not give the orders, and has the (highly imprecise) weather forecast at his disposal. Second, during turn execution the little electronic commanders might cancel based upon weather at the launching base (or ship), or based upon other factors built into the engine (morale, fighter escort, etc.).

Most of those aren't the fault of, or controllable by, the player.  Except altitude.

And, what about the pilots skills/experience in the night attacks being cited in this thread?

I see this thread promoting as way, way too little information used - to the exclusion of other information - to call for changes to the game engine.

[m10bob]

If time might be considered.....anybody ever heard of Curtis LeMay?




If anybody need evidence of the effectiveness of Pacific theatre pathfinders and night bombing raids, May I refer you to TITANS OF THE SEAS by James and William Belote


MACARTHURS EAGLES by Lex McAulay is another good source of info..

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

If time might be considered.....anybody ever heard of Curtis LeMay?




If anybody need evidence of the effectiveness of Pacific theatre pathfinders and night bombing raids, May I refer you to TITANS OF THE SEAS by James and William Belote


MACARTHURS EAGLES by Lex McAulay is another good source of info..

Is there information about attacks on airbases in those books? or is it mainly about strategic bombing. If there are details on the former, it's the sort of information I've been looking for....if not then it's not relevant.

No pathfinders (as far as I can tell) in any of the attacks in either of my games

[FatR]

In my experience, any sort of interception screws the nightbombing accuracy enough to make results practically nonexistent, except against highly overstacked airfields or something like that. Bomber advantage in air combat is more problematic and can lead to one-sided destruction of early Japanese fighters. Less of a problem once Ki-45 enters service, though. These can almost always survive bomber fire.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Yakface

ORIGINAL: m10bob

If time might be considered.....anybody ever heard of Curtis LeMay?




If anybody need evidence of the effectiveness of Pacific theatre pathfinders and night bombing raids, May I refer you to TITANS OF THE SEAS by James and William Belote


MACARTHURS EAGLES by Lex McAulay is another good source of info..

Is there information about attacks on airbases in those books? or is it mainly about strategic bombing. If there are details on the former, it's the sort of information I've been looking for....if not then it's not relevant.

No pathfinders (as far as I can tell) in any of the attacks in either of my games

Yes, both books, airfields in particular, day and night..


BTW, the figures quoted above referring to the bombings in Europe are useless compared to the Pacific.

The Germans were very adept at creating "fake cities" to bomb at night and thought nothing of torching entire fields for the same reason..

When I lived in Germany, the local stories were that the Nazis intentionally set fire to the old opera house to throw the British bombers off, as they felt it looked similar enough to the Haupbahnhof to throw them off.
The entire neighborhood of Bockenheim suffered, where I lived..
The old opera house was not rebuilt (to a museum) till approx 1975.

The Japanese never went to this extent.

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Yakface
3. Any allied player who tried to but couldn't put together this sort of attack is quite frankly incompetent. I've got 350 4E bombers on the map (Jan '43) with at least another 5 groups able to convert (PDU's are on). That number is only going to increase. I could also use 2E bombers at night. The problem is not the 4E bit, but the night bit IMO.

I play the AI, so I'm of course incompetent. I bomb at night in Burma, and am lucky to get 10 RAF bombers onto Mandalay on a good night, moslty from Imphal. The AI normally has at least one fighter unit flying night CAP, as I said, often Nates. My losses are low, as are my results.

Could you give me, for instance, a list of Allied 1943 bases where one can:

A) launch 100+ 4E strikes on multiple nights, and
B) are in range of Japanese bases with the dense populations of grounded planes your results point to.

As you say, we're not in Europe, where airports were thick as fleas. Where in the PTO can you routinely mount these sorts of strikes against these sorts of dense sitting ducks?

As per the proviso in the quote, I would suggest that you have not seriously tried. If you really had put your mind to it and could not get it to happen....then yes incompetent.[:D]

OK - you asked

Calcutta, Ledo, Imphal, Silchar, Chittagong, Comilla, Cox's Bazaar, Dacca, Tennant Creek, Alice Spring, Koumac, Umnack, Adak, Chunking, Nanyang, Changsha. Townsville.

Soon to be - Geraldton, Cookstown, Cairns

Couldn't tell you where all his aircraft are, but suffice it to say, I have bases on every front that can launch that sort of attack. If not, any size (5) could be built up to 8 which is sufficient and there is not lack of those anywhere.

Actually the whole thing is irrelevant, for two reasons

1. The 100 plane attack was coordinated from 3 bases - Ledo, Silchar and Comilla
2. My issue is not with the size of the attack, but with the number of base hits per plane - be there 100 or only 9

[crsutton]

Viperpol and I have a gentleman's agreement to restrict night bombing to one unit per theater. That keeps it in persepective yet does not eliminate night bombing altogether as it is kind of fun to fool around with. As the Allied player I hardly use it as when I send my bombers in I want to close a base down with maximum hits. As the Japanese player he uses them for nuisance attack that might do a little damage but just as well might not. I think our agreement works well. Considering the growing Allied air strength, it is understandable that he would want to use some of his fragile bombers at night. I should have done it more myself early in the game. We have in addition restricted night naval attacks to two or three dedicated uints. (I forget how many) but that has kept night naval attacks to a reasonable limit. So far he has torpedoed one CVE and one CA or BB (can't remember) but most of the time his night naval attack do nothing but just cost him planes. It seems to work fine with these limits.

Aside from AA it pays to set at least one fighter unit on night CAP. It does not have to be a night fighter unit just any unit. High air skills are a good idea as well. I use P39 squadrons or one of the small Australian or British squdrons. Older fighters work just fine. Usually, the air combat is not too effective but you will on occasion shoot a bomber down and I find that damaged bombers do not do much damage. In addition, since enemy escorts cannot fly at night it is not uncommon for a portion of the unescorted bombers to turn away. Do this and night attack efficiency will drop off.

However, if both you and your oppoent are sending massive night bombing raids then you are both destined to get quite frustrated. Best to negotiate a compromise.

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Dixie

For what it's worth, Bomber Command in Europe was a vastly different organisation to the RAF operating out of India. For most of the war in India/Burma there just wasn't the support to mount mass raids, not even on the scale you've managed here, for a few reasons.

Navigation over a featureless jungle with (from what I remember) poor maps at 7000 was not (is not) a good idea, and pretty difficult. If they aren't flying over jungle then they're flying over the sea instead, which is just as featureless.

They have navigators who can use the radio systems someone described above, celestial navigation, dead reckoning, landmarks, and whatever else I don't know, all depending on what was available due to weather, etc. I'm not saying it's easy, but the game does not give anywhere near as good results to night bombing as it does to day bombing. Pilots have posted on these forums about what you can see with even little moonlight if the moon is high enough. Again, I'm not saying it's easy, but there is no way that the results the game gives to night bombing is anywhere near as good as it gives to day bombing.

There just wasn't the number of aircraft available to mount the size of raid we're talking about.
The aircraft were, in the main, tired and overworked. Both factors lead to more u/s aircraft and thus a decrease in available numbers.

Not a night bombing issue.

Spares and ground crews were lacking, especially compared to Europe, in combination with the tired aircraft you've got more a/c u/s.

Not a night bombing issue.

For RAF units in particular, long range types were often required to keep some aircraft on standby to search for downed aircrew over the Bay of Bengal.

Not a night bombing issue.

Weather would curtail ops, no-one would send up 100+ heavy bombers at night in heavy storms to fly at 7000 feet.

Barely a night bombing issue - really a weather issue. The game does account for the effects of weather. As we well know by now, the game engine has a lot of variables and you might get a good outcome in bad weather. This represents breaks in the clouds, openings in the storms, etc. that allow a raid to go in. As we see from many posted combats bad weather is definitely a limiter on combat results as well (and often spawns complaints like "Why don't my planes hit anything?"). The weather displayed in the combat report is the weather over that hex during that phase of the turn, and does not reflect the 'die rolls' built into the game to provide uncertainty about the exact nature of the weather at the time and point of attack (those breaks in the clouds, let-ups in the storms, etc.).

As for the decision process "no-one would send up..." how exactly is that carried out? Based upon the forecast (press the '3' key or the 'K' key)? That is very often wrong. I suggest that the weather as listed (meaning during that phase of the turn in that hex) is not known for any certainty to the (little electronic) commanders that the player delegates to during turn execution at the time they make that decision. The decision to go or no go is (as I see it) two steps. First, the human player either gives the orders or does not give the orders, and has the (highly imprecise) weather forecast at his disposal. Second, during turn execution the little electronic commanders might cancel based upon weather at the launching base (or ship), or based upon other factors built into the engine (morale, fighter escort, etc.).

Most of those aren't the fault of, or controllable by, the player. Except altitude.

And, what about the pilots skills/experience in the night attacks being cited in this thread?

I see this thread promoting as way, way too little information used - to the exclusion of other information - to call for changes to the game engine.

Maybe I should've been a bit more specific as to the points I was making/answering.  I was mainly throwing some answers out there as to why the Allies didn'  They might not be specifically night bombing mission factors, but they are factors that affected the actual campaign and are factors that are affecting the game.  Factors that impacted on why the real life results don't match what we see and why people might consider the night bombing to be over effective.  Whilst the number of aircraft in the air doesn't necessarily affect the accuracy of a raid it will change the effectiveness of that raid.  2 hits per bomber per mission might be a reasonable score for a raid of a dozen or two dozen bombers, but when you can mass 100+ bombers in the night sky over Burma then it does feel a little skewed to my mind. 

What radio navigation aids were available in South East Asia in 1943?  No H2S/H2X or Oboe out there.  Celestial navigation and dead reckoning aren't that accurate, it might get you somewhere near Rangoon.  Or it might get you 150 miles off-course if the nav gets something wrong and wartime crews frequently did get something wrong.  Pilots might post on here about how much you can see when the moon is high, but if you're below the cloud cover in a blacked out tin can with limited visibility out over potentially hostile territory then navigation is going to be harder than flying in today's skies.  No point in having a bomb-aimer who can drop bombs withing 100yds of an aiming point if your nav can't get you there, no?

In game we order X units to fly a night bombing mission and Y bombers turn up and drop bombs, there's no indication that Z bombers have got lost or turned back which also has an impact on how the effects are viewed.  If planes are flying at night, at low altitiudes, in bad weather, over difficult to navigate terrain then (IMO at least) ops losses should be enough to make players have to decide if it's worth the risk.  I'm not saying the game engine should change, it's not my decision to make after all.

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: witpqs


And, what about the pilots skills/experience in the night attacks being cited in this thread?

I see this thread promoting as way, way too little information used - to the exclusion of other information - to call for changes to the game engine.

What other information would you like?

Pilot experience is in the upper 50's, low 60's with ground bombing skill in upper 60's low 70's. The way pilot training works, I've got hundreds of similar pilots.

Here are the most recent attack report - I've got many many more from the past 3 months if you want them.

this was with 3% moonlight

Night Air attack on Katherine , at 76,128

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 98 NM, estimated altitude 6,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 36 minutes


Allied aircraft
Liberator II x 3
B-24D Liberator x 6
B-24D1 Liberator x 15


Allied aircraft losses
Liberator II: 2 damaged
B-24D Liberator: 2 damaged
B-24D1 Liberator: 5 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
5 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled



Airbase hits 2
Runway hits 80

3.4 hits per bomber

Aircraft Attacking:
3 x Liberator II bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 8 x 500 lb GP Bomb
9 x B-24D1 Liberator bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
3 x B-24D Liberator bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
3 x B-24D Liberator bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
6 x B-24D1 Liberator bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Air attack on Katherine , at 76,128

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 93 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 32 minutes


Allied aircraft
B-24D Liberator x 3
B-24D1 Liberator x 6


Allied aircraft losses
B-24D Liberator: 1 damaged
B-24D Liberator: 1 destroyed by flak
B-24D1 Liberator: 1 damaged



Airbase hits 1
Runway hits 43

Near as damn it 5 hits per bomber

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x B-24D1 Liberator bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
3 x B-24D Liberator bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb

[Alfred]

You are highlighting the wrong data.

The number of hits per bomber is rather meaningless. The useful figure is the number of hits made by 500lb bombs. This is because the damage inflicted is dependent on

(a) the size of the bomb and
(b) the number of bombs dropped on target

The same number of "hits " from Blenheim bombers does not inflict the same level of damage because they carry smaller and fewer bombs per plane.

Alfred

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

You are highlighting the wrong data.

The number of hits per bomber is rather meaningless. The useful figure is the number of hits made by 500lb bombs. This is because the damage inflicted is dependent on

(a) the size of the bomb and
(b) the number of bombs dropped on target

The same number of "hits " from Blenheim bombers does not inflict the same level of damage because they carry smaller and fewer bombs per plane.

Alfred

Sorry - I should have said - these are all 500lb from B17's or B24's and Liberator II's carrying 8 or 10. (Although it is there in the reports).

At a rough estimate 2.5 hits would be somewhere around the 25 to 30% hit rate, depending on the mix.