Lufwaffe tactics wanted for BTR

[lastdingo]

Several then possible concepts for high performance bombers that the Alleid bombers didn't even come close to (and their inferior service ceiling and defensive armament in comparison to U.S. bombers is really not at doubt):

* A XB-28 with Razon bombs (Razon was feasible by 1917!)
* A pressurized cabins bomber that cruises at 35k ft where fighters cannot maneuver any more to dodge defensive fires.
* An A-20/A-26 like bomber with ability to strike the Ruhr area at low altitude and actually gets used in this role.
* A bomber that's made for bombing accurately at 20-45° angle (see Ju 88, Pe-2 - even the He 177 flew against London at 20° angle to minimise AAA effectiveness).

[otisabuser2]

I'm not sure if you've replied in the wrong thread here ?

I thought we were dicussing the total defeat of the RAF over Europe. These are US designs ? Unless my sources of "propaganda" had mislead me, I beleive the US were on the Allied side in the war ?

I have no doubt the US had many impressive projects on paper, lying in the wings. So did the RAF and the LW.

In case there is any doubt, I acknowledge that the US had some very good aircraft, and many of these were better than were available from UK/Commonwealth sources. The RAF used many of them. I mentioned the US effort with the sole purpose of demonstrating your use of language.

[lastdingo]

I laid out why the British bombers were primitive bomb trucks, not tactically impressive bombers by showing possible alternatives.
The Bomber Command opted for primitiveness, accepting widespread sophistication only in radio equipment, not in tactics.

They could have had a much greater effect at much smaller cost if the Bomber Command had not been so primitive.

[otisabuser2]

ORIGINAL: otisabuser2


I thought we were discussing the total defeat of the RAF over Europe.

[lastdingo]

You are no Jedi, your thoughts do not shape the world.

Look at the first post of the thread or at my posts if in doubt.  [:D]

[wildweasel0585]

ORIGINAL: lastdingo

I laid out why the British bombers were primitive bomb trucks, not tactically impressive bombers by showing possible alternatives.
The Bomber Command opted for primitiveness, accepting widespread sophistication only in radio equipment, not in tactics.

They could have had a much greater effect at much smaller cost if the Bomber Command had not been so primitive.

For one, heavy and medium bombers are designed for different roles. Heavy bombers have always been designed to be bomb-trucks, hence their name.Show me one source that says B-17s and B-24 weren't designed to be bomb-trucks. And then show me the nations that wanted to strategically bomb that didn't use bomb-trucks.
Tactics should follow doctrine. If Bomber Command has the doctrine of area bombing, it's heavy bombers are going to reflect that. You are right about British heavy bombers being primitive in terms of being under armed.
2) How is bombing a dam at night and at low altitude with a big ass 4 engine bomber tactically unimpressive? Probably the same way a 8 engined B-52 can perform CAS missions.[8|]
3) How is Operation Jericho, performed by British Mosquitoes not tactically impressive? Not to mention Pathfinder raids.
4) How are Bomber Command tactics primitive compared with the USAAF? You forget that eventually those slow heavily armed B-17s were sent up as bait and that the USAAF would use numbers to overwhelm the Germans. How are those tactics better than flying at night where you can't be seen?
5) With the technology of the era, there's not much Bomber Command could have done to minimize losses to fighters and flak besides using faster planes.

[lastdingo]

"Strategic" bombers are merely long-range bombers.

Four engines are not a necessity for this (see IJN), but make it much easier to achieve a long range.
The mass of four engines on the wings also restricts manoeuvrability a lot.
That's why so many "strategic" bombers were reduced to bomb-trucks.


It was not inescapable, though. Medium and even light bombers often had the range required to destroy the Ruhr area industry from SE England. Some U.S. mediums had the range required for reaching Saxony and Berlin from SE England.
Germany used light and medium bombers in pursuit of "strategic" effects (see bombing of Russian tank factories, not just the BoB!).
It also developed the He 177 with dive and later shallow dive attacks and equipped it with missiles.

The XB-28 and even the A-26 could have played a bigger role in defeating Germany with a strategic bombing campaign than all the Lancasters and Halifaxes did. 2,000 lbs in form of two AZON/RAZON munitions was worth more than any 4-engined bomber ever carried during WW2 on a strategic attack, save for the two nukes.


2) The dam raids were unusually elaborate, but quite inconsequential due to being extreme exceptions to the rule. The losses were so severe that there's doubt whether using such high-competence crews on such a risky mission was better than employing them on training regular crews. It was thus rather a mixed exception.

3) Quite the same applies to the Mosquito raids of all kinds, which were quite ineffective. They played no substantial role in the grand picture, they rather highlight the Bomber Command's failure to placeless emphasis on primitive bomb trucks.

4) I did not claim that the USAAF heavy bombers were not primitive. The U.S. was -among other nations- experimenting with guided munitions by 1917, but 8th AF used 500 lbs dumb bombs excessively even in '45.
Their escort fighter scheme was elaborate, though (unnecessarily so, for the faster cruising B-28 would have simplified the escort tactics a lot).

5) Bomber Command could have done a lot more to reduce its losses, even while pursuing its stupid strategy.
- belly turrets
- mix with 50cal and 20 mm guns to force the nightfighters to adopt heavier frontal armour
- use of much higher cruise and attack altitudes
- earlier compression of time over target to less than 20 minutes in order to minimize the qty of AAA shells fired
- more use of Mosquitos for the attack on heavy AAA batteries
- more elaborate paths
- attacks on the big stationary early warning radars (some of those weren't attacked until '45!!!)
- improved field of view for tail gunner as part of a trade-off (less firepower), as he was more important as observer (alert for corkscrew evasive manoeuvre) than as gunner
- occasional low altitude night attacks on Central and South German targets (where almost no light AAA was deployed)

[wildweasel0585]

Nope, Strategic bombers are bombers that bomb strategic targets. Strategic is the role they play and doesnt imply range although most strategic targets are deep within enemy territory. But to take it a step back, bombers started being refered to as strategic bombers during the Cold War. During WW2 bombers were classified as light, medium, and heavy. light and mediums carried out mostly tactical raids, while the heavies (bomb trucks) carried out the strategic bombing.I never once classified to any bombers as strategic in my previous post.
IF Strategic only applies to the range of the bomber as you imply, then you're also saying light and medium bombers are strategic. The reason medium and light bombers weren't used in the strategic bombing campaign is because they weren't heavy bombers with heavy bomb carrying capacities. Not to mention the fact that light and medium bombers would have to bomb at higher altitudes to get out of german flak, which would mean less accuracy and more raids and more deaths over the same target.

First you say british bombers were tactically unimpressive, I show some examples, you agree and then start to talk about how ineffective the raids are[&:]

4) How are Bomber Command tactics primitive compared with the USAAF? You forget that eventually those slow heavily armed B-17s were sent up as bait and that the USAAF would use numbers to overwhelm the Germans. How are those tactics better than flying at night where you can't be seen?
5)Tactics should follow doctrine. If Bomber Command has the doctrine of area bombing, it's heavy bombers are going to reflect that.
- belly turrets (ventral attacks were ineffective until the introduction of Schräge Musik, even then they were used in small numbers.
- mix with 50cal and 20 mm guns to force the nightfighters to adopt heavier frontal armour (this isn't daylight bombing, night fighters didn't do frontal attacks)
- use of much higher cruise and attack altitudes (once again, this isnt daylight bombing AAA is ineffective if you cant see what you're shooting at.)
- earlier compression of time over target to less than 20 minutes in order to minimize the qty of AAA shells fired ( they attacked in streams,which is safer to fly in than in concentrated boxes.)
- more use of Mosquitos for the attack on heavy AAA batteries (remember its nighttime, and you already said Mossy raids "were all ineffective" and Bomber Command was primitive)
- more elaborate paths (not elaborate according to you)
- attacks on the big stationary early warning radars (some of those weren't attacked until '45!!!) (you cant hit what you cant see.)
Stupid strategy? Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it stupid.

[lastdingo]

You didn't read properly.

Strategic bombers are bombers that bomb strategic targets. Strategic is the role they play and doesnt imply range although most strategic targets are deep within enemy territory.

Saddling the horse from the other side doesn't mean I was wrong. Your definition on the other hand is wrong, for not all bombers that bombed strategic targets were called strategic bombers. No matter which period we're looking at.

The again, the definition isn't that important, as I mentioned 'strategic bombers' merely as an introduction to the dynamics of combat aircraft design at the time.

The reason medium and light bombers weren't used in the strategic bombing campaign is because they weren't heavy bombers with heavy bomb carrying capacities.

Actually, they were used in the strategic bombing campaign. Benelux and French industries were frequently targeted with light and medium bombers for lack of better targets for them. Mosquitos were used as well.[/quote]

Not to mention the fact that light and medium bombers would have to bomb at higher altitudes to get out of german flak, which would mean less accuracy and more raids and more deaths over the same target.

Not at all. RAZON and Fritz-X were usable out to 30,000 ft altitude AND vulnerability to heavy AAA is a function of altitude, maneuvers, aircraft hardware, electronic combat, clouds, formation and time in range. Few fast bombers dropping guided bombs would have reduced the effect of heavy AAA to a tiny fraction of their historical value. No aircraft was ever reported shot down by heavy AAA during Fritz-X missions, for example (no matter how often keyboard generals claim that the aircraft was vulnerable because of flying straight - in fact, the bombers were in a shallow climb after release and thus quite difficult to target accurately).

First you say british bombers were tactically unimpressive, I show some examples, you agree and then start to talk about how ineffective the raids are[&:]

1% of missions is hardly representative. 1% sophistication is even less impressive if it's rarely able to shine in cost/benefit ratio next to brute force. There were more botched special attacks than successful ones, after all.

5)Tactics should follow doctrine. If Bomber Command has the doctrine of area bombing, it's heavy bombers are going to reflect that.

Both doctrine and tactics were primitive. So what?

- belly turrets (ventral attacks were ineffective until the introduction of Schräge Musik, even then they were used in small numbers.

Actually, ventral attacks were universally preferred against targets that were able to watch their six. This applies to daylight just as to nighttime. German nightfighters considered the direct 6 o'clock attack as a terrible necessity when the spotting distance was so short that no ventral attack was possible (= bomber already in firing range when spotted visually for the first time).

- mix with 50cal and 20 mm guns to force the nightfighters to adopt heavier frontal armour (this isn't daylight bombing, night fighters didn't do frontal attacks)

I wrote about night fighter frontal armour, not bomber frontal armour. Concentrate!

- use of much higher cruise and attack altitudes (once again, this isnt daylight bombing AAA is ineffective if you cant see what you're shooting at.)

What? Bomber Command suffered heavily due to their medium altitude attacks. All heavy AAA was highly lethal to them 1942-1945 as long as ammo was available and the radars worked. The angle error of German fire control radars was on the order of 0.2°, about the same as shell dispersion and easily enough for effective blind fire.
Flying higher would ceteris paribus have reduced AAA effectiveness and it would have put greater requirements on nightfighter designs and its trade-offs.

- earlier compression of time over target to less than 20 minutes in order to minimize the qty of AAA shells fired ( they attacked in streams,which is safer to fly in than in concentrated boxes.)

...and you have apparently little clue about Bomber Command tactics.
Sometime in 1943 operational research calculated that compressing the time over target for the bomber stream would leave the heavy AAA less time for their job = less losses. Crews were concerned about risk of collisions - operational research calculated an average of one collision per 1,000 bomber raid and during the first test OR was proved correct in all regards. This simple compression of time over target reduced losses to AAA greatly (quite the same logic as applied against the Himmelbett network). It came quite late, though.

Bomber streams doesn't mean that bombers could not arrive over the target at the same time. You split them up and let the sub-streams fly over the target in a 10-20 minute time frame.

Now don't call this sophisticated; it was still primitive in comparison to a Japanese or German torpedo bomber attack (Japanese used prong attacks against capital ships, Germans preferred a few minutes short time window at dusk to hit convoys hundreds of miles away from their bases!).

- more use of Mosquitos for the attack on heavy AAA batteries (remember its nighttime, and you already said Mossy raids "were all ineffective" and Bomber Command was primitive)

The small harrassing raids of 1-3 Mosquitos against a city were strategically unimportant (albeit kinda cost-effective due to their minimal costs), yes.
Their potential in SEAD was greater as long as one believes in big nighttime raids at all.

- more elaborate paths (not elaborate according to you)

The Bomber Command missed many opportunities to counter Zahme Sau with more elaborate bomber stream paths.
Almost all that they did was avoiding major AAA regions, focusing on breaking through Himmelbett on a minimum of Himmelbett sectors and then the aforementioned timing over the target city itself. They did rarely design paths in order to reduce Zahme Sau effectiveness.

- attacks on the big stationary early warning radars (some of those weren't attacked until '45!!!) (you cant hit what you cant see.)

WTF? Why couldn't you see a big radar?
I didn't mean daylight attacks (those big radars were on the coast and vulnerable to low level raids of Mosquitos), but even nighttime attacks were easily possible - especially in Oboe range. Light low level interdiction bombers even flew missions between mountains at night - trying to kill difficult targets such as trains or trucks.
All you need is absence of low clouds, moon or a bit area illumination and then a handful of low-flying light or medium bombers.

Besides; it was also possible to build passive radar homing glide bombs during WW2. In fact, some were developed and the Americans even fielded an active radar homing glide bomb.

Stupid strategy? Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it stupid.

Actually, after reading so much and having the advantage of hindsight, I'm pretty confident that I understand that primitive "strategy" and its failure. It led to great destruction, but it did next to nothing to accelerate VE or reduce overall Allied casualties.

The British had the classic "we need to do something" problem and lacked the self-discipline to not do primitive stuff in addition to promising stuff.
The result was that they had committed huge war crimes and spent great fortunes that haunted them fiscally during the post-wartime.

[otisabuser2]

ORIGINAL: lastdingo

You are no Jedi, your thoughts do not shape the world.

Look at the first post of the thread or at my posts if in doubt.  [:D]

Take your own advice and read your own posts. You will find your reply to my first post on this thread and find that I am correct. We ( ie you and I ) were discussing the "Total defeat of the RAF over Europe ". In your reply to this you even replied quoting part of my post on that one subject ?

Forgive me for not wanting to wander too far off that topic. I find than several people on the web are inclined to wander off a subject being discussed, and before you know it they will amble through a series of their favoured topics like weapons that were never built and how they would have directed the war better, until ultimately arriving at their favourite topic. Amazing how many people will try and turn a thread around to say, War Crimes. Takes all sorts, I suppose.

[wildweasel0585]

Show me where strategic bombers don't bomb strategic targets. Quoting me only shows you didnt read properly. You're the one implying that strategic bombers have to have 4 engines and be long ranged. The F-15E can be considered a "strategic bomber".

With all the reading you've done, you should know why mediums and heavies, werent used to bomb on a regular basis the same targets the heavies did. Show me consecutive raids where medium and light bombers used these gliding bombs. you can't so shut up about them. But you can show me where medium bombers have bombed strategic targets and gotten decimated. The primary weapon used for bombers during the time were dumb bombs.. I thought you knew this??

LEARN HOW TO READ
When i say "ventral attacks were ineffective" that does not mean they aren't preferred. But they weren't preferred, it was normally preferred to attack a bomber at night where it won't fall on you after you shoot it down.
LEARN HOW TO COMPREHEND, CONCENTRATE!
I also said "this isn't daylight bombing, night fighters didn't do frontal attacks" I don't understand how you could think i am talking about bombers when I clearly mentioned night fighters didn't do frontal attacks.

I guess in all your reading you missed the part about Germany using tons of searchlights. I assume you think they were using them to signal UFO's and ET's.You also miss the part about Bomber Command using jamming techniques. Last time I checked, jamming screws with radars.

Show me how stating Bomber command attacking in streams, which is something you obviously missed in your reading, and a tactic Bomber Command used implies I know little about Bomber Command tactics.All it shows it that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Since you're not a pilot, I can see how you think that flying at night in bad weather and in concentrated defensive boxes would be easy. Also, I never mentioned that bombers flying in streams would arrive over a target at the same time. Stop putting your words in my mouth. Besides, the tactic of flying in streams was to overwhelm AAA defenses of Kammhuber line.

How can you miss a big radar? Do some flying at night and you'll see how. Flying at night isnt as easy as you claim it is. It may seem that way to the guys in bomber command who were young kids who think their invincible and who's never been on a vehicle that can travel faster than 50mph.
"All you need is absence of low clouds, moon or a bit area illumination and then a handful of low-flying light or medium bombers." yeah, i forget that Bomber Command was a bunch of primitive apes who couldnt scratch their asses without your help. You must feel guilty that all those guys in BC died since you werent around at the time to tell them how to do it better. I know I would.

"Actually, after reading so much and having the advantage of hindsight, I'm pretty confident that I understand that primitive "strategy" and its failure."
Actually, no you don't.
First off, you didnt know that flying in bad weather, at night, and in concentrated formations is dangerous hard work.
Secondly, you think medium and light bombers could have done the heavy bombers job better with lighter payloads and think that the USAAF had an abundance of guided bombs.
Thirdly, you still don't understand why Bomber Command would use the tools they did when TACTICS FOLLOW DOCTRINE. IF YOU'RE BOMBING AT NIGHT, THEN YOU DON'T NEED A HEAVILY ARMED HIGH FLYING BOMBER.YOU DO KNOW BOMBER AND FIGHTER CREWS WEREN'T EQUIPPED WITH NVG'S AND THAT RADAR WAS PRIMITIVE AT THE TIME?
Fourthly, WW2 was total war, that means no civilians, only people helping the war effort. Bomber Command bombed to tie up German resources on the home front, which they did pretty damn well. Go take that war crimes bs, and cry about it somewhere else.

Using all that hindsight, I thought you would have known that Bomber Commands mission wasn't to "accelerate VE or reduce overall Allied casualties." That wasn't even the goal of the USSAF. If you knew the difference in the role that heavy bombers play compared with light and medium bombers, you would know that YOUR goal that YOU wanted Bomber Command to perform is purely tactical and wouldn't be suited for bomb trucks.

[lastdingo]

You get way too much wrong and are not concentrated enough, a discussion appears to be pointless.

1) Quote me how I state that strategic bombers have to have four engines. Quotes from your fantasy don't count.

2) "Show me where strategic bombers don't bomb strategic targets."
Normandy carpet bombing, Kuwait carpet bombing.

3) Your next part about light/medium/heavy is simply confused writing, makes no sense to me.

4) Explain how in your mind "ineffective" attacks can be "preferred". Normal logic at work in the minds of people involved prohibits this.

5) Your statement about night fighters and frontal attacks makes no sense. I concluded that you meant bomber frontal armour because that was the only logical way out of your mess. After all, daylight fighters did attack Fortresses head-on at times.
Now if you don't mean "head on" with "frontal", then you're simply grossly wrong.
Nightfighters did thousands of frontal attacks. All their attacks but a handful of Defiant engagements and the Schräge Musik attacks were frontal.

6) Your obsession/confusion about invisibility / jamming / radars / searchlights at night still makes no sense to me. Bombers were not invisible, neither to radar nor to the naked eye.

7) What makes you think I'm no pilot? You know nothing about me.
Keep in mind I'm not writing in my antive tongue and not necessarily using the words that I'd normally use.
So basically you're clueless about what licenses I own.

8) Who's talking about defensive formations (combat boxes) at night? They fell apart asap and were not the rule during dark nights.
If in doubt, ask yourself why the RAF didn't get the Schräge Musik tactic till the Ju88R crew defection. Planes in formation would surely have observed this tactic at work many times.

9) This "- earlier compression of time over target to less than 20 minutes in order to minimize the qty of AAA shells fired ( they attacked in streams,which is safer to fly in than in concentrated boxes.)"
clearly implied that you were assuming that the bomber streams were not arriving at about the same time over the target and that you were thus trying to tell me I was wrong with the statement that they did it (late in the war). I did not reply in any way believing that you assumed a common ToT, in fact I assumed the exact opposite.

This in turn means that this
"Also, I never mentioned that bombers flying in streams would arrive over a target at the same time. Stop putting your words in my mouth."
is not about what I wrote, but about your fantasy about what I wrote.

10)
"Besides, the tactic of flying in streams was to overwhelm AAA defenses of Kammhuber line."

Finally we agree on something. AFTER I already stated the fact indirectly:
"This simple compression of time over target reduced losses to AAA greatly (quite the same logic as applied against the Himmelbett network)."

More careful reading would have revealed to you that I was totally informed about the purpose of the streams.

11)
"How can you miss a big radar? Do some flying at night and you'll see how. Flying at night isnt as easy as you claim it is."

We're talking about years, including dozens of full moon nights. We're talking about nights during which bomber pilots have attacked much, much more difficult mobile targets at night.
I don't care about what you think how difficult it was - it was proved to be possible on a routine basis by much more difficult similar actions.

12)
"Secondly, you [...] think that the USAAF had an abundance of guided bombs."

OK, I'm sick of it. That was an outright lie and I call it out. You're a liar. I never said nor wrote anything like that, and you have no clue about what I'm thinking. Your statement was a lie.

13)
"YOU DO KNOW BOMBER AND FIGHTER CREWS WEREN'T EQUIPPED WITH NVG'S AND THAT RADAR WAS PRIMITIVE AT THE TIME?"

Thanks for reinforcing the impression of your primitive discussion style by using a strawman attack and caps lock.

14)
"Fourthly, WW2 was total war, that means no civilians, only people helping the war effort."

Bullshit. Ethics don't stop because politicians say so.
Besides, that was also the general argument of the Nurembourg trials and thus the official allied stance after VE-day.
The total war = gloves off against everyone bullshit puts you in the same camp as the worse of the Nazis.

15)
"Using all that hindsight, I thought you would have known that Bomber Commands mission wasn't to "accelerate VE or reduce overall Allied casualties.""

Factually, that was the whole strategic purpose of the bombing campaign. You have no clue.
No other reason can even come close to justifying the effort and results.



Now after discovering that you're a liar, unable to read properly, willing to use strawman arguments and totally stuck on total opposition no matter what I write (and even total opposition to what you imagine I think or write), I leave this discussion.

I've seen too many of your kind to waste more of my time on this.

[wildweasel0585]

Just because you don't like total war, doesn't mean that total war can't exist and is no reason to say I belong in same group as the Nazi's [:-]. But saying Bomber Command strategy is stupid and contributed nothing to the war but primitive tactics and dead young men while not understanding the role they played in the war does make you look like a dumbass. A coward too if you think you can do better with the same tools.
Maybe you should stick with your native language and learn not to get emotions involved.

Now, can we get back to the OP?