Here is a basic over view of the Allied bombing offensive in Europe.
Note that Allied bombers suffered high attrition rates until the introduction of escorts. Even then, bomber crews suffered a 10% rate of losses.
Allied Strategic Bombing Campaign over Europe
Without Fighter Escorts:
On August 17, 1943, the Eighth Air Force launched its deepest raid against the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt and aircraft production factories at Regensburg. The bombs destroyed some of the factory complexes, but the Luftwaffe destroyed or damaged much of the bomber force. The raids cost the Eighth Air Force 60 out of 315 bombers and usually the 10 crewmen in each bomber. After more raids against Luftwaffe airfields, the Eighth Air Force made another massive effort the next month. On September 6, Eaker sent 262 bombers against Stuttgart. Of those, 45 fell to fighters and flak. Although the Americans had proved that, weather permitting, they could put some of their bombs on target, their losses in unescorted raids suggested that the Eighth Air Force might not find planes and crews to replace its losses and maintain efficiency and morale.
On October 14, 1943, the air war over Europe reached a critical turning point. On that Thursday, the United States Eighth Air Force mounted Mission No. 115 against the city of Schweinfurt, the center of the German ball bearing industry.
Out of 291 bombers dispatched, 257 actually entered German airspace. Sixty were shot down, just over 20 percent of the total number. Two hundred twenty-nine B-17s reached Schweinfurt and dropped their bombs. Only 197 returned to England. Of those, five planes were abandoned or crashed on landing, while 17 others landed so damaged that they had to be written off. Altogether, 82 of the 291 original bombers that left England were lost, more than 28 percent of the entire force assigned to the raid.
Moreover, the Schweinfurt raid was the climax of a week of strikes against German industrial targets. Between October 8 and 14, 1943, the Eighth Air Force flew 1,342 heavy bomber sorties, losing a total of 152 bombers (11.3 percent), with another 6 percent receiving heavy damage. During the entire month of October, the Eighth lost a total of 214 heavy bombers, almost 10 percent of the total number dispatched. Lost and damaged planes constituted more than half the sorties flown during the month. At that rate of attrition, an entirely new bomber force would be required every three months in order to maintain the Allied bomber offensive.
Throughout the summer and fall, Eighth Air Force bomber crews were experiencing a monthly attrition rate of 30 percent, while Luftwaffe pilots died at a rate less than half that of the Americans. Of the 35 aircrews that arrived in England with the 100th Bomb Group at the end of May 1943, only 14 percent of the men made it through the 25 missions required for rotation. The rest were dead, wounded, missing, psychological cases or prisoners of war. The message was clear: Bombers could not survive beyond the range of fighter escort. After Black Week, Eaker called off further penetrations and pondered his dilemma. The American daylight bombing campaign against Germany had reached a crisis point.
Allied Fighter Escorts Established:
By early 1944, the newly formed U.S. Strategic Air Forces was hastening the destruction of the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground, as well as carrying out the selective destruction of German industrial power. Spaatz abandoned his predecessor's belief that the heavy bombers would always get through and championed the use of fighter escorts for bombers attacking deep into German territory.
The U.S. Strategic Air Forces, coordinating Eighth and Fifteenth air forces' raids, resulted in a new peak in the American bombing effort. Testing all its reforms in early February 1944, the Eighth Air Force mounted a third Schweinfurt raid and lost only 11 out of 231 bombers, while three other raids sent 600 bombers against Germany with minimal losses. The USAAF mounted some 3,800 daylight sorties over the Reich during the so-called Big Week of February 22-25, while more than 2,300 night sorties were flown by RAF Bomber Command. Although Big Week cost the Eighth 300 planes (mostly bombers) lost or written off, nearly 10,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the German aircraft industry and ball bearing plants, a greater tonnage than the Eighth had dropped on all targets in 1943. As many as 1,000 complete or nearly complete German aircraft had been destroyed.
With fighters that could fly beyond the Rhine, protect bomber formations and sweep ahead to engage the Luftwaffe interceptors, the Eighth Air Force formations reversed the loss ratio with the German fighter force. American bomber losses fell below 10 percent of each raiding force, while German pilot losses mounted. In February 1944 alone, the Luftwaffe lost 33 percent of its single-engine fighters and 20 percent of its fighter pilots, including several fliers who were credited with more than 100 victories. In the first four months of 1944 it had lost 1,684 fighter pilots. Their replacements would be unskilled youths thrust into combat against experienced American pilots.
By the time Operation Pointblank ended, it had achieved its primary objective, securing air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for Overlord. Operation Pointblank had succeeded, but not in the way Allied planners had initially intended or expected. Round-the-clock bombing had not smashed the Luftwaffe into oblivion, nor had it destroyed German aircraft production. Instead, by simultaneously striking at aircraft factories and bombing industrial and military targets deep inside Germany, the combined bomber offensive forced the Luftwaffe to send its fighters to meet the ever-increasing flow of bombers over the Reich. Once in the air, they were assailed by Allied fighter escorts. In this war of attrition, the Luftwaffe lost its greatest asset--its experienced pilots. Without skilled pilots to meet the Allied threat, the rise in German aircraft production meant nothing.
http://historynet.com/wwii/bloperation_ ... index.html Drinking a cool brew; thinking about playing my next wargame....
In that game, which I generally think is terrific, heavy bombers don't suffer nearly as many losses as you describe. Heck, in night-bombing raids, I lose 2 or 3 Zeroes to every B-17 I damage.
