Re: B-17's flew missions over wartime Europe

"Walt" <Walterm140@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:671c9d14-bfb3-40bc-95e5-5f192e2fbc64@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On May 24, 12:34 pm, "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclai...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

The Lancaster flew at about the same speed as the B-17 and B-24
and about the same heights as the B-24s. The USAAF bombing
accuracy report gives the average bombing height for 8th Air Force
bombers as 21,542 feet for B-17s and 19,880 feet for B-24s.

Average Lancaster height of atack was about 15,000 feet.

I note no reference, and of course the advantage of the night
operations was lower altitudes were possible. So what is the
reference and what was the day average altitude?

I note Grand Slams were released from as high as 17,000 feet and
the average Lancaster load for the war was 10,065 pounds.

B-17's often attacked at 27,000 ft and on at least one occasion,
30,000 ft, in formation with good results.

Translation Walter goes through the records looking for reports
of good USAAF raids.

Meantime the rest of us do things like look up the USSBS
bombing accuracy report.

You know the report that said for 3 boxes of bombers the
expected circular error was 570 feet at 10,000 feet, 830 feet
at 20,000 feet and 1,605 feet at 29,000 feet.

Larger raids, 15+ boxes started off worse, 765 feet expected
error at 10,000 feet but did not degrade as much, 1,025 feet at
20,000 feet, 1,700 feet at 29,000 feet.

However both sets of figures show how errors increased much more
rapidly than altitude did above 20,000 feet.

There are limits to optical sighting and the ballistics of free falling
bombs. Not to mention the requirements of flying formation against
possible fighter (and flak) attack versus the preferred formations for
best bombing.

Then comes the fact the lighter the bomb the less accurate it is
when dropped from altitude.

Of the three aircraft types, the B-17 was clearly superior.

Walter of course defines what the B-17 had then defines superior
working backwards to match the B-17.

Meantime the rest of humanity notes superior depends in the mission,
not the aircraft itself.

Also note the USSBS bombing accuracy report for the 8th Air Force
noted the B-17 had superior accuracy to the B-24 and had a lower
loss rate, one per 58.9 missions, versus 1 per 49.9 missions for the
B-24, but the B-24 dropped more bombs per loss, 149 tons versus
147.2 tons, implying the average B-24 bomb load during the study
was almost exactly 6,000 pounds versus 5,000 pounds for the B-17.

Oh, I was going down memorly lane:

Yes folks, an excuse to ignore the Speer report for June 1944 on avgas
production, Walter has to ignore the correlation between the RAF raids
and loss of production, then later in the month the same thing for USAAF
and RAF raids.

Remember Walter never goes with facts when a generic quote will
do.

"As early as June, 1944, the month the invasion started, we felt very
badly the effects of the consolidated offensive. Fuel production suddenly
sank so low that it could no longer satisfy the urgent demands.

This rather ignores the reserves the Luftwaffe had built up, but of
course in June 1944 it was a combined offensive Bomber Command
and the USAAF were both hitting oil plants effectively, as shown by
the Speer reports.

Speer,
when interrogated by the Allies stated that from June on, it had been
impossible to get enough aviation fuel.

The front line fighter units suffered from a lack of fuel in the June to
September 1944 period mainly thanks to interdiction efforts, given the
reserves, not the lack of production.

While it was possible with the
greatest effort to keep up at least a minimum production of motor and
diesel fuel, the repair work on the plants where normal fuel was converted
to octane constituted difficulties which were impossible to overcome.

It goes rather like this, the USSBS has tables and graphs of German
oil production, Walter ignores this, a quote from Galland is preferred.

You know, the fact German avgas production dropped to around 10,000
tons in September 1944, climbed back up to about 37,000 tons in
November 1944, was back down to 15,000 tons in January 1945 and
was still around 5,000 tons in March 1945. Walter prefers the idea
production was zero.

Next comes the reality much of the diesel and ordinary motor fuel came
from crude oil, installations which the air forces flying out of Britain did
not attack until after they had hit the synthetic oil plants making avgas.
Furthermore Germany had an excess of crude oil refining capability.

A major source of crude oil was Ploesti, the USAAF knocked out the
associated refineries which often directly supplied the German forces
in the East and the RAF interdicted the transport lines from the fields to
Germany to cut crude oil imports. The Red Army then over ran the fields.
You know, joint operations.

Meantime in Germany motor fuel production was cut to around half
to two thirds its 1944 peak by September 1944 and stayed around
there for the rest of the year.

Diesel production began to decline in March 1944, down to around
two thirds the peak in May 1944, in September it was down to
around half the March peak and stayed that way for the rest of the
year.

The point missed by Walter is the summer fighting forced the German
Army's fuel consumption way up, and so stocks of motor fuel fell from
around 500,000 tons in March 1944 to 140,000 tons in September.
Diesel stocks from 300,000 to 160,000 tons.

Losing oil supply was one part of the equation, the other was forcing
the Germans to use what stockpiles they had.

The
enemy soon found out how much time we needed for reconstruction and
for resuming production. Shortly before this date was reached under
tremendous strain came the next devastating raid."

-- "The First and the Last" p. 210 by Adof Galland

Walter prefers the Galland quote that gives the allies a perfect score,
always able to hit German avgas production before it restarted. The
USSBS says otherwise of course.

Harris basically refused to attack Oil targets as ordered.

No. As can be seen by simple comparisons with the 8th Air Force
operations.

That is why he got no peerage and no post war employment.

Walter refuses to learn, that's why he cannot cope with reality.

Can it be explained why there was no post war Bomber Command
campaign medal, was that also due to Harris?

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.


.

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