My father, a ordinance officer in a B26 Group had a few nasty words about the 'weapons effects boffins' of 1943-44. "Knotheads" was his specific term, which in his 1930s -40 midwestern vernacular was a clear insult. I think he was including some high level Brit or other in that lot. He continued on in the air ordnance business post war and was familiar with the differences between what the leaders and their staff of 1943-44 thought and those post war evaluations with the new data. However, where his contempt seemed to derive from or be aimed at was the portion who were operating from theory they had contrived earlier in the war, that they were unwilling to modify by the experience of the crews actually flying the missions, and they seemed to be ignoring or cherry picking data from prewar tests. To attempt to reconstruct his remarks: "Even we knew what we had would not work they way they had us doing it." 'We' being both very junior officers like himself, and the career commanders of the squadrons and groups; "what we had" being the ordnance and the bomb sights; and the last being the attack methods, and general strategy for use of the 9th Bombardment Div. His other remarks on this addressed the deficiencies his group found when they first started ops in 1943, and the solutions they identified. Sorry I did not take notes back in 1978. At the time I had no clue what use his insights into this might have. I suspect from his experience in the ordnance effects and how it was used or misused by the 9th a lot of useful information passed by uncollected with him.Mil-tech Bard wrote: It is a reflection of how bad USAAF battle damage assessment was.
The OSRD weapons effects boffins -- there are a whole series of weapons effects books they put out during and after the war -- were aghast at how little real data the 8th Air Force had gathered.
Enough of that. Reviewing the descriptions of the AA defense of the targets the 9th attacked the description of it interfering with the guidance of the Azon bombs to target fits. I strongly suspect the crews were skeptical long before the mission. I can visualize the group or wing commanders estimating exposure and likely losses as soon as they read the book on the Azon weapon. I suspect that if they have been told to keep trying a solution, if there was one, would have been found. I also suspect there is more to this that the bits we see here & my speculation.
Probably could hit the targets better too.Mil-tech Bard wrote:Experienced crews and outfits could fly farther and carry more than green ones.