How to stop Allied daytime bombing?

[Yodasgrandad]

How many planes shot down/casualties would Germany need to inflict on the Allies for them to cease the daylight bombing? Or at least till they find a way to counter the Germans?

[Carl Schwamberger]

From memory the staff of the US 8th AF calculated a excess of 5% losses per mission would be unsustainable. The Schweinfurt/Regensburg raids in the autum of 1943 suffered 20% - 30% losses in some specific cases & in excess of 10% in the overall effort. That was of major concern to Allied leaders and led to canceling other planned raids until full mission escorts could be provided.

[Mark in Cleveland, Tn.]

Spot on assessment Carl....... In the British TV series of the late 60's The World At War, episode *Whirlwind* this is addressed .

[maltesefalcon]

It also depends on how many missions the crews are expected to fly. If its 25, then a 4% loss rate would mean your force would lose the equivalent of 100% of its strength in that time period.
For the British is was 30, so a 3.5% loss rate means statiscally a crew has little chance of survival. At one point when times were bad, there was a suggestion to up the ante to 35. It was quickly pointed out that the strength would only increase by a couple percent. This would be overshadowed by the sharp reduction in volunteer crews who now knew they would in all likelihood not survive their tours.
The time factor also comes into play. If it takes 3 months to fully train a crew, then you need a minimum 3 month supply of crews in action. If the crews fly every three days they complete their tours in 90 days. If they suffer a 6% loss rate, after 16 mssions you have no crews left to fly for the next month or so.

[stg 44]

Spot on assessment Carl....... In the British TV series of the late 60's The World At War, episode *Whirlwind* this is addressed .

What was the average rate historically? 2-3% losses per mission or so for the USAAF? I know it went down into 1944 though aircraft losses went up, they were just able to field more aircraft than the Germans could engage.

[T. A. Gardner]

You'd need to cause a sustained bomber loss of about 7 to 9% per raid to make them prohibitive. But, that doesn't mean the US would simply stop bombing, just that they'd be forced to change tactics. The 7 to 9% losses would be sufficient that the US couldn't replace them as fast as they were occurring. That's the key issue here. It isn't individual crew survival that matters. It's what losses can be sustained.

On how to do it... I really don't think Germany has a viable solution to that problem, particularly once the US gets long range fighter planes. Flak certainly won't do it. The Luftwaffe hasn't got the fuel, pilots, or tactics available to get to that sort of sustained loss rate against Allied bombers. It doesn't help that their fighters are mostly unsuited to shooting down large, heavily armored and armed, high altitude bombers. Stacking big cannon on something like the Me 109 simply isn't going to cut it. The R4M might be a bit better, but as the Battle of Palmdale in the 1950's proves it's no panacea either.
A viable SAM might work but it isn't in the cards given 1940's technology, particularly with the state of German electronics development.

[thaddeus_c]

long thread that offered several improvements to German flak efforts viewtopic.php?f=11&t=68932

always think they gave little attention to twin fuselage ME-109Z (similar to twin Mustang) given that it used 90% 109 parts and could have actually flown as opposed to ME-262. equip that with R4M rockets

concentrate the jet efforts on AR-234 for recon along with high altitude JU-388, those two at margin could have dropped butterfly bombs on and around Allied airfields?

[Yodasgrandad]

Yeah but surely they wouldn't suffer the manpower and training issues that Germany faced? So they could simply build more planes and train more pilots?

[stg 44]

but as the Battle of Palmdale in the 1950's proves it's no panacea either.

People misquote that situation all the time. So let me educate you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale

The two crews discussed attack options. Their D-model Scorpions were equipped with the new Hughes E-6 fire-control system with AN/APG-40 radar and an attack-plotting computer, which gave them a choice of two attack options to fire the unguided rockets while in automatic mode: from behind in a "tail chase" situation or a firing pass from a 90° "beam" position. Since the drone was almost continuously turning, they chose the second mode of attack. Soon the drone turned northeast, passing over Fillmore, then Frazier Park,[2] heading for the western section of the mostly uninhabited Antelope Valley. The attackers attempted to fire in automatic mode several times, but due to a design flaw in the fire-control system the rockets failed to launch.[6]

Suddenly the drone turned back towards Los Angeles. Einstein and Hurliman were forced to switch from the faulty automatic mode to manual fire. The D-model Scorpions had been delivered with gun sights, but when the E-6 fire-control system was later added, the sights were removed. Now, with the radar-guided system inoperative and no gun sight, the attackers were forced to manually aim the unguided rockets. The F-89D was capable of firing all 104 of it rockets at once, all leaving their tubes in only 0.4 s. The rockets could also be set to "ripple fire" in two different patterns: two ripples (64 and 42 rockets) or three ripples (42, 32, and 30 rockets). A single hit was sufficient to bring down an aircraft.[3] Murray and Hale set their intervalometers to "ripple fire" in three salvos.[7]

While the drone flew over Castaic, the first crew lined up and fired 42 rockets, completely missing their target. The second interceptor moved into position and unleashed another salvo of 42, the rockets passing just beneath the bright red drone, a few glancing off the fuselage underside, but none detonating.[1] Close to the town of Newhall the pair of jets made a second pass, launching a total of 64 rockets; again none found the mark. The two Scorpion crews adjusted their intervalometer settings and, as the wayward drone headed northeast toward Palmdale, each fired a last salvo of 30 at the target with no hits, dispensing their last rockets. In all, the Air Force element fired 208 rockets and were unable to shoot the Hellcat down.[8]

Basically they were trying to engage an unpredicatably maneuvering piston engined small target from jet interceptors, so already there is a major issue in terms of speed and trying to it a target of that size that they cannot predict the maneuvers of. Add on that the automatic system manfunctioned, so they couldn't use the computerized, radar based unsight AND they lacked any sort of manual sight, meaning they were forced to guestimate their salvos against a small, slower, maneuvering target. Add on to that when they did achieve hits the rockets in question didn't fuse properly, so didn't detonate as they were supposed to, nor did they then fuse as designed to deactivate if they missed the target, so caused major wild fires when they hit the ground and detonated.

It was a prefect storm situation where the option of actual success was impossible. More importantly the situation was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to using R4Ms against bomber boxes. Using that as an example of why the R4M wouldn't work well against B-17s and B-24s shows your argument is based on not actually understanding the example in question.

Flak certainly won't do it.

FLAK actually could have performed a LOT better than it did, the Germans just bet on revolutionary technology like SAMs without investing properly in FLAK development (they certainly invested in production). They also badly bungled their radar developments and failed to properly develop FLAK radar to the level they should and could have nor did they invest in an automatic gunlaying system after they tried in the mid-1930s and instead focused on other developments. Nazi led R&D was a mess and should have been able to produce far better systems than were actually fielded, for example the development of a FLAK proximity fuse was given very low priority and all efforts focused on a rocket VT fuse which was developed and fielded, but not a working SAM, making the development moot.

[MarkN]

How to stop Allied daytime bombing?

Surrender.

Or better still, not start a genocidal war of conquest and subversion in the first place.

Would have saved a hell of a lot of pain, suffering and bloodshed all round.

[BDV]

How to stop Allied daytime bombing?

Surrender.

Or better still, not start a genocidal war of conquest and subversion in the first place.

Would have saved a hell of a lot of pain, suffering and bloodshed all round.

Hey, it worked for Djugashvilli.

Are you faulting Schicklgruber for believing that Germans could successfully imitate the Russians?

[T. A. Gardner]

but as the Battle of Palmdale in the 1950's proves it's no panacea either.

People misquote that situation all the time. So let me educate you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale

Actually, it's a good analogy. The drone was moving much like a bomber on a fixed course. It wasn't "maneuvering." It certainly wasn't doing aerobatics like a fighter plane, nor was it jinking about in the sky. The F-89's involved had no usable fire control for the situation just as a German fighter would have nothing but a reflector sight to aim by.
Large quantities of rockets were fired at the drone. Now, while the drone is smaller, the F-89 could get closer than a German fighter could to a bomber as the later would have active defensive armament and be shooting back. So, the analogy is reasonable.

FLAK actually could have performed a LOT better than it did, the Germans just bet on revolutionary technology like SAMs without investing properly in FLAK development (they certainly invested in production). They also badly bungled their radar developments and failed to properly develop FLAK radar to the level they should and could have nor did they invest in an automatic gunlaying system after they tried in the mid-1930s and instead focused on other developments. Nazi led R&D was a mess and should have been able to produce far better systems than were actually fielded, for example the development of a FLAK proximity fuse was given very low priority and all efforts focused on a rocket VT fuse which was developed and fielded, but not a working SAM, making the development moot.

Flak has never performed a lot better. Sure, with VT fuzes, better fire controls, and better radar it might have improved some, but it wasn't going to produce anything close to the 7 to 9% kill rate consistently needed to stop the bomber attacks. However, constructing a gun system like the US SCR 584 radar and fire control and 90mm M2 with its powered mount and on mount servo system allowing automatic tracking and laying was well beyond German production capacity.
As a variant of that, the Germans never came anywhere close to producing a remote control gunnery system for aircraft that really worked well. At most, they produced very simple ones, like that on the Me 410, that relied heavily on the gunner using "Kentucky windage" (ie., visual correction of aim based on his ability) to get the fire on the target. They simply didn't have the industrial capacity to produce something like the system on a B-29.

So, saying they could have produced a heavy flak gun with a powered mount (requiring a gasoline motor and a generator among other things) in the thousands is a non-starter. The same goes for gun laying. Their electronics industry started out the war in a good position, but fell apart afterwards. Even the Japanese beat the Germans to millimeter radar for example. An Allied style VT fuze was also beyond their capacity. As it was, Germany was very dependent on Dutch (Phillips) and French vacuum tube manufacturing to fill their needs. Making the shock resistant miniature tubes necessary for a VT fuze was something they really didn't even try to do.

[stg 44]

Actually, it's a good analogy. The drone was moving much like a bomber on a fixed course. It wasn't "maneuvering." It certainly wasn't doing aerobatics like a fighter plane, nor was it jinking about in the sky. The F-89's involved had no usable fire control for the situation just as a German fighter would have nothing but a reflector sight to aim by.
Large quantities of rockets were fired at the drone. Now, while the drone is smaller, the F-89 could get closer than a German fighter could to a bomber as the later would have active defensive armament and be shooting back. So, the analogy is reasonable.

Then you didn't read the article, because the drone was turning unpredictably. It was not behaving as a 4 engine bomber in formation did, it was turning and changing course constantly as a 1 engine fighter plane could and consequently was a much more maneuverable and small target than a B-17, plus there weren't an entire formation of them to hit. The F-89 had no sight at all to aim with, the German fighters had a gunsight to aim with, a VASTLY different situation and the rockets generally fused properly unlike the American ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R4M

A battery typically consisted of two groups of 12 rockets and when all 24 were salvoed in an attack, they would fill an area about 15 by 30 m at 1000 m, a density that made it almost certain that the target would be hit.

The Luftwaffe found the R4M missiles to have a similar trajectory to the 30 mm MK 108 cannon's rounds in flight, so the standard Revi 16B gunsight could be utilized.[1]

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... t=&act=url

The placement of hits was relatively easy due to the extended trajectory of the stabilized rocket. Because of the high initial speed of the rocket and the relatively large area covered by a full rocket naval, a timely evasion of the heavy bombers was extremely difficult, especially because of the tight flight of formations that could not be flown to avoid any collision with their own aircraft to risk.

On March 18, 1945, the new rocket was deployed for the first time when 1221 bombers attacked Berlin with 632 hunters as escort protection. Six Me 262s of the JG 7 fired their 144 R4 / M rockets onto the bomber gang and then attacked him with their guns. The Allies lost 25 bombers. In this mission, two Me 262s were lost, a pilot was killed. [4] English-speaking sources mostly call other figures about this "last great air battles in the Second World War". According to these, 37 Me 262 had shot a total of twelve bombers and one escort, while three Me 262s were lost.

In German sources the success of the R4 / M is described as "excellent" and "outstanding". In the short period of deployment nearly 500 allied aircraft were destroyed by the R4 / M. For example, a machine of 425 B-17 G 25 would have shot down 25 machines without their own loss. In April 1945, 24 Fw 190 with the R4 / M 40 B-24 had been shot without any losses.

Flak has never performed a lot better. Sure, with VT fuzes, better fire controls, and better radar it might have improved some, but it wasn't going to produce anything close to the 7 to 9% kill rate consistently needed to stop the bomber attacks. However, constructing a gun system like the US SCR 584 radar and fire control and 90mm M2 with its powered mount and on mount servo system allowing automatic tracking and laying was well beyond German production capacity.
As a variant of that, the Germans never came anywhere close to producing a remote control gunnery system for aircraft that really worked well. At most, they produced very simple ones, like that on the Me 410, that relied heavily on the gunner using "Kentucky windage" (ie., visual correction of aim based on his ability) to get the fire on the target. They simply didn't have the industrial capacity to produce something like the system on a B-29.

So, saying they could have produced a heavy flak gun with a powered mount (requiring a gasoline motor and a generator among other things) in the thousands is a non-starter. The same goes for gun laying. Their electronics industry started out the war in a good position, but fell apart afterwards. Even the Japanese beat the Germans to millimeter radar for example. An Allied style VT fuze was also beyond their capacity. As it was, Germany was very dependent on Dutch (Phillips) and French vacuum tube manufacturing to fill their needs. Making the shock resistant miniature tubes necessary for a VT fuze was something they really didn't even try to do.

FLAK did perform better for the Allies, 94% of V-1s shot down were due to AAA and the USN AAA was wrecking Kamikazees and other Japanese aircraft regularly by the end of the war. Improvements post-war never got a chance to be combat tested.

How do you know that something like the SCR-584 and the automatic gunlaying system was being the German industrial capacity? They produced all sorts of FLAK weapons, rockets, and guided bombs. What they lacked was a willingness to try until too late. In fact the Taifun rocket mount was an automatically laid 88mm carriage minus the FLAK gun, guided automatically by radar and the gunnery computer. Plus later in the war the Germans did produce a system just as good as the SCR-584, just less mobile (not a big deal for city defense).
https://books.google.com/books?id=uYgsr ... ar&f=false
The German failure in the cavity magnetron department was their technical branch under Udet not wanting to make the necessary investments to get them to work until too late. In fact they invented one in 1935:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_magnetron

On November 27, 1935, Hans Erich Hollmann applied for a patent for the first multiple-cavity magnetron, which he received on July 12, 1938,[2] but the more stable klystron was preferred for most German radars during World War II.

They just weren't funded they way they should have been because the technical department under Udet didn't want to spend the money.

Having to make nearly as many heavy FLAK systems as they did historically is unnecessary if each 4 gun system is several times more effective and requires less shells to be effective.

American style VT fuses probably weren't going to viable without an American style micro-tube industry that didn't exist pre-war outside of the US. They had a prototyped electro-static system that was viable by the end of the war, but it wasn't given the necessary resources earlier to get into production. Needing to use French and Dutch electronic industry is just a function of needing to expand production and why not use capacity in conquered countries where it already existed, rather than build it up domestically and duplicate the resources that already exist? The US meanwhile expanded it's industries heavily, needing to supply itself, Britain, and Russia.

The Germans didn't have to bother nearly as much with a bomber defense radar guided gunnery system like the US did, because they generally lacked the heavy bombers on which to successfully mount them, the Me410 being too small, and daylight bomber operations being minimal by late 1943. It wasn't high priority.

[MarkN]

Then you didn't read the article, because the drone was turning unpredictably.

Really?

If by "article" you mean the wiki page, then where does the word unpredictably appear?

Perhaps you read but didn't understand that "almost continuously turning" can be quite predictible - but still no good for a tail chase lock on for unguided rockets and problematic for a beam attack too.

People misquote that situation all the time. So let me educate you:

Hoisted by your own petard....

[stg 44]

If by "article" you mean the wiki page, then where does the word unpredictably appear?

Cited wikipedia article with quotes from news articles and books on the subject.
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/11/local/me-then11

Perhaps you read but didn't understand that "almost continuously turning" can be quite predictible - but still no good for a tail chase lock on for unguided rockets and problematic for a beam attack too.

In terms of actually hitting the target, a constantly turning single engine fighter is not predictable enough to hit, certainly not without sights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale

The drone turned southwest, crossing over Los Angeles, then headed northwest.

Clearly it wasn't stuck on a loop in one spot, but was changing directions, which given that it was out of control, would be unpredictable and it was thus chased around by jet interceptors.

So is this now your new thing, following me around to find my posts and respond to them in all the subforums?