Lancaster Bomber

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phylo_roadking
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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#76

Post by phylo_roadking » 08 Oct 2009, 23:19

Mark, in no particular order -
I think this shows that RAF BC diverted a considerable proportion of its effort to daylight raids (which is strange if night bombing was so effective at this late stage of the war) and that it was in fact main force crews who made the lions share of the contribution
....and regarding the relative percentages - one OTHER thing to remember is that by Jan-April 1945, Bomber Command's Heavy Force wasn't carrying out area bombing as their foremost night activity anyway; they were doing a lot else, including a LOT of mining it seems! In fact, the last Heavy Force "raids" of the war were massed mining ops in the Skaggerak IIRC, trying to bar the way for a German evacuation from Kiel to Norway, the same strategic withdrawal that the FNSF's last op was designed to thwart, an actual raid ON Kiel.
I will defend the 8th Air Force here – they were more than capable of doing ‘their’ side
Yes, exactly - THEIR side; but could they ALSO have managed "round the clock" ops, so that we would have no need to? As in -
if night bombing was so good (as you claim) why would we bother AT ALL – after all, the USAAF were quite capable of fulfilling their side of round the clock bombing?
WE continued to bother with OUR part of round the clock bombing because IF for some reason the Americans had had to do that part, they would have dropped a fraction of what the RAF could. That's my point. Bomber Command didn't stop BECAUSE they were still delivering by night far more than the Americans could.
my contention is that daylight bombing is more accurate – full stop. In which case, the size of the bomb load is less relevant. Now if that isn’t correct, as has been contended here, I would be grateful if someone would point me in the direction of evidence
Mark - area bombing could and DID destroy huge amounts of German industry in single named Operations; look at the factory counts that came from area raids - five hundred and eighty factories/sites at Hamburg in GOMORRAH, for instance :wink: At least 23% of the 127 industrial units in Dresden in February 1945. Those are only two I've come across in the last 24 hours, just by chance. Area bombing could destroy German industrial capacity far easier and far quicker than precision daybombing. You couldn't for instance simply been able to find or target the 127 individual factory sites in Dresden; but a night and day of area bombing COULD obliterate a sizeable percentage of them. Precision raids against Hamburg? How many raids would it actually have taken to hit those 580 sites IF they could even have been accurately targeted?...

It may be Wiki - but look at the list of raids against Hamburg before GOMORRAH - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of ... g#Timeline - thirty-five raids from 1939 to 1943; the point is that even if every one of these had hit their intended target, they'd only have destroyed 6% of what GOMORRAH did...

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#77

Post by marka » 09 Oct 2009, 00:23

Are you asking could the USAAF have prosecuted a round the clock bombing offensive? Absolutely! Could they have delivered more tons on target? Absolutely! They did that in the far east; the B29 could shift a lot more bombs over a greater distance than Lancasters! My point is that they wouldn’t – because it was not their way of doing it in Europe (and yes there is huge ethical question here about US attitudes to Japanese, as opposed to German, civilians)

And yes Gommorah et al destroyed lots – but come on!! You aren’t seriously arguing that it was accurate? I am also not arguing that area bombing could destroy things quicker and easier (then again – why not just go nuclear and finish the job?) My point is that daylight bombing was more accurate. Is there any evidence that this is a wrong assumption??

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#78

Post by phylo_roadking » 09 Oct 2009, 01:04

They did that in the far east; the B29 could shift a lot more bombs over a greater distance than Lancasters!
Yes, but's the use of the B29 in the ETO is not what's under discussion - and has been done to death on AHF.
And yes Gommorah et al destroyed lots – but come on!! You aren’t seriously arguing that it was accurate? I am also not arguing that area bombing could destroy things quicker and easier
I'm not saying it was more accurate - I'm saying the RAF simply achieved MORE by area bombing for a given period/effort than by precision bombing even at it's most accurate; 35 individual precision raids in four war years - even if they obliterated their individual targets in Hamburg - compared to just four nights' and days' effort taking out 580 industrial targets. Which got the better return for the less total effort???
(then again – why not just go nuclear and finish the job?)
Wasn't this EXACTLY what was planned??? Remember all those Manhattan Project scientists who would have been happy to see the heart blown out of Hitler's Germany...but who got all hot under the collar and started protesting and signing petitions when the European war simply ran out of time on them and the prospect loomed of using the Bomb on the Japanese??? :wink:

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#79

Post by Ostkatze » 09 Oct 2009, 07:18

Marka- I have the impression that you and Phylo have been tap dancing around an accurate delivery / overall net effect issue. And no one has brought up the old ethical buggaboo yet... Your requests for evidence are impossible to fulfill from photos of devastation after multiple plasterings, which I believe you know would be merely annecdotal.
At any rate, the conclusion, after the fact, would appear to have been that the dislocation of the rail net, for the movement of pieces parts, was the biggest effect of the raids in general. The railway yards, in an old industrial city, being surrounded by a host of factories and small workshops, let alone gas, water and electric lines.
Couple of points -
Forecast Wind. Aids brought raids onto targets after '42. Still depended on a lucky forecast to dial up the actual wind speed and direction ( multiple layers of it from altitude ) for accuracy, visual or blind. Let alone humidity, heat or wind for fires spreading.
Lastly, and I think a key issue in the old day / night debate. Bureaucracy. Plain and simple, the stuff of political arguments. The principle being that, once established, a dept. head will tend to have as his main objective the enlargement of his office/staff/phony baloney job status. Much has obviously been made of Harris' bloodymindedness after his installation at BC, and the support and criticism from various cliques. The daylight leaders were convinced that the early tests over France and the ports could be extended inland to prove their rightiousness. They convinced themselves that the endless supply of new ships and crews would enable them to win their ego contest. It took the squadrons coming close to mutiny for them to quit, admit the failure and wait for long range escorts. Was Harris criminal in sticking to his dogma late '44? Just trying to prove that he was right all along....Just boys and their toys, I'm afraid. Neil.

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#80

Post by bf109 emil » 09 Oct 2009, 09:50

My point is that daylight bombing was more accurate. Is there any evidence that this is a wrong assumption??
not against the Japanese it wasn't...the USAAF adopted the policy of startegic bombing of Japanese cities at night as opposed to precision bombing in daylight from high altitudes, because they where not accurate in destroying the numerous shops and plants within a city...as when a bomb misses a target it remains as opposed to a fire with warps machinery, catches oil baths in plants and spreads destruction...something the USAAF used to a great effect with their B-29 at night as opposed to precision daylight raids which did little damage in comparison to a strategic bombing using incendiaries as in comparison to the RAF in Europe

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#81

Post by marka » 09 Oct 2009, 10:12

No I know Phylo. What is under discussion is whether the USAAF ever thought of using Lancasters to which I have answered no they never did and they (probably) never would! I have explained why that is the case. The discussion about relative ‘values’ of the different bombing offensives and who achieved more is therefore, within this context, moot. I would be happy to discuss that further, but that might need a different thread :)

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#82

Post by marka » 09 Oct 2009, 10:33

bf109 Emil

As I have said above, I don’t think this is the thread to discuss the efficacy of different forms of bombing. However, I must respond to your comment about why the USAAF went over to night bombing in the Far East. They did this because (for reasons that deeply sadden me) there was a very different attitude in the US at that time, towards Japanese civilians than there was towards Germans. The B29s could ‘easily’ devastate Japanese cities at night with fire bombs and thus take out the specific strategic objective. Without the restraints that they imposed upon themselves in Europe, the US could prosecute a night bomber offensive. I do not think, respectfully, that this is relevant to the question. As I have commented, nuclear weapons are (within a moral vacuum) a pretty good way of taking out strategic objectives – it doesn’t mean they are accurate though

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#83

Post by Hop » 12 Oct 2009, 17:14

I know on a given day, individual conditions led to woeful results in daylight, but overall I believe I am correct in saying daylight raids were far more accurate
Under ideal conditions daylight bombing could be more accurate than the RAF average. The problem is conditions were rarely ideal, and frequently bad.

The USSBS gives an example of the attack on 3 large German oil installations. They include a table showing the percentage of bombs dropped that landed within the plant fences:

Code: Select all

Air Force and Technique	Percentage of Hits Within the Plants
8th AF visual aiming                                          26.8
8th AF, part visual aiming and part instrument   12.4
8th AF, full instrument                                        5.4
RAF, night Pathfinder technique	                        15.8
Weighted average                                             12.6
If the RAF average was 15.8%, and the USAAF and RAF combined managed 12.6%, then the USAAF must have achieved less than 12.6% overall.

That's just a sample, but Richard G Davis, who is one of the USAF's official historians, and who has written extensively on the USAAF in WW2, has said:
The evidence indicates that Bomber Command,
on the whole, delivered more of its bombs closer to its aiming points than
USSTAF.
The reason is the USAAF trained for visual bombing. In Europe they frequently had to operate in heavy cloud, the Germans used smoke screens to obscure the target, and heavy flak pushed the bombers to ever greater altitudes, which had a very bad effect on accuracy.

Between 1 September and 31 December 1944, 35% of all 8th AF bombs were dropped through 10/10 cloud using H2X radar. The accuracy was appalling, with only 0.2% of bombs landing within 1,000 ft, and less than 40% within 3 miles.

The RAF, on the other hand, spent almost the whole war working on ways to bomb accurately at night, which by definition means poor visibility. They also flew at medium altitudes where bombing was inherently more accurate.

The Butt report is a good indication of what early bombing accuracy was like, but says nothing about late war. And late war saw most of the bombs dropped. For both the USAAF and RAF, September 1944 was the halfway point in tons dropped. Both air forces dropped half their tonnage in the years before September 1944, half in the months afterwards.
but overall I believe I am correct in saying daylight raids were far more accurate – if they weren’t, then why did the RAF use them to such an extent in late 44, early 45?
There were several reasons, but I don't think accuracy was really one of them. Harris in his Desptach on War Operations says:
The success of these daylight operations was of the same order as that achieved at night against similar targets
If we stick purely to the outcome – my contention is that daylight bombing is more accurate – full stop. In which case, the size of the bomb load is less relevant.
That might be true with modern bombing, which truly achieves "precision". But not in 1944/45. Look at the figure for USAAF bombing of those 3 oil plants. Even under visual conditions, which was relatively rare, only about 25% of the bombs hit within the 3 square miles the plants covered. Most of those bombs fell on open ground. Very few hit vital equipment. According to the USSBS, only 3% hit buildings or equipment.

With accuracy like that, tonnage matters tremendously.

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#84

Post by bf109 emil » 13 Oct 2009, 09:50

Did the USAF ever use any Lancasters during the Second Wolrld War, in any theater of war, or even for trials or transporting duties? Or did they turn their nose up at the idea of using British equipment? :roll:
Numerous US personal flew in Lancs while serving with the RCAF and RAF, but to be honest the Lanc coming about and not seeing service until 1942, I think the USAAF already had the ability to supply their airmen with the B-17, B-24 and B-29 which where developed prior to the Lancaster and never really had a shortage of available aircraft nor the British an abundance of Lancs needing or requiring crews...
an article on the Number of US persons whom flew with the RCAFhttp://www.lancastermuseum.ca/americansrcaf.html some 5000 US personnel flew the war with the RCAF both in bomber command and other avenues
Other young Americans had made their way to Canada on their own and by the time the United States declared war against the Nazis in December 1941, approximately 9000 American citizens had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, having made their own personal decision to enter the war. According to Spencer Dunmore, author of "Wings for Victory," "They were colourful, those volunteers -professionals and playboys, convicted felons and husbands on the run, idealists and mercenaries, kids seeking adventure, youngsters seeking nothing but an opportunity to fly, middle-aged men looking for work -and to all of them, the RCAF's need was their golden opportunity.

Of these 9000, about 800 were killed in RCAF service and of these 379 have their names inscribed on Canada's Bomber Command Memorial Wall on the front lawn of the Nanton Lancaster Air Museum.

After Pearl Harbour 1759 American members of the RCAF transferred to the armed forces of the United States. Another 2000 transferred later on and about 5000 completed their wartime service with the RCAF.
here is the list of names of 379 US Citizens whom lost their lives flying for the RCAF in Bomber Command, their names are forever remembered and engraved in granite in Nanton Albertahttp://www.lancastermuseum.ca/americans379.htmlImage

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#85

Post by marka » 13 Oct 2009, 16:25

Hop,

Thank you for your informative response and it goes some way to tackling my contentions, but I would say not wholly

The figures on the bombing of the oil plants are very informative but are, of course, isolated examples on specific targets. This isn’t a competition (and I know you are not advocating this ) between who was more accurate at bombing under the same conditions – but doesn’t that table you supplied show that visual day bombing achieved 26.8% accuracy compared to the RAF pathfinder led night ops of 15.8%? Your point about the overall average being 12.6% must therefore be a function of the weight of bombs put down. The way I read that is that – bluntly – the RAF (at night) missed more than the USAAF (by day), but because the former put a greater weight of bombs down, they covered the target.


This is not aimed at you Hop, but I really think it important to distinguish between efficient and effective. I don’t think it possible to argue that night bombing was not effective in destroying individual targets – after all if you destroy the whole city, then you will, as a function of that, have destroyed the refinery/rail yard etc that was in the city. However, my argument is that it is less efficient and especially when you weigh in the implications of ‘collateral damage.’


I am not sure how much faith I would put in Harris’ reflections – this was after all the man who protested vehemently about his force being diverted to attack ‘panaceas.’

You refer to ‘several reasons’ (other than Harris) for the RAF utilising day bombing for main force at the end of the war. I would be grateful if you would outline them. My contention is that the main reason is that they could ensure they hit the target more effectively.


You are right Hop – 26.8% isn’t great – but it is still over 50% better than the night attacks!!


Thanks for your post BF109emil and your timely reminder of the many US citizens who fought and died with Bomber Command. As you point out, many of those men flew in Lancasters and many of them transferred to the USAAF whilst flying them. However, this still does not show that the USAAF (as an organisation) flew them – or ever considered using them


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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#86

Post by Hop » 13 Oct 2009, 17:39

The figures on the bombing of the oil plants are very informative but are, of course, isolated examples on specific targets.
They are certainly only an example, but they were chosen by the USSBS, presumably as they are representative. They cover 146,000 bombs, amounting to 30,000 tons, so it's not a small sample.

but doesn’t that table you supplied show that visual day bombing achieved 26.8% accuracy compared to the RAF pathfinder led night ops of 15.8%?
Yes, but note the USAAF figures are for good conditions only, otherwise they would be using part or whole radar aiming. So if you compare USAAF visual bombing only you are comparing USAAF bombing in good conditions against an average for the RAF in all conditions. That's not really a valid comparison. It's the best of one against the average of the other.
Your point about the overall average being 12.6% must therefore be a function of the weight of bombs put down. The way I read that is that – bluntly – the RAF (at night) missed more than the USAAF (by day), but because the former put a greater weight of bombs down, they covered the target.
No, all the figures for the USAAF are in daylight. Basically read "visual aiming" as "good conditions", "part visual" as "fair conditions" and "full instrument" as bad conditions.

What you then get is the USAAF good conditions was better than the RAF average, fair conditions a bit worse, bad conditions much worse.

The overall figure for the RAF was 15.8%, the overall figure for the RAF and USAAF combined was 12.6%, so the overall USAAF figure MUST be less 12.6%. How much less we can't tell without knowing what proportion of bombs was dropped by each air force. If you assume a 50/50 split, then the average for the USAAF alone would be 9.4%

The problem for the USAAF is good conditions were rare in Europe, so their average is biased towards their performance in poor conditions, which was pretty bad.
This is not aimed at you Hop, but I really think it important to distinguish between efficient and effective. I don’t think it possible to argue that night bombing was not effective in destroying individual targets – after all if you destroy the whole city, then you will, as a function of that, have destroyed the refinery/rail yard etc that was in the city. However, my argument is that it is less efficient and especially when you weigh in the implications of ‘collateral damage.’
I think that depends on how you judge collateral damage. If you assign a negative value, ie assume every destroyed house and dead civilian and burnt out factory (other than the target) is a minus, then efficiency is low. If you assume they are a plus, then efficiency is high.

The reason area bombing was so effective, and that the Luftwaffe, RAF and USAAF all adopted it during the war, is that collateral damage often caused more problems to the enemy than direct damage to the specific target.

To take Hamburg as an example, just before the large RAF raids in the summer of 1943, 634,000 people were working in the war industries in Hamburg. 3 months after the RAF raids, the figure was down to 331,300. That's not because all the workers were killed, about 3% of the population of Hamburg died in the raids. It's because the damage to housing meant many had to be evacuated, others fled the city because they were afraid of another attack, gas, telephone and electricity supplies were heavily damaged, and hundreds of factories were burnt out. That's all collateral damage.
You refer to ‘several reasons’ (other than Harris) for the RAF utilising day bombing for main force at the end of the war. I would be grateful if you would outline them. My contention is that the main reason is that they could ensure they hit the target more effectively.
BC mostly flew shallow penetration raids against a Luftwaffe that could put up little effective opposition. The inherent risk of night flying war removed, and casualties were actually slightly lower than for night operations (although this isn't a fair comparison as raids far behind the lines were carried out at night). It helped ease congestion at airfields, particularly in the short summer nights where BC was now flying 3 times as many sorties as they had in 1943.
You are right Hop – 26.8% isn’t great – but it is still over 50% better than the night attacks!!
As I said, that's USAAF in good conditions against RAF in average conditions. Both the USSBS example and Richard Davis agree, BC was generally more accurate. I think that's largely a function of the RAF embracing electronic bombing aids earlier, and more wholeheartedly, than the USAAF.

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#87

Post by phylo_roadking » 13 Oct 2009, 18:35

This is not aimed at you Hop, but I really think it important to distinguish between efficient and effective. I don’t think it possible to argue that night bombing was not effective in destroying individual targets – after all if you destroy the whole city, then you will, as a function of that, have destroyed the refinery/rail yard etc that was in the city. However, my argument is that it is less efficient and especially when you weigh in the implications of ‘collateral damage.’
I think that depends on how you judge collateral damage. If you assign a negative value, ie assume every destroyed house and dead civilian and burnt out factory (other than the target) is a minus, then efficiency is low. If you assume they are a plus, then efficiency is high.

The reason area bombing was so effective, and that the Luftwaffe, RAF and USAAF all adopted it during the war, is that collateral damage often caused more problems to the enemy than direct damage to the specific target.

To take Hamburg as an example, just before the large RAF raids in the summer of 1943, 634,000 people were working in the war industries in Hamburg. 3 months after the RAF raids, the figure was down to 331,300. That's not because all the workers were killed, about 3% of the population of Hamburg died in the raids. It's because the damage to housing meant many had to be evacuated, others fled the city because they were afraid of another attack, gas, telephone and electricity supplies were heavily damaged, and hundreds of factories were burnt out. That's all collateral damage.
Hop's answer beat me to it. To it I can only add that the Bomber Command campaign waged from 1942 was intentionally a Douhet-style campaign both against material targets AND the will of the German people to resist; tens of thousands of industrial workers and their families STILL ALIVE but unhoused, all their possesions lost, any food in their larders gone, ration books burned etc. (JUST like Coventry!!! :wink: ) The British wanted factories destroyed, yes - but they ALSO wanted German workers unwilling to leave their families and go to work, wanted the civilian aid voluntary and governmental aid agencies overloaded, wanted foodstocks depleted by emergency aid, and a percentage of the German GNP diverted to air raid precautions and AA defences and away from manpower and weapons deployed on the front line :wink: The more of those big multi-stoey above-ground shelters and flak towers that were built in Germany, the less concrete was poured on the Atlantic Wall.

In a "best-case scenario" they wanted German workers trekking out of burnt cities and living rough in the fields rather than going to work next day to start clearing rubble and installing new plant on damaged production lines....and in a "worst-case scenario" - at least they would have to take X-number of days off to see to their families, find food, queue for new ration books and papers etc. And it so nearly worked! We have both Speer's and Milch's comments that in 1943 only a very few more raids like the 1000-bomber firestorm raids carried out to that point would have broken the capacity to resist of the civilian population. But it was still a win-win situation - for although the German "Home Front" didn't collapse - it cost more and more to defend, and to absorb the damage and effects.

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#88

Post by marka » 13 Oct 2009, 20:48

Hop & Phylo

I know what the aim of RAF bomber command’s night offensive was. However, I am sorry – this is still not pertinent to the question. Lets return to it shall we? The question was did the USAAF ever consider using Lancasters? They did not. Why not? Because they wanted to try (my emphasis) to wage a precision daylight bomber campaign for which the Lancaster was simply not suited – until the very end of the war. We may view this now with 20/20 hindsight and say it was ineffective (which I dispute!) and also rightly make the point that the 8th BC like its RAF colleagues abandoned (to an extent) their prohibition of area bombing. However, I still do not see how this is relevant to the question as it doesn't alter the truth that the USAAF never considered Lancasters – sorry, I am being obtuse!

From this we have got into a discussion on the relative merits or otherwise of the two campaigns. Now I would be glad to have that discussion; but keep avoiding doing so, as it seems to be leading us away from the question.

Please don’t think me rude – I would really very much like to discuss the efficacy of the two offensives, but as someone relatively inexperienced on this forum, I just am concerned that it is getting off target!!! (Ironically)

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#89

Post by bf109 emil » 14 Oct 2009, 00:35

Because they wanted to try (my emphasis) to wage a precision daylight bomber campaign for which the Lancaster was simply not suited – until the very end of the war.
correct which IMHO failed miserably...Other then Oil Industry which could not be moved or located elsewhere, and thus it was the major pitfall of the German ability to make war, other then that the major advantage which bombing Germany did was hamper it's war making ability...Sure one can do this by bombing factories which the USAAF tried and did later in the war, but for all the tonnage dropped by the USAAF and the RAF, Germans munition industry comtinued to turn out arms and munitions, planes, etc.
One must remember bombing German either strategically like the USAAF did within Japan or precision like the USAAF tried with Germany never defeated Germany and Japan, what it did was hinder their ability to win the war. Aside from the Oil industry which crippled Germany's making war, raid such as Peenemunde, the V-1 and V-3 sites, Tirpitz etc. all hampered Germany from winning the contest. This could be done as the USAAF thought would take place by bombing an airplane factory, which could simply be rebuilt or dispersed, or by hindering the German economy/industry as the RAF chose to, both having advantages and disadvantages.

Did the USAAF use Lancs, No, did the USAAF in later years opt for bombers with bigger payloads, of course...but even bigger payloads as was used to bomb an enemy as more tons of bombs where dropped on North Vietnam then Germany never won or decided an outcome.

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Re: Lancaster Bomber

#90

Post by phylo_roadking » 14 Oct 2009, 01:07

but for all the tonnage dropped by the USAAF and the RAF, Germans munition industry comtinued to turn out arms and munitions, planes, etc
Ah,, but the production figures show that production DID spiral down in 1943 from the bombing damage, until the replacement underground factories etc. started coming online in 1944.. :wink: Again...all built at a cost to the German coffers :wink:

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