Decoy flares......were they successful?

Discussions on the equipment used by the Axis forces, apart from the things covered in the other sections. Hosted by Juha Tompuri
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Verfasser
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Decoy flares......were they successful?

#1

Post by Verfasser » 03 May 2003, 19:13

Hello to all.....

The below was sent me by a German woman telling how night time targets were marked by the Allies for their bombers. Following this are two questions I'd like answered if possible.........

Allied planes preceding the bombers discharged flares in white, green and red colors, looking almost like Christmas trees hanging in the sky. After the significance of the different colors had been deciphered, red meaning the target is right beneath, the German defense came up with a plan. German planes dropped red flares, exact copies of the originals, over wide open fields. It was hoped this would trick the Allied bombardiers into thinking they were right on target and unload their bombs in the fields, thus sparing lives and property. How often this deception worked is anyone's guess.


My questions are: 1) how long did it take the allies to recognize the deception tried by the Germans? 2) How many bombing missions were
wasted by this deception?

As always, many thanks for any help..........Verfasser

daveh
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#2

Post by daveh » 03 May 2003, 20:18

a large volume of evidence has now been collected which shows beyond reasonable doubt that the enemy is making efforts to divert our attacks from his cities by the use of decoy T. I (target indicator) markers, and that his efforts have been meeting with some degree of success.
from an RAF Operational Research Section report of April 14, 1944.The evidence was mainly from the photos taken by the bombers themselves plus post bombing target assessment reconnaisance flights.

see Flak German anti aircraft defences 1914 to 1945 by E B Westermann ISBN0 7006 1136 3
for a discussion of dummy sites and their effectiveness.

Given the difficult conditions of night time flying over Germany from weather as well as German defensive efforts any further complications generated even greater problems. In the dark, with cloud cover perhaps, under fthe threat of if not actual fighter attack, with flak, the bombers would seek out T I. If these were in roughly the right area, given the difficulties of night navigation, they would be accepted as accurate and bombed. The use of a Master Bomber to direct bombers to particular T I would help reduce the effectiveness of decoys but still they drew some bombs. Any bombs aimed at decoys obviously were beneficial from the German viewpoint.

Exactly how effective decoy T I were is hard to quantify as they were often used in conjunction with other decoy methods eg dummy sites fitted with small pyrotechnic charges to simulate bombs exploding and perhaps flak defences too.

A post war study by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of the synthetic oil plant at Meerbeck showed that the RAF dropped 23926 HE bombs and 103743 incendiaries against it in 41 attacks. While the incenderies would probably have not left craters the HE bombs would but only evidence for 328 craters were found in the plant area. A dummy plant lay 3 miles away and was reported to have been "very effective".


gabriel pagliarani
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#3

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 14 May 2003, 00:15

Those coloured lights spotted by Mosquitoes never indicated a target but a "path" towards the target. The path was releaved by 2 coherent radio sources there was a Right-signal and a Left -signal and both signals were anti-phased: if superposed one signal kills the other. If the bomber was exactly on the path, the navigator had to heard not the Left-signal, not the right - signal but the interference of both, no signal. All those operations in the middle of the battle, within grenades, spot lights, night-fighters and the rest of the crew shouting... For these reasons the poor navigator had to be helped by "path finders": navigator will not only hear the path, but watching at it too.

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