Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

Discussions on WW2 in the Pacific and the Sino-Japanese War.
Post Reply
RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#91

Post by RichTO90 » 29 Mar 2015, 21:00

ChristopherPerrien wrote:Judging by the past performance of Strategic bombers tactically supporting ground ops, I would think think this is a flat out no-go.

General McNair being a case in point.
Chris, in McNair's case, the "past performance of Strategic bombers tactically" was prologue. :D McNair was killed in July, D-Day was in June. It was difficult for planners to draw conclusions for NEPTUNE from COBRA operations. :thumbsup:

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#92

Post by RichTO90 » 29 Mar 2015, 21:06

Mil-tech Bard wrote:I am going to strongly recommend Charles W. Arthur's "OPERATIONS ANALYSIS IN THE EIGHTH AIR FORCE IN WORLD WAR II"
Thanks for the reminder! :idea: That has been on my wish list for about 20 years now and I keep forgetting to look for a copy. :cry: I will try to find a copy at Wright-Patterson when I am there in June, although Maxwell would be better. Where did you find a copy? Amazon claims to have one for about $50.

Cheers!

Rich


ChristopherPerrien
Member
Posts: 7051
Joined: 26 Dec 2002, 01:58
Location: Mississippi

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#93

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 30 Mar 2015, 05:29

RichTO90 wrote:
ChristopherPerrien wrote:Judging by the past performance of Strategic bombers tactically supporting ground ops, I would think think this is a flat out no-go.

General McNair being a case in point.
Chris, in McNair's case, the "past performance of Strategic bombers tactically" was prologue. :D McNair was killed in July, D-Day was in June. It was difficult for planners to draw conclusions for NEPTUNE from COBRA operations. :thumbsup:
True, but it just goes to show. However it would seem blatantly dangerous to start blindly dropping bombs from a high level in support of initial landing ops or subsequent ops. Tarawa has been noted, as to some of the other detrimental effects of the same . And Monte Cassino should have been the big red flag not to bomb Caan into ruins. And then we do get to Cobra and the McNair incident.

Mil-tech Bard
Member
Posts: 678
Joined: 06 Jan 2010, 16:50

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#94

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 30 Mar 2015, 15:50

RichTO90 wrote:

>>Where did you find a copy? Amazon claims to have one for about $50.

I got mine recently from Amazon via a 3rd party seller for $25 plus $3.99 shipping.

Simply keep a watch on Amazon for a sale.

Mil-tech Bard
Member
Posts: 678
Joined: 06 Jan 2010, 16:50

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#95

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 30 Mar 2015, 15:58

RichTO90 said:
Carl,

See the article in FA Journal September 1946, pp. 530-533 "Fire Control on OMAHA Beach".
That link turned out to be highly useful as to explaining the role of Maisey battery in the Omaha Beach fighting.

Short form -- They missed Maisey battery completely in the naval/air fire support plan and the timing of it's suppression/destruction was a key factor in the delay of American troops off the beach. This naval fire support team spent the majority of its time calling fire against Maisey battery until it was over run.

Mil-tech Bard
Member
Posts: 678
Joined: 06 Jan 2010, 16:50

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#96

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 30 Mar 2015, 17:25

RichTO90

Try this link for used copies of Charles W. Arthur's "OPERATIONS ANALYSIS IN THE EIGHTH AIR FORCE IN WORLD WAR II" starting at $23 plus shipping. --

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... ition=used

Mil-tech Bard
Member
Posts: 678
Joined: 06 Jan 2010, 16:50

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#97

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 30 Mar 2015, 21:14

I've spoken up-thread about Gee-H as an alternative to H2X for the Normandy beach preparation bombings by VIIIth Air Force. The following as electronic navigation systems used by the Allies in the 1944-45 portion of the Combined bombing campaign, the following picture is from page 375 of this document:
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THIRD PHASE TACTICAL AIR OPERATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN THEATER 5 May 1944 - 8 May 1945
Prepared by
THE ARMY AIR FORCES EVALUATION BOARD IN THE EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS
August 1945
Effectiveness of Third Phase tactical air operations in the European Theater, 5 May 1944 -- 8 May 1945 -- Part_19_Page_16.jpg

This is also from the same document regards electronic beacon control of Heavy Bomber strikes after Normandy --
Effectiveness of Third Phase tactical air operations in the European Theater, 5 May 1944 -- 8 May 1945 -- Part_19_Page_15.jpg
Please carefully note that the Heavy Bombers flew parallel and not perpendicular to the forward line of troops.

And finally, in the discussion of the effectiveness of Allied Strategic bombers, recall that to hit one 60 ft. x 100 ft. target in WWII required 1500 B-17 sorties carrying nine thousand 250 lb bombs because they had a circular error probability of 3300 feet. [1]

Circular error probability is defined as 50% within the CEP circle around the target and 50% landing somewhere else outside it.

That level of performance assumed,
1) Good daylight visibility and
2) Good target contrast from the background to achieve a good aim point.

Radar methods (H2S, H2X, and AN/APQ-7 Eagle), as shown below, were less accurate.

Electronic navigation methods like OBOE and SHORAN (Not shown) were typically as or more accurate than visual methods as they could target low contrast aim points, given both good maps and recent, high quality, aerial photographs. (The CEP figure below was taken from "RADAR IN WORLD WAR II" by HENRY E. GUERLAC)
Average Bombing Errors.gif


[1] "Effects-Based Operations" Col Gary Crowder, Chief, Strategy, Concepts and Doctrine Air Combat Command. See Document Link:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dod ... 85-024.pdf

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#98

Post by RichTO90 » 30 Mar 2015, 23:10

Mil-tech Bard wrote:RichTO90

Try this link for used copies of Charles W. Arthur's "OPERATIONS ANALYSIS IN THE EIGHTH AIR FORCE IN WORLD WAR II" starting at $23 plus shipping. --

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... ition=used
Perfect! Thanks!

HMan
Member
Posts: 75
Joined: 11 Nov 2008, 22:33

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#99

Post by HMan » 23 Jun 2017, 03:09

Mil-tech Bard wrote:Christopher Perrien,

The delay off the Beach at Omaha caused the local fleet there to ditch all its ship mounted barrage balloons because they were being used as aim points for German artillery that American troops trapped on the beach could not push back.

This ditching of barrage balloons didn't happen at Utah, Sword, Juno or Gold.

What this meant was the Luftwaffe could fly low at night off Omaha for weeks after the landing sowing the shipping lanes with their secret weapon for the Normandy landing -- the then unsweepable pressure fuzed sea mine.

The Allies lost 30 ships to these mines over the next few weeks until their SCR-584 gun laying radars tracked a air delivered mine dropped in the shallows that divers recovered. A sweep was quickly developed after technical analysis of the fuze.

That German fuze was duplicated by the US Navy and later used against the Japanese in the Operation Starvation B-29 mining campaign.
Interesting info - what was your source?

You would think though, that the Allies could quickly get new barrage balloons to the ships off Omaha,
and / or new ships with barrage balloons.

Delta Tank
Member
Posts: 2512
Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 02:51
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#100

Post by Delta Tank » 24 Jun 2017, 16:02

To all,

Admiral Connolly from wiki,

Between March and October 1943 Conolly served with the Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet, taking part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy. Transferred to the Pacific, he was with amphibious forces in the Pacific and participated in the landings on Kwajalein, Wake and Marcus Islands.

He commanded Group 3, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet during 1944 and 1945, and led the landings on Guam in July 1944, and the Lingayen Gulf in January 1945.

He gained the nickname "Close-In Conolly" from his insistence that fire support ships should be extremely close to the beach during amphibious assaults. Conolly believed that strong fortifications could be neutralized only by direct hits, which could only be achieved from the shortest possible range.[1]

He had the correct idea in my opinion.

Mike

OpanaPointer
Financial supporter
Posts: 5644
Joined: 16 May 2010, 15:12
Location: United States of America

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#101

Post by OpanaPointer » 24 Jun 2017, 18:25

Some documents on naval gunfire support can be found here: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/NHC/NewPDFs/
Come visit our sites:
hyperwarHyperwar
World War II Resources

Bellum se ipsum alet, mostly Doritos.

Mil-tech Bard
Member
Posts: 678
Joined: 06 Jan 2010, 16:50

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#102

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 24 Jun 2017, 21:42

Deleted, see next post.
Last edited by Mil-tech Bard on 24 Jun 2017, 21:44, edited 1 time in total.

Mil-tech Bard
Member
Posts: 678
Joined: 06 Jan 2010, 16:50

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#103

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 24 Jun 2017, 21:42

Regards this --

HMan wrote:
Mil-tech Bard wrote:Christopher Perrien,

The delay off the Beach at Omaha caused the local fleet there to ditch all its ship mounted barrage balloons because they were being used as aim points for German artillery that American troops trapped on the beach could not push back.

This ditching of barrage balloons didn't happen at Utah, Sword, Juno or Gold.

What this meant was the Luftwaffe could fly low at night off Omaha for weeks after the landing sowing the shipping lanes with their secret weapon for the Normandy landing -- the then unsweepable pressure fuzed sea mine.

The Allies lost 30 ships to these mines over the next few weeks until their SCR-584 gun laying radars tracked a air delivered mine dropped in the shallows that divers recovered. A sweep was quickly developed after technical analysis of the fuze.

That German fuze was duplicated by the US Navy and later used against the Japanese in the Operation Starvation B-29 mining campaign.
Interesting info - what was your source?

You would think though, that the Allies could quickly get new barrage balloons to the ships off Omaha,
and / or new ships with barrage balloons.
The whole story was on a BBC video on Metacafe, since taken down due to copy right infringement.

The bits and pieces of it -- minus the Gen Bradley decision -- can be found in the following places --


See pages 91 and 92 of the following:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a255564.pdf1


See D-Day and 320th VLA Barrage Balloon Battalion:

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_even ... -battalion

https://www.army.mil/article/119639/All ... _on_D_Day/

and finally, see these google book pages

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0811741192

https://books.google.com/books?id=BRnOA ... dy&f=false

Carl Schwamberger
Host - Allied sections
Posts: 10056
Joined: 02 Sep 2006, 21:31
Location: USA

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#104

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 25 Jul 2017, 01:15

ChristopherPerrien wrote:
RichTO90 wrote:
ChristopherPerrien wrote:Judging by the past performance of Strategic bombers tactically supporting ground ops, I would think think this is a flat out no-go.
...

True, but it just goes to show. However it would seem blatantly dangerous to start blindly dropping bombs from a high level in support of initial landing ops or subsequent ops. Tarawa has been noted, as to some of the other detrimental effects of the same . ...
You have a source/description of the high level bombing in support of initial landing ops @ the Tarawa Atoll?

Carl Schwamberger
Host - Allied sections
Posts: 10056
Joined: 02 Sep 2006, 21:31
Location: USA

Re: Naval Gun Support During Amphibious Landings.

#105

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 25 Jul 2017, 01:43

Delta Tank wrote:To all,

Admiral Connolly from wiki,
...

He gained the nickname "Close-In Conolly" from his insistence that fire support ships should be extremely close to the beach during amphibious assaults. Conolly believed that strong fortifications could be neutralized only by direct hits, which could only be achieved from the shortest possible range.[1]

He had the correct idea in my opinion.

Mike

I wont argue much with that. There are considerations of range dispersion & the effect of plunging fire vs grazing, but that is getting very far into the weeds. I will delve into the phenom. of skipping or ricochet rounds. As the trajectory flattens & the angle of fall goes below 270 mil or 15.5 degrees an increasing number of rounds do not detonate, but bounce back up into the sky on unpredictable trajectories. Since the islands in the Pacific were often surrounded by the invasion fleet, to reduce congestion for manuvering space, draft and shoal considerations, & other, the ships near the line of fire extended from the target would occasionally have exciting moments as undetonated projectiles would come wobbling out of the sky & splash nearby. There are specific reports of this @ Betio & Tinian islands; 14" & 16" rounds falling at random five or ten thousand meters beyond the target & scaring the nearby ships crews.

Post Reply

Return to “WW2 in the Pacific & Asia”