Defensive armament for night bombers: was it worth it?

[tomo pauk]

I know that bombers weren't conceived as night bombers per se, but took the task.
How prudent would've been to delete the guns & crew members for additional performance and/or armor? What's your take; what are the facts & numbers?

[timshatz]

They did that with the B29s over Japan on the night bombing missions where they were fire bombing. But Japan had no night defenses to speak of. Pretty well thought out before they tried it.

On the other hand, the Mosquitos used to go over with nothing but speed and they were fairly safe.

But, My guess is you are talking about the Halifax and Lancasters. My guess, and this is only a guess, is the deletion of the crew members would not give any extensive performance (or at least not enough to make the night fighters all that much less dangerous) and it would probably increase losses due to the number of aircraft knocked off while they are sedately flying along. You would only need a bomb aimer, navigator, flight engineer and pilot (with one of the others cross trained as a pilot, most likely). The bombers become bomb trucks (which they were anyway) without any real way of defending themselves.

As for morale, it would plumment. Who the hell wants to fly around in an airplane that is little more than an manned drone giving the LW fighter pilots all the practice they need.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by timshatz

They did that with the B29s over Japan on the night bombing missions where they were fire bombing. But Japan had no night defenses to speak of. Pretty well thought out before they tried it.

According to the B29 web site, many of the B29 crews have sworn that they did NOT remove the guns or crew members, regardless of orders.

[timshatz]

Originally Posted by syscom3

According to the B29 web site, many of the B29 crews have sworn that they did NOT remove the guns or crew members, regardless of orders.

Have heard otherwise but it could be a unit by unit thing, much like it was in Bomber Command. There was one of the groups, I think it was 5 Group but am not sure, that dumped most of the armor out of their bombers so they could carry more bombs. Didn't go over well with the crews.

Do you have a link to that site and that article? Would like to read it.

[JoeB]

Cases of bombers successfully engaging night fighters with guns were fairly rare, but cases of doing it with other than the tail guns seem to have been extremely rare. WWII night fighters almost always approached from astern, or astern and below with upward firing armament as the Germans adopted, and Japanese later emulated. Tail and perhaps belly observers were justified, and might as well have guns if not too heavy, though it was apparently rare that a bomber would see a night fighter approaching from below and behind until it opened fire, one reason that method of approach became so popular.

B-29's in night operations over Japan retained at least tail guns (actually not all had all the turret guns removed either, some retained bottom turret guns to fire at searchlights). Although, in Korea B-29's also eventually adopted all-night tactics in areas of MiG threat but retained all their guns. [PS a solid source on the ambiguity of this point is Werrell "Blankets of Fire", he footnotes USAAF reports showing most of the B-29's in the first night fire raid, on Tokyo, carried no *ammo*, didn't necessarily remove the *guns*, several groups carried ammo for their tail guns; the thing about hoping to plink searchlights with bottom turrets was on the second such raid, over Nagoya]

And the British generally retained them all though were in the habit of closely analyzing operations so must have realized they rarely accomplished much, especially fwd or top guns. I guess morale, and value of the gunners as observers to avoid night fighters, which gets back to morale, the idea of having some warning and chance to try to evade an attack, even if in reality the bomber spotting the small night fighter first, and evading it, wasn't likely.

In many cases night bombing units adopted the doctrine of not firing on night fighters until fired on, in case they saw the night fighter but it didn't see them, so again gunners as lookouts as much as anything else.

Joe

[Waynos]

Joe B, The Lancaster 'Special' that carried the 22,000lb Grand Slam and 14,000lb Tallboy retained only its tail turret, indeed, after the Mosquito proved its case no all-new RAF bomber was ever commisioned again with a defensive gun turret of any sort.

[syscom3]

Heres the B29 web site. There's plenty of B29 airmen that frequent the site and can answer questions.

http://b-29.org/

[ppopsie]

I am getting to read this book and perhaps be able to catch it up very soon.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by JoeB

And the British generally retained them all though were in the habit of closely analyzing operations so must have realized they rarely accomplished much, especially fwd or top guns. I guess morale, and value of the gunners as observers to avoid night fighters, which gets back to morale, the idea of having some warning and chance to try to evade an attack, even if in reality the bomber spotting the small night fighter first, and evading it, wasn't likely.

In many cases night bombing units adopted the doctrine of not firing on night fighters until fired on, in case they saw the night fighter but it didn't see them, so again gunners as lookouts as much as anything else.

Joe

Would it be an option in say 43 or later, to drop side & top guns to save weight, and put in a rear search radar & spotlight to assist the tail gun?

Did they have passive radar detectors that could give direction of LW attack?

[parsifal]

The problem with deleting the guns on the gun carrying bombers is that it simply opens up other avenues for the NFs to attack.

There is really only two options in my opinion....all or nothing. Either you build a bomber bristling with guns and armour, and screww the performance, or you go down the Mosquito path, build lots of small light, fast, expendable bombers that hopefully can

a) outrun the defensders and/or
b) overwhelm the defenders with numbers

[freebird]

Originally Posted by parsifal

The problem with deleting the guns on the gun carrying bombers is that it simply opens up other avenues for the NFs to attack.

There is really only two options in my opinion....all or nothing. Either you build a bomber bristling with guns and armour, and screww the performance, or you go down the Mosquito path, build lots of small light, fast, expendable bombers that hopefully can

a) outrun the defensders and/or
b) overwhelm the defenders with numbers

I've just looked it up, the British did have a radar tracking system fitted to the rear turret in 1944, called "Village Inn"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Inn_(codename)

Makes sense, as the rear was where the NF approached from.

Also, why not drop the nose turret, and instead have a belly turret? {LW NF came from behind or below}

LW fighter rarely approached from the front, and would still be in the field of fire of the dorsal or ventral turrets

[freebird]

Did the NF ever make attacks from above?

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by parsifal

The problem with deleting the guns on the gun carrying bombers is that it simply opens up other avenues for the NFs to attack.

There is really only two options in my opinion....all or nothing.

True for daylight, but as mentioned WWII night fighters rarely attacked from other than behind. WWII nightfighters didn't have fire control systems per se included in their radar functionality, they had to acquire the target visually to actually shoot. Assuming the visual conditions were obscure enough to require ground control or AI radar or searchlights it was extremely difficult for the night fighter to track the target visually well enough to execute a head on or pursuit curve gunnery pass: it basically had to approach from behind. In bright moonlight and clear weather it might be possible to conduct passes from multiple angles, but those were the conditions night bombers would try to avoid.

Below and behind usually worked best because the bomber was likely to be silhouetted against a lighter sky background. Occasionally above and behind might work with bomber silhouetted against fires on the ground. The Germans adopted the upward firing 'shrage musik' gun arrangement for approach from below and behind; the Japanese emulated it but some Japanese night fighters had downward firing guns also.

The night bomber's best hope against a night fighter was to foil the pass by evasive action in the last moments when the pilot was trying to acquire the bomber visually; quite feasible in poorer visibility conditions.

In neither day or night was it all that likely for bomber gunners to down fighters. Bombers vastly overclaimed how many fighters they downed, but in daylight there was a deterrent value to defensive fire; also possibly at night, but the big potential downside at night was helping the night fighter make that transition from radar to visual tracking of the bomber. That's why most night bomber units concluded they shouldn't fire at night fighters until fired on directly (B-29 units concluded this in both WWII and Korea). Shooting fwd or top guns at night fighters which had little chance to hit the bomber from those angles, and advertising the bomber's position, could be foolish.

A tail warning radar might help cue evasive action, but the potential problem with tail warning radars on bombers was similar to shooting first. For example the Germans eventually fitted night fighters with the 'Flensburg' radar detector that could be used to home in on the 'Monica' tail warning radars on RAF bombers, and like any radar detector could detect the Monica signal farther away than the radar could detect the night fighter.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by JoeB

A tail warning radar might help cue evasive action, but the potential problem with tail warning radars on bombers was similar to shooting first. For example the Germans eventually fitted night fighters with the 'Flensburg' radar detector that could be used to home in on the 'Monica' tail warning radars on RAF bombers, and like any radar detector could detect the Monica signal farther away than the radar could detect the night fighter.

Did the British bombers have radar detectors as well?

[davebender]

That's my understanding also. Consequently the rear gun turret is the only one that matters.

Quite a few German night fighters were damaged by fire from the bomber rear turret. Some night fighter pilots countered this by shooting the rear turret first, before aiming at the wing mounted fuel tanks.