What If...?

[vanir]

Well except for sustained daylight bombing (which the US could probably only do by attrition anyway), and I think they got their precision bombsights from the US, but the bomber campaign was a carpet one...

Anyway you're right, the RAF was simply a better strategic organisation than the Luftwaffe. Due to the nature of the war I don't seriously think any military force involved could be understated.
You'd all be married to frighteningly muscular women named Helga and sending your kids to "white" school if it wasn't for the RAF. Now maybe things are different in the land where even the stones stand on end due to the cold, but I like my women slight and friendly.

[plan_D]

The wonderful creation; the P-51 kept the daylight offensive alive for the USAAF. It's something that the RAF never had in large enough numbers to secure a place in daylight raids. That said, by the time the Mustang arrived it had already been agreed; RAF by night, USAAF by day.

The RAF had bombsights good enough to do the job. The problem was navigation and the RAF soon developed aids to help them with that.

[vanir]

love the underfuselage radome on lancs.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by vanir

You'd all be married to frighteningly muscular women named Helga

Hey now my wife is not named Helga and she is actually small and petit like most German women.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

and yes i agree, the H2S radome is very attractive, and all our bombsights were out own, the problems with bombing accuracy came about from navigation, not the bomb sights...........

[evangilder]

Don't forget that the weather also played a part in bomb accuracy before the H2S

[the lancaster kicks ass]

yes that's true, all i'm trying to say is that before H2S, most of the reason so few of our bombs were on target was because so few found the target!! if the bomber made it to the target, he was pretty cirtain to hit it, you can't really miss a city if you're over it........

[plan_D]

It was only precision targets that were missed, when on city bombing missions even in the early days they were hitting the target.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Exactly unless you are trying for a precision target it is pretty hard to miss it, hense precision.

[Smokey]

Originally Posted by plan_D

It certainly would be fair. The Luftwaffe was based around the sole purpose of ground support. In fact, it was so perfectly tuned to that role that when it came to change to a strategic bomber campaign, it failed.

It wasn't so much because the Luftwaffe was perfectly tuned to ground support, it was because Goering refused to have any four engined bombers and because General Walther Wever, a strong four engine bomber supporter, was killed in an air crash before the war, so ending the four engine bomber program. If these bombers had entered service before WW2, then they would have needed a long range escort fighter, which General Walther Wever may have insisted upon. Together, these could then form a 'long range command' in the Luftwaffe, which was equipped with four engined heavy bombers. As the Allied heavy bombers over Caen showed, close support of ground forces with relatively high altitude heavy bombers is not exactly a good idea, so this 'long range command' would be used for raids on factories.
Basically the Luftwaffe could easily have had both excellent close air support aircraft and a good long range force, but the death of General Wever and Goering's idiocy prevented this. And this, along with Hitler refusing Doenitz's demand for 300 U boats before the war, and the delay of Operation Barbarossa, thankfully cost Hitler the war.


Junkers Ju 89

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/ju89.html

Developed as part of General Walther Wever's Ural bomber program, the Ju 89 proved to be far more capable than it's primary competitor the Do 19. Though this aircraft had impressive potential, support for the long range heavy bomber program died with Gen. Wever. The Ju 89 prototypes were eventually used as test beds and to set records but the development program was terminated on April 29, 1937.

Has a passing resemblance to the Lancaster don't you think?




http://www.luftarchiv.de/flugzeuge/junkers/ju89.htm

[cheddar cheese]

Yeah it does a bit...

[plan_D]

No it doesn't. And the fact that the Luftwaffe didn't have heavy bombers proves my point exactly. The Luftwaffe were too finely tuned to ground support roles instead of being well-rounded like the USAAF and RAF.

[Smokey]

Yet more proof of how Hitler and Goering were their own worst enemies

[the lancaster kicks ass]

that doesn't really look like the lanc............

[cheddar cheese]

I think it does.