Overall, who had the better bombing campaign of the Third Reich, USAAF or RAF?

[ace7861]

USA we could hit a gnats left nut with the bombing techniques we used its just really foggy and our targets were visual

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by ace7861

USA we could hit a gnats left nut with the bombing techniques we used its just really foggy and our targets were visual

OMG A freggin genius!

[Hop]

I wouldn't doubt that most of the daylight sorties were the short range missions to bomb the V1 launch sites in the Netherlands and Belgium.

That was certainly the case in the summer and early autumn of 1944, but later raids were on Germany, although never deep penetration like the USAAF (and BC at night)

For example:

26 October 1944

105 Lancasters of No 3 Group carried out a G-H raid on Leverkusen, with the chemical works as the centre of the intended bombing area. The raid appeared to proceed well but cloud prevented any observation of the results. No aircraft lost.

25 October 1944

771 aircraft - 508 Lancasters, 251 Halifaxes, 12 Mosquitos - attacked Essen. 2 Halifaxes and 2 Lancasters lost.

18 October 1944

Bonn. 128 Lancasters were dispatched; the raid appeared to go well and only 1 aircraft was lost.

14 October 1944

Duisburg. 1,013 aircraft - 519 Lancasters, 474 Halifaxes and 20 Mosquitos - were dispatched to Duisburg with RAF fighters providing an escort. 957 bombers dropped 3,574 tons of high explosive and 820 tons of incendiaries on Duisburg. 14 aircraft were lost - 13 Lancasters and 1 Halifax; it is probable that the Lancasters provided the early waves of the raid and drew the attention of the German flak before the flak positions were overwhelmed by the bombing.

28 October 1944

Cologne: 733 aircraft - 28 Lancasters, 286 Halifaxes, 19 Mosquitos. 4 Halifaxes and 3 Lancasters lost.

It says much for the state of the Luftwaffe by this time that on 4 October 140 Lancs and Halifaxes were sent to bomb U boat bases around Bergen in Norway. The escort was 12 Mosquitos. 1 Lanc was lost.

But when the Lancs were without escorts (missed rendezvous etc) their losses were heavy

Can you give an example? As far as I can see BC didn't suffer "heavy" losses on any of their daylight raids in the last year of the war.

Looking at the Luftwaffe fighter claims list, they claimed 8 Lancs on the 8th August, 4 were actually lost. 14 Lancasters were claimed on the 21 September, mostly around Arnhem, but this must be some sort of error as bad weather meant BC were grounded. 21 Lancasters claimed on the 12th December, but only 8 were lost (out of 140). They claimed 12 in another attack on Bergen in Jan 1945, but only 4 were lost. 16 Lancs were claimed on the 31st Mar, actual losses were 11 (out of 461 Lancs and Halifaxes). Whilst 11 aircraft is a serious loss, it was less than 3% of the attacking force. That wouldn't be bad as a long term average, much less a worst case raid.

They only made multiple claims on 1 more occasion, 4 Lancs on the 9th April. 2 were actually lost.

This is all in daylight, of course, on occasion the Luftwaffe still managed to inflict heavy losses on an RAF night raid, but in day time the RAF heavies were far more concerned with flak than enemy fighters. The most BC heavies I can find lost on a daylight raid from July 1944 to the end of the war was 11, and I wouldn't really describe that as "heavy" losses.


BTW, the figure I gave of 108 Lancs and Halifaxes claimed by the Luftwaffe day fighter force needs some more clarification. At least 26 of those were claimed by JG 300 and 301 at night, as far as I can see, which means about 82 claimed shot down in daylight.

[pbfoot]

the one that comes to mind is 31 mar 45 where the fighters never rendezvoused with the bombers . One pilot commented that he wished they had a proper formation like the 8th AF . I'll try and find this little anecdote
March 1945 Daily Operations
or this to check out daily ops
Daily Operations

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by ace7861

USA we could hit a gnats left nut with the bombing techniques we used its just really foggy and our targets were visual

You wanna go back and actually look at the statistics.

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by Hop

It says much for the state of the Luftwaffe by this time that on 4 October 140 Lancs and Halifaxes were sent to bomb U boat bases around Bergen in Norway. The escort was 12 Mosquitos. 1 Lanc was lost.

I'd say such examples are rather more reprsentative of your continously worsening inferiority complex when it comes to the USAAF or LW in WW2... which you compensate by such silly remarks.

I really wonder how is Norway is representative for the Luftwaffe's state at any time of the war, after all it was always a backyard, even more so than France. I wonder what forces were in Norway in October 1944, but I doubt there would be much. In May 1944 there were about 60 Bf 109Gs with Luftflotte 5 - almost all of them servicable, and quite a few old G-2s still present, giving a hint about how 'serious' the fighting in the North was (at least in May 1944, before the Soviet offensive on the German northern Army).

As for October, JG 5 was spread out all around.

I and II Gruppe was in Germany.

The III Gruppe was in Norway, but 1000 miles away from Bergen, in practice it operated in Northern Finnland. IV Gruppe was also in Finnland, in Salmijärvi.

I'd say such examples rather tells pages about the Bomber Command's daylight 'operations'. Targets choosen from the margin of the map, with marginal results.. When bombing Bergen on 4th October a single U-boot was lost, with 2 men KIA on the boat. Bit thin results for the size of forces thrown at it I'd say

I guess Bomber Command planner's were a bit shy to send British bombers where they might even find German daylight fighters. They had a good reason, since even with the Luftwaffe focusing on the USAAF raids, they still lost 52 bombers in these rather shy daylight operations (6713 sorties) in October 1944, as compared to 75 in noctural missions (10 193 sorties).

As for the RAF Bomber Command formation's record vs the Tagjagd, it was a rather sad one when they were intercepted. Caldwell describes the event of 23 December, when 30 Lancesters and 2 Mosquitos. The bombers belonged to the crack 8th Pathfinder Group of Bomber Command and were supposed to mark the RR station of Cologne. They were unlucky enough to bump into a five FW 190Ds from JG 26, still 40 kilometers short of Cologne.

The results were rather one sided. The five FW 190s attacked the 30 RAF heavies, and knocked down half of the No 528 bomber Squadron, including the leader, all in all 5 planes, another Lancester from No 405, and an Oboe Mosquito from No 105. Seven aircraft, or about 22% of the formation was lost to a formation of 5 German fighters; the latter escaped without a scratch.

[Gnomey]

Together they complimented each other and kept the Luftwaffe on their toes 24/7. Between they effectively crippled Germany by day and by night as well as concentrated the fighter forces on homeland defence rather than sorties against the Jabo's and the Tactical Airforces utilised by the ground offensive.

[syscom3]

Hop, look at the taregts the RAF was bombing in the daylight....... they were not deep penetration misisons like the 8th and 15th were doing.

All those targets in Germany were within range of the Spitfires (and masses of 8th and 9th AF fighters).

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by syscom3

Hop, look at the taregts the RAF was bombing in the daylight....... they were not deep penetration misisons like the 8th and 15th were doing.

All those targets in Germany were within range of the Spitfires (and masses of 8th and 9th AF fighters).

I must agree with you mostly V1 sites and aid to groundpounders

[rogthedodge]

Originally Posted by renrich

Am I mistaken or did not the RAF fly in line astern formation(bomber stream) rather than in formation like US day bombing?

No you're not. The bomber stream was developed to 'swamp' the German nightfighter defensive boxes & minimize losses. This was more important than the defensive fire arising from formation flying in daylight.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall I think they were complimentary efforts. Both sides were equal in their admiration of the others' efforts - neither would have swapped. With just night or day attack the luftwaffe wouldn't have had to split their defensive efforts.

Don't be fooled that the USAF only used pinpoint attack - at Nuremberg they used 'blind point bombing by radar' (area bombing in all but name) and for Tokyo it was area bombing pure & simple.

Bomber command was capable of pinpoint attack from '44 onwards but Harris refused for them to be diverted from the main task - area bombing of cities. All their training & tactics were focused on area attack.

When they were directed to use pinpoint the results were embarassingly good (for Harris).

[plan_D]

RAF 2 Group and 2nd TAF (of which 2 Group became a part) were striking targets inside the German border. 2 Group were second in number of Noball sites destroyed to the US 8th Air Force alone, but these were not the majority of their targets.

[Watanbe]

I voted the RAF for a couple of reasons,

1. The RAF was bombing the Germans long before the USAAF got involved. Although the effectiveness of this is debatable.

2. Arguably the RAF greater fulfilled the goals of strategic bombing, while the USAAF may of done more industrial damage, the deadly, demoralizing bombings of the RAF would of been feared by the Germans. Of course this is debatable on the purpose of strategic bombing in WW2.