American Bomber Offensive: How the Luftwaffe Reacted
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In 1942 the US Army Air Force flew their first missions against Germany. Join me as I look at how the Luftwaffe adjusted to this new threat and address a few myths associated with this time frame.
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Kampfanweisung für Jagdverbände
Hermann, Dietmar. Focke-Wulf Fw 190 F und G vom schnellen Jäger zum Jagdbomber und Schlachtflugzeug. Stedinger Verlag 2012.
Pehle, Walter (Hrsg.). Die Welt im Krieg 1941-1943, Band I - Von Pearl Harbor zum Bombenkrieg in Europa, Geschichte Fischer, 1992.
Schadel, Ralf: Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen. Die Rolle der Düsenflugzeuge und Flugabwehrrakten in der Rüstungspolitik des Dritten Reiches.
Wehner, Jens. Technik können Sie von der Taktik nicht trennen. Campus Verlag 2022.
- Timecodes -
00:00 - Intro
00:19 - Luftwaffe '42: Allied Bombing
01:29 - New Threat: Daytime Bombing
04:38 - Combat Tactics
08:24 - Sponsored
09:37 - Reacting to Allied Bombing
10:31 - The Luftwaffe's Analysis
11:54 - Fighter Deployments to the West
12:59 - Fighter Production
14:10 - The 1942 Fuel Crisis
14:51 - FLAK: Defense Through Massed Firepower
16:32 - Back to Doctrine
18:35 - Outro
- Audio -
Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound
The idea of trying to break up the formation makes sense. You can pick off things rather than fly through a whole horde of things while under fire
Indeed. Breaking up the formation also has the added benefit of negatively affecting morale, bomb saturation, adversary navigation and routing, as well as generate increasing opportunities in which bombers can be attacked by follow-up interceptors.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory The Flak Arm (Flakwaffe) came under of the Luftwaffe/Luftwaffe High Command. I would love to see a video on the archives relating to German flak defences. Particularly the part played by Luftwaffenhelferinen (Women's auxiliary force). Excuse my German spelling, probably incorrect. As you point out in your comment, the primary objective was not necessarily to shoot aircraft down. A much more important role was to ensure the ordnance missed its target, by making them fly higher reducing their accuracy for example. Some accounts speak of bomber crews actually ditching their bomb loads over the channel on the outward leg, to lighten their aircraft just to fly about the flak. 50% of bombs missed their intended targets by 1.8km or more. Of the other half 10 to 30% failed to explode, delay timers inverting on impact being a frequent cause.
@@CGM_68 were any acts of ,Cowardice in the face of the enemy, prosecuted, for dropping bombs in the Channel? (seems unlikely)
@@paulwoodman5131Good question. Given that all crews were interrogationed by an intelligence office on returning to base, I imagine it would be difficult to conceal the fact that it had happened. It is much like many other notions combattants had in WWII. They were statistically more likely to be shot down by a fighter, but flak was more terrifying, so they protected themselves from that danger. I will get my source right for this first, an audio of an RAF pilot (Don Bennett?) suggesting in happened more than once. Donald Nijboer's Osprey book tells us that after the disastrous raid on 1 August 1943, B-24s were forced to jettison ordnance to fly above 24,000 feet. There was also a tendency to bomb early, thus avoiding the worst of the flak over the target. Probably important to note crews had permission to jettison their bomb load over the North Sea and Channel, when returning from aborted raids. To increase their chances of survival on crash landing a damaged aircraft. Though doing this on the outward leg must have been frowned upon.
‘The Luftwaffe turns to technology and tactics to solve a strategic problem.’ Brilliant. I’m glad someone said it. I’ve been racking my brain for ages to figure this out.
It's a solution really that Germany tries to regularly do to offset the strategic issues their leadership, both Hitler and military, get the armed forces into. If you dig into the fancy technology that the Kriegsmarine got into with their U-Boats, it's the exact same thing. They turned to advanced submarine technology. Good enough that post-WWII, a lot of German U-Boat design jumps US & Russian submarine tech for the Cold War. But for WWII it was pointless, because the U-Boats faced an ever-worsening crisis at sea. To the point that U-Boat patrols started becoming suicidal. Hell, you can see the whole German push for wonder weapons to win the war as just one big example. Strategically Germany was put in a bad situation, so it's natural people try to find someway to overcome that. Going against every economic, industrial, and population powerhouse in the world? And your enemies actually doing excellent job of complimenting each other logistically, operationally, and strategy? The Axis were 100% fooked, especially once 1942 hit. 1942 was when the Allies got their act together and 1943 was when the hammer fell.
what this statement leaves open is whether there was any better solution to the strategic problem .... besides not going to war aka with the existing political leadership.
@@mangalores-x_x Well that was very much a question for the German leadership and they were already five years into the war with no possibility of victory or a negotiated surrender.
It's been said so often that practically every historian has said it because it is the German way of war. Trying reading more.
This video was just so bloody watchable. Just when I think I’ve exhausted my interest in this time period, and the bomber war in particular, something like your video comes up and mixes erudition with just the right amount of humour and not being 3 hours long. Cheers.
Thanks so much, happy to hear it
@@MilitaryAviationHistory lots of great info presented so concisely.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Ist there any standard reference on air war in wwll ( especially bombing) over germany? There must be several, but if you had to choose one or two? In german ? Thanks for your effort … vielen dank !
As a historical history enthusiast, I became aware of the great battles through my father, who attacked Germany in Wellington's Lancaster's, RCAF. Upon that connection, I read a lot of the subject of the air war as a kid. The decades recede, their contributions seem to dim in collective memory', thus we keep them alive through retrospectives. Thank you for your time and efforts. 🙂
Very well done Chris, factor to consider is fuel available to train pilots, if there wasn't enough fuel for operations that certainly affected the quality and number produced. In 1943 the Luftwaffe was doing operations in the East, the arctic, the Mediterranean and the west. It was way overextended. School children could crew a flak gun (and they did!), pilots had to be extensively trained.
I interviewed a lot of American pilots and aircrew during the 1990s to accompany my books on the war in the South Pacific. One USAAF B-17 co-pilot said that the Germans, in his experience, employed what he called the "Luftwaffe pursuit curve." It goes like this - fighters would fly parallel to a four plane formation - when they got ahead they would bank toward the planes coming in at the side either above or below the wing and try to target the wing root or fuselage. He also said that if there was another war he wanted the German pilots on our side.
I loved your "Fire in the Sky", great book
@@federicoaloisi2960Thankee kindly.
One of the best books I've read on the sunject is "A Higher Call." It's the story of a German pilot that spared a B17. A huge chunk of the book is about the German and his experiences fighting the bomber formations.
My Grandfather flew 35 missions as a bombardier in a b-17. In those hundreds of hours in the nose He shot at an enemy plane exactly one time as the plane dove through the formation. He always said he thought it was a “rocket fighter,” a Me-163.
Tours for US bomber crews changed from 25 to 35 missions later in the war, when the German Luftwaffe was struggling to mount a strong defense against daylight bombing raids. The USAAF fighter force had almost complete air superiority by that time, making it relatively 'safe' for the bomber crews to fly more missions. Encountering enemy fighters became more and more scarce towards 1945. As Chris points out in the video, the Luftwaffe placed a strong emphasis on technology to tackle their problems and the Me 163 was definitely one of those solutions. That your grandfather probably encountered one is quite remarkable.
@@MrLBPugIe
The German reaction... I believe there was not only gunfire but more than a few harsh words were exchanged.
I am still on the lookout for a primary source file that provides guidelines on how to insult enemy aircrews during a dogfight. From both sides.
At 25,000 feet and 30 below, even the most hardy waist gunner is likely to think twice before dropping their trousers to shoot the moon at their adversary.
Are you telling me they are not doing their part in keeping up foreign relations?
Some years ago I had the privilege of speaking with a man who had flown a full tour as a tail gunner in a B-24. This was around 1992-93. He was still complaining about how cold it was.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory A possible way to insult is shouting up at them, saying that their mothers didn't know their fathers.
6000 to 16000 shells to down a single aircraft. Man, it's not like we tend to think of high altitude AA as especially effective (per shell), but I had no idea the numbers were that high.
Excellent stuff Chris I love these strategy/tactic overlap videos.
Another very good video. I appreciate the research that you undertake for my education. Just a small technical suggestion: I found that when that chord played between sections it slightly obscured what you were saying at the end.
Yes to both. The transition audio is also significantly louder than the narrative audio, bothersome. Great little presentation regardless. Thanks.
I'll add my (mild) gripe about the sound effects. I personally would prefer no sound effects rather than sounds being played too loud. I also agree this was a good video.
Really interesting review here, as always. I think it would be interesting to look at Luftwaffe bomber doctrine and and experience in the early war, how this translated to the their approach to counter the Allies strategic bombing efforts, and how that approach was developed as the war progressed. I'm curious how different the Allies strategic approach was to counter, both on a strategic level and in more practical tactical considerations (ie, did Allied strategic bombers fly a lot higher than the Luftwaffe during the Blitz, and if so how did that change air defense against them). It's interesting to to see how the experiences of the UK, US, and USSR pretty directly translated to doctrine and combat aircraft development in the early Cold War.
Resulting in sooooo many USAAF bomber crew briefings on holding formation. Thanks this was very informative.
A Luftwaffe Pilot once told an American Fighter Pilot shown in a documentary... "Attacking a B-17 Flying Fortress was like making love to a Porcupine on fire"...
Not a 'bad' discourse, although I was only hoping that the discussion would have led more [details] into the 'how and why' topic into the operational-end problems and inherent limitations regarding Luftwaffe daylight fighter-defence strategy and [its ground-based] coordination: i.e. the 'nuts-and-bolts' into exactly _how_ these _Reichsverteidigung_ air-operations were conducted against the USAAF armada formations, the evolving defensive tactics involved, what the [bigger] picture in the skies indicated, and how such Luftwaffe fighter-interception looked like from a 3D perspective. Perhaps 'this' could be a [most engrossing] topic for your next in-depth 'Luftwaffe' video - no doubt, I would certainly be looking forward upon seeing something leaning more into this type of discussion. Thanks nonetheless for an interesting, captivating, and well-crafted polished posting! *'Bravo!',* and _'Cheers!'_
Wow, just came across your channel. This was great. Very informative, and entertaining too. Appreciate the obvious deep research and the quality video. Thank you.
Thanks from Canberra, another great episode Chris, really enjoyed it. Owning a piece of a Spitfire sounds good. Apart from taking away half their fighters, the bombers absorbed ~75% of 88mm guns [if I remember correctly]. So less Luftwaffe & far less AT guns for the Eastern front. A lose-lose for the most important theatre,
Another informative video Chris.
This video is convenient because I had been viewing the channel "WWII US Bombers" a lot the past few months. He had gone over American bomber losses against Germany. For 1942-1943 fighters accounted for a lot of those losses. But Luftwaffe fighters were being grinded down to the point that fighters were a low threat to US bombers come 1944. But Flak remained a dangerous threat, even in 1945 for bomber crews. But it's also been covered that the industry to support German Flak was immense. These are a lot of big guns that were not being used for the front, but instead tied up in the rear at places like Germany, France, etc. The ammunition production to feed all these big guns must have been insane.
Fighters were still a big threat in 1944. April 1944 saw the highest losses of 8th AF HBs. I would say that the threat diminished a great deal after D-Day, but there were still occasions after that date during which German fighters had some success.
There were also the repairs and casualties of all that steel going up, and then coming down. Fallout shelters weren't initially for nuclear fallout, they were for unexploded ordinance and the fragments of exploded shells raining down,
The P-47 was the fighter plane most responsible the the death spiral of the Luftwaffe. The B-17 and B-24 the planes most directly responsible for that deTh spiral. Operation Cobra is not the complete success it is with out the complete air domination the US had.
Excellent video as usual!
love the squadron F.3 picture in the background. my uncle gave me one from when he was in the 29F with the RAF.
Excellent video as always
I just completed reading 'Masters of the Air," and this video dovetails nicely with the latter half of the book. Thank you.
Very Good and Very Objective video! All the historians should learn this objectivity from you!
Excellent video...well done!
Thx for the Video.
Love your work
As the Luftwaffe encountered more Allied heavy bomber raids, it became apparent that great increases in defensive fighter firepower were needed, especially against the even more heavily armed American bombers. This dynamic led to the development of ever more heavily armed sub-types of fighters, including some Focke-Wulf 190s with six 20 mm cannon, the most ever mounted in a German single-engine fighter (Dill 2015, 50-4). This sub-type entered service concurrently with the most powerful weapon used by German fighters during the war, the 210 mm rocket mortar, which was used in significant numbers from July 1943 onwards both on the Western Front and in the Mediterranean, but not in the East (Forsyth 2016b, 53-7). The ultimate result of these developments, focused on the needs of defence against strategic bombing, was that the aircraft types retained on the Eastern front were ever more poorly armed in comparison to those in the West. Just 15% of Luftwaffe aircraft guns were allocated to the East by January 1944 (Table 4), a much lower proportion that the 34% of combat aircraft allocated to this theatre (Table 2). While the desperate German attempts to develop technology to confront Allied pressure have been noted in the literature (van Creveld 2011, 116-7), as has the German tendency to use older aircraft in the East (O’Brien 2015: 65, 291). What has not been sufficiently emphasised is that these aircraft possessed considerably less firepower, on average, as demonstrated here." page 15 How were German air force resources distributed between different fronts in the years 1941 to 1943 pdf
I didn't realize fuel was an issue as early as 1942
In the Axis, from the start.
Super Intro! :D
Technically, Pat Hughes probably wasn’t shot down in the accepted sense. Long an advocate of getting in as close as possible - advice he gave to fledgling ace Bob Doe - Hughes blew up a Dornier 17 on the 7th of September, 1940 and his aircraft was either damaged by the explosion or he collided with it. Hughes bailed out but his ‘chute failed to open. The control column from his Spitfire used to be on display at one of the museums on the south coast, either Hawkinge or Tangmere. I can’t remember which. Either way, the wreck was not considered a war grave. As a self confessed watch fiend, that is an interesting project.
Always interesting, thank you.
Very informative Chris ! My only complaint is a technical one : can you turn down the volume of the music used for the transitions ? You have a very soft tone of voice, so I have to turn up the volume to understand everything you're saying... and then my ears are assaulted by the very loud intro or inter-chapter themes. ^^
This is just tactical stuff. The strategic reality is that the Luftwaffe /did/ react. A major aspect of the entire bombing campaign was that it was /strategic/-a true second front a solid year before D-Day. Germany had to divert massive resources to combat the campaign, which strategically weakened her. Allied casualties were considered to be “worth it” in the larger scheme of things.
Totally agree about head-on attacks being the exception rather than the normality. Moreover, in the recent “Masters of the Air” series, in addition to being very cartoonish, it seems there are only HO attacks. Too bad, it could have been a great series.
Agreed, seen that myself and thought odd. Another has pointed out that the rocket attacks launched are too close (and from the wrong aircraft) in being really from about 1000m so as to break up the formations rather than target individual bombers. Guess that want to try to put a lot on screen to make it appealing to those not in the know. In doing so, MoA as you quite rightly say, make it look cartoonish.
It's interesting to see that despite the general opinion of "Germans always go exactly by the book" it clearly shows that they were pretty adaptive. "predators attacking a group/flock/swarm/herd of prey and try to isolate individuals for an easy pick as those lost the safety of their coherence" it's always astonishing to me how you can find very old concepts in modern things. though those animal had no guns on a lot of angles they could shoot and on that note i find it very scary to sit in a bomber and hope that the gunner in the plane next to me, with about same speed & altitude, doesn't strafe me as he tries to shoot down that pesky little interceptor that just flew in between us and tried to kill us both. But yeah i really enjoyed another one of those videos because i think it's very important to understand the reasoning behind something to make a fair assessment of something
A very high quality, information packed video, though I would note that you thanked yourself at the end of the video rather than Military History Visualized.
oh dear - not the first time one of us messes that up :D
I learned a lot in very little time. I study WW2 Germany had night fighters with radar qnd canons over machine guns Wnat and interesting time. A very well made video sur excellent enjoyed tge content.
That famous gun camera footage of the attack on a B-17 from the rear, where chunks of the plane can be seen flying off, does anyone know what specific bomber that is ? And how did it fare out ? It's bugged me for years.
What a coincidence😅 An hour ago i was looking at old pictures of a radar station that was close to our village and at newer pictures that show what's left of it.
danke! topp videos.
that's one hell of a cold open
Adolf Galland proposed holding back newly trained pilots for a attempt at a massive attack on American bomber formations.This reserve of pilots was thrown away at the Battle of the Bulge and a further operation. Gall and thought a massive attack on he American bomber formations with huge American losses might help stem the tide of all the bombing of Germany.
An excellent duo of board games for this subject is Skies Above the Reich and Storm Above the Reich.
Re: Head on Attacks and firsthand accounts. In his autobiographical book, The Straits of Messina, German Ace and commander Johannes Steinhof writes about being ordered to conduct such attacks against flights of B-17s. He was ordered to fly head-on in a shallow dive, leading a group of BF-109's, which he did. In fairness, he writes that he thought this tactic to be terrifying and suicidal, and did not relish doing it at all! (So technically speaking, it seems this was to be the standard tactic. Apparently, this notion didn't last very long.)
I have a few files from the MTO Luftwaffe experiences (some shown in a previous video). They specifically refer to the pilots practicing this approach and conclude that it was not viable for the average pilot. However, frontal attacks at an angle (larger target - less risk - better distance approximation) were a compromise in case you got vectored right in the path of the bombers. Most likely, you just attacked from whatever direction you intercepted - mostly pilots only had the opportunity to fly 1-3 attacks and then it was rtb.
This tactic would become more suicidal once the G model of the B-17 became available because of the chin turret.
@@richardmeyeroff7397 There were earlier attempts to bolster the B-17's (and the B-24's, for that matter) forward defensive capability and some of these worked quite well. A single .30cal machine gun, the standard nose armament from the B-17B-model onward, was found to be ineffective early on. Operationally, single .50cal guns in the nose glazing and .30cals in the nose side windows were quickly introduced both in Europe and the Pacific. Eventually, that changed to mounts for single or double .50cal guns in the nose and staggered .50cals in enlarged nose side windows. These were initially fitted as field modifications, so there are photos of lots of variations on that theme. There was even an attempt to fit a 20mm cannon in a B-17F's nose, but that produced to much recoil to be safely used for any length of time. One drawback of fitting the guns _in_ the nose was that these aircraft could not be fitted with a bomb sight. That was a sophisticated piece of equipment and rather bulky, so with guns and ammunition occupying large parts of the nose space, there wasn't enough room. Also, firing a .50cal Browning machine gun, let alone two, in a B-17 (or B-24) was akin to using a jackhammer inside a telephone booth, according to many airmen, the vibration of which risked damaging the sight. Formation bombing didn't require every bomber to be fitted with a bomb sight and therefore, only formation leaders and one or two backups were usually equipped with them. The more heavily armed aircraft flew on the wings of the sight-fitted ones, to provide increased forward protection against fighter attack. Of course the G-model's turret provided a proper solution to the forward defensive deficiency of bomb sight-equipped B-17s. The introduction of a power-operated manned turret in the nose of the B-24 did the same for that aircraft. Attempts to fit more guns to that aircraft's nose before the turret became standard are equally interesting, by the way 😁
There is a YT video of a Japanese pilot describing the terrifying head-on frontal dive against the B-29.
Random thought popped up. Did the Luftwaffe ever try to utilize the newfangled IR equipment Germany was developing? Vampir, I think was one used by the Wehrmacht, on some rifles and tanks. IR light and sensitive scope.
They had something similar called 'Spanner-Anlage' but its range was far too short to be practical.
One thing that crossed my mind a while back was, why didnt they use rockets towards bomber formations, basically using bombers to fight bombers. I later heard they actually did this. To what effect and did they stop when the allies got LR fighters? I know rockets arent very precise, but firing a lot of rockets at loads of bombers are bound to hit something?
Depends really, given how imprecise rockets were at the time, you'd have to get close just to stand a chance of hitting something.
@@bloodrave9578 They were actually generally used from 'long' range, outside the effective range of the bomber formation's guns (~1mi or ~1.6km), and fired in salvos to increase their effectiveness. As you mention, they weren't very accurate, but still tactics dictated a (relatively) long stand-off range. Heavy cannons aboard fighters, especially the low velocity MK108 30mm cannon, needed to be used _inside_ the bomber's defensive gun range to make up for their lack of accuracy, making their use highly risky. 20mm cannons like the MG151/20 required a lot of hits to down a bomber, necessitating multiple passes, thereby increasing risk for the fighter as well. Single-engine and twin-engine fighters like the Fw 190, Me 109, Bf 110 and Me 410 were equipped with either two or four BR21 (21 cm or 8in _Werfer-Granate_ ) tube-fired spin-stabilized rockets, while the Me 262 carried 24 of the R4M 4cm (1.5in) folding-fin air-to-air rocket on small underwing racks. Both types of rocket were equally capable of destroying a bomber with a single hit.
@@bloodrave9578 The German BR 21 rocket used a time fuse, the idea was to get to the correct range from an American bomber formation and then volley them off. As the USAAF flew fairly tight formations to maximise the effect of their defensive fire, a direct hit wasn't necessary, as long as the fuses detonated the rockets in the American formation then blast and shrapnel would do the damage.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 You could say those are the first rockets specially designed to kill planes.
Thanks!
A good post! I am often appalled at the behaviour of the British military that had quite a lot of good equipment to use at the time YET had terrible leaders who blundered strategically as well
The proximity fuse.... no one would have benefited more from developing one than Germany, yet they barely tried, instead spent massive resources on the militarily useless V-1 and V-2. Part of technological advancement is relevance.
As typical for you, the use of data and the evidenced research was high. However, I left the table hungery. What did Chris just tell? I think the problem was two-fold: You did not really set the doctrine stage clearly up front in a way that we judge, strategy, tactics and technology against the doctrine. And secondly, I don t think I ever heard or saw the word objective. The AAF had its doctrine and TORCH and RAF caused some change in doctrine. However the setting of objectives was what provided the quanatative measures of success and adjustment of tactics and technology for the AAF. While the doctrine remained, and so did the objectives in the most part, it was operational analysis that drove the AAF to adjust tactics and technology ( longer legged fighters and radar - all weather BTO, and accuracy - bomb on lead) I didn t
I've always wondered how many Allied bombers were damaged or even shot down by their own bombers.
There had to have been random blue-on-blue hits during combat considering the the density of the formations. The following is pure speculation based on documentary attesting to the regard that aircrewmen had for each other... that said I suspect that in the unlikely event that a gunner's training did not cover it, they exercised reasonable care to avoid hitting each other. I must temper that with my experience in deer hunting, it is remarkably easy to get "tunnel vision" and/or "buck fever" during a stressful event. A saving grace that I can envision is that gunners would have to fire a sustained, aimed burst to do serious damage... barring the "Golden BB." Friendly fighters, on the other hand were commonly given unfriendly attention by gunners. I have read testaments and watched interviews supporting this. In "Checkertails", by Ernest R. McDowell, there is a section that discusses how P-38 pilots from the neighboring 14th FG had a tendency to fire on anything that didn't have twin booms. The P-40's of the 325th FG (Checkertails) had picked up a fair amount of damage over time from this practice. The situation came to a head when 14th FG aircraft did a no-show when scheduled to fly cover for the 325th. Retribution came in the form of Col. Bob Baseler, commander of the 325th flying the three miles to the 14th's airfield in a captured Bf-109 to buzz the chow line while lunch was being served.
What were the changes, if any, in bomber and escort fighter tactics by the allies over time. Has anyone done a detailed analysis of what it cost Germany, in it's ability, to supply the eastern front because of the bombing campaigns over Germany. I have heard and read everything from minor to a great help to the Russians but nothing with any details.
_Very_ broadly speaking, the USAAF flew with escort fighters from the beginning of their operations, which was in 1942. Initially they flew with RAF Spitfires to targets in France and the other occupied territories. Sometime later, the USAAF's own P-47s and P-38s could the bombers to targets in the western part of Germany. Drop tanks were not yet readily available and therefore escort fighter range was still limited. Long range bomber missions were flown with partial escort, to the extreme range of the fighters, which then returned to base to refuel. They would pick up the bombers on their return home from the target. This lack of escort did provide the Luftwaffe with ample opportunity to inflict severe losses on USAAF bombers; the Schweinfurt and Regensburg raids come to mind as especially gruesome examples. Eventually, drop tanks became available in quantity, as did more escort fighters. The introduction of the P-51 was a game changer. That could escort the bombers all the way to Berlin and back (although the early models had their fair share of teething problems and fighter groups didn't all transition to the Mustang overnight). Initially, close escort was still the norm, but eventually it was realized that fighter sweeps against the Luftwaffe's air fields, ahead of the bomber attacks, were also very effective. These prevented defensive fighters from being able to reach the bombers to begin with. And as the Luftwaffe threat diminished further, these fighter sweeps also attacked targets of opportunity like trains, river- and road traffic, inflicting damage on logistics within German territory.
I don't remember the numbers but the AAA defense alone took millions of men and guns that would have otherwise been deployed elsewhere.
@@gort8203 That is the problem, no one has truly evaluated what effect the bombing campaigns did in redirecting resources, human and material from the fighting fronts. How many 88 's or other cannons were kept in Germany rather than going to the eastern front or that could have been made into more tanks or u-boats. How many planes were kept in Germany rather than to the Med or the Russian front etc.... How could this be researched?
@@richardmeyeroff7397 I think it has been researched and data is available. As I said I don't recall exact numbers, but I have come across them in various histories. If by a truly evaluated you want hard conclusion as to what effect the diversion of resources had on any given front, many can speculate but I doubt it is possible to draw definitive conclusions. If that were possible some of the authors who writing new histories of the war would be out of work.
TNA, Kew, AIR 27/1439/9, Form 540: „It was reported that F/Lt. Hughes had destroyed 1 Do.17 before being shot down himself“.
The mammoth air battles of Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Refer the book 📕 "The Bomber Offensive" by Anthony Verrier.
Your tone of exasperation when you said Goering was hysterical. What you were thinking was pretty evident (oh crap not that idiot)
That new sound theme is annoying. At least make it less loud. It is much louder than the peaking part and I have to adjust the volume for those seconds.
Interesting, but the title music you use to introduce each topic is too loud
They reacted by mostly staying on the ground because they had very little fuel by that point....
The Lightning War Air Force which picked apart French, British, and smaller European air forces in the beginning of the war could not adapt itself to fighting an (eventually) well-organized, slow-but-steady (technologically speaking), implacable, allied air campaign. These forces ate away at the Luftwaffe and its supporting infrastructure, reducing its ability to respond to the threat. Technological innovation and wonder weapons were no match for the incremental improvements and steady magnification of the Western War Machine. I left the Soviets (VVS) out of this, as they were primarily a tactical, ground support air force. I would say the the implacable label would apply more to the Soviet ground forces.
It's sad that this show as so baldy written. I really wanted to like "Masters of the Air", but after the artistic failure that was "The Pacific" Hanks and Spielberg should have given WW2 a rest instead of repeating it.
I wonder how allied fighters would have fared if they had to confront heavy bomber formations themselves.
Being 74 My Uncle Jack was a TAIL GUNNER during this time on the B 17 and told many stories about his time. God Bless All Those Individuals
Why didn't German Fighters intercept the American Escorts early as they crossed over into German airspace? The escorts would be forced to drop their tanks and would have been unable to escort the bombers on longer range missions.
That did happen, as German fighter _Gruppen_ were deployed over the whole of the occupied territories of Western Europe. They could theoretically cover the whole route that the bombers and their escorts would take toward their intended target through German airspace. However, as Chris points out in the video, actual operational aircraft numbers were effectively limited as well, necessitating choices in deployment. USAAF escort fighters were initially limited in range and the Luftwaffe would simply wait until the escorts returned home for lack of fuel before attacking the bombers. Somewhat later on, long-range escort fighters became available but were still limited in number, and therefore limited in tactical defensive options: should they stay with the bombers or take on the attacking Luftwaffe fighters, but risk being lured away and making the bombers vulnerable to other German aircraft? Eventually the number of available long-range escorts became so great that it was possible to send full squadrons ahead on fighter sweeps against German airfields, while others could stay with the bombers as close support. By that time the Luftwaffe as a whole had practically ceased to be an effective fighting force, though. Of course this is a very broad and not very detailed explanation, as strategy and tactics evolved on both sides during the course of the conflict.
US bombers in the ETO seldom hit their targets. Battle damage studies done post-war showed wild inaccuracy was common place, but few on either side of the conflict demonstrated a contemporary understanding of the scale of the inaccuracies. To the extent Allied strategic bombing was intended to cripple German military production, it generally failed. But the air war wreaked considerable havoc on transport of every kind within Germany and the countries it occupied, and what the factories did manage to produce was increasingly interdicted while being shipped to the field. For every Tiger that left a Reich factory, ~34 US M4s left the production line for the front line.
Don't think you are right at all. Plenty of evidence e.g. the Butt Report 1941 that it was well known at higher levels that very few bombs struck their targets. Suspect crews did too by their relative position but continued to just do their jobs. For the USAAF, command kept thinking however, that better tactics and operational management would improve accuracy to justify their belief in strategic bombing. Note the evolvement of USAAF tactics (e.g. pathfinders) and addition of some of the British electonric aiming aids (Oboe). The British post-Butt under Harris dropped this delusion of ppinpoint accuracy instead believing that hitting cities would achieve an end much the same i.e. dehousing DE workers forcing them to stop arms manufacturing. The reality of USAAF bombing was that about 20% of loads were simply dumped on targets of opportunity with no attempt at accurate or strategic bombing. This was always obvious - witht hindsight though how nobody stated in the 1930s I know not because it beggars belief - because there were only on average six days per month in winter months over Europe with sufficiently clear skies to see targets. Thus, no matter the professed accuracy of the Norden bombsight if it simply couldn't see its target it was never going to be able to hit it! Period. With such poor odds of destroying European targets strategic bombing was a summer activity unlikely to ever achieve much! USAAF continued its groupthink and/or cognitice dissonance so as to have a strategic intent that would deliver an indepndent, of the army, American air force. This they finally achieved via the A-bomb which made up for all the deficincies exhibited in the ETO and PTO: inaccuracy, daylight bomber/crew losses and cost (e.g. B-29).
BISMARCK
Poorly, I would say.
Spitfires were flying over Germany in 1943 ? Hmm : Spitfire Combat range: 248 mi . Must be a quote from 1940 not 1943 .
You'd think the Germans would have developed a proximity fuse...
All of us know that German pilots were the best of the world!
Thanks for labeling the B-17 in ther thumbnail, the know nothing aircraft enthusiasts around here don't know that stuff. I personally thought it was Concorde and got confused as to why the Germans would shoot it down, apart from seething germanic engineering envy.
Too many adverts yawn
No requirement to wear gloves when handling 70+ year old documents?
At most archives I know this is only for documents from before WW1
@@MilitaryAviationHistory I think it's related to the paper making technology of the times, post WWI paper is more robust.
I'll pay for a subscription to your channel IF you never wear that hat again. (The hat you're wearing in the clips you play while asking for subscribers)
Why are you putting arrows in your thumbnails now? Do you think we don't know what a fucking B17 is?