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"You can no longer duel with Anerican bombers aswe did in the past. Before it was acontest of skill, their gunners againt our flying. We could outmaneuver their aimed fire,dodge theur tracers, slip hrough gapsin their coverage. Now is like fying in rain. The bullets are simply everywhere. There is no skill in avoiding rain."
-- Oberfeldwebel Heinrich Bartles, Jagdgeschwader 27, diary, December 1943,. Bartles ammased 96 kills. He would be killed during the Lufwaffe's last desperate action as part of the Battle of the Bulge.
German fighter losses were not all the result of the long range P-51 escorts now accompanying the American day-light bombers. The Americans developed the first modern long-range (heavy) bomber--the B-17 (!936).. It was dubbed 'the flying fortress' by newsmen impressed with all the defensive armament, including top turret, wast guns, tail guns, an ball turret underbelly guns. During the War, front guns were added. The Army Air Corps Bomber Boys were convinced that the B-17 with its revolutionary Norden bombsite could fight its ways into enemy air space because of all that fire power. Gunners made up half the crew. The British would not have an effective heavy bomber until the Avro Lancaster arrived (1942). America did not enter the War until Pearl Harbor (December 1941). The American Eighth Air Force began arriving in Britain (February 1943). There were preliminary runs into occupied France (1942), but raids into the heavily defended Reich did not occur until President Roosevelt and Prime-Miniter Churchill announced the around the Clock bombing of Germany (January 1943). British air marshals warned the Americans that unescorted bombing raids were suicide. The American Bomber Boys were sure that the B-17 Forts had the fire power to do it and engage in high-altitude precision bombing. They were wrong and the Mighty Eighth endured very high losses. For a time the while strategic boning campaign was threatened. The problem was not only the lack of escorts, but the fact that America bomber gunners were not bringing down very many German fighters, despite rigorous training in gunnery and the fact that many Americans were hunters with practiced gunnery skills. Gunner training had emphasized standard aiming skills such as leading a moving target. The lenghty training program progressed from ground-based exercises to aerial practice, teaching recruits to track and lead targets. The problem with this was the training ignored a vital factor--the forward motion of the bomber. Huge quantities of ammunition was being expanded with little result. This did not change until a ball-turret gunner started reporting an usually high hit rate. This may have reflected the ball-turrets isolation and time to reflect on his vulnerability. Ar first it was not clear why, but as specialists began studying the phenomenon, it became clear that the training program did not account for the forward motion of the bomber. Teams of statisticians pyhyicits, and mathimiticians studied the issue even as yhe Luftwaffe was shooting American bombers out of the sky during the Schweinfurt–Regensburg raid -- Black Thursday (August 1943). Within 8 weeeks they had a solltion. Their revolutionary calculations would help transform the dynamic of the bomber fire envelope.
Training programs stopped stressing tracking the German fighters through their sights. They were told to stop aiming. Rther the idea of sprasying a heavy volume of fire into areas where the fighters might appear, firing calculated patterns into predetermned areas of empty space. This included of all things, firing behind the fighters. This meant firing without aiming---anathema to skilled hunters. The gunners were told to give primority to matimtical probiliy distribution over time-honored marksmanship--statistics over skill. The gunners were told to abandon the skills of gunnery held since gunbowder fire arms first appeared in anvcinent China. The impact by 1944, was significantly increased gunner success, forcing the increasingly poorly trained German pilots to exercise more caution when attacking the American bombers.
he Americans developed the first modern long-range (heavy) bomber--the B-17 (!935).. It was dubbed 'the flying fortress' by newsmen impressed with all the defensive armament, including top turret, wast guns, tail guns, an ball turret underbelly guns. During the War, front guns were added. The Army Air Corps Bomber Boys were convinced that the B-17 with its revolutionary Norden bombsite could fight its ways into enemy air space because of all that fire power. he B-17 brstled with 13 .50 caliber mavhine guns with int-locking fields of fire. Amerivcan tactics were to fly in tight formation creating an inpenetrable fire envelpe. During the War, the United States developed a second heavy bomber with an even longer range -- the B-24 Liberator. The B-24s The British would not have an effective heavy bomber until the Avro Lancaster arrived (1942). Defenensive armament was not nearly as imprtant for night bombing.
The Casablanca Conference was the first of the great Allied mid-World War II conferences involving the heads of state (Ptrinmer-Minite Churchill and President Roosevelt). The meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill and their military staffs occured after a fundamental shift in the military situation. The Btritis Eigthh Army defeated the Afrika Korps atEl Alemeon (October 1942). The Americans and Britih landded in North Africa as [prt of Operation Torch (November 12942). Stalingrad was about to Fll to the Red Army (November 1942-Februay 1943). Stalin was invited, bu refused to leacve the Soviet Union. Masjorannouncvemnts were msade by bthe Alles, including the demnd for unconmditiona. Roosevelt and Churchill a;lsdo announced the around the Clock bombing of Germany (January 1943).
America did not enter the War until Pearl Harbor (December 1941). The American Eighth Air Force began arriving in Britain (February 1943). There were preliminary runs into occupied France (1942), but raids into the heavily defended Reich did not occur until President Roosevelt and Prime-Miniter Churchill announced the around the Clock bombing of Germany (January 1943).
British air marshals warned the Americans that unescorted dasylight bombing raids into the Reich were suicidal. This is why British Bomber Command early on was forced to spend daylight raids and conduct the bombing of Germany with night-time raids. The American Bomber Boys were sure that the B-17 Forts had the fire power to do it and engage in high-altitude precision bombing. And day blihjy was neded for the Nordren bomb site. Yoy had to be able see taargets to bomb them. The American Bomber Boys were wrong and the Mighty Eighth endured very high losses. This culminated during the Schweinfurt–Regensburg raid -- Black Thursday (August 1943). The Eighth Air Force lost 60 bombers and thier invalyuable crews as well as 95 badly damaged bombers, most as a result of German fightgers. Deep penetration raids had to be suspended.For a time the while strategic bombing campaign was threatened. The Germans began to thnkthat thery had won the air war. Even before this disaster, itweas apparent that unescoted daylight raids were unsustunable and the U.S. Air Forces were working on long-range escorts. .
There was agreement on the major targets: 1) the Ruhr in western Germany, 2) major cities in the interior of Germany, and finally 3) Nerlin. 【Rumpf, p. 61.】 Bombing campaigns on these targets unfolded as 1943 progressed. Operations were not limited to these targets. There were strikes at Norwegian targets and German coastal cities, especially those with shipyards building U-boats. The devestasting raid on Hamburg shocked the Germans. Hitler refused to give civil defense a priority, but the Luftwaffe developed more effective fighter tactics. The Americans also targeted Ploesti in the first attempts to concentrated on Germany's petroleum supply. Allied air crews sustanined terrible casualties. It soon became apparent that the American bombers could not fight through fighter defenses without unacceotable losses. The 8th Air Force suffered appauling casualties in attacks on Schweinfurt and other interior cities. Fighter escorts were needed. In addition, the Luftwaffe developed increasingly effective night fighting techniques and equipment. A British attack on Peenemünde sets back the German production of V weapons. The ballance of power in the skies over Germany only began to change at the end of the year when fighter escorts finally began to be deployed. Göring assured Hitler that this was not feasible. The Allied escorts were still limited during 1943, but this was to change in 1944. The British ipened the campaign against Berlin in laste 1943, but the target proved difficult for Bomber Command. Berlin unlike many other German cities would not burn.
Gunners made up half the 10-man crew. The problem was not only the lack of escorts, but the fact that America bomber gunners were not bringing down very many German fighters, despite rigorous training in gunnery and the fact that many Americans were hunters with practiced gunnery skills. Gunner training had emphasized standard aiming skills such as leading a moving target. The lenghty training program progressed from ground-based exercises to aerial practice, teaching recruits to track and lead targets. Bomber gunners received stanfard gunnery training. The recruits were trained to track the fighters in the gun sights. And this emphasized traditional hunting practices of leading a moving target. The trainees were rated on their ability to hit moving targets. There were questons raised early one American trainer warned, "We are training our gunners to hoot filesat 300 yards when wehat they desperately need is to shoot shopguns at 30 feet. he entire foundation of our gunnery instruction is wrong. We're applying 19h century markmanship principles to 20th century aerial combat. The boys we are sending to England are gong to die because we're teaching them the wroing skills." 【Bowman】
There was an exhaustive training progam to protect these skills.
The problem with this was the training ignored a vital factor--the forward motion of the bomber. Huge quantities of ammunition was being expanded with little result. At the same time the U.S. Air Forces were working on a long-range escot, he question of gunnery surfaced.
The gunnery issue was not readily apparent. The gunners on te the Amerucan bombers were reporting a high kill rate. On the disatrerous Schweinfurt–Regensburg raid claimed 288 and 27 robables. Luftwaffe records
reported only 25-27 fghters lost. The American gunners were only achieving 90 percent of their claimed successes. Air staff weree vguely aware that the gunner claims were over stated. One gunner who actuallsht down a German fighter during the Schweinfurt–Regensburg raid wrote in the afteracton report,"I fired at 12 different aircraft during the mision. I am ceratin that I destroyed one, saw it explode and the pilot bail out. The other 11 I might as well been throwing rocks at them. My tracers followed them across the sky, but never seemed to connect. It was like they were protected by an invisisble shield. We're doing something fundamentally wrong." 【Crossman】
At first it was not clear why, but as the specialists gunnery team began studying the phenomenon, it became clear that the training program did not account for the forward motion of the bomber. In addition speed and distances were nt being prperlyh accessed. A Me-109 or FW-190 attacking a B-17 or B-24 formation from the front had a combined closing speed of over 600 mph. That was orders of magnitued greater than humn hunters and skeet shootes ever had to contend with--essentially 880 ft per second. That meant gthat bmbrr gunnes has smething like 2 seconds to respond. The human eye and brain simoly dis nt have the capcvity to espoond effectively. It was not humanly possible not matter how killed or well-trined the gunner was. nd tyhere other other vriable uchas ldfitude and wuind speed. The trajectory of the gunner's bullet which had to arc in space while his bomber and the targeted fighter moved in three domnsions at different speeds and angles. There was also the parallax error between the gunners eue and gun muzzle. There were in fact 14 variabls requiring a trigometruic sollution. Ask a trig student to solve sucha problem in two seconds, letalone in thefreesing cold of high alditude while veing fired on by German fifgh=ters. American gunners were simply given an impossible task. One American gunner had been a high school math teacher and in his spare time tried to calculate these variables. He compiled a note book filled with complicated formula and calculations. He concluded, "We're asking farm boys from Iowa and factory workers from Detroit to be calculating machines. We're demnding that they sole diferential equations in hei heds while being shot at. Its not just difficult, it's impossible." 【Morrison】
Eighth Air Force Air Staff were suspicious of the gunners' reprts of German fighter kills. Especilly because if accepted, the Luftwffe would cease to exist. But then a ball turet gunner begn actgialt scoring confirmed kills. Ball turret guners had one o the ost terriying ssignments of any World War II vombatants. And even worse, he had go face the dangers completely isolated from the rest of the crew nd withors locked only in his own thoghts. One such gunner after his fifth mission wihot a sinle hit, frustratingly gave up on what he had been taught. He developed what he called the garden hose method, he began walkking his tracers acrossanticipated flight paths. His crew and baracjs mates mocked him. Knick namiing him 'spray and pray Tony'. Only in thespace of 4 minujtes in a raid over Stutgat he actially shot down two Me-110s and damaged a third. He told debrifers, "I wasn't aimiming at them in the traditinoal sense. I wasn't tracking them throuhh my sight or trying to calculate lead. I was just filling the air where I thought they'd be with as many bllets as possible and lettng them fly into it like they were commiting suiside on my bullet stream." (September 6) 【Kowalski】
Sgt. Kowalski's ball turret results set off heated debate in Eighth Air Force command. The answers came unexpectedkly from junior officers recruited from civilian life. This was begun by a an MIT phyics professor now attached to the Eighth Air Force Operational Section. He learned of Kowalski's success at a time he had been stuying the gunnery isue. He was part of a an inovative unit in the American military. It was based on an approach that the Royal Navy was having in the Battle of the Atlanic. The idea was to apply rigorus mathamatical and scientific analysis to combat. The professor analized thouands of feet of combat camera footage from the bombers, loking at the geometry of theGeran fighter attacks and the American bomber defensive fire. He prepared a report challenching entrenched doctrine (September 15). "Our analysis of 1,247 combats between B-17 formations and German fihghters revealed a disturbing truth. TYhe most successful gunners,thosewho actually destroy enemy aicraft rather than simply claiming them, are not the ones wih he highet markmanship scores from training. They are not the ones that carefully track targets through their sights. They are almost univeally the ones who fire the mostb ammunition in the shrtest ossible time, regardless of traditional accuracy. Traditional deflection shooting requires the gunner to calculate where the target will be and place a bullet precusely tyhere. But whatif instead of trying tgoaim where we think the enemy will be, we simply fill every placed he could be with bullets? What if we stop trying to acieve precission and instead pursue probability?" 【Becker】 Ths was a MIT professort speaking out. Then a stistician enteed the debate, an actuary for Metropolan Life before the War. Insyurance companies can nt prediuct individual actions, they can pedict ggregate behavior. Gen. Ira C. Eaker. Eighth Air Force Commander called for a meeting at the High Witcomb Headquarters (September 22). The junior officer and actuary presented his theorgy to the very skeptical top brass. "Gentleman, insurance is about nanaging probabilityand so is shooting down Germn fighters. We cannt predict what any individual German pilot will do, but we can predict with mathimaticl certinty what German pilots in aggregate will do. They follow patterns. They apprach from specific angles because those angles offer the best combintion of firepower and survivbility. They attack at specuific speds because physics dictat thoise sopeds. Thy break away in specific directions because aerodynmics demands it. If we map these patterns statistically, wee can predict not where a speciufic fighter will be, but where any fighter is most likely to be. We don't need to shoot down specific aircraft. We need to fill zones of maximum probabilty with bullets and let statistics do the killing." 【Lindsey】 That was not what long serving military commannders wanted to hear. Not what was taught at West Point. One seasoned cmmander and West Point graduate who had been teaching masrksmanship since 1938 exploded, "This is absurd. You're asking us to abandon everything we know about gunnery. You're telling our boys to close their eyes and spray bullets like they are wateing a garden. It's not just wrong, its cowardly." 【Hall】 Gen. Eaker did not know waht to think. But as Eigth Air Firce Commander, le loss f bombers and bomber crews was his responsibility and he was about to replaced beause of it and the disappointing results. He thus authorized a test stateside.
The U.S. Army Ar Forces conducted a compreensive study at Eglinfield, Florida. There were fring ranfesover Gulf of Mexico whee contriolled experiments could be carried out. Here technicinas fired millions
of rounds at rafio controlled target drones. They mapped the pribability distributions of pribable hits using different firng patterns (October-November 1943). They tested targeted fire, barage fire, and dustributed fire. The results were delivered to Eaker (November 28). The tracked firing gunners achieved a hit rate of only 0.5 percent--basicvally confirming Luftwaffe data. Zone fire was much better--eight times better. The implication were stunninfg for air combat. The 305th Bomb Group commander immediately jumped on the findings. He ordered his gunners to radiccally change their fire doctrine. "Forget rverything you learned in gunnery school. When a fighter apprpoaches, don't aimed a him. Don't try to track him through your ights. Don't calculate deflection. Aim at the space in front of yur bomber where he hato fly to shoot at you. Fill that space with bullets. Create a wall of lead hehasto fly through. Make him commit suicide on yor bullet stream." 【LeMay】 One airmen wrote homre describing what was going through the gunners minds, "Evrythoing in your training, everything in yor being tells you to ain at the enemy fighter. You see him coming growing larger by the second, his wings sparkling with cannon fire. You want go track him, led him, shoot him down specifically. Your brain screems at you to aim. But we are being told to ignore him completely and shoot at empty air where he isn;'t yet, but might be. It feels insane. It feels like closing your eyes and giving up. But the mathematics say it works. So we're trying to retrain our instincts. 【Goldman】
The Army Air Frces ran six flexble gunnery b training schools. These included Las Vegs, Nevada (wjhich was not yet a gambling mecca), Buckingham, Tindle, and Fort Meyers, Florida, Haringan, Texas, and Kingman, Arizona. The schools were opened almost immediately after Pearl Harbor and teaching aerial marksmanship. The entire curiculum was caanged over night. It was hard on the istructor, most of whom were skilled markesmen and proud of it. Suddenly they had to become msath and probability teachers. The first weeks were chaos. One instructor recalls, "We had kids, and they were kids 18, 19 years old who had been in training for weeks learning traditional marrkmanship. We taught them breath control, sight pictuture, trigger squeeze, all the fundametals that go back to the Revolutionary War. Then overnight, we're telling them to forget all that and spray bullertsat empty air. Some of them thought we had gone crazy. Hell, some of us intructors thought ewe had gone crazy, too." 【Rodriguez】 Not only did the trainees learn about matematical probability, but they were schooled on German fighter approach patterns. And rather than careful aiming, they had to learn abot fire maximization, how to keep the guns firing andhow to avoid jams. An important part of the training was the Waller Ginnrery Trainer--an eldctro mechanical simmulator device that had trainees firing oat projected films of Geman gighter rins. This had to be reprogrammed. Initially it rewarded accuracy. Now it was reprgrammed to reward rate of fire in specific zones. This had to be done before the new techniques cold be tauhjt at the Central Flexible Gunnery School at Fort Meyers. Instructos there developed the concept of 'position firing'. This addressed the fundamental problem of fiing from a moving platform. THe pgysics areodynamics mean that rather than leading an attacking fighte, the gunner needed to fire behnd him. Yhis was the most difficult concept to teach. One gunner reported on a mission over Bremen, "This one 109 came in from 3:00 level, and everything in my training, everybinstinct in my body told me to lead him, ro aim aheadof him like you would with a duck hunter's shot gun. Instead, following the new doctrine, aimed behind him, way behind him, almost at our own tail. It felt completely wrong, like I was delibrately missing. I held the trigger down and watched my tracers curve forward throughh the air due to nour plne's forward motion. The 109 flew right into them. The pilot proably never knew what hit him. His plane vjut cme apart in the air." 【Morrison】 The Army Air forces codified this in their 1943 handbook for gunners. 【USAAF】
.
The Army Air Force noy only ordered chnginges to the gunners already deployed, but to the traniong program as well. .
A team of statisticians, pyhyicits, and mathmiticians studied the issue even as the Luftwaffe was shooting American bombers out of the sky
Within 8 weeks the gunnery team in America had a sollution. Their revolutionary calculations would help transform the dynamic of the bomber fire envelope. Training programs stopped stressing tracking the German fighters through their sights. They were told to stop aiming. Rather the idea of sprasying a heavy volume of fire into areas where the fighters might appear, firing calculated patterns into predetermned areas of empty space. This included of all things, firing behind the fighters. This meant firing without aiming---anathema to skilled hunters. The gunners were told to give primority to matimtical probiliy distribution over time-honored marksmanship--statistics over skill. The gunners were told to abandon the skills of gunnery held since gunbowder fire arms first appeared in ancinent China. The impact by 1944, was significantly increased gunner success, forcing the increasingly poorly trained German pilots to exercise more caution when attacking the American bombers.
German fighter losses mounted in 1943 after the Allies began the Around the Clock bmbing campign (January 1943). But the German loses were manageable. What really mounterd were the American bomber losses because the raids into the Reich were unescorted and the gunnery doctrine was faulty. This began to change in late-1943 when the refined gunnery methods were adopted. And even more when P-51 escoerts acompanied the bombers. The Germans never ran out of aircraft, rather like RAF Fighterr Command during the Battle of Britain. They did run out of trained pilots. There was no way to effectively train new pilots. The Germans did not have the fuel needed for training or the secure air space. There was barely enough fuel for the fihtes. The needed fuel for trining was out of the question. The German losses in 1944 rapidly escalated. The planes could be replaced, but not the trained pilots. The losses were not all the result of the long range P-51 escorts now accompanying the American day-light bombers as it often hought. The major factor was the P-51 escots, but the American bombers with the retrained gunners also played a role. Luftwaffe pilots began reporting a major chang in American gunnery (Decemberr 1943). A famed Luftwaffe ace reported, "The Amerticans have abandoned aimed fire for area saturation. Individual bombers no longer track us with their guns. Instead, they create zones of fire we must fly through to attack. Our standard attack approaches are becoming untenable. We are losing experienced pilots ro what appears to be random fire, but is actually carefully calculated probability zones." 【Rall】 The Luftwaffe was forced to rapidly adjust there attack doctrine agaist merican bomber formations. One of the priority attack approaches was head on. The B-17s did nut initially have nose guns. Now even the head on attacks were proving costly. Another favored attack was from 12:00 high. Now this meant flying into zones of maximum bullet density. The Commander f tghe Luftwaffe Fifgter force wrote in hi menoirsd, "By winter 1943, the Americans disciovered somehig that wee Germans withour emphasis on individfual skill and precission had mossed enturely. In modern aerial combat at these speeds and alttitudes, statistical probability beats individual marksmanship evert time. They turned their gunners into proability weapons, and we couldn't counterr it with skill alone." 【Galland】 The USAAF very rapdly converted to the new gunnery system. Not only were guners in uripe given new firectives. but thesix flexible gunnery schools turned on a dime and were turning outsome 3,500 throughly trined gunners in the new zone firing doctrine (by December 1943). And by dropping echausdtive marksmnship instrction, the traning program was reduced from 12 weeks to 6 weeks. This meant that the USAAF could get more men to Europ ssoner and faster. Probability and positioal firing was much easier to teach. This all came together aspoart f Big Week/Operation Argument (Februayv20-25, 1944) when the new gunnery doctrine combined with the P-51 escorts began to tear the heart out of what was left of the Luftwaffe highter force. At the same ime any ore bombers and crews were coming home. USAAF bombers flew 3,300 sorties againt airtcraft factories. The Luftwaffe committed their entire fighter force to protect the factories and were shot down in large numbers. Bomber losses were belowexpectations. The Grmans lost 350 fghters along with 100 of their exoerienced pots killed and 250 wounded. he Luftwaffe would never recover. Before Big WEeek the German sopposed all American daylihjy braids. After Big Week they not longr opposed all bombing raids and as the war progressed, theyopposed fewr and feser. he Grmamns were left wth the FLAK batteries as thger primary defensive force. A tail gunner sdhot down three fighters durng Big Week. He wrote, "I just kept filling my asigned zone vwith lead when ever fghters appared. I never tracked a single target, nver put ba sight on a specific arcraft. I just kept the trigger doiwnand filled nmy zone. The fighters flew into it like months intoa flame." 【Johnson】 One might think that the vnew firing doctrine wasted lsarge quanytities of amunition, but actually the asmuniton expenire per kill actually decreased from
12,600 rounds to 7,800. Thst means itccost between $0.35 and $0.50. Mesning it cost somthing like $3,500-4,000t o bring down a German piolot and plane. German figures cost around RM 56,000 and took about 7,000 man hours to ptofuce. Conversion rates for RM are difficult to access, bt the P-51 Mustang vist about $50,000 to prodyce and 2,000an hours. So the cost of aunition waclarrly a small part of te cst of produyction. And that the cost of prodyction was a huge cst o he Geran war effrt in comparison to theAmerucan wsar effort.
The air war changed dramatically in 1944. The Luftwaffe had bled Blomber Command and the 8th Air Force in 1943. Neither force had achieved the results expected by Round-the-Clock bombing. Considerable damage had been done but the Luftwaffe had not been broken and the German war effort had not been severely impaired. In fact German war production was increasing. A series of devlopments in lte 1943 radically changed the situation in the skies over Germmany. First and most importantly, the Allies had solved the fighter escort problem. P-51s by December 1943 were beginning to reach the 8th Air Force in numbers. Second, the Allies had invaded southern Italy (September 1943). The new 15th Air Force was established at Foggia. This brought outhern Germany within in range, complicating the Luftwaffe's problems in defending the Reich. Third was the scale of the Allied build up in England. The 8th Air Force was beginning to reach parity with Bomber Command. The 8th Air Firce by the end of the year had the capability of staging raids composed of over 700 bombers on a sustained basis. The Luftwaffe could in most cases potentiuallhy carefully consider engagements, striking at places and times where they could achieve the most favoravle results. Waves of American and British bombers, however, forced the issue, presentuing the Luftwaffe a stark choice. The Germans had either to resist the American bombers or allow them to pulverize their cities. The bombers essentially forced the Luftwaff to give battle to protect German cities. And when the Luftwaffe fighters came up, the bombers and especially the escorts took a heavy toll on the Lufwaffe. Thus in the skies over Germany the 8th Air Force essentially destroyed the Luftwaffe. The actual impact of the campaign was, hiswver, somewhat disappointing. German civilian morale did not crack under the British area bombing and the Americans found it much more difficult to hit specific industrial targets than anticipated. Even so, the air campaign forced the Luftwaffe to deploy major assetts defending German cities rather than on the critically important Eastern Front. And as they did come up they were destroyed in lasrge nimbers. The Luftwaffe after Spruing 1944 was no longer a potent force. Large numbers of Luftwaffe fighters weere ddestroyed, but much more importantly trained pilots were being shot down in large numbers. And they unlike the aircrsft weee irreplceable. . In addition huge numbers of artillery pieces, which could have been used against Russian tanks, had to be diverted to anti-aircraft defenses. The full extent of the change was not completely apparent in 1944 because the Allies shifted priorities from Germany to France in preparation for the cross-Channel invasion. Gen. Eisenhower was give operrational control of the bombers (March 1944). This was the begginning of the Transportation Plan. Srikes into the Reich duid not end, but were restricted. Here the Luftwaffe was so devestated that they were becoming a non-factor abd were basically a No Show on D-Day. But also imoportantly, the Allied bombers got off the Atlantic Wall and Germasn forces in France from supply abd replascements, destriying bridges and the rail network between Gerrmany and france. Once the invasion had succeeded and the liberation of France in Progress, the Allied renewed the strategic bombing campaign with a unimaginable ferocity.
Annamous. "Why American gunners started firing without aiming — And shredded German fighters out of the sky," War Tales Uncharted.
Bartles, Oberfeldwebel Heinrich. Jagdgeschwader 27, diary. Bartles ammased 96 kills. He would be killed during the Lufwaffe's last desperate action as part of the Battle of the Bulge. Heinrich Bartles, Jagdgeschwader 27, diary. Bartles ammased 96 kills. He would be killed during the Lufwaffe's last desperate action as part of the Battle of the Bulge.
Becker, Maj. William. Eighth Air Force Operational Section (ORS)
Bowman, Lt. Col Harold . Commander, Flexible Gunnery Training Program, Las Vegas Army Airfield, January 1942
Crossman, Staff Sergeaant William. 100th Bomb Group. After action report.
Galland, Generalleutnant Adolf. The First and The Last: The Rise and Fall of the German Fighter Forces, 1938–1945 (New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1954).
Goldman, 2nd Lt. Arthur,381 Bonb Group. Lt. Goldman wsas the bombadier. Whjile not n the bomb run, he manned the nose gun.
Hall, Col. William. Marksmanship expert, Eighth Air Force
Johnson, Tchnical Sergeant Raymond. Taill gunner, 447 Bomb Group, afteraction report, February 1944.
Kowalski, Mastrer Sergeangt Anthony. 91st Bomb Group
Lemay, Col Curtis. Commander 305th Bomb Group. Of course Col. LeMay would make such a name for himself in Europe that Gen rnold wouild chooe him to command the strategic bombardment of Japan in the Pacific (December 1944).
Lindseay, Cpt. Robert. Eight Air Force stataistiucal analyst
Morrison, Sergeant James. 94th Bomb Group
Morrison, Staff Seargeant Lenord Morrison, 95th Bomb Group, November 26, 1943
Rall, Major Günther Rall, tactical report, December 15, 1943. MajorRall was one if the Luftwaffe's top aces. He was credited with 275 confirmed kills, mosdtly in the Odstkrieg against Sooviet aircraft.
Rodriguez, Master Sergeant Frank, gunnery instructor, Las Vegas Army Airfield
USAAF. "Get that Fighhter," 1943 handbook, 47p. It included equqtions, probability tables, and statistical dstributions. Restricted distribution to gunnery instructors and intelligence officers. The introiduction read. "This book deas only with the shot when he is actually coming in at you. Past experience has shown that 90% of fighter attacks develop into this type of shot. Believe it or not, when a fighter is making his attack, you don't aim ahead as in other shots. Always aim between himand the tail of your own plane because the forward speed of your own plane is added to the speed of your bullet. The amnount you aim behind is deflection."
USAAF. "Position Firing"TF I-3366 B-17 gunner taraining film, 1944. An instructional film for B-17 bomber gunners on how to aim at attacking aircraft. Animated drawings depict a fighter's curve of pursuit and motion imparted to a bullet by a forward movement of a bomber. Applications of rules of position firing are illustrated by moving diagrams.
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