A Different Bomber War in WWII

The Oslo Mosquito Raid of September 25th, 1942.
It didn't go quite as planned IOTL. The bombs didn't hit the Gestapo HQ as they should... but what if it had?

We know today that the massed bombing raids by the heavies like the Lancaster, Liberator and Flying Fortress in WWII weren't quite as effective as hoped. We also know and see that the points that need to be hit to disrupt production or the movement of a military force are quite small.

What if it had been realized part of the way through 1943 as the crew losses in Bomber Command and the 8th Air Force mounted that massed raids at high altitude were only really effective as carpet bombing on sites like rail yards, ship yards and troop concentrations.

Two to six plane raids at low level using Mosquitos and A-26 Invaders become the norm, not the exception. Places like Schwienfurt were hit hard by fast attacks with smaller, time delayed munitions.
Large heavy raids still happened on places like Peenumunde and feints over the North Sea... a large group of bombers heads for the coast with a heavy fighter escort tucked in amongst them, the Germans come, the bombers drop Window (chaff) and run for home, the fighters go one on one... feints like that.

Could the minds at Bomber Command in the UK alone (remember these guys did things like the Bouncing Bomb) or in the UK AND the USA been changed to these tactics over Europe during 1942/1943 if raids like the one on Oslo had gone well, or would something more have been needed?

I keep thinking of this scenario, why didn't the journey from carpet bombing cities to precise low/medium bombing runs start earlier?
 

Larrikin

Banned
Strategic bombing tactics

The Oslo Mosquito Raid of September 25th, 1942.
It didn't go quite as planned IOTL. The bombs didn't hit the Gestapo HQ as they should... but what if it had?

We know today that the massed bombing raids by the heavies like the Lancaster, Liberator and Flying Fortress in WWII weren't quite as effective as hoped. We also know and see that the points that need to be hit to disrupt production or the movement of a military force are quite small.

What if it had been realized part of the way through 1943 as the crew losses in Bomber Command and the 8th Air Force mounted that massed raids at high altitude were only really effective as carpet bombing on sites like rail yards, ship yards and troop concentrations.

Two to six plane raids at low level using Mosquitos and A-26 Invaders become the norm, not the exception. Places like Schwienfurt were hit hard by fast attacks with smaller, time delayed munitions.
Large heavy raids still happened on places like Peenumunde and feints over the North Sea... a large group of bombers heads for the coast with a heavy fighter escort tucked in amongst them, the Germans come, the bombers drop Window (chaff) and run for home, the fighters go one on one... feints like that.

Could the minds at Bomber Command in the UK alone (remember these guys did things like the Bouncing Bomb) or in the UK AND the USA been changed to these tactics over Europe during 1942/1943 if raids like the one on Oslo had gone well, or would something more have been needed?

I keep thinking of this scenario, why didn't the journey from carpet bombing cities to precise low/medium bombing runs start earlier?

The mindsets of the bomber barons were formed by the between Wars Douhetian theory that "the bomber will always get through", which was true enough, but when they leak through as they often did you need to be dropping either incendiaries or gas to get any real effect.

Additionally they were extremely jealous of their bombers, which they regarded in the same was as the older admirals regarded battleships, the heavy bomber was the "capital ship" for those types.

It gets very complex, and very political.

Another option for the RAF would have been to have armed their bombers with 20mm cannon in their turrets and flown at low level as they were penetrating. Makes them harder to attack, and prevents the fighters closing as much as they did. It took until 1946 and the Avro Lincoln for them to actually put the 20mms into their bombers, and yet they had been tested before the War.
 
I recall reading or hearing something to the effect that, while militarily less than had been hoped for, the Allied bombing campaign had an important psychological effect of 'bringin the war home' to most of Germany. The idea was that, post-war, there was no way to deny the reality of the Allied victory, as had been possible in WWI, because of the psychological effect of the bombing campaign. I don't know how well this idea holds up, but if it is true, there could be... interesting political complications, post-war.
 
The AAC had a different strategy than the RAF. The US flew daytime raids, so they can see the target and actually hit it. Even if the raid you mentioned did work, there is still safety in numbers, such as hundreds of bombers flying together. And the bombs were so inaccurate, that in order to destroy a factory, one had to have lots of bombers. Real bummer of a deal for the noncombatants, especially since a lot of the those bombs missed the target (something about several square kilometers of sky worth of bombers all dropping nearly the same time).
 
Bombing accuracy during WWII was simply too low. The only aircraft capable of hitting anything with accuracy were dive bombers and torpedo bombers. Level bombers had to hope for a lucky hit or either simply dropping so many bombs some would actually hit the target or bomb something so big (like a city) they couldn't miss.

Sending little strike packages of medium bombers out would not accomplish anything beyond annoying German civilians and keeping the Luftwaffe busy. It would be similar to the hit-and-run campaign of the Luftwaffe in 1941-1943 against England with single fighter-bombers.

Bombing in WWII was largely ineffective unless massive and/or repetitive. Most damage could be repaired quite quickly and every air force underestimated how much tonnage was actually necessary to really knock something out.

So a few bombers might (or might not being more likely) hit the Gestapo HQ but that would at best cause superficial damage. It wouldn't stop the Gestapo. And in future, staff and documents etc. would operate in multiple locations or in bomb proof bunkers.

The allied bomber campaign was a massive failure in its operational strategy during WWII. Breaking German civilian morale simply didn't happen nor was it possible to destroy the German economy. Only lack of fuel and resources stopped the economy and the belated destruction of the infrastructure.

What the allied bomber campaign did do was force the Germans to expend huge resources on air defence, denuding their field armies of air cover and preventing them from getting all the tanks, artillery etc. they needed.

As such, it was a huge success. But that wasn't what the bomber barons had in mind.....
 

Larrikin

Banned
AAC vs RAF

The AAC had a different strategy than the RAF. The US flew daytime raids, so they can see the target and actually hit it. Even if the raid you mentioned did work, there is still safety in numbers, such as hundreds of bombers flying together. And the bombs were so inaccurate, that in order to destroy a factory, one had to have lots of bombers. Real bummer of a deal for the noncombatants, especially since a lot of the those bombs missed the target (something about several square kilometers of sky worth of bombers all dropping nearly the same time).

The RAF started with daylight bombing and realised very early on that it wasn't viable, so did the Germans. During 1942 and the first half of 43 the AAC hit peripheral targets because they didn't want to try and penetrate the full German air defences. When they started to go further in they got hammered.

As far as seeing the targets, if you have a bomber formation a couple of miles wide and long, and the only person actually aiming at the target is the lead bomb bombardier, it doesn't matter. They are going to spray bombs over dozens of square miles.

Additionally, the 500lb bombs the AAC used didn't destroy plant in factories, just the building structures themselves. Once they structural damage had been cleaned up, the factories were back in service.

A factory hit by the AAC was out of action on average 36hrs, hit by the RAF it was out of action on average 8 days.

Then, by spring 1944 the RAF's blind bombing techniques had progressed so much that they were more accurate through 10 10ths cloud at night than the AAC were in anything but perfect conditions with no fighter opposition. In those circumstances the AAC managed to match Bomber Command.

Those, by the way, were the German's assessments.
 
The only aircraft capable of hitting anything with accuracy were dive bombers and torpedo bombers. Level bombers had to hope for a lucky hit or either simply dropping so many bombs some would actually hit the target or bomb something so big (like a city) they couldn't miss.

Sending little strike packages of medium bombers out would not accomplish anything beyond annoying German civilians and keeping the Luftwaffe busy. It would be similar to the hit-and-run campaign of the Luftwaffe in 1941-1943 against England with single fighter-bombers.
I don't agree with this, for two reasons.
First of all, level bombing can be accurate given the right circumstances- be it good weather for the AAF, the navigation and target marking skills developed by Bomber Command later in the war, or the use of well trained medium bomber crews to take out small point targets.
Second, I don't think anyone is really arguing that the Allied forces move from massed raids by heavy bombers to squadron sized attacks by medium bombers. What is a more likely scenario is a reversal in the roles between heavy and medium bombers. The fast mediums are the main force, with the heavies being applied to the targets that require something special. This would be a totally different set of circumstances to the fighter-bomber attacks on the UK 1941-1943.
Bombing in WWII was largely ineffective unless massive and/or repetitive. Most damage could be repaired quite quickly and every air force underestimated how much tonnage was actually necessary to really knock something out.

So a few bombers might (or might not being more likely) hit the Gestapo HQ but that would at best cause superficial damage. It wouldn't stop the Gestapo. And in future, staff and documents etc. would operate in multiple locations or in bomb proof bunkers.

The allied bomber campaign was a massive failure in its operational strategy during WWII. Breaking German civilian morale simply didn't happen nor was it possible to destroy the German economy. Only lack of fuel and resources stopped the economy and the belated destruction of the infrastructure.

What the allied bomber campaign did do was force the Germans to expend huge resources on air defence, denuding their field armies of air cover and preventing them from getting all the tanks, artillery etc. they needed.

As such, it was a huge success. But that wasn't what the bomber barons had in mind.....
 
Given the means available at the time, accuracy was always doubtfull when bombing, unless done with tactical aircraft, such as battlefield supporting groundattack (fighter)bombers.

The Luftwaffe was specialized as a tactical airforce for support of the Wehrmacht and never actually developped the strategic airforce needed for a long term war, while the Allies did, gien their vaster resources. Therefore the Allies could develop the larger levelflight bombers in large quantities, but never developped the means to do bombing accurate, appart from some interesting bombdesigns.

Therefroe the bombing of enemies industry was the least baddest way to use this airforce, as the only other alternative was to terrorise the civilian population, by carpetbombing on large cities. Both were needing quite a lot of aircraft making carpetbombingtactics, which were very inaccurate, due to both the not too accurate general purpose bombdesigns (influenced by wind and airpressure). Given the differences in sort of bombs and bombays in use, the larger bombay's and dito doors on British aircraft allowed much heavier ordonance compared to those on the US planes. Therefore the US Airforces normally used smaller bombs as main weapons of destruction, while the British often used a mixture of very heavy bombs with small incideries, to create additional firedamage as well. (The use of the extreme bombs is discounted, as this was more used tactically, such as against U-Boote pens and other speical structures, or the few remaining large warships of Germany.
 
With the 20 20 benefit of hindsight I still wonder whether heavy use of relatively small sqadron's of Mosquitos hitting transport links at either dawn or dusk would have been effective.

Yes you can repair a high way or a rail road (maybe in a week ) but if 4 days later it is cut 40 miles up the line your logistics are still pretty screwed.

It would have been especially effective if a certain number of delayed action bombs (with anti tamper devices) were also dropped.

Plus such a force might have been of some tactical use in Normandy, Italy and Germany itself at later stages.
 
Considering that the A-26 was not operational before mid-1944, it was not going to perform any miracles before that date. The Martin B-26 was in service in 1943, and was used originally to carry out low-level pin-point raids on critical targets. The loss of a complete attacking force of 11 B-26's caused a revision of tactics to the medium-level where the Marauder became legend, bombing with great accuracy. There are a lot of critical targets on a continent, and knocking out "critical rail junctions" was not as successful as you might think because the Germans were very clever at re-routing through the extensive rail network.

The use of the Mosquito during the war was as extensive as numbers available allowed. The fact that it was a secondary bombing vehicle to the heavies meant that the entire weight of the Luftwaffe was not directed at their destruction. Had it been the primary goal, alternate weapons would have been chosen.

Medium bombers did not have payload/range to attack all targets available, such as Schweinfurt/Regensburg and the thought of such a flight at low level is frightening and quite impractical.
 
Its possible you don't necessarily need to change the tactics, just the targets...



Target:Hitler’s oil, Allied attacks on German oil supplies 1939-45 by Ronald C. Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit

Apart from the oil plants and transport network, there were other weak points in the German economy, which would have been very worthwhile targets for attacks by the Anglo-American strategic bombers. These were plants producing key war chemicals such as synthetic nitrogen, methanol (synthetic wood alcohol), tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber. Nitrogen was vitally important in the manufacture of explosives and V2 rocket fuel; it was also essential in the production of agricultural fertilizer. Tetraethyl lead was an indispensable ingredient of aviation fuel; without it the Luftwaffe’s fighter aircraft would have been deprived of 40 per cent of their engine power and have been hopelessly outclassed in combat. With the almost complete cessation of imports of natural rubber from overseas on the outbreak of war, the production within Germany of synthetic rubber, needed for many types of wheeled vehicle, assumed great importance.

In the case of some of these products, for example nitrogen, the plants that manufactured them were very few in number and of large capacity. Direct attacks on them would probably have had an even more crippling affect than the raids on the oil installations. Although, the Western Allies know a great deal about German industry even before the war began, the military leaders did not appreciate the crucial importance of the chemical industry or of the close interdependence between certain branches of production, as between the manufacture of oil, chemicals, synthetic rubber and explosives. This information came to light only after the war, when American and British survey teams carried out post mortem investigations in Germany into the effectiveness of Allied strategic bombing.

None the less, manufacture of the above key items was greatly hampered as a by-product of the oil-offensive, although this fact was not fully realised at the time. When the oil plants at Luena and Ludwigshaven were temporarily put out of action, Germany was deprived of 63% of its current output of nitrogen, 40% of its synthetic methanol and 65% of its synthetic rubber production.
 
Interesting idea. But I'm just not sure a bombing campaign based on pinpoint precision attacks by Mosquitos and other fast light bombers would serve the broader geopolitical and morale goals that massed bombing did. A lot of war is perception. When the RAF and USAAF were making rubble bounce over the bodies of tens or hundreds of thousand German citizens a pop while losing 100's of planes and thousands of aircrew a week, Stalin could look at this at see that the Wallies were at least doing something while Russians fought alone in the east. Germans not under bouncing rubble could see their cities being flattened inspite of whatever the Luftwaffe did to stop it - clear evidence that they were probably going to lose the war. The fact that dispersed factories in these supposedly shattered industries were still cranking out thousands of Fw-190s was not something that would be as easily noticed. US and British citizens largely immune from air attack after 1942 could also see the same thing - clear evidence their side was winning. You may be right that a different strategy forcusing on small precision raids by mosquitos, etc might have acheived the same damage to critical strategic or political targets with far less effort and collateral damage, but this would simply not be as visible.
 
On the issue of moving away from 4 engine heavies by the Western Allies what does this do to the Battle of the Atlantic? The VLF Liberators and Bomber Command rejects did a lot of good keeping the sea lanes open. If the Allies are focused on medium or light bomber production and precision bombing where do they get maritime patrol aircraft with the range to cover the Atlantic Gap? They could use escort carriers but those take longer to build and aren't available immediatly the way the 4 engine planes were in the dark days of 1942-43.
 
A mildly interesting effect of strategic bombardment was the termination of Focke Wulf Ta 154 production. The German Moskito, made of plywood, couldn't be built because there was no glue. The factory had been destroyed.

Geoffrey De Havilland clearly promoted the use of the Mossie as an alternative to heavy bombers. They could deliver the same tonnage quicker with less losses in A/C and aircrew. However, production numbers were to be the problem. Everybody wanted Mossies for recon, night fighter, fighter-bomber and maritime strike and there was only so many being made. There was no American equivalent. Conversely, had the Mossie become the primary bomber, the equivalent German intercepter would have changed. More He 219's at night and FW 190D9/Ta 152's in the day.
 
One thing that has to be remembered is that smaller, pin point strikes will never be able to match the sheer terror that massed heavy bomber formations can. That's part of their function. Carpet bombing is as much a psychological terror weapon as it is a logistical one.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Conversely, had the Mossie become the primary bomber, the equivalent German intercepter would have changed. More He 219's at night and FW 190D9/Ta 152's in the day.
This brings to mind a question of personal interest: what interceptors would the Japanese have used if they had been facing large number of Mosquito-type medium bombers?
 
I vaguely recall that a Mossie operating in the CBI was shot down by an Oscar. The biggest problem for Mossies there would be the humidity. Have you seen the movie "Chabot Solo"?
 
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