WI 8th Air Force follows Bomber Command's lead?

It should be remembered that British bombers carried more bombs than American bombers so if American bombers attacked a city at night, it would be less likely to destroy or damage important targets in that city than a British raid that could drop more than twice the bombs with the same number of planes.
 
It should be remembered that British bombers carried more bombs than American bombers so if American bombers attacked a city at night, it would be less likely to destroy or damage important targets in that city than a British raid that could drop more than twice the bombs with the same number of planes.

If you refit the American aircraft for night ops you could increase the bombload significantly. drop 3-4 crew members, several guns, a bunch of ammo, some armor plate and put the payload into bombs.
 
If you refit the American aircraft for night ops you could increase the bombload significantly. drop 3-4 crew members, several guns, a bunch of ammo, some armor plate and put the payload into bombs.

This is what happened in the Pacific war, when LeMay ordered night missions over Japan. American radar was better than British radar, but still not perfect. Fitted to the chin turret location, it would still allow the retention of the belly turret, something that would give german night fighters a nasty shock when they closed in for a schrage musik shot. As it was, Mickey BTO or AN/APS-15 did allow bombing through overcast, mostly in coastal regions.
 
It should be remembered that British bombers carried more bombs than American bombers so if American bombers attacked a city at night, it would be less likely to destroy or damage important targets in that city than a British raid that could drop more than twice the bombs with the same number of planes.

Sure, the Lanc could carry more bombs as a nominal bomb load, but the US had a LOT more bombers, and the B-17 could easily have shed some crew and defenses as noted above while retaining defensive parity with the Lanc.

Remember also that bomb loads are range-dependent. A Lanc with a 10,000lb load (not the max load it could carry) had a range of about 1,000 miles. A B-17E with a 4,000lb load (max bombs) had a range twice that.
 
If the US joined the Brits in running a night bombing campaign I think the traffic control problems would be a major issue. The U.S. daylight missions would spend extensive time forming up over the UK before heading towards Germany. The British ran their missions as a Bomber Stream with a flow of aircraft all at assigned altitudes and timing points to help avoid collisions since they could not see each other in the dark. If the U.S. transitioned to night attack I think there would have to be independent targets each night for the two forces with strict routes to make sure they don't 'mingle' on the way to and from the target.

I believe that by late '44 the 8th Air Force was already splitting their target list and running multiple 'major missions' because the formations were getting so large they were unweildy (I will have to pull out the 'Combat Chronology' and see what missions and how many planes were assigned to each one)

The British had problems buring the summer months when the nights were not long enough for long missions so most of the major campaigns were run in the winter. They also preferred moonless nights so they lost at least a week every month during full moons (I believe these periods were used to build units back up allow for R&R, etc)

The U.S. with daylight missions ran under a different set of restrictions. I believe this meant that besides the fact the Germans got no rest because of day and night raids they also never got a breather because of weather or moon since they could still be hit by the other force
 
Most of the time, Allied crews had a difficult enough time identifying cities, and targeting specific industrial zones and subdivisions was even more challenging due to faulty intelligence.
At least during the day you're more likely to actually find cities, rather than just hitting countryside.
 
Once the Pathfinder Mosquito squadrons got set up, the ability of the British night raids to identify cities improved immeasurably. Their accuracy at hitting specific industrial targets and districts was still atrocious, but they fared a lot better at finding the cities when the Pathfinders were there to set up flares and signals to bring them in on target.
 
There are positives and negatives for the Allies resulting from a decision to switch the 8th Air Force to night bombing duties.

Positives:
1. Less USAAF losses in the opening stages of the campaign.
2. Greater potential for effective firebombing of German cities. Imagine the combined might of the USAAF and the RAF hitting Hamburg and the potential for firestorms in German cities.
3. Greater potential for terror bombing of civilians (night raids are more stressfull than day-time raids, people work during the day and actually want to sleep at night, in order to be able to work the next day).

Negatives:
1. Less accurate bombing of small targets (aircraft factories, synthetic fuel plants), thus less damage to the German war machine.
2. Less losses to Luftwaffe fighters in the opening stages of the campaign. At later stages, the Allies could perform offensive fighter sweeps with aircraft which had the range to do so.
3. Possibly greater losses to the Allied bomber fleets during the later stages of the war, provided the Germans manage to develop and sustain an effecti0ve night fighter force. In OTL Allied daytime bombers flew rather safe missions after mid 1944, due to intense presence of Allied escorting fighters and the breaking of the Luftwaffe backbone. The jets only killed little numbers of bombers. However as long as the control network worked, the Germans managed to kill RAF bombers during their night raids even in the late phases of the war.
 
Where did that ever actually happen?:rolleyes: AFAIK, no target was ever hit by both forces within the same 24h period.

Well, think about Dresden... got some attacks by day and night

or think about hamburg... thses are two easy examples... you will find more.

So your "never" is wrong

also, bombing round the clock doesn´t say you bomb the same city, you can also fly to cologne and at day to essen... for both cities you have the german defence on the deck... so the germans have to fight "round the clock"...

if everything happen at night the germans have some "sure" times... if the allies try to bomb in a full moon night they get slaughtered... also the big advantage of long range fighters have nil impact... the germans have two engine planes, but their main daylight crews will not suffer the same way they did in the time december 1943-may 1944... so the quality of the german pilots will be much higher...

the destroyed industries will be much lesser... so more produced goods, weapons, ammo... less destroyed fuel means better trained and more combat ready planes.. and so on... no - americans using british methods mean a much stronger german airforce and a much less experienced allied daylight airforce...

as you can learn from vietnam, the number of tons dropped on an enemy say nothing... as long as you just hit mud or nothing "important"...
 
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