m10bob
Posts: 8622
Joined: 11/3/2002
From: Dismal Seepage Indiana
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quote:
ORIGINAL: wdolson
quote:
ORIGINAL: m10bob
Generally fighters should be at 6000 feet if you want them to protect your ships.
If I am on a base where only one fighter group is available, I may divide them, keeping one group at 6000 for day at 30% for CAP, another section higher, and another section for night ops (if that is an issue.)...
Keep them supplied and supported or your losses will never get refilled.
If using LRCAP to protect ships exclusively, set them for LRCAP at 20-30% and at least 20% on "rest" or the fatigue rate will kill morale and increase losses and crashes.
I keep my dive bombers at 16000 feet to aid in their ability to hit enemy ships in one attack.
Setting them lower will cause the one flight to attack multiple times, which may or may not be good.
(I would rather get 3 hits on one CV than 1 hit on 3 separate ships.
4 engine bombers cost more to replace so I keep them higher than flak if possible.
Torpedo bombers work well at 5000 feet.
Any bomber marked "Attack" type will just cause horrific damage to enemy shipping at 100 feet, skimming the waves, without much of a hit on morale, but losses may be a bit high as well.
FYI..."Pappy" Gunn first tried his low level attacks using B 17's...It proved the concept was valid, but the losses were too costly to keep those heavies that low.
ASW planes do well at 1000 feet and do not suffer from morale.
NOTE:It has been my experience that flying regular missions AND keeping all flights set to "train" 20% will train your pilots just as well as setting a unit at 70% training...Just my opinion.
They never used B-17 skip bombers operationally. It wasn't losses that prevented their use, but their rarity. B-17s were the only long range bomber available in theater, supply was low, and there were already noises that the supply chain was going to dry up with all B-17s going to Europe. By the time the skip bombing concept was being tested, most of the remaining B-17s were being used for recon. It was the only long range recon plane the 5th AF had.
B-24s were not suitable for skip bombing. You need a highly maneuverable plane with wings that can take the stresses of a high g pull out after bomb release. The B-17, B-25, and A-20 all had strong enough wings, the B-24 didn't. The Davis wing was well suited for a long range bomber, it was very efficient, but it was also more fragile and the B-24's wings would fold up at some of the maneuvers a B-17 could pull.
The B-24 was also very sluggish on the controls, you moved the control column and it would takes several seconds to get a response. The B-17 was very quick response to the controls, as was the B-25. The Russians loved the B-25 because it maneuvered like a large fighter. When some Russian pilots came to the US to test out the B-25 they just about gave the Americans a heart attack because they went up and pushed the plane to its limits throwing it around the sky like a fighter.
The B-17 could have made a pretty awesome skip bomber. Imagine loading the nose of a B-17 with 0.50 caliber guns and go in on a surface ship. The field modified B-25s had 8 0.50s fixed forward, the B-17 could have had 12-16 easily.
Bill
B 17 used as skip bombers:
"Kenney and Benn decided to see if the B-17 could be used in low altitude anti-ship attacks. They’d read reports of the British using such techniques to bounce bombs across the surface of the water and into the sides of Italian ships in the Mediterranean Sea and thought that might be workable. Others in the 5th Air Force, including the legendary Paul “Pappy” Gunn, had concluded through experience that wavetop attacks were the only way to take out Japanese ships.
Kenney sent Benn to command the 63rd Bomb Squadron, 43rd Bomb Group, which was used as an incubator for such tactics. Simultaneously, the 3rd Attack Group also began working on the technique. Soon other units began training on the new tactics as well.
That fall, the B-17’s of both the 43rd Bomb Group and the 19th began launching night skip bombing attacks against Japanese vessel. Operating in small numbers, or sometimes as lone wolves, the B-17’s prowled the night skies over the northern coast of New Guinea and New Britain in search of targets. They repeatedly struck heavily defended Simpson Harbor, Rabaul, which was the main Japanese base in the area.
Flying from bases in Northern Australia, the B-17 crews would stage out of Seven Mile Drome at Port Moresby, New Guinea, before heading out against their assigned targets or patrol areas. The attacks proved to be far more successful than all previous B-17 anti-shipping raids done from altitude. The 5th Air Force later estimated the hit rates against shipping increased from 1% to over 70%. Nevertheless, using Forts like this was a stopgap measure at best. Low and large, they were vulnerable to Japanese anti-aircraft fire, and they lacked the firepower needed to suppress those defenses during bomb runs. To counter that, the crews learned to make fast approaches from two thousand feet. They would dive down, level off below five hundred, pickle their bombs and run for home on the deck.
Eventually, the A-20 and B-25 gunships became the 5th Air Force’s primary anti-ship aircraft, along with Australian Beaufighters and Beauforts. The B-17’s were replaced by longer-ranged B-24’s which were mainly used for conventional bombing from altitude. Still, for a brief period in late 1942-43, Kenney’s Fort crews carried out some of the most unusual B-17 attacks of the war.
The thing that really got me so involved in the study of Pappy Gunn was a guy named Tommy Thompson, who had been one of Gunn's pilots.
Tommy had flown everything in the USAAC and USAAF from the late thirties till around 1950.
He taught me how to fly on a WW2 era Piper J3 in the mid 60's.
https://theamericanwarrior.com/tag/b-17/
“The Old Man,” one of the 19th Bomb Group B-17’s. During a photo recon mission over Gasmata, New Britain in March of 1943, this Fort was intercepted by thirteen Japanese Zero fighters. The A6M’s made repeated runs on the bomber, wounding both pilots, the top turret gunner, the navigator and bombardier. The top turret gunner, who had washed out of flight school back in the states, ended up landing the B-17 with the help of one of the pilots back at Dobodura. When the forward hatch was opened, blood poured out onto the ground. Miraculously, everyone lived. The Old Man was repaired and later became General Whitehead’s personal aircraft.
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< Message edited by m10bob -- 9/4/2016 3:28:05 PM >
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Airgroups altitude - 
Eg. you do not want to bomb an airfield at 2k when their is lots of AA (esp. 40mm Borfors), or if you really desperate to hit the field and dont worry about the losses (eg. the Lily bomber is pretty numerous and also not the best, so you could try this no so worthwhile plane and if half the raid goes down it is not as bad as you had chosen eg. Betties) 
of Zeroes in the process but got riddled with cannon and mg fire. I believe the mission was recon but they were armed with some bombs and the captain decided to use them in a way no one had ever been trained for.
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