[RodM]

Hi Tony,

Thank you for bringing this thought-provoking and stimulating paper to the board’s attention.

Of immediate interest to me was the figure of '30-40%' of unexploded bombs, which you have so readily pounced upon.

Upon reading parts of the thesis, the following comments were made by its author:

"Of the 11 fuzes most commonly used by Bomber Command, nine were ineffective, dangerous or unreliable. This suggests the failure rate of British bombs was much higher than the 15 percent suggested for one type of fuze by Harris and it may be that up to 30 percent of all British bombs failed to operate correctly because of bad fuzes."

I would like to point out that the author is extrapolating a percentage that may well be unquantifiable, and he fails to take into account that of the 11 fuses mentioned, at least two were not used in bombs at all, but on target markers and photoflashes.

The author goes on to further state:

"The likelihood is that somewhere around 30-40 percent of all of ordnance did not function effectively; that is they failed to explode at the right time. If this is so, it is reasonable to suggest that faults, particularly defective fuses, made useless somewhere between £43.7 million and £58.2 million worth of ordnance."

So now the figure has been nudged another 10% higher, and I would maintain that the author is speculating.

Firstly, the USSBS produced figures based upon German analysis of bombs dropped on 14 oil plans and refineries (reproduced on page 519 of, "The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939-1945, Volume IV", by Webster/Frankland), and off the top of my head these are the only figures I recall seeing on unexploded ordinance. In this table, a figure of 18.9% of all bombs identified as dropped by the RAF is stated to have not exploded after hitting the target. The figure may be higher because of the percentage of unidentified unexploded bombs, but I doubt that all of the unidentified bombs would have been solely RAF, and I doubt that the figure would be double that given by the Germans.

Secondly, the percentage of unexploded ordinance would have probably varied during different phases of the bombing campaign, and unless comprehensive German analysis is preserved, the actual percentage is, IMHO, unquantifiable and subject to speculation.

Thirdly, I didn't notice anything within the thesis to fully explain the reason for defective ordinance other than design and handling faults; in other words, what percentage of ordinance may have been defective because of a lack of quality control during manufacturing?

Cheers

Rod