VIIIUSAAF and BC failures at the Wesel bridges.

[Bill Walker]

In general terms, bridges were too small for stategic bomber aiming methods available in 1945, and too big for the weapons carried by tactical aircraft (like 2 TAF). Any bridges destroyed by air attack in the Second World War, by any air force, were more a result of luck than skill. (Just my opinion.)

It wasn't until "smart weapons" were introduced in the Viet Nam war that bridges could reliably be rendered useless by aircraft bombing. Even then, several missions would be required before the bridge was beyond quick repair.

Added in edit: This doesn't mean that missions against bridges were without merit. Bridges are a natural choke point for transportation, resulting in a concentration of other meaningful targets on and around the bridges. Also, any opportunity to bring the enemy's anti-air resources to a concentrated battle, like attacking a high value target, increases the effectiveness of your finite air resources in engaging, wearing down, and destroying enemy resources.

[Kutscha]

Looks like a failure of the 8th AF and not RAF BC.

“The air plan provided for heavy bombers of VIII USAAF to put out of action the rail and road bridges at Wesel”; source: Stacey.

[Bill Walker]

I think failure is too strong a word. Both the US and the RAF raids would have destroyed troops and transport around the bridge, and diverted German air defense resources from elsewhere on the battle field.

I find it interesting that in the original post the US apparently lists the targets as the bridges, while the RAF is a little more honest and lists the target as the town (which includes the bridges).

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Bill Walker

In general terms, bridges were too small for strategic bomber aiming methods available in 1945, and too big for the weapons carried by tactical aircraft (like 2 TAF). Any bridges destroyed by air attack in the Second World War, by any air force, were more a result of luck than skill. (Just my opinion.)

Your opinion is open to question.

Surely when the final, and dispassionate, history of WWII air warfare is written, (which means probably not in the lifetime of us contributing here) "bridges" will be found written on the RAF's gravestone.

From first (1940, Meuse bridges, Fairey Battles) to last (1945, Rhine bridges at Wesel, B17/Lancaster/Mosquito/Mitchell) bridge destruction was demanded by the army and the RAF/USAAF could not reliably deliver it. The RAF had implicitly promised it to Churchill when he denied the British army its own airforce. The RAF believed that a strategic bomber force could always destroy a fragile bridge.

The Germans used the Ju-87, which was "ordered to attack road junctions, and especially bridges to hinder the movement of Allied ground forces" (http://homepage.eircom.net/~nightingale/stuka.html), and Ju-88. AFAIK, a squadron of Ju-87 could reliably bring down a bridge. Ditto Russian Pe-2s.

The British army demanded accurate support from dive-bombers and the RAF categorically refused to operate them, although they possessed them in the ETO, and operated them in Burma - see Peter C. Smith's books for this complicated story.

The RAF and USAAF instead provided the army with bombing support also from retired air-superiority fighter aircraft which dropped quite heavy bombs without benefit of bomb sights.

In Operation Veritable, heavies were used to destroy Cleve and Goch, and successfully so from the RAF's point of view. The army had other views, which they expressed in the report quoted from above;
"To Bomb or not to Bomb
a. From the Infantryman' s point of view, heavy bombing has every disadvantage and no advantage, unless carried out immediately before his assault. Then air photographs lose some of their value and the danger area for heavy bombs precludes the immediate rushing of the objectives as the last bomb falls. Craters and rubble preclude the use of tanks, CROCODILES or WASPS and make the evacuation of casualties even more difficult; it makes the drill of clearing through the back gardens impracticable, and clearing houses from the top, impossible. It also makes the enemy's task of hiding and camouflaging himself many times easier; his snipers always preclude the use of a bulldozer till very late in the operations.
b. From our experience in clearing a town not bombed, to one that has been heavily bombed, there is little doubt the Infantryman would ask the airman to go elsewhere, particularly as he does not kill or even frighten the defenders the Infantryman is going to meet."

To conclude, the record seems to show that heavies and mediums could not provide the battlefield support needed by the army (destruction of bridges and dams), and the support they could provide and was accepted faute de mieux actually hindered the army's progress.

This conclusion is swingeing, but is it inaccurate?

Tony

[RodM]

Hi Tony,

interesting thread, but this ground has been trashed out before vis-a-vis Allied dive bombers over Western Europe. While the versatility of this platform cannot be denied, the question will always remain as to whether they were viable against defended targets in this theatre (in this regard, IMHO, usage and success in Burma just cannot be compared).

I don't know what Smith has to say about the question of venerability of dive bombers against German Flak over Western Europe, but I see no reason why they would not possibly have had a very high attrition rate against certain targets. Consider the attition rate of the Typhoons and Tempests against Light Flak in late 1944/1945, and these were, in relative terms, fast movers, as were the 2TAF Mosquitoes, which, for example, lost 20 to Flak during Operation Clarion on 22 Feb 1945. Now imagine a relatively stationary target such as a dive bomber before bomb release against a German-defended bridgehead...

I think that while there were advantages to the dive bombing option, there were also distinct disadvantages in this case, and there would be no guarrantee of universal success for this platform, especially to offset attrition (along with the loss of experienced crews). Also, as with all air operations, success mostly required eyes on target...and there was no guarrantee of this during the winter of 1944/45. At least heavy bombers could be switched to different regions as weather dictated.

The RAF had first hand experience of periods of unsustainable attrition between 1939-44, and I would not underestimate this in terms of the thinking leading up to D-Day and beyond.

Cheers

Rod

[Bill Walker]

Tony;

This is an interesting discussion, hope the other Forumites don't mind the digression.

I never said the bombers didn't try to get bridges, I just said they were not reliable at it. Yes, both sides destroyed some bridges, but there are bridges and then there are bridges. Wooden bridges were relatively easy targets, stone and steel bridges were relatively hard.

Again, I think attacking bridges had advantages, even when the bridge itself was not destroyed. I find it interesting that several of the original sources you quote talk about attacking bridges, not destroying them.

I think a lot of historians, past and present, have fallen for the "bomb in a pickle barrel" propaganda popular in the 1930s. When a small bomber force fails to get a bridge it is easy to blame the skill of the bomber crews, but it was just the hardware they had to work with. When a large bomber force puts one or two bombs, out of hundreds or thousands, on a small target, this doesn't prove the "bomb in a pickle barrel" story. Instead, it shows how poor the available technology was for precision attacks back then.

This lack of precision is also the cause of the Army's dislike of heavy bombing you quote. Heavy bombing was an area weapon. The infantryman is concerned about the one guy shooting at him at the moment, if a large percentage of enemy in "the area" had been previously killed by heavy bombing that is of little help in the short term and small scale. It does, however, have some cumulative benefit to the long term, large scale picture.

I also think a lot of historians have also fallen for the propaganda, both German and in the western press, about the efficiency of the Stuka. This was largely based on early results, where Stukas attacked low-tech poorly defended targets. Why didn't these same Stukas stop the Russian army, and the Allied armies after Normandy? Why didn't they destroy the Bailey bridges thrown up by the Allies in Italy and France? Partly because (in my opinion) of the limitations of the weapons and aiming systems available to them. Still, they slowed the Allied armies to some extent, just like the Typhoons helped the Canadian Army, in some small way, to advance across Europe.

Also, in my opinion, the final defeat of Germany and Japan was more a result of volume of effort, not of any specific technology or tactic. Look at how much effort Germany spent on very advanced technologies (for the time), and look where it got them. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, compare these German efforts to the effort that went into the BCATP and the mass production of any weapon even if it had problems, like the Typhoon. Yes, a Typhoon might be easily shot down or just plain fell apart, but there was always another Typhoon and fully trained pilot ready to take its place. Post war studies indicate that only about 5% of the rockets fired by Typhoons hit their intended target. The quick-fix solution selected by the RAF to this problem was just to fire more rockets, from more Typhoons.

A good chunk of military R&D budgets today still goes toward improving precision bombing methods, with all sorts of guided weapon technologies and special warheads for concrete targets. If we still can't reliably and efficiently take out point targets in 2009, it must have been very difficult in 1944 or 1945.

[Bill Walker]

Tony;

This is an interesting discussion, hope the other Forumites don't mind the digression.

I never said the bombers didn't try to get bridges, I just said they were not reliable at it. Yes, both sides destroyed some bridges, but there are bridges and then there are bridges. Wooden bridges were relatively easy targets, stone and steel bridges were relatively hard.

Again, I think attacking bridges had advantages, even when the bridge itself was not destroyed. I find it interesting that several of the original sources you quote talk about attacking bridges, not destroying them.

I think a lot of historians, past and present, have fallen for the "bomb in a pickle barrel" propaganda popular in the 1930s. When a small bomber force fails to get a bridge it is easy to blame the skill of the bomber crews, but it was just the hardware they had to work with. When a large bomber force puts one or two bombs, out of hundreds or thousands, on a small target, this doesn't prove the "bomb in a pickle barrel" story. Instead, it shows how poor the available technology was for precision attacks back then.

This lack of precision is also the result of the Army's dislike of heavy bombing you quote. Heavy bombing was an area weapon. The infantryman is concerned about the one guy shooting at him at the moment, if a large percentage of enemy in "the area" had been previously killed by heavy bombing that is of little help in the short term and small scale. It does, however, have some cumulative benefit to the long term, large scale picture.

I also think a lot of historians have also fallen for the propaganda, both German and in the western press, about the efficiency of the Stuka. This was largely based on early results, where Stukas attacked low-tech poorly defended targets. Why didn't these same Stukas stop the Russian army, and the Allied armies after Normandy? Why didn't they destroy the Bailey bridges thrown up by the Allies in Italy and France? Partly because (in my opinion) of the limitations of the weapons and aiming systems available to them. Still, they slowed the Allied armies to some extent, just like the Typhoons helped the Canadian Army, in some small way, to advance across Europe.

Also my opinion, the final defeat of Germany and Japan was more a result of volume of effort, not of any specific technology or tactic. Look at how much effort Germany spent on very advanced technologies (for the time), and look where it got them. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, compare these German efforts to the effort that went into the BCATP and the mass production of any weapon even if it had problems, like the Typhoon. Yes, a Typhoon might be easily shot down or just plain fell apart, but there was always another Typhoon and fully trained pilot ready to take its place. Post war studies indicate that only about 5% of the rockets fired by Typhoons hit their intended target. The quick-fix solution selected by the RAF to this problem was just to fire more rockets, from more Typhoons.

A good chunk of military R&D budgets today still goes toward improving precision bombing methods, with all sorts of guided weapon technologies and special warheads for concrete targets. If we still can't reliably and efficiently take out point targets in 2009, it must have been very difficult in 1944 or 1945.

Edit - I just googled "faute de mieux", and I think that term could be applied to every weapon ever used in any modern war.

[Dave Wallace]

There was also a sizeable daylight attack (298 aircraft) on Feb.17 that was also a failure. While 7 of the 12 Oboe Mosquitoes acting as primary markers dropped their target indicators succesfully, only 8 Halifaxes had bombed when the Master Bomber called it off because of 10/10ths cloud.
On March 6th the Oboe Mosquitoes from 109 and 105 Squadrons led formations of Mosquitoes from the LNSF (608,571 & 128 Squadrons were involved,possibly others) on "Oboe Leader" attacks on Wesel.
From the 105 Squadron ORB:
"Six aircraft, 3 primaries and 3 reserves, led three formations of non-musical Mosquitoes for an afternoon attack. All of the primaries coped and the formations were satisfactory. Cloud was 10/10ths in the target area, and as our troops were in the vicinity, sky marking was considered too dangerous, and so the two Oboe squadrons were given the task of bombing the concentration of German armour in the area."
At 109 Squadron, the other Oboe Squadron, they had been given orders to "stand down" for the day at 10 am. At 10:30 they were told to stand by for an urgent call, at 11:00am they were called to provide 3 primaries and 3 reserves for the Oboe Leader formation attacks in the afternoon and at 11:30 am they were called on for 25 aircraft for another attack on Wesel that night (as was 105 Squadron), marking for 87 Lancasters of 3 Group.
In the afternoon attack 109 Squadron's primary and reserve Mosquitoes in one formation collided, killing S/L GM Smith and F/L WA Jones DFC in MM193.
Regards
Dave Wallace