A 'what if' question RE: LW vs 8th AF

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Nokose

Did the Luftwaffe every use there bombers to try to strike the 8th AF on the airfields in England to eliminate them? It seems even night raids would have taken out some of the bombers on the ground. They had to know the locations of the bases for the bombers and fighters. Killing civilians was a terrible waste of effort.

Curiously no. II./KG51 plus a squadron of Me 410s snuck into trail for a B-24 BG arriving at home base after dark and shot down or badly damaged 14 B-24s. It caused the USAAF to allocate a flight of fighters at each fighter base to be a 'ready alert' flight and energised base defense anti aircraft drills.

AFAIK the LW in their infinite wisdom didn't see the value in attcking UK airbases after dark when there was no realistic defense against low level Ju 88 oe Me 410 attacks.

[mars]

The reason "there was no realistic defense against low level Ju 88 oe Me 410 attacks." was that no such scale of night attack occurred before, Luftwaffe could not expect to be so lucky next time.
Luftwaffe could not go after US airbase in UK in the daylight, that would be almost equal to commit suicide. In the night, the limitation of the navigation technology alone would prevent them from finding their target, besides, many US airbases for heavy bombers units located beyond the range of the German medium bombers anyway. And even they found the airport, what the chance their bombs could hit the target? From the experience from RAF, we all know the accuracy of the night time bombing was notoriously low. At last, let us do not forget the fact that RAF night air defense system was among the best in the WWII airforces

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by mars

The reason "there was no realistic defense against low level Ju 88 oe Me 410 attacks." was that no such scale of night attack occurred before, Luftwaffe could not expect to be so lucky next time.
Luftwaffe could not go after US airbase in UK in the daylight, that would be almost equal to commit suicide. In the night, the limitation of the navigation technology alone would prevent them from finding their target, besides, many US airbases for heavy bombers units located beyond the range of the German medium bombers anyway. And even they found the airport, what the chance their bombs could hit the target? From the experience from RAF, we all know the accuracy of the night time bombing was notoriously low. At last, let us do not forget the fact that RAF night air defense system was among the best in the WWII airforces

I agree low level navigation difficult re: pinpointing US airbases - but a 0500 attack would catch a Lot of heavy bomb groups getting final maintenance and firing up engines for many raids.

As to 'effective night defense for low level attack? The NVA had the most capable AAA capability in a small area during VietNam and had no defense against F-111. So, the question is whether or not to risk the 0300-0500 strike from French/Dutch bases against the odds of finding the target?

Note - I indicated Ju 88 and Me 410s which easily had the range to attack east Anglia targets through D-Day and for those based in southern, eastern and northern France - for some time afterwards - as long as unmolested by strafing fighters in daylight.

Further re: night defenses - imagine Mossies and P-61s a.) trying to look down to capture a signal against the clutter and b.) make attacks on a/c flying 100-200 feet AGL?

As to finding the airfield but not hitting the targets? ALL 8th AF fighters and bombers fueld the evening before the next mission. Hit One a/c with cannon fire and visibility will be "wonderful".

[mars]

Are you suggesting large numbers of Me-410s and Ju-88s flew all the way from France and low countries to US airbases in UK at low level in the middle of the night then accuratley locate and hit the target ?or am I misunderstood what you said? Because I do not believe any of the WWII era airforces had the that kind of techonlogy.

[mars]

British night air defense system was not just “some AAAA units around the airport”, it included mosquito night intruders over continent, excellent radar system, when those “large amount of Me-410s and Ju-88s” reach the airspace even before the UK airspace, they would be detected for sure, than RAF night fighters, armed with the most advanced airborne intercept radar, would be put into action, Flaks from the coast all the way to the US airbases would open fire, what the chance do you think Germans would have?

[Nick Beale]

You might want to look at the precedent of Luftflotte 2's bombers over the Corsican airfields on 12/13 May 1944. In early 1944 a significant bomber force had been assembled against Britain and could have included East Anglian bases amongst its targets. An airfield strike amongst the Steinbock city attacks might have succeeded as a one-off at least.

My question though is whether there was any technological barrier to the earlier introduction of the R4M air-to-air rocket? It was a stand-off, fire-and-forget weapon that any fighter could carry with relatively small aerodynamic penalty. A mass release of rockets may have had the potential to disrupt the American combat boxes (irrespective of any hits) prior to engaging with guns.

Did nobody think of it in 1943, did it take too longer than expected to develop or was it that everyone went looking for big clumsy solutions?

[mars]

Nick, because of the limitation of the technology in WWII, any night time attack could not be coordinated, in order to commit any kind of large scale and sustained attack on US airbases, Luftwaffe had to first solve the night time navigation problem, which was no way could be done by flying low level all the way from their airports in continent to UK, then come the another problem, how to overcome RAF night air defense system, we all know that Luftwaffe suffered very high losses in the Operation Steinbock, I simply do not see Luftwaffe had any chance, may be some small scale tactic success, no more than that.
By the way, was the WWII era air-to-air rockets were notorious for its inaccuracy?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by mars

Nick, because of the limitation of the technology in WWII, any night time attack could not be coordinated, in order to commit any kind of large scale and sustained attack on US airbases, Luftwaffe had to first solve the night time navigation problem, which was no way could be done by flying low level all the way from their airports in continent to UK, then come the another problem, how to overcome RAF night air defense system, we all know that Luftwaffe suffered very high losses in the Operation Steinbock, I simply do not see Luftwaffe had any chance, may be some small scale tactic success, no more than that.
By the way, was the WWII era air-to-air rockets were notorious for its inaccuracy?

I didn't suggest they could sustain attacks on airfields, I gave an example of a highly successful single attack in Corsica. A similar attack might have succeeded during Steinbock by wrongfooting the defenders.

The R4M wouldn't have to be that accurate against USAAF combat boxes, if a large number could be released at once they might well have disrupted the formation enough to leave individual bombers more vulnerable to gun attack.

[mars]

I am a little confused, what USAAF combat boxes ? I think we were talking about Luftwaffe low level attack US airbases in the night, all of USAAF heavy bombers would be on the ground that time.
And as far as I know, in WWII it was not possible to maintain large formation in night time flying, any large scale of German night time attack would have to go in small group, two or three at best, at first they would suffer losses, possible very high losses, in the hand of British AAA and night figters, if the survivors were lucky enough to find the USAAF airport which I highly doubt, they had to go into attack one or two aircraft a time, there would be no coordination among each other, and would not cause any nearly serious damage.

[Nokose]

I know that the British radar was very good but the Germans could have caused a lot of trouble in other ways. Bombers mixing in with returning RAF bombers could have slipped into England for strikes. Even a captured B-17 or B-24 returning from a strike with a bomb load to an 8th AF base could have caused a very bad situation (a Trojan horse). The loss of one captured bomber for a massive strike on a base full of bombers would have been worth the trade off.