Dear Mr. mcoffee, et al: First of all, Italy is in Europe (at least last I knew). In WW2 Italy was indeed in the zone called the MTO but that isn't what I was referring to. What I said was that most of the B-24 units in Europe, as opposed to the PTO, were in Italy. However, the exact ratio is hard to pin down since groups were transferred around from time to time. For instance there were, at some time or another, 21 Liberator groups in the VIII Bomber Command. However, some were transferred to the MTO, some were converted over to B-17s and some were on anti-sub patrol groups before being transferred to the USN, the aircraft becoming PB4Y-1s. When it comes to long-range bombing missions from England over the continent, especially from mid-43 onward, I think the great majority of aircraft were B-17s. Some B-24 units may have been used for decoy missions but I'll have to research a little more for that. You may be right about the fuel plumbing, but my point was that the B-24 had a reputation as being susceptible to combat damage, especially fire. Leaking fuel was always a fire hazard and even more so when AP incendiary rounds were flying around! All my reading suggests that despite being slower and having a smaller bomb load, the B-17 was far more likely to get its crew back to base. Fighter opposition was never the concern for the 15thAF as it was for the 8th. Only when the 15th went to places well within Germany, like Vienna, did they hit substantial fighter opposition. The Luftwaffe fighter numbers in Italy were small. The Germans started pulling their fighter units back to the Reich (no "t") long before July of 1944. Flak tended to damage far more bombers than it destroyed but still losses to flak were not insignificant. However, because of what I pointed out in the previous paragraph, being shot up by a fighter was probably more likely to result in the B-24's demise. In such cases the crew members in the forward area of the a/c would be unlikely to get out since the only escape hatch was in the rear of the airplane.
Whether or not Italy is in Europe is immaterial (and Vienna is in Austria). The AAF kept separate statistics for the ETO and MTO. Statistics for the ETO by definition exclude the 15th AF, which was the point. The other point is that all of the 'reputation', 'reading suggests' and 'probably more likely' declarations don't correlate with the statistical data. There are a plethora of published accounts of how the B-17 was 'tougher' but those same accounts never seem to back up their assertions with actual data. Joseph Schmid's work disagree's with your assertion of fighter withdrawal from the 15th AF operational area long before July '44. The B-24's only escape hatch was in the rear? Well, no. The bailout procedures for the B-17 and B-24 were nearly identical.
Vienna was in GERMANY during the time we are talking about. I will concede the point about bailing out. My info was definitely wrong about that. The rest I'll stick to. The Germans definitely started pulling back units into the Reich in '43. GAF fighter units in Italy were not reinforced as well as under strength and were totally inadequate to the task of mounting any effective fighter defense in Italy because of this.
AFAIK the 15th AF did strategic missions not tactical so often went for highly defended targets as well, Ploetsi was tough. And up to late 1943 there were significant LW forces in the MTO (ask the British what happened when they tried to grab the Dodecannese islands). Possibly the "greater vurnerability" fame of the B 24 is undeserved, it's greater range made it more suitable for ASW patrols where it contributed significantly to the defeat of the U-Boats. (Where the ASW units classified as ETO ?) .
My uncle flew B-24's as part of 8th Air Force and ended up flying 30 combat missions. In most I believe he was the squadron navigator in at least one mission he was "navigating" for most of 8th AF heavies. I'm not sure of the exact time period but I suspect it was 44 which would coincide with 30 missions being the requirement although it went up to that just about the time he met the previous requrirements. The fact that he flew his plane over via Brazil and Africa would suggest he reached Britain no later than the fall of 43.
Let's see here TOS, I'm relatively sure that the ASW groups based in England would have to be considered part of the ETO. They were part of the 8th until transferred to the USN. The 15thAF did indeed do strategic missions. While they were based in Africa they bombed Italian targets in mostly the middle and southern parts of Italy, as well as preparing for the invasion of Sicily and Italy. After moving to Italy, much of their effort was in northern Italy against Italian industrial cities but also on targets in south-eastern Europe such as Sofia, Bulgaria. It's not a well-known fact, but Italy was very heavily bombed during the war, much more than Britain during the Blitz. Only when the 15th crossed the Alps into the Reich did they hit a lot of fighter opposition. German fighter units in the MTO were heavily outnumbered and totally dominated by Allied air forces from about the time of the final El Alamain battles. This was especially true after we took over the air bases around Foggia. I'm going to stick to the idea that the B-24 wasn't as robust as the B-17. Among the reasons why is that Luftwaffe pilots felt that the B-24 was easier to bring down. Not only that, you just don't see that many photos of heavily shot-up B-24s making it back to base like you do B-17s.
The paper-hanger said it was, but then, he wanted to be German. However, the Allied maps as well as the 15th AF operational orders all refered to Vienna and all the other Austrian targets as Austria. Even the I Fighter Corps history refers to it as Austria. You're going to have to back this one up. Specifics and sources, please, of GAF withdrawals of forces in Italy and the Balkans. Italy was not the only location that GAF fighters were based facing the 15th. The crews of the 619 15th AF heavy bombers shot down by fighters in 1944 will be please to learn that there was no effective fighter defense.
Really? the 15th AF didn't exist until 1 November 1943. The invasions of Sicily and Italy occured when? Again, all of those crews shot down by fighters over the Balkans, especially Romania, will be pleased to learn this.
Looking at page 240 (PDF page not original document page) in: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a542518.pdf Or at: http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t159.htm and http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t159.htm the distribution of bombs dropped on Italy was considerably different than those dropped on Germany. Aproximately 5/6 of the almost 650K tons dropped on Germany were dropped from heavy bombers while less than half 276K tons dropped on Italy were from heavies. The pattern in France ~340K tons was similar to Italy. Looking at pages 276 and 277 in ETO the losses were assesed as almost equal between AA and fighters. In the MTO the ratio was ~2:3 fighters vs AA. Looking at page 331 it does look like the B-17 was more survivable as far as accidents go. The accident rate was .3 for the B-17 and .35 for the B-24 but the fatality rate was 1.1 for the B-17 and 1.6 for the B-24. The wreckage rate was also .30 for the B-17 vs .44 for the B-24. However B-17's seemed to have improved significantly in this regard in 44 and 45 where there wasn't much change in the B-24s. These are rates for the continental US. This page has the above in a more readable form: http://www.taphilo.com/history/WWII/Loss-Figures-Aircraft-USA-Training.shtml AS do the links off of: http://www.usaaf.net/digest/operations.htm However looking at: http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8aflosses.shtml if one summs up the missions and losses the loss rate per mission is ..44 for the B17 and .29 for the B-24. Which defintily doesn't support the contention that the B-17 was more robust.
mcoffee: First of all, I don't care if the Allied maps and OP orders said Vienna was on Pluto, It was governed from Berlin and was considered a German state. Its males fought in all branches of the Wehrmacht. It WAS part of Germany! I need to clarify what I said re. withdrawals of fighters to the Reich. I thought I was clear on this but I guess I wasn't. Mostly, the withdrawals to the Reich came from the Eastern Front. Thus the German fighters in the Med area were not reinforced so that the number of fighters was low and their serviceability was poor. My point being that the concentration of fighters in the Homeland meant that there was a relatively low number of single-engine fighters in and around Italy. In a biography of Galland he comments on the problems he had trying to keep a viable fighter force in the area. Richard Overy, in his book, "The Bombing and the Bombed" puts the number of all German aircraft in and around Italy as 470 in late 1943. By the next summer, the number of German singe-engine fighters in that region was only 370, of which only a fraction was serviceable. Overy gives a number close to yours for American bombers lost to German fighters (626) but credits that loss for the years of 1944 AND 1945, compared to 1,829 lost to accident or flak. In other words, a bomber crewman was three times more likely to die or be captured from accidents or flak in the MTO than be shot down by fighters. My reading in this book and also Calwell and Muller's "The Luftwaffe Over Germany" definitely gives the impression that most of the 15th's losses to fighters happened when they entered the Reich and/or went to heavily defended spots like Ploesti. Even then losses were relatively low unless a bomber unit got separated from the "pack" and or there was an error in escort fighter coverage. In the bio on Hartmann, who helped defend Ploesti it was pointed out that getting close to the bombers was a very hard thing to do! As Overy pointed out, "But the overwhelming air superiority enjoyed the Alled forces following the Axis defeat in Africa and the conquest of Sicily meant that by 1943 there was little effective fighter opposition from the GAF." (This regarding the MTO.) lwd: Thanks for the stats! Unfortunately, my baulky computer wasn't able to download many of them. As far as your last statistic re. loss rate per mission: It could just as easily support the fact that the 8th AF was preponderantly made up of B-17s and thus had a higher loss rate per mission because most of the German fighter opposition was arrayed against it. The 15th AF had a preponderance of B-24s but many of its missions didn't have the quality/quantity of fighter opposition as its sister AF, the 8th.
I don't think that's the case. Those are 8th AF missions by squadrons equipped with either B-24s or B-17s. 8th AF often sent both types of planes on the same mission although I believe the B-24s often bombed at lower altitude so were more likely to be subjected to both AA and fighters.
Overy’s comments regarding fighter opposition – unless they have been taken out of context – are not supported by fact. The 8th AF had a loss rate to fighters in 1944 of 0.72% per sortie. The 15th’s rate was 0.54%. While the 8th’s rate was higher, the 15th’s rate was substantial. Overy’s lumping of fighter losses in 44 and 45 together is also highly misleading. 593 of the 619 fighter losses occurred from January through August of 44. After August, the 15th’s loss rate to fighters dropped almost to nil. The 15th only lost 7 bombers to fighters in 1945. Many 15th AF crewmen who flew in late ’44 and ’45 never saw an enemy fighter. However, from January through August 1944, there was significant fighter opposition. It didn’t take an error in fighter escort to incur heavy losses either. The 15th had an issue with either non-existent or inadequate escort in the target areas until well into 1944. As a direct result of the 14 October 43 Schweinfurt raid, the P-51’s originally slated for the MTO were diverted to the 8th AF well into ’44. The 15th was left with P-47’s and P-38’s that the bombers often watched turn for home prior to targets. The 31st FG began escorting with P-51’s in April ’44 – one fighter group for 18 bomb groups. By early May there were 21 bomb groups. The 325th transitioned to P-51’s in May but P-51 numbers were still inadequate. The 332nd FG began receiving P-51’s in June/July. The correct heading for the ‘accident’ column is ‘Other Causes’ which includes not only all operational losses, but those losses of which the cause of loss is unknown. Because of the long distances to targets in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Southern Germany and Southern France, fuel exhaustion was a major concern in the 15th. Any battle damage or mechanical issue which caused fuel loss or high consumption could result in the aircraft ditching during the long over water return flights. With the B-24’s unfortunate survival rate related to ditching, the cause of many of those losses will never be known. Overy’s book is highly slanted as a moral indictment of the Allied air war. If that is where the comments regarding ‘industrial cities in Italy’ originated, it is not surprising. The reality of 15th AF targeting within Italy doesn’t fit with his narrative. Targeting in Italy was in 4 categories; airfields, transportation, direct support of Allied ground forces, and oil storage. The transportation attacks were aimed at the logistical tail of the German ground forces in Italy. The majority were aimed at cutting rail access in the Po Valley and along the Brenner rail line which was the primary supply route to the German ground forces. H2X was used rarely and in small numbers of attackers within Italy. As previously stated, Table 89 gives the relative numbers of B-17s to B-24s in the 8th AF by month.
I think it was for MTO that I once saw a fairly detailed analysis of cause of loss. One of the things that I noticed was that the combination of fighters and AA was credited with more kills than either alone. I suspect much of this was fighters picking off cripples that were no longer in formation. Can't seem to find that page now though.
lwd: Yes, B-24s had a hard time keeping formation at the normal bombing altitude of ~25,000ft. That was why they often flew the diversion missions for the 8th. As Calwell and Muller wrote, "The B-24 could not maintain close formation at the typical bombing altitude of 25,000 feet, and was forced to fly at 20,000 to 21,000 feet making it vulnerable to both fighters and flak. The B-24 was also much less tolerant of battle damage than the B-17." (Emphasis mine). I'm also sure that the Luftwaffe had a policy of taking out every cripple they could find. so whether a bomber was forced to drop out due to damage from fighters, flak, or both, the Germans hunted them down and destroyed them. In such a case, I strongly suspect that the fighters that finally brought a cripple down were credited with its final destruction and thus a fighter kill. Still, the Germans concentrated most of their fighter assets towards the 8thAF so the chances of running into heavy fighter opposition was much better in that AF. mcoffee: The statistic we need here to settle this point is: In 1943 and '44 did a bomber crewman have a better chance of completing a tour of duty in the 8thAF or the 15th? My pick would be the 15th was safer because they hit a lot of targets that didn't have much in the way of fighter defense. Are any such stats available? As far as Overy goes, my reading gave me the impression that he was only morally upset at American and British bombing very late in the war (Dresden and other, smaller cities). Otherwise, he had three main points: one was that the "bomber barons", both American and British, overpromised what they could deliver. The second point was that the accuracy of both air force's bombing was highly suspect. The third being that while it wasn't publically stated. the killing of as many German and Italian civilians as possible was highly desirable. So, if the official target for a raid was a marshaling yard in such-and-such Italian city, it was a "transportation" target. However, if the city surrounding it was blown to smithereens with high loss of life, that was good too. However, we stray from the topic.
Actually, the relevant statistic was provided in post #7 before you went off in multiple directions.The 8th vs 15th is not germane to the original topic.
If the question is which is more survivable that is not the question that needs to be answered. Even if it was it wouldn't give you a number that would be very useful as the number of missions required changed over time and I beleive wasn't uniform between 8th AF and 15th AF. However the number I gave above does answer the question for 8th AF i.e. Now it doesn't take into account casualties for planes that weren't lost but it suggest that for a given mission in 8th AF a B-24 was about 50% more survivable than a B-17. One caveot is how different were the missions.
Ok, what you're saying with these statistics is that the B-24 is equally survivable or perhaps even more survivable than the B-17. Yet every source I've ever accessed says otherwise, and these are sources were looking at the question from the Axis as well as the Allied side. And we've already established that the B-24 had to fly lower than the B-17, making it more vulnerable. The only way that the B-24 could have been equally or more survivable is if a considerable number of the B-24 missions were less hazardous (decoy sweeps, less well defended targets, etc) than the B-17 missions. Were all these other sources and air historians wrong? Where are all the pictures of horribly maimed B-24s coming back to base? Where are the stories of B-24s coming back on one engine like we have with the B-17? OR....is this still another question where the statistics don't tell the whole story. Please show and demonstrate where and how all these other sources were wrong!
Fascinating and contains all the key information. A comparison of loss rates by aircraft type taking part on the same raids or very similar operations during a busy period of the war. The % loss rate per sortie of 0.98 for the B17 and 1.01 for the b24 means that the B24 is 3% . more likely not to return. That may not even be statistically significant. So for all the anecdotes, there isnlt much difference.. .
These statistics are interesting, but cannot be used to determine the question of: Was the B-24 more susceptible to battle damage than the B-17? This study, was not designed to test that. One bomb division in this study was converting from B-24s to B-17s so shouldn't be used. Even then, there are so many variables here that you can't really draw any real conclusions except for the fact that in this time period around 98% of the bombers were getting back. My questions in my last post still stand. Where are the pictures of damaged B-24s and crew testimonials and other confirming evidence?
The Army purchased a lot more B-24s, which also cost more per unit, so they must have been doing something right