Eigth Air Force What-if

I was wondering...

what would have been the outcome if, when the USA entered the war and sent their bombers off to the UK to pound Germany, they were actually persuaded by the RAF that massed daylight raids were simply too costly - particularly without escorts - and started bombing by night.

discuss...

 

A flipant answer might be that they'd all end up in Portugal or Iceland because the Yanks were p**s poor navigators and had not spent years eating carrots like the RAF. This genuine wartime planning document, recently declassified, proves it.

Only joking USA - please don't take offence.

 

Lone Wolf,
USAAF bombing had a 100% accuracy rate....
... they invariably hit the ground

To answer the real question, look at the RAF night bombing record in say 1940 and '41 -- IIRC it was "well, we hit Germany" most of the time.

 

.. or the water.

:-?

 

double post

 

It would have lessened the pressure on LW fighter organization and bloomed the LW night fighter production. Since the RAF and USAF lacked a capable night fighter escort in numbers on 1943 -44 the losses would have risen a lot for both the RAF and USAF, since Germany could have focus the aerial defence of the reich to a single air arm.

Night and day bombings combined made the Luftwaffe single engined fighter force to strech even more, than what they were if there would only be the night bombing threat from the west.

 

Wouldve cluttered the skys and turned the allies into zombies, also wouldve hindered the americans from hitting up the brit ladies at the clubs at night while the RAF boys were off bombing Germany. The great thing about bombs is there smart, they always hit the ground.

 

As it were, the Allies bombed their targets around the clock.
Day AND night.
Reminds me of the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain. They were worn-down and exhausted from multiple intercept sorties, day after day.
Imagine the exhaustion of the Luftwaffe pilots and ground-crews from round the clock bombings. Not to mention flak-crews.
The military and civilians never got a good-nights sleep. Factory workers get sloppy and pilots can't concentrate.
I think the RAF and USAAF got it right personally.

Tim

 

if we had bothered to enforce the "no fly zone" we mandated on the german airforce in 1919 , we wouldnt have had to bomb germany to rubble twenty years later , and then rebuild it too.

what agency or country do we have to blame for this rather expensive oversight ? were there any whistle blowers ?

 

Russians? The German air force training establishment at Lipetsk trained 230 pilots between 1925-1933.

 

i wouldnt care how nice the airfeild and facillities were , i would absolutely refuse to train my air force at any place called "lipstick "

 

That place in USSR did not exsisted. It is Lipetsk.

 

Some jokes do not get past the language barrier....

 

Shirley Knott.

 

A frayed knot

 

Ok people, since there seems to be an end to any serious answers...


Obviously, RAF & USAAF would have to work together much more closely (you don't want two bomber streams heading to the same target!).

German night-time defences would be much more stretched - thus more nightfighters wold be produced, with more pilots and radar operators needed, which would mean less available daytime fighters - though this is unlikely to make much of a dent in the numbers of daytime fighters now available to keep on the Eastern Front. Ironically, that might even hurt the Germans, as it means their inefficient and overloaded logistics system out East would need to be bringing out a load of extra fuel, ammo, spares etc for these fighters...

The results of the bombing would, I think, be much the same.

One possible result is the P-51 does not enter widespread service. Nobody will push for a single-seat escort fighter when there is nothing to escort...

 

It simplifies the German air defense problem considerably. The Germans now only have to concentrate on nightfighting and the issues of night bombing raids. They get a respite from bombing during the day. Since the US would still likely be bombing from higher altitudes, the effectiveness of US bombing would be somewhat diminished compared to daytime targeting practices. That is, one would expect greater dispersion of US bombloads from operating at night.

 

A slight deviance on this is, if the Eighth did take on a role of night bombing, possibly some of the resources spent in building up the RAF's Bomber Command, could have gone to other worthy causes, the British had plenty of them.

Another take is with the Eighth and Bomber Command operating in tandem at night, the first 1,000 bomber raid comes quicker.

 

Nope and nope.

Whether the US is bombing by day or by night, it is still bombing. Thus, Bomber Command could have diverted resources had they so wanted to. However, they did not want to.


The British were flying 1,000 bomber raids before the 8th conducted it's first bombing raid. Not to mention, that a handful of American bomber will not materially affect the outcome - the first 8th raid was only 12 planes.

 

The B-17 had better armament, could take more punishment and better ceiling than the Lancaster...This puts it as FRONT runner for the more dangerous day light bombing...The Lancaster had better range, much better payload and a smaller crew.
As has been stated before day AND night bombing was the correct decision...This keeps ALL defensive forces on 24 alert...including fire brigades, Police etc

Not for the first time i dip my lid to the Americans...Not enough is said about the balsy decision to take on the Luftwaffe in daylight...Thats manly shit.