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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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oldbutnotwise       1/11/2013 3:58:01 AM


"Le May looked at both USAAF and RAF techniques and decided that the RAF way was correct, he then stripped his B29s of most of its defensive guns loaded them with as many bombs as possible (even stacking them loose in the bays) and sent them in at night using radar."
Wrong, I'm afraid.
OK tell that to Le May who is on record as saying that he was influanced by RAF techniques
 
 
Bomber Harris' tactics for European cities were not what inspired LeMay. He, LeMay was one of America's best air tacticians, not some !@#$%^&*()! incompetent brainless stubborn butcher of men and waster of aircraft, such as Harris or that American incompetent imbecile, Brereton.    
ok thats a mature sensible reaction to history and show abolutely no bias and a wonderfull understanding of conditions and political influances preleavent at the time
 
The Americans discovered in mid 1944 over Japan, what the Japanese had known and mapped since 1932. It was the JET STREAM.  
Yet they ran Night bomb missions at low elevel from bases in china, didnt know the Gulf stream went that far 
That more or less compelled area carpet bombing at night when the winds over Japan in the mid altitude bands were calmer or at least predictable (no solar heating and capricious mid altitude thermals). This was USAAF understood to be necessary despite the already American known assessment of the RAF bombing campaigns in the Ruhr and elsewhere as bloody failures using RAF night area bombing techniques.
well that is not what history shows, this read more like the knee jerk post war attitude rather than the actual history   
 
 
 LeMay didn't copy anyone. He adopted and adapted USAAC planned war policy to meet a surprise weather condition and newly available cluster fire-bombs. The Americans needed to work the bigs out of the prototypes, they had pre-war. He also had an aircraft  range problem he had to address. The B-29s were at max range limit. Any unnecessary weight had to be dumped for an extra fuel cushion.
Sorry but you are wrong, B29s only got stripped of thier guns when retasked as night bombers
     
 
  Furthermore, your claim about the B-36 is in error. The 1950s practice drops were dummy atomic bombs. Standard accepted miss was less than 500 feet as the bomb was parachute delayed to allow the bomber time to escape. That was measured for an AIRBURST aimpoint in six directions (Up down left right over short)  usually released from six miles up and not ground impact. 
Actaully no, you are wrong, Le May tests of SAC's bombing abilities are fully documented and were conventional bombing runs not A bomb  and so the above comment is irrelavent
  
 
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Belisarius1234       1/11/2013 4:17:49 AM
 
Read carefully, please from p 59 ONWARD.
 
B.
 
 
P.s. LeMay had nothing good to say about RAF tactics at all.
 
I was able to find a rare 1949 example of a Peacekeeper bomb-walking a line of 500 pounders. The interesting thing is that your contention about accuracy is spurious in that case as the LINE of explosions is more than a mile long.
P.p.s.
 
 
B.
 
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Belisarius1234    OBNW   1/11/2013 4:26:10 AM
My comments about Harris are based on the simple historical fact that he was a proven imbecile, unfit to hold his command. He was charged to conduct a campaign, given excellent tools and men and muffed it completely. When he needed to change tactics and targets (transportation campaign per SHAEF, evasive routing to avoid German night defense belts, and EM silence in the EW war) and was told by his own political leadership (Churchill) to do so, he flat out disobeyed his orders. THAT is Bomber Harris, the second worst air commander in WW II, next to Goring. I have nothing good to say about that bastard. B.
 
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oldbutnotwise       1/11/2013 4:53:08 AM

My comments about Harris are based on the simple historical fact that he was a proven imbecile, unfit to hold his command. He was charged to conduct a campaign, given excellent tools and men and muffed it completely. When he needed to change tactics and targets (transportation campaign per SHAEF, evasive routing to avoid German night defense belts, and EM silence in the EW war) and was told by his own political leadership (Churchill) to do so, he flat out disobeyed his orders.
THAT is Bomber Harris, the second worst air commander in WW II, next to Goring.
I have nothing good to say about that bastard.
B.

Then you are a twit, you believe a lot of rubbish that has been spouted hat has no actual bearing in fact.
Harris, (who by the way was highly regarded by those exact flying you mention) was tasked with taking the war to germany, he did this in the only way possible, he consistanly looked at ways of reducing casulties. his targets were often politcal rather than tactical, when tasked with re directing his attacks he did complain but he did retask and retasked very successfully, because he objected to something does not mean he didnt do it, harris suffers due to politicials (who not only supported the area bombin cmapaign but actively encoraged it at teh time, finding out that once victory was achieved, that bombin cities and civilians look bad and heaped all the blame on Harris (Churchill was abig cuplrate), Harris never disobeyed orders in fact if offered his regisnation on a number of occasions and it was refused every time.
 routing of bombers was a tactical desicion not decided at a ower level than Harris and a lot of effort was made to avoid hotspots of flak and fighters.
You seem to have fallen for the post war blame game that has little grounding in fact (the same happened to Haig after WW1)
 
 
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Belisarius1234    It was the RAF that said it.    1/11/2013 1:13:58 PM
Their postwar analysis of their campaign and their leadership it was. Take it up with THEM.
 
B.
 
 
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45-Shooter       1/11/2013 9:54:41 PM

This obscures another oft overlooked factor that the British mythmakers like to ignore. As early as 1936, the USAAC began to research incendiaries designed to burn Japanese cities. The preferred bomb was to be a roof breaker that could be dispersed as a cluster bomb. 
The American INTENT before 1939 was clearly to firebomb Japanese cities.
-Ever heard of the "Bat Bomb"? This was a 2 ounce incendiary tied to a BAT, you know a small flying rodent. When relieced, it would get out of the sun by hiding in the eaves of the wood  buildings and viola, instant fire. 
 LeMay didn't copy anyone. He adopted and adapted USAAC planned war policy to meet a surprise weather condition and newly available cluster fire-bombs. The Americans needed to work the bigs out of the prototypes, they had pre-war. He also had an aircraft  range problem he had to address. The B-29s were at max range limit. Any unnecessary weight had to be dumped for an extra fuel cushion.
The Americans still performed and preferred daylight precision raids for certain missions during the night-bombing campaign. Those were the B-29 mine-laying raids which required DAYLIGHT delivery to place the aerial mines in the Japanese harbors. Quite accurate and COSTLY.
Furthermore, your claim about the B-36 is in error. The 1950s practice drops were dummy atomic bombs. Standard accepted miss was less than 500 feet as the bomb was parachute delayed to allow the bomber time to escape. That was measured for an AIRBURST aimpoint in six directions (Up down left right over short)  usually released from six miles up and not ground impact. This is slightly in error. Average acuracy of ALL drops of Nucs and dummies was 269' from hights over 32,000'! Some as close as 13'! Secondly, no Nuc at that time had a retarding chute! It was not until very much later that the USAF relented because of "On the deck" opps to avoid radar. Read "Magnesium Overcast, the B-36 story" for proofs of most of above and various other books on the B-36, B-47 and B-52! One last point; The reason that they were adamant about high altitude bombing was that every increment of extra altitude reduced the effect of AAA by the SQUARE of the Differance! So one plane at 18,000' has X chance to be shot down and a plane at 25,000' has <52% of X chance to be shot down by AAA!
B.
 
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45-Shooter       1/11/2013 9:59:19 PM

Try actual research as none of you above comment about accuracy are factual in aany aspect , to be honest I wonder why I bother,
Why do you? 
Shooter by the way exactly how long do you expect to be on here before you get banned again?
Do not have aclue! Does anyone know why this happens? I highlighted the prior sentance and clicked in the red text button and it did most of what I wanted and then half of the word above?
 
and exactly how many sites have banned you for making claims wihout evidence and ignoring corrections?
I do not know. But I do know this, If I am write and get banned, then I figure they just do not want to know more than they do now?
 
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45-Shooter       1/11/2013 10:34:26 PM




My comments about Harris are based on the simple historical fact that he was a proven imbecile, unfit to hold his command. He was charged to conduct a campaign, given excellent tools and men and muffed it completely. When he needed to change tactics and targets (transportation campaign per SHAEF, evasive routing to avoid German night defense belts, and EM silence in the EW war) and was told by his own political leadership (Churchill) to do so, he flat out disobeyed his orders.

THAT is Bomber Harris, the second worst air commander in WW II, next to Goring.

I have nothing good to say about that bastard.

B.



Then you are a twit, you believe a lot of rubbish that has been spouted hat has no actual bearing in fact.
Harris, (who by the way was highly regarded by those exact flying you mention) was tasked with taking the war to germany, he did this in the only way possible,This is obviously not true! There were at least two ways to do that, the RAF and USAAF plans. he consistanly looked at ways of reducing casulties. Exactly how many RAF bombers were lost durring the war? his targets were often politcal rather than tactical, This was one of the main arguments against him.  when tasked with re directing his attacks he did complain but he did retask We both know this is not exactly true don't we?and retasked very successfully, because he objected to something does not mean he didnt do it, If I am your commander and give you an order to retask tomorrow and you do not do it until two months from now, does that count as following orders? harris suffers due to politicials (who not only supported the area bombin cmapaign but actively encoraged it at teh time, finding out that once victory was achieved, that bombin cities and civilians look bad and heaped all the blame on Harris It was his plan and his alone. (Churchill was abig cuplrate), Harris never disobeyed orders See above for better deffinition of the word "Orders". in fact if offered his regisnation on a number of occasions and it was refused every time.

 routing of bombers was a tactical desicion not decided at a ower level than Harris and a lot of effort was made to avoid hotspots of flak and fighters.

You seem to have fallen for the post war blame game that has little grounding in fact (the same happened to Haig after WW1)
 Lets see, by their own RAF accounting "Less than 50% of bombs dropped on Germany landed inside the city limits!"
Once again, I ask that we select a single standard of accuracy for both Air Forces.

Aside of the appaling death rates, which in total war STARTED by the NAZIs have no defect, the only thing wrong with Harris's plan is that it was a dismal failure by all standards of the day and later to this day!
 
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oldbutnotwise       1/12/2013 2:19:35 PM
  
     
Then you are a twit, you believe a lot of rubbish that has been spouted hat has no actual bearing in fact.
Harris, (who by the way was highly regarded by those exact flying you mention) was tasked with taking the war to germany, he did this in the only way possible,This is obviously not true! There were at least two ways to do that, the RAF and USAAF plans. 
Not true the RAF had no bomber it considered to be practical to bomb germany in daylight so the USAAF option was unavailible
he consistanly looked at ways of reducing casulties. Exactly how many RAF bombers were lost durring the war? his targets were often politcal rather than tactical, This was one of the main arguments against him. 
 
except that these political selected targets were selected by politicians not Harris so it shown you know little of the politics of the time
 when tasked with re directing his attacks he did complain but he did retask We both know this is not exactly true don't we?
 
do we? because history shows that all the targets allocated to Bomber Command were destroyed by bomber command prior to DDAY and in fact it carried out more attacks that asked for, yes Harris complained but he did his job if not Churchill would have fired him just like he did with many senior officers
and retasked very successfully, because he objected to something does not mean he didnt do it, If I am your commander and give you an order to retask tomorrow and you do not do it until two months from now, does that count as following orders?
 
have you an example as I know of none as this would have resulted in him being fired, churchill or Portal would not have stood for this behavour
 harris suffers due to politicials (who not only supported the area bombin cmapaign but actively encoraged it at teh time, finding out that once victory was achieved, that bombin cities and civilians look bad and heaped all the blame on Harris It was his plan and his alone. 
shows you know nothing, the area bombing campaign was decided upon and actually started Prior to Harris taking comman, the actual idea dates to pre war
(Churchill was abig cuplrate), Harris never disobeyed orders See above for better deffinition of the word "Orders". in fact if offered his regisnation on a number of occasions and it was refused every time.
    
so why wasnt he fired, the RAF senior command   was very stuffy and would have never allowed this kind of disobedance
You seem to have fallen for the post war blame game that has little grounding in fact (the same happened to Haig after WW1)
 Lets see, by their own RAF accounting "Less than 50% of bombs dropped on Germany
landed inside the city limits!"
Once again, I ask that we select a single standard of accuracy for both Air Forces.
yes lets, lets look at the same time period for starters, the quote of 50% relates to early war, when the USAAF was still droipping concrete bombs in the desert  
If you look at late war the RAF were bombing as accurately as the USAAF,
Basically the RAF got a lot better at it whilst the USAAF didnt (and no fault of the pilots/crews, bombing from 20000ft over mainland germany with 1940s technology was just impractical)

Aside of the appaling death rates, which in total war STARTED by the NAZIs have no defect, the only thing wrong with Harris's plan is that it was a dismal failure by all standards of the day and later to this day!
Pointless statement, dehousing and area bombing is now known not to work but at the time it seem to be likely, even now it is known that thier was great fear in the Nazi high command that it was on the verge of working (however even if it had exactly what the effect that would have had in a dictatorship is debatable
 
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Belisarius1234       1/12/2013 8:36:10 PM
 
 
Bombing the European Axis Powers
A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive
1939–1945
Both of you, OBNW and Shooter, should read that book to correct many errors I read you make in your arguments.
 
B.
 
 
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