I have only seen the norden they have at the U.S.A.F.M. at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Daytion, Ohio.
They have a picture under the Norden, and they say it simulates 25K Ft. And you can pick out individual buildings from that altitude. If you have ever flown a commercial airliner over a built up area you can pick up Semi-Trucks from 30K. feet with your mark one eyball. The Norden works a lot like a telescope or microscope, except that the nobs and dials were connected to the control surfaces of the aircraft. I have also read that on the practice ranges when bombadiers were learning their craft it was possible to hit a duece and a half with a single bomb from 18,000 feet.
The difficulty in level bombing in a B-17 of World War Two and using the Norden bombsite from great altitude lies not in the ability of the equipment for the most part (didn't work in overcast conditions) but of the men who populated the aircraft. The suits they wore had electric heaters in them. They had oxygen systems to deliver oxygen to the men. It was cramped, it was cold, it was frightening. The only time I have read of B-17s operating at altitude of 30K ft or greater were when the empty aircraft were ferried from the U.S. to England. Flying at 30K Ft allowed the planes to ride a east bound jet stream and save fuel. At that altitude they could also avoid much of the weather. There were problems flying that high though. Often the controls iced up. Often the navigator would have to tour the aircraft and occasionally the pilot would have to go back down to 20K feet to melt ice. I have read about men who foze to death on the ferry flights chipping ice from inside the planes. The icing caused increased drag, which caused a loss of fuel efficency. The B-17s being ferried over the oceans had internal fuel bladders installed to increase the range. They removed most of the defensive guns, and used a skeleton crew of Pilot, Co-Pilot (Sometimes navigator), somtimes a Navigator (Sometimes also a flight engineer) and a Flight Engineer.
I have never read of a Bombing Raid of over 27K until the B-29 was introduced, and it was later models of B-29s, without all the defensive gunners that were able to operate at those altitudes. (B-29s were equipped with Radar Guided .50 cal electrically driven turrets.)
The air up there was as thin for B-17s as it was for fighters, B-17s at 30K should suffer from very nearly the same penalties as fighter aircraft. Except for gentle sweeping turns, a B-17 should suffer decreased control reliability at that altitude. In AH the standard attack by a fighter of climbing above a bomber and diving to attack is easily defeated by a bomber who can make a violent manuver to avoid the bounce. The fighter if trying to turn to compensate will suffer aerodynamic difficulties, the B-17 won't. Ergo Advantage B-17. That is the question I have asked time and again. Why can't fighter aircraft whose primary responsibilities were to either attack or defend those bombers manuver at the altitudes with the bombers?
The other tactic I have seen employed by individuals is to convert their bombers from Bombers to Fighters. I have watched, and I admit I have seen Knights do this, is to salvo their bombs just after taking off, and us their aircraft as a mobile anti-aircraft platform.
What I have suggest is.
1. Improved parity of manuverability of fighter aircraft and bomber aircraft at altitude.
2. Remove internet connectivity enhancement of range to the Bombers guns (excluding the tail turret) when the bombers expell their ordinance. (Ergo, if you drop your bombs you would have the same range for the gunners as all .50 cal equipped fighters.)
3. Increase the hardness of the Bombers so that they have an increased chance of surviving multiple attacks by fighters.
Additionally I would agree to a geometric decrease in accuracy above 25K.
I.E. at 25K you have the same accuracy as now. At 26K you suffer a 25% accuracy penalty, at 27K you suffer a 50% penalty, at 28K a 75% accuracy penalty, and at 29K at 90% penalty. Go up 2 percent per thousand from there so at 34K you would get a miss.
I would rate this penalty against targets the size of the Fighter Hangars.
I do not want to discourage bombers from fullfilling their roles as an offensive weapon designed to deliver ordinance with a fair amount of accuracy to a target. I only want to discourage AH Bomber Pilots from
1. Flying their bombers as if they were fighter aircraft.
2. Using the advantage of being able to perform violent manuvers at altitudes where fighter aircraft are unable to manuver.
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"Downtown" Lincoln Brown.
lkbrown1@tir.com http://www.tir.com/~lkbrown1 Wrecking Crews "Drag and Die Guy"
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