Were long range heavy bombers effective?

[PR3D4TOR]

True, but having faster, lighter fighters would make interception easier. Depending on how deep into Germany the raid is a Mosquito would still have to spend several hours over continental Europe. The Luftwaffe did experiment with equipping single engined fighters with radar to hunt down Mosquitoes (mostly on Goering's behest), but it was given little priority as the vast armada of RAF Bomber Command's heavy bombers laid waste to German cities.



Migge's White 9 equipped with the FuG 218.

Had the Mosquito been the main RAF bomber you'd seen a lot more lightened, nitroed-up 109's and 190's with radar sets, rater than the ponderous Ju88's.

[Jabberwock]

The main reason the Mosquito did so well was exactly because it wasn't used in greater numbers. The Luftwaffe's interceptor aircraft and tactics evolved to counter the main threat of the slower heavy bombers, where firepower and armor was more important than speed. Had the Mosquito been the main threat, the Luftwaffe would have evolved differently throughout the war to counter it.

I hear this quite commonly, and it undoubtedly true, to an extent. When the Luftwaffe did develop a group specifically to hunt the wily Mosquito, they performed... not so well. JG300 and NJGr 10, later NJG11, had very little success in actually hitting the Mosquitoes that they were going after.

There was a very good LEMB thread on this about five years ago that I wish I had saved somewhere. The Luftwaffe tried stripped down S/E fighters with radar loitering on likely flight paths - particularly turning areas - souped up twin engine fighters over expected bombing zones and a couple of other tricks.

Yes, had the main threat been the Mosquito, I'm sure that Mossie loss rates would have gone up.
Yes, I'm sure that the Luftwaffe would have developed more effective counters if they'd put the resources into it and they would have devoted proportionally more resources to shooting down Mossies.
If history was different, history would be different...

However, its also my conviction that loss rates never would have been as high as with the four-engine heavies.

I don't think that the Mosquito could, or even should, have replaced four engine bombers though.

I do think that there was a missed opportunity, a very large one at that, to the Mosquito force as a supplement to the heavy bomber arms, particularly the RAF's night bombing force. The 18 months or so that the higher ups in the RAF took to acknowledge the Mosquito's effectiveness was time badly wasted.

In an ideal world for the Mosquito, the RAF would have welcomed the fast bomber idea with open arms, ordered more of them earlier and even pressed for the four-engine powered version that de Haviland kicked around in mid 1941.

[Karnak]

I concur that Mossie loss rates in this scenario would have been very much higher than they were historically, but I firmly believe that the cost in losses, both in crew and machines, would still be significantly lower than was historically the case for the heavies.

[bozon]

I concur that Mossie loss rates in this scenario would have been very much higher than they were historically, but I firmly believe that the cost in losses, both in crew and machines, would still be significantly lower than was historically the case for the heavies.

Given that about half of all lancs were lost and each took 7 crewmen with it, it could not have been worse.

[MiloMorai]

It was JG25 and JG50 that were the specialist units formed on Goring's order to intercept the Mossie. JG50 only got 1 Mossie with their souped up 109s in 4 months of operations.

[PR3D4TOR]

Crew losses would have been less I think we can all say with whatever certainty can be had in such "what ifs". However, the perhaps ugly truth about war is that some people are more expendable than others. It took one pilot and one navigator to fly a Mosquito. It took one pilot and one navigator to fly a Lancaster, the rest of the crew were not nearly as hard or time consuming to train, and were very expendable in the scope of a total war. The RAF would need seven Mosquitoes to match two Lancasters in bomb load. An increase in critical highly trained personnel by a factor of 3.5.

This reasoning was very prevalent in the RAF at the time. The Halifax carried 13,000 lbs of bombs compared to the 14,000 bomb load of the Lancaster, but this 7.2% shortfall was enough to draw scathing criticism from Harris. That the Halifax had lower loss rates and higher crew survival rates after bailing out was inconsequential to the RAF. A crew who bailed out over occupied Europe was still lost to the RAF regardless of whether they lived or not. Thus the Halifax (and other types) was increasingly relegated to secondary roles as the Lancaster became the main RAF bomber.

[hitech]

The original idea from the 30:s was that strategic bombing alone could force an enemy to surrender and this idea lived for most of WW2. In that perspective strategic bombing was a failure and rather strengthen the morale and fighting spirit among the people.

As for the affect on industries its harder to evaluate. The bombing campain did not pick up pace until 1944 and only after Allied could deploy enough long range fighters to overwhelm Luftwaffe. But by 1944 the outcome of the war was already clear, it was a matter of how long time it would take to force Germany to surrender.

A brief check shows that USAAF and RAF lost around 79.000 men each in the bombing campain out of around 400.000 total KIA (for each country). So in that perspective i would say that the gain did not outweight the cost. (Especially if civilian casualties are counted).

Why did Japan surrender?

HiTech

[PR3D4TOR]

[save]

What if Germany did use their reinforcement more wisely at Ardenners and Bodenplatte, prolonging the war,and the US dropped a nuke or two on Germany, would Germany have given up ?

Probably not, would they have responded with chemical warfare ? - probably....

[PR3D4TOR]

True. Germany did have advanced chemical weapons and a means to deliver them that the Allies could not counter or intercept. The only thing holding them back was, ironically, Hitler.

[Oldman731]

True. Germany did have advanced chemical weapons and a means to deliver them that the Allies could not counter or intercept.

And so did the Allies.  If Germany used chem weapons after, say, the spring of 1944, Germany would have been smothered under a cloud of gas instead of under a cloud of bombs.  I suspect that both sides realized this.

- oldman

[Arlo]

What if Germany did use their reinforcement more wisely at Ardenners and Bodenplatte, prolonging the war,and the US dropped a nuke or two on Germany, would Germany have given up ?

Probably not, would they have responded with chemical warfare ? - probably....

Methinks your probability logic is flawed (a polite understatement).

[FLOOB]

It's often said that Japan surrendered because of the atomic bombs. But really the US bombing raids were doing just as much damage with conventional fire bombing. The real reason Japan surrendered is because it had been systematically burned down.

[FLOOB]

A better argument against the effectiveness of long range bombing would be the korean war, definitely not japan. There are almost no remaining pre war man made structures remaining in North Korea. Unfortunately for the UN forces the chinese didn't live in North Korea.

[bozon]

The RAF would need seven Mosquitoes to match two Lancasters in bomb load. An increase in critical highly trained personnel by a factor of 3.5.

Not really, because the 7 mosquitoes are much more likely to hit something they aimed for than the two lancasters... unless they were aiming at the ground. In additions, the Mosquitoes are much more likely to come back. Then again, Bomber Harris didn't really care where the bombs landed as long as its was within a city. By that point in the war Bomber Command forgot what it was originally ment to do. So yes I stand corrected, for killing civilians the two lancasters are perhaps better.