You wouldn't get home as the a/c would become VERY tail heavy. That would be ~600lb behind the CoG.

From the Pilot manual:

more than 48gal in the fuselage tank - a/c restricted straight flying and gentle maneuvers only

aerobatics and spinning permitted with no more than 30 gal in the fuselage tank

kind of hard to have combat with these restrictions :-P

http://www.avialogs.com/viewer/avial...er.php?id=3851

I think that by "down rudder" he means going full rudder in whatever position is closest to the ground... in a right handed turn that would be full right rudder.. in a left handed turn that would be full left rudder but I imagine that IRL the torque from the engine would play a roll in a left or right turn as far as which would be more effective..

Generally what they did was use drop tanks first then use up about 1/2 - 2/3 of the fuel in the fuselage tank then they would alternate between wing tanks to make sure the aircraft was balanced. From what I was told by P-51 pilots in the chapter of TAI that I belonged to they kept that fuel for a reserve and once it got past @ 45 gallons it was less unstable.. but they then went for the wing tanks.

You’ll want to explain all that to the men of the 91st, 96th and 100th Bomb Groups, each of which suffered over 400% casualties over Europe from spring 1943 to VE Day (there were 48 bombers in a Group). There were about 20 Heavy Bomb Groups in the 8th AF that suffered a minimum of 200% casualties and several among that number had around 300% casualties. The groups that took the highest casualties lost most of their numbers at a disproportionate rate in 1943. What the JGs and ZGs in the West prior to the spring of 1944 were doing looked an awful lot like ‘winning easily’ to them.

I tend to differ with you about the tasking of the JGs on the Channel Front; I used JG 26 as a well-known example, but let’s examine the war aims of the two sides. My contention of the LW’s campaign being easily successful at the end of 1943 is based on the understanding that the German leadership at that point in the war believed (regardless of whether it was rational to do so) that once the Allies got tired of banging their collective heads against the Atlantic Wall, they would at worst, recognize Germany’s hegemony/de facto control of Europe and go the hell away, or at best, join Hitler and the volk in the effort to crush the Communist threat embodied in the Soviet Union (somewhere in the middle of all that they were hoping for at least the suspension of Lend Lease to Stalin). They believed that the Casablanca declaration that the Allies’ primary war aim was unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers was all show.

On that basis, the goal of the LW in the Channel was to continue to do what they had been doing very well in the second half of 1943—bleed the American and British air forces as they crossed into Europe and hammer the bombers once their escorts had to turn back from lack of fuel. Inflicting maximum casualties on the enemy meant that their weak and effete democratic system would eventually turn on Roosevelt and Churchill and the new elected leaders would sue for peace. For Hitler and his followers, it was a classic demonstration of German will and that was how they sold it to the German people.

"Just hang on a little bit longer, and they will give up and go back to making refrigerators and razor blades. Once we've settled with Stalin and consolidated our holdings in Europe, then we'll deal with them on our terms," they were saying.

On the other side, the requirement for unconditional surrender was not show, but they were working to a schedule; FDR and Churchill were committed to opening a ‘Second Front’ in Europe in 1944, which meant a major amphibious assault on the French coast, and the best time for amphibious operations is when the weather is reasonably good and the tides are low near dawn. That meant no later than August, and if they needed a moonless night before the morning of the invasion in order to maximize the effectiveness of airborne assault to ‘prep’ the area behind the beachhead, you only had early June.

All of that required (according to the Admirals whose ships were going to be stuck close to an enemy held coast and the Generals whose soldiers and equipment were going to be bottlenecked on the beachhead for the first couple of days) that the Luftwaffe be seriously cut down in size and effectiveness, and that was the responsibility of the Allied air forces. In late 1943, there was serious doubt that they could accomplish that task.

The heavy bombers had been expected to be able to protect themselves and to penetrate Germany’s airspace to bomb German aircraft production out of existence; there were other industries targeted but aircraft production was the main target. It turned into a massive failure, because the bombers were taking unacceptable losses in the absence of effective fighter escorts. Heads rolled at 8th AF Command and in its Fighter headquarters in late 1943 as a direct result, and major efforts to get the new Mustangs under 8th AF command were made. It is a fact that all Merlin Mustang production not committed to the RAF went to the 8th Air Force (or its control) until late spring of '44, when production finally allowed for groups outside the ETO to transition into the type.

That's why I said what I said.

cheers

horseback

So, by your standards, these bomb groups were "winning easily" as well. I disagree.

You shouldn't be selling subjective impressions for fact. In a war of attrition, any side that does a mission every day and comes back with 3% loss will think the other side is winning easily, no matter if the other side loses 5% or 0.5% each day on their own.

I think you misread that previous post completely !!
;)

Just pointing out silly double standards. I'm pretty sure horseback thinks that 400% turnover in US units are brutal, yet when a Luftwaffe unit suffers the same losses, without even achieving any of its objectives, it is "winning the war easily".

When Hitler got hold of the spear of destiny, he thought he'd be invincible. But this turns Stalingrad into a victory just as much as wrong assessments by a few Luftwaffe members turn 1943 into a year of victory for the Luftwaffe.

Eventually, I don't even think it's silly, it's clearly beyond silly. Probably intentionally posting nonsense in order to provoke arguments. And I am idiot enough to fall for it...

---

For those interested in history and maybe not yet knowing everything - I recommend to browse the USAAF statistical digest. In particular, related to how the Luftwaffe did not easily win the air war in the West in 1943, number of (heavy bomber) sorties by month or tonnage of bombs dropped (by heavy bombers) by month. It is glaringly obvious that by the end of 1943, the USAF flew more sorties and dropped more bombs than any time before. And where the entire(!) German fighter force remained near constant at around 1500 total for most of 1943, the 8th AF alone grew from a force fielding a few hundred aircraft to a force approaching 2000 aircraft.

From here: http://acepilots.com/planes/b17.html

As the heavy bomber demands of the North African campaign eased in the winter of 1942-43, the air war in Northwest Europe accelerated. On January 27, 1943, for the first time, American bombers hit inside of Germany itself, the submarine facilities at Wilhelmshaven.

A turning point was reached on April 17, when 115 Flying Fortresses bombed the Focke-Wulfe factory in Bremen. As if defending its nest, the Luftwaffe struck hard, knocking down sixteen B-17's (a 15 percent loss rate - on a single mission!). Soon, ten-to-fifteen percent losses became the norm, as the Luftwaffe improved their tactics, in particular by attacking the B-17's head on. Thus the famous phrase "Bandits at twelve o'clock high!"

But the Eighth continued grimly on, throughout 1943, next targeting ball-bearing production, considered a vital weak point in aviation manufacturing. On the 17th of August, a large force of 376 bombers raided Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Sixty bombers, with six hundred aircrew, didn't come back. 16 percent losses. At that rate, the Eighth Air Force could not continue. When B-17G's began to arrive in August and September, the forward machine guns in their chin turrets helped a little. The appalling wastage continued:

September 6 - Over 400 bombers attacked the Stuttgart ball-bearing plant; 45 were lost.
October 14 - Schweinfurt again. 291 B-17's went out; 60 went down.
January 11, 1944 - German aircraft industry targets. 600 Flying Fortresses were sent out. Because of bad weather, only 238 reached Germany; 60 were shot down.

By way of comparison, see here: http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm regarding luftwaffe losses. In these discussions only aircraft losses are discussed, of more relevence from the German viewpoint would be pilot losses, or at least of experienced and well trained ones, and the inability of the Luftwaffe to replace them.

All sides knew about when and where they lost their aces, the ones that really counted. How about use experts as a gauge of overall effectiveness? The data on aces should be solid, shouldn't it?