Quote:
Originally Posted by JtD
I wasn't flying the plane, AI was.
How many bombers did the 8th AF, how many fighters did the Luftwaffe write off after Schweinfurt?
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I would have thought you knew that AI on AI is a whole different behavior pattern; put yourself in one of those A6Ms and you would have gotten shot to pieces attacking with and in the same way as your AI wingmen (probably while they got away without a scratch).
There were two major raids on Schweinfurt in 1943: August 17th and October 14th, both considered disasters for 8th Bomber Command. The raid in August cost 60 bombers (with 10 crewmen each) lost over the Continent with another 150 or so damaged and over 40 scrapped after returning and carrying several dead and wounded crewmen. German losses along the entire Western front for the entire day: 27 aircraft (against official claims of 148 by the bombers' gunners), and another 10-13 lost in a series of sharp encounters against the 56th FG and other P-47 groups using pressurized belly tanks for nearly the first time.
Some sources indicate that the actual German losses were even lower (17 was the lowest figure for the day I have read).
The October disaster is generally remembered as "Black Thursday"; another 60 bombers lost, 7 more scrapped upon return, plus another 142 ‘damaged’ for German losses of 38 fighters, seven of which can be credited to the only Allied FG to successfully make rendezvous, the 353rd.
Every history of the bombing campaigns of WWII makes it clear that even the fastest, highest flying heavy bombers could not defend themselves against single and twin engined fighters; even at the end of the war, US bomber formations caught without escorts took heavy casualties at the hands of relatively inexperienced German fighter formations, even 'lightly armed' ones.
As I recall, both raids experienced losses in the 10% plus range, which means that there were at least 500 bombers in the skies on those days, each mounting 10 .50" heavy machine guns manned by some supposedly very well trained gunners most of whom were American farmboys raised with rifle and shotgun to supplement the family diet; it's not like they didn't know how to shoot, or lead a moving target.
It's just unbelievably hard to hit a moving airplane from another moving airplane in any direction other than straight ahead or directly behind; vary the angle left, right, up or down and your firing solution becomes incredibly complicated.
cheers
horseback