Daylight Bombing vs Night Bombing


In WWII There was a debate on the best time to deliver ordinance. At night casualties would be lower, but at day munitions could be dropped more accurately. The  British went with night bombing as their early war causalities were atrocious. But then the Americans joined. The American bombers were equipped with something called a Norden bomb sight. This was the most advanced bomber sight ever designed. It allowed bombers to target and destroy targets with pinpoint accuracy. But these bomb sights couldn't be used at night. You cannot target what you cant see. The British worked around this with fire munitions. But American commanders were not willing to take the hit in accuracy. So they gathered massive swarms of bombers that were armed to the teeth with guns. Unfortunately this was not enough to deter the German Luftwaffe. Causalities were astronomical. The commanders knew they needed to protect the bombers if they were to keep up the campaign. The solution they found was the P-51 Mustang.
The P-51 was the only escort with the range to follow to the bombers all the way to the target and all the way back. Causalities dropped dramatically. Now it seemed to the american commanders that they could have the best of both worlds. Good aim and low causalities. But alas, it was not to be. Causalities were still much higher than the night bombers even with escorts. The commanders thought it was worth it though, because of the higher accuracy. Results were mixed. wind on the way down could knock bombs off track and damage could be repaired sometimes. However it was very sobering for German civilians to have to hide every day and night while the 300 plane formation blazed overhead. The damage to industry was devastating. hundreds of tons of bombs were dropped.

RAF & USAAF Bomb Tonnages on Germany 1939–45
Year RAF Bomber
Command (tons) US 8th Air
Force (tons)
1939          31 —
1940   13,033 —
1941   31,504 —
1942   45,561     1,561
1943 157,457   44,165
1944 525,518 389,119
1945 191,540 188,573
Total 964,644 623,418


Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 4, 2018 at 12:52 PM

    these are cool facts you should become a history teacher.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mrs. RileyMay 4, 2018 at 1:31 PM

    You seem really interested in history. And war, and airplanes. This blog is full of great information.

    ReplyDelete

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