seabolt Wrote:Oddly enough, the UK lost more bombers in night bombing then the US did in day. Kind of makes you wonder if night bombing really was any safer huh.
UK policy depended on the cover of night for self defense. The Germans did a pretty good job of developing their interceptor program.
Had the UK halved their bomb loads to cram in more gunners and belts of .50-caliber, as in the US day policy, things might have been very different. During daylight, the German fighters enjoyed a significant advantage in hammering their prey with 20mm fire before the .50s could return the favor.* At night, fuggedabout it. It would be a carronade matchup of sheer weight of fire. The .50s would have been sorely felt, had the UK borrowed a few hundred of them ...
*This amounts to sacrilege among worshippers of the "strap a .50 on anything" U.S. policy, but I was convinced on the topic years ago by a German researcher.
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Sorry, can't agree witht this at all. Before the USAAF was able to deploy long -range fighters the losses were disasterous - look at the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission.
Also RAF missions were in 1943/44 typically much longer than USAAF ones reaching further into Germany. As McIvan says the weight of bombs on RAF raids were much more than carried by B17/24's.
As for 0.5" HMGs, they might have made a slight difference in terms of hitting power but range wasn't a factor at night. Indeed once the Germans started to use Schrage-musik upward firing cannon most defensive fire was not able to cover this area, and most Lanc/Halifax crews unfortunately never realised they were under attack until too late. Interesting that the few RCAF Halifaxes with ventral turrets had better survival rates.
Alex
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