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| De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito B Mk IV Series 2 of No. 105 Squadron of the Royal Air Force. Source |
Ah, WWII bombers. By the end of the war, single engine bomb-carrying aircraft had roughly the same bomb-load as the heavy bombers, and were faster. Imagine if Great Britain had concentrated on Mosquitoes instead of all the heavy bombers. Less crew, less engines, same bomb load and far faster. And we could have done the same, as the lowly A1 'Spad' was a late war airplane. Or a 2 seat bomber version of the P-47 or F-82 or such.
As to War, the only rule is to fight to win, no matter what. Hague conventions? Geneva Conventions? The League of Nations or the UN? Fugedaboutit. Win. Win so horribly that anyone thinking of doing it again to the victor gets pimp-slapped by all the ghosts of their ancestors.
I mean, yeah, there are rules of war, always has been. Like the Medieval European rules of war. 1. No fighting on Sunday and Wednesday. 2. You don't target the peasant or serf population because if you win you'll have them working for you. 3. No fighting during planting or harvest season, because if you do, ain't no food. 4. The Rule of the Siege (3 parts) A: Pull up to a fortified place, call for surrender, little damage done. B: If they resist, pop a hole in the wall and then call for surrender, some looting and pillaging if the place doesn't cough up treasure. C: If they still resist, kill them all, God will know his own. These worked for all medieval wars, including the Crusades. It's the reason the Sack of Jerusalem occurred (see Rule 4 C.)
But past the medieval period? Rules got closer and closer to win at all costs. Actually all wars break down to that, win at all costs. Do what you have to do to come out on top. Anything else is holding one or two hands behind your back.
Sigh. If only things were 'clean' and 'only the warriors and leaders pay' yada yada yada. Pure pipe dreams. The Civilians have always paid the costs of war, either by being raped, slaughtered, enslaved, impoverished. War has never been clean. Bullies in the school yard beating up nerds have more constraints on their behavior (or used to be) than war.
- AnonymousSeptember 17, 2024 at 11:48 AM
The idea of RAF Bomber Command using a preponderance of Mosquitos was mooted by a middle ranking RAF officer in 1942 (I can't remember where it was posted but it was an idea that didn't see the light of day) The reasons were economic, the Mosquito could be mass produced using locally available wood and only needed two crew and two merlin engines, as you say it delivered a hefty bomb load over a long distance and was virtually immune to interception.
Delete
The thing was 'Bomber Harris' had a lot of influence over Churchill and Churchill needed to show the British public that offensive action was being taken against Germany. The trouble was that equipping and manning Bomber Command took up a disproportionate amount of the British war effort. Churchill's main scientific advisor, Lord Cherwell was adamant that a strategy of 'de-housing' the German population would work. It didn't. Both population and industry proved more resilient than previously thought. Harris also fought tooth and nail against the use of Bomber Command on what he called 'panacea targets' i.e. transport, oil etc.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing however.
Retired
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The NEW JERSEY came as a nasty shock to the North Vietnamese, too.
ReplyDeleteNot relevant but okay, sure.
DeleteWell, Vietnam, once the gloves came off, drove the North to the bargaining table, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteWho got the South East Asia Wargames 2nd place award? I think France got the 3rd place award.
Just pre-coffee ponderings.
Too deep a topic to get into here. Was there anything untrue about that statement?
DeleteUntrue, no. They did come to the table.
DeleteResults wasn't clear at best.
Did we "win"? Guess it depends on the terms applied.
Michael
Seemed to me that the Communist's goal was to get the other people out of the country.
DeleteWe didn't win. And South Vietnam definitely lost. We had an agreement in place with the North and the South which allowed us to pull out and turn the war over to the South Vietnamese. The North violated their bit by invading the South, Congress threw it all away by abrogating the agreement we had with the South, essentially saying "no ammo and no support for you!"
DeleteA shitshow no matter how you look at it.
Rob - Missed your comment. The North Vietnamese were more nationalists than Communists in some respects. But yeah, it was their country, get the damned French out (and us as well, we made the stupid mistake of supporting De Gaulle and his stupid dreams of French Empire), Vietnam for the Vietnamese as it were.
DeleteThere were twofold problems with the strategic bomber offensive versus Germany. First, the bombing accuracy was far cry from the ads for the Norden bomb sight and similar instruments for other air forces. Even US air force bombing during daylight had CEP of almost mile, and RAF at night was even worse, by order of magnitude, forcing them into dehousing campaign. As for the other problem, it was enemy having a vote. Germans did devise a fairly sophisticated air defence system, including radar, AA guns , foremost the mighty 88, and fighters. Brits, lacking the long range fighters, turned to night bombing. US, first attempted unescorted raids with disasters like Schweinfurt ensuing, and tide turning only with advent of Mustang all the way escort. It is said when Goering saw Mustangs over Berlin, he knew the war was lost.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the bombing was not total waste effort either, all those 88s defending skies were not on the front killing allied tanks. And when all the stars aligned in late 44, fuel industry was hit so hard, so Germany was doomed, especially with Soviets waltzing into Romanian oil fields.
It also pulled the Luftwaffe in to defend the Reich. In doing so, the Luftwaffe was decimated and played virtually no role on any front (other than over the Reich) for the remainder of the war.
DeleteThe saying "die Deutsches Blick" was coined to describe the look on German soldiers faces when traveling during the day, one eye on the sky at all times because any aircraft spotted would most likely be hostile.
Once we stopped pussy-footing around in Vietnam and went 'gloves-off' we did indeed drive them to the bargaining table. Same with the outcome of the Tet Offensive, which we won, hands down. Until the media threw it away.
ReplyDeleteEven after going full Bomber Command, we 'weren't' allowed to destroy the rail lines to China, mine the harbors, destroy anti-aircraft sites until they fired upon us and definitely not any that potentially had Russians.
But, yes, we did bomb them into the Stone Age, and then the media and a democrat-led Congress threw it all away.
Bingo.
DeleteThe problem is, US were not ready to stay in Vietnam indefinitely, politically. Draft was becoming untenably unpopular. So, the idea was to force enemy to table, exit, and let South deal with North. As with Afghanistan, it was weakness of the local forces who eventually folded without direct US presence in large number that doomed the war.
DeleteMedia and Congress were only reflection of general nation's mood, which was, Hell no we wont go.
Nixon commiting political suicide by violating laws AND taping himself while doing it didnt help.
By comparison, North was willing to suffer millions upon millions of dead if needed to fullfill their unification dream, and continue it for decades if needed.
Beans, When since WW2 didn't have politics running the "war " ?
DeleteWe might have "won" but what is the price vs prize?
Do we occupy the nation like we did in Germany and Japan?
Did we really contain communism, looking around current American politics.
Michael
Paweł - Good points.
DeleteMichael - Yup. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt and poorly run. Can't really blame the South Vietnamese grunts for not wanting to fight for that.
DeleteI'm starting to believe that Communism can no more be contained than the common cold, they're both viruses. Communism will always flourish as long as there are stupid people willing to support it and corrupt people wishing to take power via that scam.
Sad agreement. Free *hit sells well. TAX the RICH and all that. Every political cycle proves that point.
DeleteThing with Nixon is he really didn't violate any laws that hadn't been violated by JFK and LBJ, it's just that the eneMedia and the Democratic Party used a highly politicized issue to kill Nixon's career.
DeleteConveniently forgotten was that the phone tapped at the Watergate was used to order hookers and cocaine.
As to South Vietnam, they got their poop together and they were in it to win it, until our f'in Congress refused to help them according to the signed treaty that the very same Congress approved (unlike the 'treaties' that have been done by executive fiat during Clinton, Obama and Bidenzombie's terms.)
Michael - Yes, it sells really well, even if it is all lies.
DeleteBeans - Amen to all that.
DeleteSarge, I never really paid a great deal of attention to the weight versus agility (or in this case, sourcing/cost) debate until I did some recent reading on Moorish Spain (Al-Andalus) and the Reconquista (Sigh. Yet another thing I have lack the time to fully read up on...). Armor and tactics were somewhat different in there, due to a combination of weather, terrain, and opposition. I wonder if this sort of thing could have been argued in this case: e.g., Mosquitos (one of the few airplane models I actually ever finished) for short in close runs (likely earlier in the war) and the heavier bombers for later in the war when cost was maybe a bit less of an issue and you need the additional firepower due to the increased range of travel. Different tools for different purposes, that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteOn the bomb run agility counted for nothing, aircraft had to stay straight and level to get the bombs on target. It was also part of the plan to get a LOT of bombs on the target so the aircraft flew in large formations.
DeleteThere were also a lot of purpose-built twin engine bombers used by the Allies in WWII, the B-26 and the B-25 immediately spring to mind. They were used for the shorter range targets and once we were on the Continent were part of the tactical air forces, bombing targets near the front to support the ground troops.
Much of the push for daylight strategic bombing came from the theorists who were trying to prove a point. Their point was wrong (Douhet's theory that "the bomber will always get through" was a crock of horse dung) but like true believers everywhere, they just wouldn't quit until the evidence was overwhelming. Also, there was a push for an independent Air Force during the war.
Politics always plays a role.
And the accuracy of the Norden bombsight was very much blown all out of proportion. And didn't work well at all in areas with lots of levels of cross-winds, like over Japan.
DeleteBetter than what others had, but not as good as some folks would have you believe.
DeleteSarge, interesting that having the resources the US developed similar aircraft in pairs (the B-17/B-24, the P-47/P-51, the B-25/B-26) perhaps in case one didn't work out. It turned out each found a particular niche. An exception is the P-38, perhaps the closest to Mosquito in performance. If only she could have been fitted with Merlin engines (instead of those accursed Allisons) and Fowler flaps from the onset...
DeleteInteresting.
DeleteOne thing about Mosquito: scalability of the production. It needed a very specific type of wood, namely South American balsa (I've learnt about this wood in my youth airplane modelling days...) imported to UK and not available in huge quantities.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think that was mentioned in that Reddit discussion.
DeleteBut if the supply chain could be maintained (or swapped for another suitable wood), it seems brilliant. Sure, a fighter isn't as imposing, but they're smaller targets, and higher numbers, even with a slightly lighter load, would increase bombs on target for less cost, less men, etc. Or am I missing something?
DeleteI realize that's a lot of "ifs" though.
DeleteI think part of the problem here is that the supply chain probably couldn't be maintained. There was a lot of stuff coming across the Atlantic to support the war effort. Had the Mosquito been available before the war and someone had thought it would be a useful bomber, then perhaps it might have worked. Would have required a lot of people changing their minds and getting someone to pay for it.
DeleteThe Mosquito being a smaller target isn't really a factor, the Germans had a lot of Flak and a lot of fighters to oppose the bomber stream, especially during daylight raids. Also those two crew members in the Mossie were among some of the most highly trained airmen of the war. Would not have been easy generating the number of men fully trained in those roles. But a lot of this was discussed in that Reddit thread. (Which also had a link to Mosquito encounters with the Me-262 German fighter jet, interesting stuff.)
There are always lots of "ifs" in life.
Delete"Quantity has a quality all its own" (often misattributed to Stalin) holds true. The debate over twin or quad engined bombers dropping small, medium or large bombs is a valid one. But, only if you have the production and logistics capacity to create the luxury of making such choices. Especially in wartime when production facilities, workers and raw materials have competing priorities to make stuff, while the enemy gets a vote as to what actually will get to the users.
ReplyDeleteHuman factors play a part too. The self assured big shots who know it all (when they might not), the egos who protect their reputations, politicians (some overlap with previous) who may place their own power above all other interests, and the natural tendency of people to resist change when confronted with new and unconventional ideas.
Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. Picking the best (or least bad) option when engaged in a war, with conflicting intelligence, high stress, sleep deprivation, and constant streams of urgent decisions to be made can result in bad or wrong decisions, but sometimes the right ones are made in some cases.
Churchill's support for R.V. Jones and "Wizard War" projects, the support for cryptological efforts, and his masterful leadership inspiring the British people and armed forces were all huge factors. His cooperation with Allies, including Stalin, an ally by the sole virtue of being the enemy of our enemy, helped fight the war with global strategy. The sacrifice of Coventry in lieu of giving away knowledge of our breaking the German codes was a tradeoff.
Bombers were not an "either/or" option, and picking both was probably the best decision for manufacturing. Employment for strategic missions early on was about the only option, but the tactical use was really important when "ground support" was essential, and stroking the egos of the bomber mafia less so. (Anyone wanna debate A-10s vs everything else in the USAF inventory, and ground support mission vs everything else? (Muddy booted grunts somehow are not invited to that discussion in the USAF O' Club on the golf course.)
Alternate history is a great discussion topic. Understanding history of past actions, decisions, and technology is important too, where facts become more important than hindsight opinions. As ADM Rickover said "Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live ling enough to make them all yourself."
John Blackshoe
My old service's unflinching hatred of the magnificent A-10 grates on me. Every, damn, day.
DeleteRoger that!^^^
DeleteI have to agree with you OAFS. The A-10 is an amazing aircraft. And having worked on the F-35 program, it is not a replacement for the A-10. Those fighter boys always want a shiny new sports car even when a good ol' pick-up is needed to do the job; just look at the canceled A-7F versus the F-16 in the CAS mission.
DeleteTree Mike - 👍
DeleteBillB - I loves me some A-10!
DeleteSarge, the largest load (that I know of) carried by a Lancaster was 22,000 pounds (one Grand slam [earthquake] bomb). Pictures in flight show the wings visibly bending upwards.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine!
DeleteJust to add to the fun the Grand Slam and Tallboy earthquake bombs were not considered expendable and if a mission was scrubbed they had to be brought back for re-use. Barnes Wallis who designed the bomb also wanted to build the 'Victory Bomber', it was envisaged that these bombers would drop grand slam bombs from 40,000 feet on factories and other infrastructure but the imagination was ahead of the available technology and the idea was dropped. I imagine landing a Lancaster with one of those on board would have been 'challenging'.
DeleteRetired
They had to bring them back?
DeleteDear Lord, that is frightening!
There is another Grand Slam story (there are several variants and may be only legend, but here it goes). There was an RAF base in England after the war with a Lancaster on one side of the gate and a Grand Slam on concrete cradles on the other. It was there for years, people posing for pictures, children climbing on it. Then the highway past the base was being widened and it had to be moved. The RAF sent a crane to put the bomb on a trailer. Couldn't budge it. Probably filled with concrete. Or??? An ordinance officer unscrewed an inspection panel. It was live!!! A much bigger civilian crane and heavy lowboy trailer were called in (the account notes that it is not known what, if anything, was said to the crane operator and truck driver). It was gingerly hauled to an ordinance disposal area. Encouraged by an explosive charge, it detonated high order, breaking windows a few miles away.
DeleteOuch.
DeleteBeautiful aircraft! Still my favorite light bomber from that era.
ReplyDelete-drjim.....Google is playing games again....
No doubt Gargle is re-programming everything. They've never learned that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
DeleteThey break things daily, things which used to work just fine.
Kinda like the Government, eh Sarge?
DeleteAnd I *still* can't post with my blogger ID.....- drjim
I'm starting to think that Gargle bought the government. I mean, they are for sale, right?
DeleteNot to rain on the parade but as I recall the Strategic Bombing surveys indicated that all of the bombing of cities and most of the bombing of industry was useless and a waste of time, men, money and effort. Neither the Soviets nor the Nazis had heavy bombers and they didn't suffer any noticeable lack of capability for being 'deficient' in this area since we can see from our own Strategic Surveys that the bombing didn't do all that much to hurt the axis war machine except perhaps when it diverted the lion's share of 88mm guns out of the anti-tank role they dominated in the East.
ReplyDeleteOnce the naval blockades were fully in place and ruthlessly applied both the Japanese and Germans were simply going to starve to death once their fuel supplies were cut off.
Would the war have dragged on longer? Perhaps. Would we have spared the lives of millions of women and kids and old people who we bombed to death and what of all the airmen we lost in the doing of it? Different kind of world for sure.
Consider, the war on the continent and in the Pacific was already fought once with bombers and once without them. Did you see any particular difference between the First and Second? Did the First and Second take about as long? Who was literally starving to death at the end of the Wars?
It also drew most of the Germans' limited fighter strength back to the Reich along with the hundreds of thousands of troops needed to man, maintain, and support the fighters, flak guns, radars, and searchlights needed to defend the Reich.
DeleteIf the Germans had had four-engined bombers and anything with the range of a Mustang in 1940, Britain would have collapsed. Not to mention that the only naval blockade in place in Europe was that of England by the U-Boats. Germany drew most of her material from land, she had no overseas commerce to speak of. Ending the Nazi threat demanded an invasion of the Continent which the heavy bomber helped facilitate when Eisenhower directed the heavies to start hitting transportation hubs. The bomber generalshowled furiously about being directed away from their passion, bombing industry and cities. The bomber generals were wrong.
The Pacific was another war entirely, I don't believe that a naval blockade would have defeated Japan in less than ten years. In 1945, after the Germans quit, the American people were extremely war-weary (and that with living safely behind the lines so far from the action that they were never in any real danger). Many were concerned that with the war with Japan dragging on that the American people would eventually say, "Enough."
Bombing Japan didn't end the war and wouldn't have ended the war, but "something had to be done" to show the people that the government was trying its best to end the war.
The Enola Gay and Bocks Car ended the war with two bombing raids.
A large proportion of German 88s were used defending the Reich against those bombers. Close to 50%, plus tens of thousands of lighter flak guns. And nearly a million men involved in air defense. It did hamper German production, and it did suck in major resources that otherwise could've been used at the front -- with some additional war production thrown in. Did the strategic bombing campaign accomplish what its proponents claimed it would? No, but it was far from useless.
DeleteSpot on, Larry.
DeleteThat was me. For some reason I cannot be recognized on this blog again. No doubt a problem on my end. Curtis
ReplyDeleteI'm betting it's Gargle, drjim had trouble commenting as well.
DeleteGargle is the prime example of taking a good thing and making it far worse. They're always "fixing" things which aren't broken. I think it's their business model (according to my sources), they have no real contracts so they have to constantly be "innovating." The only way for a developer at Gargle to get ahead is come up with some new thing, even if it's a bad idea, at least it's "new" and "innovative."
Smacks of the "transformationalists" in our military.
I tried posting yesterday but was unable to do so. Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles on YT had a discussion about the very subject of the Mosquito being used as a replacement for the B-17/B-24, fwiw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wdq0bkRdzE
ReplyDeletePerfect video! Wish I'd run across this earlier.
Delete