How well did American bombers fight enemy fighters in World War II?
score:3
The auto-defense weaponry of American bombers worked, but not in the way you mentionned:
- Speaking about number of enemy fighters shot down by bombers: the number shot down during a battle is negligible compared to the number of bombers shot down in the same fight, either against Japan or Germany
- Speaking about making the bomber survives attacks, and wait for escort fighters to "save" them, it worked
American bombers were able to go through heavy defenses because they were resistant and have enough machine guns to spoil attacks from fighters. This forced ennemy fighters to perform sophisticated attacks, following specific tactics (attack by behind, by below), and not just fly through the bombers and fire. Those tactics were efficent in beating the defense of bombers, but a fighter cover could easily disrupt them.
So the machine guns defenses of bombers were complementary to their robustness and to fighter cover.
Now, there were exceptions:
- In a way: A B-29 performing a recon raid in 1945 was attacked by ennemy fighters: it took advantage of its speed and maximum altitude to flee, shooting down 7 planes in the process. The situation is very specific because the B-29 was equipped for recon so it could contest the speed of ennemy fighters and flee in the direction it wanted (while a bomber is supposed to continue his mission while fighting)
- The other way: In April 1945, a German attack of 24 Fw-190 fighters equipped with rockets were able to destroy 40 B-17 in the raid, because the rockets allowed to attack from nearly any direction (except orthogonal direction), far enough from the machine guns defenses, and with little time since they don't have to fire long gusts: thus the FW-190 were not stuck by bomber's defenses, thus they avoided the fighter cover interference
Upvote:9
Not very well, because it mainly didn't work. The Schweinfurt Raid is an example when it really didn't work.
The bomber always gets through was a pre-war doctrine that looked good on paper, but didn't work in reality. The British discovered this in the beginning of the war: daylight raids were simply too expensive. Most bombers were (a lot) slower than fighters, less well armed and mostly not armoured.
The Americans thought they could counter it with massive armament, making the bombers virtual flying fortresses that mutually supported each other. They learned pretty soon that was not possible. Not even with the amount of .50 cal in many turrets.
20 mm and 30 mm canons in fighters have a much longer range that .50 machine guns. Fighters are more agile than bombers, and much faster. They could pick a victim, the bombers had to fly on.
Evasion wasn't really possible. Yes, they could manoeuvre, but they had to go to their target and back home again. That's a pretty fixed route - and opened them to fighter attacks. Not to mention AA fire, which was something the Germans (not the Japanese) were pretty good at.
The only way to counter this was to fight a war of attrition: we can shoot down more fighters than you can shoot down bombers. This culminated in the Big Week offensive in Feb 1944, where many of the most experienced pilots of the Luftwaffe on the Western front died.
The other factor was fighter protection. Only when long range fighters (a.o. P-51 Mustang) could accompany the bombers all the way, losses became tolerable.
The same applied to both theatres: daylight precision bombing became practical only when Germany/Japan ran out of well-trained fighter pilots. At the same time, allied fighter aircraft got longer range and their pilots got more experience.
The defensive armament of bombers was only of secondary importance.
More post
- 📝 Lion in European monarchies' coats of arms
- 📝 Did Marcus Aurelius ever deliberate about his son's succession?
- 📝 To what extent was the Cold War caused by post World War 2 economics?
- 📝 When is Samonios in comparison to the Gregorian calendar?
- 📝 What were the dates & details of assassinations in Vienna, Austria of Bulgarian defectors Veselin Stoyov, Peter Niezamov, and Ivan Kolev (circa 1974)?
- 📝 What is Renaissance Humanism?
- 📝 How much was the wealthy elite harmed by the Bolshevik revolution?
- 📝 How long has British women royals' solemn ceremonial dress included a sword?
- 📝 Were ice buckets used to chill wine in Victorian England?
- 📝 What is the history behind Library of Congress becoming/being the world's biggest library?
- 📝 End of WWII: potential U.S. atomic bomb production rate
- 📝 What was the status of travelling perfomers in the Middle Ages (specifically, 13th century Germany)?
- 📝 Why didn’t the Chinese leave troops behind in North Korea after the Korean War?
- 📝 What are some other celebrated military failures, besides Gallipoli?
- 📝 Are there any records of ancient people looking for the misdirect in a prophecy?
- 📝 How do vetoes affect re-votes in US Congress?
- 📝 Why didn't the British attack the Continental Congress?
- 📝 How a kingdom or an empire formed?
- 📝 What is this Victorian era British uniform?
- 📝 Why did the Metall und Lackierwarenfabrik company get asked to bid on the creation of the MG42?
- 📝 What was this weapon (or its mechanism), that Iraq was accused of having in the 1990's, called?
- 📝 What was the first supranational organization?
- 📝 Did the Germans have enough bombers to conduct "strategic" bombing of the Soviet Union?
- 📝 When did home weather thermometers become popular/common?
- 📝 Why is China a member of the UN Security Council?
- 📝 Are rural residents more likely to survive large scale war (> 1 million deaths) than urban residents? (Data based answers only)
- 📝 Book recommendation on the Nazis for a (very) advanced reader
- 📝 Did Anglo-Saxons make use of large-scale, non-military Roman ruins?
- 📝 Historical airline schedules?
- 📝 Quantifying economic mobilization?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How well did American bombers fight enemy fighters in World War II?
- 📝 How did life change for the average American as a result of the end of World War 1?
- 📝 How did such a relatively minor event as the assassination of an archduke start World War I?
- 📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
- 📝 How did the American Civil War help the U.S economy recover from the Panic of 1857 given that civil wars are extremely destructive?
- 📝 How did the Allies communicate during World War II?
- 📝 How did Germany rebuild so quickly after World War I?
- 📝 How did the Japanese treat captured "Flying Tigers" in World War II?
- 📝 What percentage of British and American troops were involved in direct combat with enemy in World War II
- 📝 How long did it take US fleet submarines during World War 2 to charge their batteries?
- 📝 How did diplomats of the Axis powers travel and communicate among themselves in World War II
- 📝 World War 1: Why did Italy not fight until 1915?
- 📝 How did the English Civil War affect the American Colonies policy-wise?
- 📝 How did Turkey achieve such a quick military rebound after World War I?
- 📝 How did Admiral King survive his early mistakes in World War II?
- 📝 How did a criminal trial in the Soviet Union work after World War 2?
- 📝 How many rapes did the Wehrmacht commit in the Soviet Union during World War II?
- 📝 During the American Civil war did gunboats range far into enemy territory?
- 📝 How Many German Born American Citizens served for the U.S. in World War II?
- 📝 How Much Did World War Two Cost Financially?
- 📝 Did World War II-era bombs actually whistle?
- 📝 How did pilots know when to release bombs on airplanes during World War2?
- 📝 How were tanks scrapped after World War Two?
- 📝 Did the Soviets excel in one area of weaponry during World War II?
- 📝 What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
- 📝 Why did Chamberlain act to appease Hitler leading up to the outbreak of World War 2?
- 📝 How did the ruling class in the Muslim world react to the discovery and colonization of the Americas?
- 📝 Is it true that Germans in World War 2 did not suffer punishment for refusing genocidal orders?
- 📝 How did the gold of the new world cause the Spanish Empire to collapse?