Bomber Defensive Gunnery questions

I would like to thank everyone for several things:
1. Keeping the discussion on track and civil.
2. Dealing with the questions as asked, and boy were they answered! THANKS!
3. Expanding the topic to the Pacific. I originally had the ETO in mind as the one to ask this about, but the Pacific is surely important when it comes to bomber tactics, too.

Did the LW use a specific type of fighter for anti-bomber? I mean, were the ME-109 JGs kept as anti-bomber formations while the FW JGs kept as anti-fighter? I am asking out of ignorance so deep it is almost unfathomable, lol.

Also, since we brought up the Pacific (even though this IS an ETO forum) how many casualties did the B-29s take from fighters or flak? Which was worse?

Finally, for any pilots out there, what was worse to face: fighters or flak? I have mentioned elsewhere that my Dad was a navigator on a B-17, and he swore up and down that flak was the WORST GD thing every invented by man. He wanted the bombardier to drop his eggs on the flak batteries surrounding the target and to HELL with the target, lol. My dad was fun, a little odd, but fun.

 

PTO Very Heavy Bombers losses were 74 to enemy aircraft, 54 to flak and 19 attributed to the combination of enemy aircraft and flak.

In the ETO 2,452 heavy bombers were lost to fighters and 2,439 were lost to flak.
In the MTO 847 were lost to fighters and 1,313 lost to flak.

Which was worse was a matter of perspective, but most crews I've talked to or read about seemed to hate flak worse. The general feeling was that they could fight back against fighters, but just had to sit and "take it" against flak.

 

It should also be noted that a fair number of planes lost to fighters were first damaged by FLAK. Furthermore an even greater number of bombers were damaged by FLAK than were damaged by fighters.

 

@ Hummel

both the 109 and Fw 190 were used against the bomber formations, later in July of 44 the first Sturmgruppen, two of them armed with heavier formed Fw 190's were used for literally close-in attacks on US B-24/B-17's and the high cover was provide by much lighter armed but still lethal against bombers Bf 109G-6's.

in usal cases from summer of 44 through Janaury 45 when the Strumgruppen were involved the high cover 109's would engage the higher altitude Mustang squadrons and then once fighting with them and this is the supposed scenario the 109's would then attack any damaged stragglers of the US bombers still left flying. 8 out 10 times the 109's were pretty much dispersed and the heavy Fw's went through the formation from rear to front and then banked off right or to try and form up again as a unit and try a second attack from the rear. The mustangs would of course just wait once the Fw came through the .50 range of the bombers and then pursue the Luftwaffe till there were none left to engage. Hummel this is just an overall operation in real brief form.

 

E.R. Hooton makes the point in his Phoenix Triumphant that the lesson of WWI....AND the interwar period, especially the Spanish Civil War....was that rifle calibre defensive fire FROM bombers was more than enough to minimise the damage fighters armed with rifle calibre armament too could do.

It was actually very difficult for the small handful of lead bullets from a bullet stream that actually intersected the path of another aircraft to hit something that would affect the flightworthyness of that aircraft Control cables are frighteningly thin, ditto electrical wires; fuel tanks were in the main selfsealing and armoured - and in many types empty tanks could be CO2-purged to remove flammable petrol fumes. Oil and coolant lines in engines were good - but again essentially hard to hit - while bomber are blessed with that ultimate get-you-home trick....more than one engine!

ALL sides found ways of either getting more lead on target - RAF multibank fighters for instance - or ways of doing MORE damage from those few rounds that hit - the cannon option But all of them STILL required fighters actually hitting the target - and anything that got in the way of that was beneficial.

Defensive fire was of course only ONE option - Lancaster crews flying at night, especially pilots knew that the REAL way to survive was to actually dive, build up speed and get away from nightfighters who were often operating right at the top of THEIR performance envelope to catch the bomber in the first place! I.E. the best defence was to actually FLY their own aircraft as if it was a fighter - which the Lancaster and before it the Stirling could do.

Which was a tactic that USAAF crews were NOT encouraged to do, with their reliance on the self-protecting box formation

 

Formation flying for day bombers is important. For night bombers given the technology of the period individual operation using the bomber stream was probably a better bet. It decreased the chances of friendly collision in close formation and, allowed the bomber to maneuver. The corkscrew did work well provided the bomber saw the nightfighter in time.
The corkscrew RAF crews used was initiated on the command of any crew member "CORKSCREW RIGHT / LEFT!" The pilot would immediately roll in the direction of the corkscrew and begin a fairly steep climbing turn. As IAS dropped off the pilot would then roll in the opposite direction at the top of the climb and put the nose of the aircraft down to dive. After losing about 500 to feet in altitude he would roll back the other direction and begin to climb again.

Most nations in daylight adopted a V of V's formation with the bombers flying in a series of loose V's of three aircraft with the entire formaton in a larger V. The bombers would be at roughly the same alititude throughout.

As I recounted the best method of attack is the USN one worked out prewar. But, it requires more pilot skill and a knowledge and practice of deflection shooting. Thus, it was beyond the ability of most pilots in most other air services as this was not a widely taught or practiced method of engagement.

The method here is the high or low side pass. The attacking fighers would begin their run from head on to the bomber formation and above it by about 1000 feet. This puts them outside the effective range of defensive fire for all intents.
When the fighter gets just past abeam of the target bomber the pilot puts the fighter into a tight diving (or climbing) turn keeping the bomber in view if possible. As the fighter approaches firing distance the aim point is deflected such that the rounds will strike the wing root area of the bomber as this presents the largest target area possible. The pilot then opens fire.
The advantage to this method is that the attacking fighter throughout the pass presents a deflection target to the defending gunners making defensive fire much harder. This also leaves the fighter in a position to either dive away to avoid enemy escorts or to zoom climb away from the bombers to form up and make another pass.

The problem with it is that it requires a higher level of flying skill and gunnery ability than a head on or stern chase straight gunnery run does.

 

Patrick Bishop notes that Fighter Command pilots were specifically told NOT to attempt to break into a Dornier box formation, because that aircraft's greater degree of defensive fire meant they could self-cover

He ALSO notes that on at least two occasions Huricane pilots DID manage to break into a tight Dornier box formation....and learnt to their cost why they'd been told not to....fatally.

 

I'd say on bomber busting that the Germans hit on the right solution far too late in the war to do any good: The R4M rocket. Had they had this in say 1942 and Fw 190 flying with a load of say 24 to 32 each the US bomber boxes would have been doomed.
These could launch from beyond defensive fire range and one hit was almost certain to take a bomber down. Even if it didn't the damage would have almost certainly forced it out of formation making it an easy kill
A formation of fighters firing these in a cloud at a box would likely have devastated the whole box. Aircraft not hit would have been dodging those that were and the wreckage from them. One pass and then escape for the Luftwaffe pilot and experiance would need to be minimal.

 

I'm a bit ambivalent about the R4M; while it COULD be fired at 1,000 metres, outside the effective range of defensive MGs... this was also on the limit of efective range for the R4M! Which went from 600 metres out to 1,000 metres.

And the various claims for success for them have AFAIK remained just that, claims; have the 14 B-17s in one day in March and 30 in one day in April 1945 claims ever been substantiated?

EDIT: it's perhaps worth noting that the Mk 4 FFAR rocket that the Americans put into service in the late 1940s initially for air-to-air interception that was directly based on the R4M....turned out to be abysmally accurate at longer ranges...

 

Quite possibly had the R4M been available the Germans would revert to head on attacks to reduce flight time and improve accuracy, while this would give the bomber pilots the advantage of seeing it comming the US formations were too tight to allow for much defensive manouvering, but IMO the true answer to the bomber formations is the MK 103, a lot more caccurate than any rocket and could be fired from outside Browning .5 range. The main drawback of the MK103, and it was a big one, was that it was too big to fit in existing single engined fighters, the modified MK 103M tha could be engine mounted was still in the debugging stage in 1945 and there are drawings of a twin wing mounting on a Ta 152 and Me 209. But a squadron of He 219 M2 mod with a four MK 103 ventral pack would be big trouble for a bomber formation, the only defence against it would come from the escort fighters.