dewolf wrote:
"Sometimes" all the bombs don't fall where planned. While no type of field gun is on the OT list, IF you ever need fighters to help finish-off a field that had an errant bomb, it surely would help the fighter guys if our buffers could discover and kill these:
If it meant "only" closing two fields rather than three, from a purely fighter guy perspective, it would be "worth" it. Additionally, the less time our buffs spend in Injun Country, the more effective your fighter cover can be in protecting you.
You are correct. "Sometimes" they don't fall where we need them, as was evidenced at the third large field that we struck, L71. We left a single radarStn in the middle of the field, even though two 1600lbs were dropped very near it, which weakened it for the guns of the fighter that actually took it down.
What you saw with our bombing run was exactly what needed to happen, in spite of starting with 18 bombers and losing four bombers to disco-no damage and one to enemy fire (disco-with damage). The bomber crews lined up and were able to take care of business
because of the excellent fighter cover. While targets were assigned in advance of the drop zone, changes were being made throughout the entire mission due to disconnections and loss of bombers to enemy fire. We try to add a little extra tonnage to certain targets to make sure we take into account target hardness and inaccurate drops. These bomber pilots from the Nomads and Doolittle's Raiders just make it look easy just like you fighters, while doing what you do.
The primary target (L88) was destroyed, the secondary target (L75) was destroyed, and we were left with just enough bombers/bombs to, perhaps, take down a third target of opportunity (L71). We are well-aware that it was a perfectly executed mission and that those don't come along every frame. We take these fields on one at a time.
FYI, we always make contingency plans if required targets are missed. In the case of frame one, we were going to drop on L88, then on L75, and return to L88 if there were any targets not destroyed and we had ordinance to complete the task. If any targets at L75 were missed, we would have returned to make a second pass on them. Of course, all of this would have depended on the situation with the cons and our own fighters. If the Frame CO evaluated the situation and deemed it too risky, we would have continued our egress back to base.
We will not be targeting everyone of these guns at the fields with our 1600lbs bombs. Our goal will be to close the fields with bombs. We started with 18 bombers (144 bombs) and losing four bombers to disco-no damage and one to enemy fire (disco-with damage) after his drop on L88 (minus about 36 bombs). There were 17 guns just on L88. It would require approximately 45 bombs (with 100% accuracy) to wipe out all hards and all guns at that field alone. In reality, we dropped about 40 bombs just to close all the hards at L88, and about 44 bombs to close L75. And, believe it or not, we only had 24 bombs in the bomb bays to do what we did on L71. That couldn't have been planned any tighter.
Finally, speaking for the bombers, we'll always plan to close between 1-3 fields each frame depending on conditions during each of those frames and the number of bombers we put into the air. I hope that helps the next Frame CO's in their planning.
Sincerely,
Darryl <S>
CO of Doolittle's Raiders
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