Bombsights of the RAF & Luftwaffe: 1939 to 1945

[KJ_Lesnick]

I remember the Germans became fixated on dive bombing in part because of accuracy: I'm curious how the early German bombsights (1935-1941) compared to the Course Setting Bombsights used in the RAF bombers (1936-1942).  I specify these years because the Luftwaffe became an official military arm in 1935, and the RAF first had Bomber Command in 1936; by 1941 the Lotfe 7C was available, and by 1942 the Mk.XIV (Blackett) sight was online.

From what I remember the RAF had several basic limitations (as I understand it) with their bombing-accuracy

• Day Operations: They had fighters with limited range and could not rely on them much for escort; they also operated their bombers at lower altitude to maximize bombing accuracy, and in doing so made them more vulnerable to fighter attack a high altitude assault, as well as flak.
  
• Night Operations: Though the RAF did develop methods and training for night-bombing, I'm not sure what training conditions were used and how they compared to combat conditions.  I'm also not sure how many crews were adequately proficient in night-bombing.
  
• Bomb-sights: As far as I grasp it the earlier CSBS required a 30-second level-run to target, and was not as accurate as the Mk.XIV (which also only required 5-10 seconds to compute the impact point).
  
• Bomb-Bay Doors: The later aircraft would have bomb-bay doors that would be opened prior to weapons release; the earlier bombers (Blenheim, Whitley) had bay-doors that were basically opened only by the force of the bombs falling through them: This altered the trajectory of the bombs and greatly degraded accuracy.
  
• Navigation Aids: It would appear that the RAF:BC didn't seem to do much in the field of radio-navigation aids, and this meant that even if the bombers struck an airfield or a railway yard, it wasn't necessarily the one they were supposed to hit.
  
• Sabotage/Espionage: According to Eugene 'Tubby' Vielle, there was Communist infiltration of the RAE: There seemed to be active efforts to avoid selection of proper navigational aids (possibly bombsight technology), active effort to select less effective 'rube goldberg' contraptions (I know the British use a different word, but I forgot) to achieve the desired results.  This is further corroborated by the fact that the government was effectively monitoring some of these people and sabotage/espionage have played at least a partial role in poor navigation and bombardment accuracy from 1939-1941.
  

There was some statements by Richard Overy in "The Bombing War" which indicated there may have been some errors in computing the bombing accuracy, which indicates the RAF might not have been as off target as it was generally lead to be believed, though they did have some spectacular cases:  One case was written by Sir Max Hastings in "Bomber Command", regarded a bomber crew that accidentally bombed an airfield in England (the crew were puzzled by the passing of a pair of RAF fighters; then upon the navigator's calculation, they realized they dropped somewhere over England), Richard Overy, in "The Bombing War" wrote of the fact that the Germans were under the impression that bombing accuracy so poor meant they were trying to intimidate the population.

I'm not sure about the details of the Luftwaffe bombers (particularly the bomb-bay doors), though it seemed as even if their bomb-sights were as accurate as the British, they'd be in the same boat or better.

[dogsbody]

Do you grasp the concept that this is primarily a scale modelling forum? Why are you always asking such technical questions here? Surely there are better places on-line to get answers, especially as you have a history of ignoring or deleting the responses that you disagree with.



Chris

[KJ_Lesnick]

If I post on secretprojects.co.uk, there is such a lengthly time lag between when I post and the moderator approves that the message is already seemingly a page or two below.

[dogsbody]

Just left click on your " profile " on the forum taskbar. Under your avatar image, left click on " show posts ". It will open onto all your posts. Just scroll down to the one you want to check. The Secret Projects forum works just like this one.



Chris

[KJ_Lesnick]

No, that's not the problem: The moderator has required that all posts be approved when I post...

[dogsbody]

I wonder why???

[tahsin]

Does F-35 mean a thing? People have only just grasped she's one staunch defender of it. Supposedly by trolling.

[KJ_Lesnick]

dogsbody

I wonder why???

Evidently because I asked a lot of questions: I figured since it was a forum loaded with experts on esoteric material, it would be the first place to ask a question; they wanted me to do an online search first; then proceed to ask if I couldn't find anything, or find enough.

I was then banned because after posting 800 posts I never contributed anything useful: At least I was allowed to access the forum.  Later, my ban was lifted, though I had to get approval for every single message.


tahsin

Actually, my view of the F-35 isn't very positive: I'm more of an F-22 fan.

[dogsbody]

dogsbody

I wonder why???

Evidently because I asked a lot of questions: I figured since it was a forum loaded with experts on esoteric material, it would be the first place to ask a question; they wanted me to do an online search first; then proceed to ask if I couldn't find anything, or find enough.

I was then banned because after posting 800 posts I never contributed anything useful: At least I was allowed to access the forum.  Later, my ban was lifted, though I had to get approval for every single message.


tahsin

Actually, my view of the F-35 isn't very positive: I'm more of an F-22 fan.

Much the same reason folks here get tired of your un-ending detail-seeking technical questions. This is a what-if scale modelling forum, not the font of all aeronautical knowledge and wisdom.


Chris

[tahsin]

Actually, my view of the F-35 isn't very positive: I'm more of an F-22 fan.

Strangely enough the consensus on Turkish boards is that you got your first ban on Secret Projects after an entirely ___ post on how F-35s would listen to the phone conversations of poor American folk; about 5 posts down of an idea that might or might not deal with bay door gear..

[KJ_Lesnick]

tahsin,

I never said that: Though I might have said the IR/EOTS system would be a possible means of surveillance if used over US soil...

[tahsin]

Why a month? Deployed somewhere?