B-17 vs Avro Lancaster

[rickshaw]

You might find Alfred Price's book "Instruments  of Darkness"  (ISBN 13: 9780586048344
Publisher: HarperCollins) useful to  illuminate some aspects of electronic warfare.

R V Jones "Most Secret War " ISBN 13 9780340241691  Coronet   is also fascinating.

Wiki data on a 1977  BBC documentary series "The Secret War"    (I saw it first time around)  gives avenues for further investigation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_(TV_series)

The Doco series "The Secret War" is based on R.V.Jones's book of the same name.  It's now known that Jones, who was trying to was still being a tad reticent about what he revealed.  It's a fairly complicated story as to why "The Secret War" was even written and published but essentially when David Kahn broke the Ultra/Enigma story in 1967 in his book "The Codebreakers" in the US, Jones appealed to the UK Government to allow him to reveal it and other aspects of the backroom Boffins' story.  He was given permission.   He speaks about it more extensively in his sequel to "The Secret War", "Reflections on Intelligence,"  which is about his involvement in post-war intelligence.  Unfortunately, "Reflections on Intelligence" is no where as well written or as entertaining as "The Secret War".

[wuzak]

As mentioned before, the range was limited. The documentary The Secret War: To See for 100 Miles gives the range as far as The Ruhr Valley, ~350 miles. Certainly not far enough for the 8th AF to attack oil installations and aircraft industries, many of which lay further east than Berlin.

I know the USAAF was made aware of the Oboe, were we made aware of the repeater?

Yes, the USAAF was made aware of the Oboe Repeata system for extending the system's range. However, the Repeata was still only in trial development during that period (late 1943). Note that it did not go into action during the war.

Also at that time Bomber Command were starting to use H2S Mk III and the Americans H2X. H2X is described as an American development of H2S, the difference being that it used a shorter wavelength (3cm vs 10cm) and gave better detail. The 3cm development was based on the British ASV radar being used in the hunt for U-boats at the time.

There is no escaping from the fact that if the master bomber is halfway between the front and the back of the formation that half the formation has overshot the target before bombs are dropped.

There's a communications gulf here...

• Bombardier releases bombs
  
• Toggleers see it, and hit their bomb release a fraction of a second after seeing the bombardier release his: If they are positioned right all the bombs land in the same point in space
  
• If you have a very long formation positioning a string of master bombers to ensure that each part of the formation releases their loads on the right spot
  

This should be very illustrative with red being the bombardiers, and the rest being toggleers.

X
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X
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X
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X
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That may have been how it was organised. I do not know.

Was there knowledge of this reflex effect?

What reflex effect?

Certainly pilots were put through physical testing, part of which would have involved their reflexes.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Wuzak

Yes, the USAAF was made aware of the Oboe Repeata system for extending the system's range. However, the Repeata was still only in trial development during that period (late 1943).

Fascinating.

BTW: Was it possible for the USAAF 8th AF to convince the RAF that they wouldn't be using the system willy-nilly, simply for targets that require exceptional precision?  Basically the Norden/Sperry would have normally been used for most bombing raids; for exceptional accuracy we'd use the Oboe; for normal bombing in bad weather, we'd use the Radar bombing system?

Note that it did not go into action during the war.

Would they have been willing to have allowed us to collaborate with them in the design of the repeater?  Two heads are sometimes better than one and it could have been useful...

Also at that time Bomber Command were starting to use H2S Mk III and the Americans H2X. H2X is described as an American development of H2S, the difference being that it used a shorter wavelength (3cm vs 10cm) and gave better detail.

CEP was still around 1,000 yds right?

That may have been how it was organised. I do not know.

Where would I go to find out more?

What reflex effect?

Certainly pilots were put through physical testing, part of which would have involved their reflexes.

I know that, but the thing is that it takes a person a certain amount of time to see something, understand what it means; then react to it...  thats what I'm getting at.