In Apple’s “Masters of the Air” series, bomber gunners appear to be firing on German interceptors flying within the formation. The video will address the question, what was the frequency of bomber friendly fire in WWII.
I was about to comment that the damage statistics are only the stats of surviving aircraft. Survivor bias is brutal. IIRC there was someone in WWII who saw the analysis of damage going on and either enacted or convinced powers to enact modifications in the most commonly undamaged areas and they saw greater survivability.. Though that could be twisted memories.. unsure.
@@MaartenHartog not survivor bias Videos showing 30mm’s hitting a B-17’s fuselage, showed it imploding the aircraft, shredding the skin and cutting it in half And it was only 3 rounds that did it 30mm, and 88 flak were THE most effective at killing bombers This is one of the times where it is actually reverse survivorship bias Those that made it back from 30mm fire were the minority
The very low percentage for 30mm cannon fire damage on returning aircraft could be a result of aircraft being attacked by 30mm cannon fire not making it back to be catalogued...
Yeah, he does point out that it is a bit of survivorship bias. Obviously a 30mm striking an engine is going to blow that engine apart, and probably a good chunk of the wing too. One in the bomb bay after the bomber's dropped its payload however is more likely to result in a neat little hole, and maybe some wounded crewmen. It all depends on where, how, and when a plane is hit really.
While I'm sure this is a factor, another potential factor could be a combination of the smaller ammo capacity, lower fire rate, lower muzzle velocity, and more limited barrels leading to fewer hits being scored.
@@chamberlane2899 One of the biggest contributing factors would be that lack of airborne 30mm guns facing B-17s and B-24s. The Germans loved their 7.7, 13, and 20mm guns but the 30mm guns were usually reserved for heavier twin-engines fighters that until the Me-262 wouldn't DARE going close to a bomber box, especially not an escorted one. Usually German heavy fighters job was to lob rockets at long range to break the formations up for the smaller fighters to single bombers out. German ground-based 30mm guns just didn't have the range to reach and formation of bombers at altitude.
@@Armoredcompany the Germans did make extensive efforts to uprate the armaments of their 109Gs, with several of the later variants of this variant receiving a 30 cal fired through the propellor hub. All of the issues I’ve outlined above would have likely diminished its effectiveness, particularly in the lighter aircraft that could only carry the one gun and a couple dozen rounds. Of course, for various reasons (a big one likely being the East’s lack of heavy bombers), lighter armaments would remain in production and in operational use. I am unfortunately unaware of any English documentation about the concentrations of each model of fighter and I have been unsuccessful in finding anything about what version of the 109G was the most widely produced.
7:04 That is an interesting detail, taking an advantage of the P-38s distinctiveness. ( For the record, I always had a fondness for Lightning, mainly because it looks so cool )
I liked that bit of logical thinking! I wonder if they overestimated the number of German planes which would be near the beaches on D-Day? Still, they seem to have prepared for everythinG
@@stephenhosking7384If the months of deception and secrecy hadn't worked, I have no doubt the Luftwaffe would have thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at the landings. It would have been at great cost but the extra aerial protection would have earned their paychecks that day. Given that fighters can still attack ground targets, the extra help still didn't go to waste.
I get the feeling that this theory was also used for determining the P47s use as a fighter-bomber after D-Day. It's got a very distinctive "Milk Jug" shape to the fuselage (where the "Jug" nickname comes from), and the wing shape was nothing like anything the Germans had. Allied SPAA crews could very easily recognize it. The same applies to the Typhoon and Tempest as well. However, I can see the point of using the P-38 for high-cover in this light as well. Not only is it boneheadedly simple to ID, it's also incredibly lethal as an interceptor as well. If anything were to threaten the invasion fleet, a P-38 was the best choice to take it down before it could make an attack.
Some of the reasons the "Jug" was relegated (initially just allowed go down to hit targets of opportunity after escort missions) to ground attack were: 1) It was a very robust design- the air cooled radial engine could (and did) take hits and still get home.. as there was no radiator to puncture leading to overheating due to loss of coolant (a problem for the mustang) and the radial engine could (and did) have several of it's 18 cylinders shot away and continue to run... so long as it didn't run out of oil (28.6 gallon oil tank... so there is some grace period there before the engine seizes ... there was armor both in front and behind the pilot ... 2) It had more guns and ammo than the Mustang .... 8 50's to the Mustang's 6, and 425 rounds per gun to the Mustang' 380 per gun ... and it had power and lift to spare, so it could carry more bombs or rockets (or both) than the Mustang ... It wasn't designed as a ground attack plane, but it excelled at that task anyway ... @@Tank50us
I know a man who flew both the P-38 and the P-51 in WW2 in England. Asked him which one he like the best. He responded with. “ The Lightning got me home three times and the Mustang didn’t get me home once.”
The Lightning had problems with compressibility many pilots last seen in a dive they could not recover from. The Allison engines where unreliable on full boost and had to constantly be changed out. So says a US test pilot who knew them intimately. The guns being in the nose was good when attacking but it’s size and weight made it less manoeuvrable, experienced German Pilots said they were easy meat. That is why they where shifted out of the European Theatre of operation. The Jug also experienced compressibility problems which again lost a number of Pilots last seen in a dive, it was moved into lower level ground attack role where it excelled as is was built like a tank. The P51 had the highest compressibility number and was super manoeuvrable and had extremely long legs the Merlin was extremely reliable for a combat engine. The Jug was moved out of bomber escort for a reason. Who called the shots on that Lieutenant General James Doolittle. I think he knew a bit about flying and a bit about aircraft. Source of the compressibility numbers the Brits as they actually had test gear to check it. See Wings on my sleeve by Eric Winkle Brown he tested them. I for one one would not argue with either, they knew their stuff and where at the top of their game.
The problem is not knowing whether he was hit more in the P38 more than he would have been had he been in a P51 under the exact same circumstances. It’s impossible to do apples to apples comparisons without a lot of data.
@@thomasstanworthexactly, also the aircraft flew different missions, we've no clue if his mustang missions were alot more dangerous (almost certain they were) than the lightning missions which were mostly used for ground attack and not combat air patrol, long range escort, air offensives Just cannot compare these 2, also we've no clue how many flights in each. Could've flown the 51 once and got shot down y'know.
@@jamesmaddison4546 Ground attack was a much more dangerous mission than long range escort where the targets of the Germans were usually the bombers, not the fighters.
It was quite informative that ammo links and spent casings were a higher source of damage than friendly fire. Also that more "Friendly fire" was self inflicted that by other bombers was a good point to the situational awareness of the gunners.
I frequent a CAF museum near my house. Walking through the b-17 and closing my eyes to try to imagine the rumble of the engines, the concussive gunfire the screaming wind and the sky blotted out by friendlies and flak. What an incredible and horrible experience it must have been. They don't make em like they used to..
@@alexanderlarsen6412 You have no knowledge of the history of the era. The B-17 was famous as the toughest of the four engine bombers. They'd come home from beatings that would down a B-24 and the B-29s were never battle tested as hard, arriving relatively late to the war as they did.
They took the 50cal out of the radio compartment because he basically kept shooting up the tail . my father was a Waist gunner on a B-17 in the 8th AAF. He also said that they were given a time that the escorts would arrive during the briefing and about a minute before that time you could see a pair of P-51'S rocking there wings back and forth fly parallel to the box then head off to fly distant escort . letting the bomber crews know they were on site .
Probably more due to fighter escort availability. My reading of B-17 crews is that the radio gun position allowed a top gun position that allowed the top turret to focus more on foreward attacks. Though a more interesting move would have been to upgrade the radio position to a turret
going all the way back to ww1 engineers knew how to disable mg fire to not shoot off propellers let alone wings and or tails. Not only could the radio compartment NOT shoot off their own tail it is slightly ignorant to post this saying they essentially didn't know what they were doing. Just like your father those top gunners were trained.
@@steve2070 To be fair, in the book "Three Engines, Half a wing, and a Prayer" (Brian O'Neill), which is the story of a B-17 crew through their tour of duty from the summer of 1943 to early 1944 (they flew BOTH Schweinfurt missions!), in the second Schweinfurt mission one of the waist gunners accidentally put some 50-caliber rounds into the horizontal stabilizer on his side of the plane. He was sheepish about it, and the other crew kidded him, but as one crewman recounted "we all knew that was an easy thing to do in the heat of combat". So it was possible. The same book recounts the experiences of radio gunners, and one of them two said you had to be careful not to hit the vertical stabilizer, but none of them did. My understanding is that the flexible guns had no stops like the guns in turrets had to prevent hitting your own plane. One of the things I would have argued for, despite the weight restrictions, is instead of eliminating the radio gun position, to upgrade it to a turret position like in the YB-40, making much more capable. Even if its cone of fire was limited rearward, to the 3 to 9 o'clock positions, it could provide extra support for tail attacks, covering the 4-5 and 7-8 o'clock positions not covered well by either the tail or waist guns, plus assist the waist guns in flank attacks, and the top turret in diving attacks from above. I recall the turret weighed about 500 lbs, which is one bomb. The other thing I would have done (if possible) is to fit a 20 mm cannon with the twin 50s in the tail. This would have protected the bomber from the better-protected "bomber destroyer" twin-engined aircraft of 1943-44 as well as the "Strumgruppen" attacks later in 1944. The "Sturmgruppen" attacks were performed by uparmored FW-190s armed with 4 x 30 mm cannon; their attacks came directly from the 6 o'clock position and the idea was that the extra armor would protect the pilot and keep the fighter flying long enough to survive the fire from the tail's twin 50s until the fighter closed to 'can't miss' range (100 meters). At that range, a single second or less burst from 4 x 30 mm cannons would rip any bomber apart. The FW-190 was usually so badly shot-up in these attacks the pilot would have to either bail out or crash-land the fighter. Including a 20-mm cannon in the tail could have countered this tactic as being able to pump two or three or more seconds of 20 mm fire (possibly 16-24 cannon hits) into the fighter's engine before it even came into firing range, which would have blown out the engine, resulting in a loss of speed and the German pilot being unable to control the fighter well enough to aim. I realize that these changes would mean extra weight. If I had to sacrifice anything I would have maybe trimmed the ammo load. By mid- or late 1944, with fighter escorts, German fighter attacks were increasingly rare events. Even when they happened, it was more like a "few minutes of hell"; the bombers weren't having to fight their way all the way to and from the target like the summer and fall of 1943. But in those rare instances German fighters got through the escorts, the bombers needed as many capable guns as they could reasonably carry to survive.
@@stewartmillen7708 Cannons in the tail would be interesting. A 110 tactic against isolated B-17s with exposed 6s, either because of mechanical trouble or because they are in the rear of the formation, was to simply fly behind the B-17 at a decent range and methodically pump it full of 20 and 30 mm. There's a Luftwaffe gun cam that's been AI colorized and sound designed on Druid Works RU-vid where you see a 110 do just that. It just trails this lone B-17 and methodically and brutally proceeds to kill the tail gunner, then the ball turret gunner, and then move closer and go to work on the engines. Wasn't much the tail gunner could do before he was killed and there was even less the ball turret gunner could do before he was killed and then it was just over. That said I just don't think the powers that be were all that concerned about the ability of a lone B-17 to defend itself. A lone B-17 was basically just fucked. Even in mass formations B-17s took just awful losses. It wasn't until we had fighters that had the range to support them all the way and we took aerial supremacy that things turned around. I mean the difference between 25 missions in 1943 and 30 missions in late 44-45 was huge. Btw that B-17 takes many bursts from both 20 and 30 mm including on its engines and keeps going. You'd be surprised. Those things really could take a beating.
@@Ben-zr4ho Any Me-110 couldn't just methodically pump 20 mm and 30 mm rounds into a B-17, as you say, because the 0.50s on the tail, ball, and top turrets (1000 yards range) outrange the Me-110's 20 mms (600 yards) and 30 mms (300 yards max, though 100 meters was best). The problem for bomber defense is that a twin-engined plane like the Me-110 could take more punishment than an equivalent single-engine fighter, so it was harder for the bomber gunners to destroy, disable, for drive away such a plane before it came into range of its guns. The Ju88 especially in this role had a reputation for absorbing all the punishment the gunners could dish out to it. (PS. Is the footage you are referring to that of a (supposed) Me-110 attacking a lone B-17 with no other plane in the sky, with the apparently undamaged B-17 neither apparently shooting back or taking any evasive action? Personally, I think the crew of that bomber had already jumped, as the ball turret guns are pointed straight down (which is the exit position for the ball turret gunner). I think that plane has no one on it and it's on auto-piilot. Some have said that was a decoy plane. No wonder then why the Me-110 was taking such a leisurely approach.) So a rear attack on a B-17, either solo or in formation, is largely a question of "can the bomber gunners destroy or drive off the attacking fighter before it comes into range of the fighter's guns?" The bomber gunners have the range advantage, and the ruggedness of their bomber, against the firepower advantage of the attacking fighter. (There also may be a modest advantage in the bomber gunner's ability to hit its target, compared to the fighter). I would also dispute that a lone B-17 was intrinsically a sitting duck out-of-formation. Yes, being out of formation was certainly not good; but I argue the real reason that such bombers were "easy meat" for Luftwaffe fighters was the fact that to be out of formation, a B-17 typically had already suffered severe damage. The two most common reason why it would fall behind is that It had either lost two out of its four engines, or had major structural damage (like a large hole in the fuselage, nose, etc, from a direct flak hit that created drag). In many cases such a bomber already has gun positions and/or gunners out of commission. Moreover, while bombers could do some evasive action, but any bomber that had such suffered such damage would likely also have control cables, flaps, ailerons, and other maneuver devices shot out too, and would be unable to do much evasive action. There were bombers that beat those odds and made it back. On the the Second Schweinfurt mission, "Brennan's Circus", for instance, lost an engine, fell out formation (because it had difficulty in releasing its bombs; B-17s that lost an engine but could jettison their bombs could still keep up). It then "hit the deck" towards lower altitudes, being credited in destroying four of the German fighters which attacked it on the way down, though at the cost of another engine. It made it to the French coast when a third engine quit, but managed to make it almost to England before ditching into the Channel. But this B-17's story demonstrates my point, after a fashion--it fell out of formation due to being temporarily unable to jettison its bombs, but was in most other ways a battle-worthy aircraft, which is why it was able to fight its way back.
There's a fleeting mention of 'survivorship bias' at the end. It might make an interesting video to cover the work of the statistician Abraham Wald, tasked with assessing damage to aircraft during WWII. He successfully argued that, contrary to initial assumptions, the maps charting battle damage to aircraft structures were actually pointing to areas of strength, not weakness.
I kept thinking about survivor bias throughout the video. But I can’t think of any way to correct for it. Anyway, fascinating topic well-researched. Thank you.
He covers this in one of his videos. How reinforcement needed to be made not to where there was damage observed on return planes, but to where there was no damage observed. The logic as you stated, those planes that took damage to places and returned showed that the air frame could survive damage there, but since no damage was observed on returning planes in other locations it could mean that those planes damaged in those places during combat did not return. It was a brilliant observation.
@@donvanatta6545 I thought the same thing and posted this comment in the comment section, "At 4:41 it says that 1.6 percent of the casualties of heavy bombers was from friendly fire or self inflicted damage, than at at 5:55 it states that when faced with heavy opposition as much as 20 percent of all machine gun hits are friendly in origin, note hits not casualties. While only a portion of a bombing flight might be facing heavy opposition it seems to me that there is some survival bias in the 1.6 percent. It was impossible to know the exact statistics for those planes that never returned."
Forty years ago, I obtained a copy of "Double Strike" about the two disastrous Schweinfurt raids. That book pointed out the damage caused by "fallen brass and linkages". I have a couple of empty .50 cases and I can imagine the damage one or more of those could cause hurtling through the air. A lot of war movies had the stock footage of a flying P-51 (probably the same plane over and over again) and the stream of ejected cases pouring out from under the wings was impressive.
They tried Schweinfurt without adequate fighter coverage. It didn't work. Decisions that that tended to increase the number of aircraft declaring an emergency and landing in Switzerland or Sweden. The best fighter escorts were the Red Tails in Italy - a Black fighter squadron that demonstrated the best discipline of any fighter group in the war. Rather than chase incoming Axis fighters, they broke up attacks and then returned to their overwatch position, thus keeping the bombers safer. They also had a practice of sending one or two fighters to accompany a damaged aircraft as it limped home, something that earned them a very large dividend of gratitude in the bomber groups.
@@charsbob I really appreciate this anecdote and it reminded me of why I need to watch "Red Tails" (2012) again. But despite my this, I'm left wondering how this relates to the topic of falling shell cases?
Bombers didn’t dump casings in combat - they piled up on the fuselage floors. There were cases of bombers being hit and destroyed by bombs dropped from aircraft above them however…
My dad, Ray Bever, was a waist gun trainer in the USAAF in I think Georgia during WWII. He told a war story about when he was flying a towed training target in one plane the gunner in training, in another plane shot up the aircraft my dad was in rather than the towed target. My dad calmly stated holes started appearing all around him as he sat at the controls of the towed target. 😊
I really can't understand what you are saying. Was your dad flying the target? Because that's what it sounds like. If so, then the target is supposed to get shot.
I'm confused... Wouldn't it be the USAAC, as the airforce was, at the time, called the Army Air Corps? I could be way off target on this one. Anyone know for sure?
I have the flight log of a P47 pilot flying 105 missions from Duxford. He told me once that a well liked colonel in his group was lost on his first mission. I asked him how and he said nobody knew. But in his personal log notes there is an entry "Coln Pete shot down by our bombers".
@@kiwisteve6598I did that in an old PC B-17 game . In the tail turret as a two planes come up in a pursuit curve from 4 low. A 190 flashes over before I got the guns around. I missed you but I'll get your fat friend I said. A burst sets the trailing plane on fire. Wait planes can't get fat, well crap. As a Jug resembling a comet hurtles by
Not to mention target fixation is a real thing. Gunners becoming fixated target and not seeing aircraft behind it or in the direction of their swing as they are leading their target.
In the early 1960’s, I attended a private elementary school in Los Angeles called the John Thomas Dye lll School. The kindly midwestern couple who had started the school years earlier still ran it when I was there. They had named it in memory of their only son, who had served as a navigator on a B-17 during WW2. On a mission over Austria, another bomber in the formation had dropped its bombs directly on their son’s plane, splitting it in two…
At 300 to 600 rounds per gun at 750 to 850 rounds per minute, that is less than 1 minute of firing time. I was "50" door gunner in Vietnam. I carried 1,200 rounds of ammo. My 50 cal was the ground pounder model like the ones on a tank and fired at half the speed as the aviation model. I could expend all ammo in just under 5 minutes in a heavy firefight. It wasn't unusual to get scrambled, get on target expend all the ammo and be back on the ground in 20 minutes or less. I tell people we usually ran out of ammo before we ran out of adrenalin. I wouldn't want to have been a gunner on a bomber find WWII.
Thanks for sharing your story. I think you're spot on in your assessment. I've read a few times the WWII gunners were trained to only fire if fired upon. Ammo conservation was probably one of the reasons. They had to make it count.
My father grew up in Nazi occupied Holland during WW2, and he would tell me stories of how they as kids would watch the dogfights… I always wondered what possible causalities would be caused to civilians with millions of rounds of spent ammunition falling to the ground ?
I would imagine many people, especially children would go out and watch these massive formations passing over. I guess that as soon as word got around that someone had been killed on the ground, then people’s interest might be replaced by self preservation!
I do know that shots fired in the air from ground have wounded and killed people. These are smaller caliber rounds, so I would imagine .50 caliber, 20 mm, and 30 mm would be more lethal if they were to hit someone on the ground.
I have wondered the same thing. A 50 cal or 20mm round falling from 25,000 ft. would be traveling very fast and carry a big punch. Even going in your house wouldn't help much I would think. That stuff would go right thru a roof.
I've watched a good number of your videos and thoroughly enjoy the matter of fact presentations using available original documents, and a (somewhat) rapid fire way of doing this. Well scripted and by no means amateurish. It provides a very good insight into the issues of conducting bombing missions in the second world war. A lot of work goes into these videos and I appreciate it. Thank You.
I remember reading a book that was a series of stories told by the men who flew with the eight air-force in WWII (I think it was called "The mighty Eight") anyway one of the stories was of a commander who lost co-pilot to a .50 round to the head. He changed that detail in the official report to say it was a 20mm because he didn't want a witch hunt is his wing for the man responsible
@pommunist no idea. I read this book when I was in grade school in the late 90's. I'd assume the same or similar way they can tell what bullet struck the aircraft in the charts mentioned in this video
Has there been analysis of the statistics for US Navy AA deck crew casualties from AA fire? When one sees video especially of kamikaze attacks, the air is absolutely filled with tracers. The AA crew firing at more distant kamikaze targets would have been on 40mm and 20mm AA guns and I'd think those weapons had enough range to hit friendly warships even 4-5 miles away. The deck AA crews were largely unprotected, so one imagines casualties occurred.
My uncle was on an escort carrier where they shot down a US fighter that was chasing a kamikaze - the US pilot didn’t break off “so we got both of them”.
The key takeaway for me was the table at 4:36. The total incidents of damage per damaged plane was only a little over 1.10 on average whihc meant that very few planes came back riddled with holes. Far more likely is that most damaged planes came back with a single bullet hole or piece of flak damage with only the very odd plane coming back shot to hell. This seems right - if your plane really was knocked about it would probably drop out of formation and be finished off by enemy fighters or be forced to ditch or belly land before making it back to England, only a very very few would be shot to hell AND have enough engine power and fuel to get home.
My father began the Second World War as a junior gunnery officer on a light cruiser, before heading back to the US to learn how to fly in mid-42. I said something one day to him about how well disciplined the AA gun crews must have been to have avoided shooting up the ships that were steaming nearby when they came under air attack and also how assiduously each bridge crew of each ship must have been to stay out of AA range from their fellow ships. My dad said something to the effect of "Nah, we missed each other mostly out of luck". Yikes.
WAR is Hell! I served during Vietnam but thankfully avoided going in country, but I served with Combat Veterans and of my several uncles that served in WII one was POW from BATAN and died on a HELL ship sunk by a U.S. submarine in October 1944 and another commited suicide in 1965! My experience by association is that WAR NEVER LEAVES YOU!
As others have mentioned, there's a problem with survivorship bias in that report. Shells and links caused non-catesrophic damage to planes that returned. Enemy fighters were rightly feared because their aimed damage often caused bombers to crash.
I've had this question in my head for over 50 years, watching black-and-white WW2 footage made me think surely they must be hitting friendly aircraft..and I wonder if propaganda may have kept the hits stats lower for moral purposes. Well done and thank you..
My dad had said he was in debriefing at Bassingbourne following a mission. Someone at a debriefing table next to his was asked if he had any planes to claim shooting down? “Yeah! I think I got me a Spitfire!” Was his answer. Apparently a flight of Spitfires had pointed their noses at the formation and took some fire from the flight.
My father-in-law was a waist gunner on a B-17 and he did describe an incident when a P-51 pilot approached their formation nose-first rather than at a shallow angle. A green waist gunner in another B-17 shot him down. After the investigation, the P-51 pilot was grounded and busted in rank, but the gunner was given a "please don't do that again" and sent back to his squadron.
Back in my Warbirds days I had the opportunity to meet Franz Stigler at the 1999 Convention. He and Charlie Brown were the guests of honor. The rather weak 30mm damage model in WB was a matter of some controversy in those days so we who flew mostly LW asked him how many 30mm hits it took to shoot down a B-17. His reply was "One or two."
My dad flew 2 tours as a B17 ball turret gunner. He spoke of 2 instances, once he shot the bomb bay doors of his own plane, in another incident, while shooting at an enemy aircraft he hit an accompanying B17, putting some rounds into the cockpit area. No one was injured but that pilot had to be held back because he was going to kick my dads ass.
There was a study to assess placement of additional armour. Aircraft that returned sustained hits in various parts of the airframe....EXCEPT in the engines & cockpit.
My father was an RAF heavy bomber pilot, flying Halifax MkIII and MkVI. Flew in a number of the 1000 bomber raids later in the War. His main concerns were making sure there were no bombers directly overhead over the target. A job alocated to his mid upper gunner. And german fighters who targeted them comming home when they were out of formation and more vulnerable. German fighters rarely ventured into large formations on the way to the target. US bombers had more gun defenses and more crew but the planes were slower and did more daytime raids as opposed to the RAF nightime raids. The heavy armament of the US planes may be a contributing factor.
A bunch of years ago, I had a chance to chat with a fellow who was a B-17 radio operator. He flew 5 missions before being shot down during Big Week. He said he couldn't see much from his position but would fire blindly when the top turret was firing. He also said that every mission they came home from, they found a .50 cal round in the ice boot on the vertical stabilizer.
These are great videos with tons of good information. Since grade school in the 60s I have read so many books written by pilots who survived the war, and this info goes well with those real-life accounts.
Also these damage assessments are from returning bombers so there is definitely survivor bias. We don't always know what took out the bombers that didn't return. It may be the percentages are similar or that fighters were much less likely to let a bomber return.
You’re not wrong. The numbers varied during the course of the war. Early on bombers encountered more fighters and suffered more damage from them. By 1944-45 as fighter opposition was less from attrition and escorts, the loss percentage from flak greatly increased.
Very informative! War movies from the time period seem to depict fighters as the leading cause of destruction when it was actually flak causing the overwhelming damage.
By the time the Allies invaded France, the combined navies had had a snootful of being bombed by their own aircraft. They shot at anything with wings. Using P-38s could have been an adaptation, as were the "invasion stripes" painted on anything flying for the Allies. The best place to be in a bomber formation was near the front and high. That way you didn't get hit by all the trash coming down from other aircraft, you weren't liable to be hit by falling bombs from someone who had slipped or fallen or been shot out of formation, and you weren't in front and thus subject to the concentrated attacks made on a bomber formation leader. Regardless, flying daytime bombing raids over Europe was terrifying - rightfully so, since the odds of being wounded or killed in the required 25 missions approached certainty.
"since the odds of being wounded or killed in the required 25 missions approached certainty." - Odds of surviving 25 missions were about 60% - there is video about that on this channel :) Do not post myths here, they were most likely already debunked hundred videos before :D
You have a point. I should have been more specific. High losses were common through early 1944, before emphasis shifted to preparation for D-Day and the introduction of long-range fighters. To some extent this was offset by the rising losses in night operations. My information suggests that at its worst, the chances of being killed in air operations in that dark time approached 75%.
Very Interesting. Many years ago when I supervised the writing of the USAF B-52D/G/H tail gunner exam, the listed max effective range had increased to 1600 meters for both the Quad-50 and the 20mm Vulcan. Of course these were stabilized and supported by computer aided gun sights. On a separate issue, I noticed in one of your load tables only certain runs of B-17Fs had external bomb racks. Have you done a video on the combat employment of these wing racks?
My father was a flight engineer and top turret gunner on a B-24. He told me he once nearly fired on a U.S. fighter aircraft because it maneuvered in a way he was instructed that German aircraft would. Close call.
There were times when an escort fighter with a German fighter on its tail flew across the rear of a B-17 formation and the "little friend" got help from the gunners on the "big friends".
Here is a 8th AF factoid. Of the 15 million US men put into uniform for WW2, 2/3 were draftees. For comparison only about 45% of US military who served in Vietnam were conscripted. Now for the "Rest of the story" as a famous man used to say. A high percentage of those that voluntarily enlisted for WW2, did so according to surveys, so they could avoid the infantry, and many chose the Air Corps for perceived safety. All the press about the Bataan death march prolly had a lot to do with it. Another WW2 factoid to make you scratch your heads, is that in the US Army airborne, the parachutists were all volunteers for the duty, but the glider troops(gliders were way more dangerous it turned out) were not, they were assigned with out a choice in the matter. WW2 factoid 3. In WW2 the USMC had it's own parachute battalions, but they never were given the opportunity for a combat jump.
I wondered about that shot during Masters of the Air. It looked like the waist gunner would have easily sprayed that B17 shooting at that fighter. Good idea for a video.
When compared to enemy fighter machine gun fire, the combination of shell casings and links +50 caliber, friendly fire is a surprisingly high relative value.
Your research and and depth of knowledge continue to impress me. Informative, educational and of great historical value to all of us wannabe armchair historians. Thank you very much for your hard work.
My father was a flight engineer/top turret gunner on a B-24 in the pacific. He said friendly fire was much more common than the air corps was acknowledging. He said when fighters split through a formation it was very easy to accidentally "pepper" one of your own plans in your formation.
It's seems to be to the enemy advantage to put up fighters even if they don't open fire. This induces fire from the formation whereby they hit themselves.
Brilliant 👍 waiting for your analysis of 'Masters of the Air'... 80% of me is glad they highlight to modern audiences the fact of the campaign... 20% is riled by inaccuracies.
have you got any videos on the B-17E belly turret? i have wondered how it works and i am have difficulty finding it in your channel, and it is an interesting topic i want to know more about
My father was a top turret gunner/navigator in the 8th Army Airfare flying over Germany. He told me that no B17 gunner hit any German fighter unless they inadvertently flew into the path of the rounds
Yes, this is incredibly interesting and informative. Any chance you can do a video or series on how long it would take to train up a WW2 US Bomber crew?
Good topic and rich with facts; great job finding these. The reason for the P-38s flying CAP for the D-Day landing force was a good addition to your talk. Re the stats provided @4:52, any idea what caused the significant increase in the number of bombers damaged by flak, almost trebling from Jan (1,198) to May (3,468)?
Great presentation, thank you for your effort. There is one thing I don't understand, though. At first you state that 1.6 % of damage was caused by friendly fire or was self-inflicted. But immediately afterwards the report states that this number went to 20 % when enemy opposition was heavy. This is a 10-fold increase which is not properly explained. If 20 % was the value in case of heavy opposition, what kind of opposition did they face when the value was 1.6 %? What constitutes "heavy opposition"? It feels like this detailed breakdown is immediately demolished by that short statement afterwards.
My friend Bomber Bob was a nose gunner on a b24. They always test fired their guns on the way to target. This was the only time he got shot down. The plane below them shot his plane up on a test fire. They managed to land, but seconds after the last man got out, the plane blew up. Ah, friendly fire, the worst way to get shot down.
They flew straight and level for the bomb run! The flak gunners knew their speed and altitude and location! So it was simple to just fill THAT air with exploding shells! All veterans say flak was the greatest fear!
another good one ... the controls remind me of riding a motorcycle where you use both hands and both feet ... right hand brake and throttle, left hand clutch, right foot brake and left foot gear shift ... i might have missed it, but were any of turreted guns sighted to converge at some distance? thanks, great info.
That maximum effective range was due to the tracers used. Having fired an M2 in the service the sites cannot be used after the first round. On D-Day they also painted the black and white stripes on the planes to make identification easier.
