Interestingly, my uncle flew in RAF bomber command on night missions but also emphasised the importance of staying as close as possible to the centre of the bomber stream for safety. So it wasnt just a matter of covering fire from other bombers.
6:31 The Kommandogerat looks really interesting. The big distance meter is fun, but the big box with a dozen dudes on analog inputs and dials looks similar to the computers shown on the battleship New Jersey channel. I bet there is a nightmare of cogs and differentials doing crazy math tracking the bombers and predicting the firing solution.
Great video the luftwaffe also recognized and credited pilots who would cut bombers out of the formation as being equal to the person that ultimately shot it down
Once again I am delighted by the completeness of your presentation. May I make a request? What were the average ages of the crew members? Also, in another vid the speaker said that there were 20k deaths during training in the US prior to going into the war zone. What were these circumstance and were casualties greater among fighter or bomber trainees. Thanks as always for riveting presentation.
Difficult with air cooled radial engines, the front needs enough area exposed to allow the air in, and then you need movable flaps in the rear for the air to get out. On the B-17 there is also a turbo installation behind the engine, so the entire nacelle would need pretty heavy armor. Wouldn't surprise me if the USAAF leadership believed the armor would prevent them from getting enough bombs on target to be effective. That's not an attack on the generals, though. It's impossible to armor an aircraft sufficiently to guarantee the crew survival in every circumstance, and there has to be a balancing act for risk vs combat effectiveness. Winning the war is the ultimate way to keep your men safe.
I'd love to see a video on the Kommandogerat gun director. Looks like a very sophisticated analog computer able to take a lot of different variables into account and coming up with a firing solution for the batteries nearby. I count 12 guys manning the thing!
I wonder if it also corrects for parallax of the position of the actual different guns/batteries it controls, like the B-29 system from earlier or battleship guns.
There are some good USNavy training films on youtube, starting at the extreme basic level. Search for "fire control computers" or some such, maybe narrowingidown to training, analog, mechanical, etc.
Hence the old saying "The flak is always the heaviest over the target". Crews brought that saying home after the war and applied it to similar lessons in life, like if you're someone investigating corruption and you start getting pressured or threatened from higher ups, then you know you're close to the truth or "over the target", in general it means if things get tough you must be close to the answers about things or what you're looking for.
My uncle's B-24 had two engines shot out by flak over Munster on Nov. 5, 1943. It couldn't climb to the return formation and was riddled by fighters and crashed in the sea off of Holland. The gunners bailed but the officers in front all died, including my uncle.
My great-uncle was shot down in his B-17 in August of 1943 just off the coast of Italy, by Italian Colonel Angelo Tondi flying a captured P-38. Cannon rounds in the cockpit probably killed both him and his pilot immediately.
Great video. It interesting that it often takes more than one "bad thing" to happen to bring down a bomber as that sounds somewhat like a precursor to the "Swiss cheese" model of aviation safety today. My dad was a ball turret gunner in a B-17 so that is my favorite plane. I know a lot about the structure of the aircraft but your videos researching the more obscure history of WWII bombers is very good. By the way, are you on Patron? I was looking for you there but could not find you.
Those guys, including my late Uncle, were like sitting ducks in those things, especially until long-range fighters came on line. I wonder if waist gunners ever hit other planes in the close formation? Thanks for the high-level content.
Waist gunners would not "spray and pray" as depicted in the Hollywood movies, they only had about minute worth of ammunition, it would not last until the target zone. Gunners were trained to only shoot at the fighters performing a direct attack run on the bombers. This would be rather "static" shooting position, so the possibility of friendly fire was small. This channel explained it few times, there are also period gunner training movies here on TH-cam. Edit: This channel did show statistical data how much of the damage on the returning bombers come from 50cal bullets - it was basically negligible.
losses for1945 Europe, 3,602 planes of which1,371 were Fighters, ratio 1:2 Fighters to Flak. When the German airforce "had ceased to exist" Add all other Allied losses.
The B29 losses over Japan? August 1945, is really interesting, these figures are Never talked about! 55 shot down by fighters,52 by Flak, 29 by both, 89 by unknown. Looks like all B29 losses over Japan November 1944 to August 1945 ! so 225 Downed. Thanks greatly for that.
Is there any information about a straggler success rate? I.e. how often did a plane that left the formation successfully evade attack and make it back to base?
I had no idea bombers used IAS for cruise speeds, I always thought they were just flying really slow to conserve fuel. Do you know how fast their TAS would be? I’m guessing it’s in the 200-250mph range but I don’t have information on how off the bomber speed measurements are.
I suspect that is improbable. Flak was set to burst at a specific altitude where the bombers were believed to be flying, generally using some type of mechanical time fuse. Bombs, once dropped, will accelerate with gravity and will be 50 ft away within about 1.25 seconds, so there is an extremely small window for it to affect the bombs in any way. Testing has shown it is pretty difficult to set off explosives inadvertently, with ship magazine explosions (like the Royal Navy battle cruiser explosions at Jutland or USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor) coming from a hit in the propellant magazine, since propellant is much easier to set off. While I realize that can sound ridiculous, the simple fact is that detonation chain in fuses and bombs/shells is fairly complex and gradually builds to the point it can set off the main explosive charge. Low-order detonations that cause the main charge to burn, but not detonate, are not all that unusual. As a case in point, lots of 14" main battery shells were recovered after Arizona's propellant magazine exploded.
Something like two thirds of all Soviet military personnel captured by German in WWII did not survive. For the US alone, some 93,000 US personnel were captured and interned by the Germans. Of those around 1100 died, meaning a slightly better than 99% survival rate. Figures are rounded, so they are very slightly inaccurate, but I really could not be bothered to type in the actual numbers.... They are accurate enough for the purposes of this though, so hope you do not mind. (Clumsy fingers hit post too early, and for some reason would not allow me to edit the initial post.)
Western POWs were fed decently and not deliberately starved. They started starving near the end of the war, but that was because the German food production and distribution system had collapsed, and even Germans were starving. It wasn't deliberate. And since the war ended quickly, there wasn't enough time for the healthy young men in the camps to starve.
A windmilling prop adds drag, making the plane harder to handle and slowing it even more. Also would likely induce yaw in the direction of the windmilling prop.
Great presentation. Thank you for an informative and interesting 2024. I learned a lot from these deep dives.
Thank you for all the hard work!
Interestingly, my uncle flew in RAF bomber command on night missions but also emphasised the importance of staying as close as possible to the centre of the bomber stream for safety. So it wasnt just a matter of covering fire from other bombers.
The Bait Fish School!
6:31 The Kommandogerat looks really interesting. The big distance meter is fun, but the big box with a dozen dudes on analog inputs and dials looks similar to the computers shown on the battleship New Jersey channel. I bet there is a nightmare of cogs and differentials doing crazy math tracking the bombers and predicting the firing solution.
Great video the luftwaffe also recognized and credited pilots who would cut bombers out of the formation as being equal to the person that ultimately shot it down
This brings back Gregory Peck's lecture on "group integrity" in the movie "12 O'clock High"...
Once again I am delighted by the completeness of your presentation.
May I make a request? What were the average ages of the crew members? Also, in another vid the speaker said that there were 20k deaths during training in the US prior to going into the war zone. What were these circumstance and were casualties greater among fighter or bomber trainees.
Thanks as always for riveting presentation.
Seems like the other takeaway from this video is that the engines needed greater protection.
Difficult with air cooled radial engines, the front needs enough area exposed to allow the air in, and then you need movable flaps in the rear for the air to get out. On the B-17 there is also a turbo installation behind the engine, so the entire nacelle would need pretty heavy armor. Wouldn't surprise me if the USAAF leadership believed the armor would prevent them from getting enough bombs on target to be effective.
That's not an attack on the generals, though. It's impossible to armor an aircraft sufficiently to guarantee the crew survival in every circumstance, and there has to be a balancing act for risk vs combat effectiveness. Winning the war is the ultimate way to keep your men safe.
I'd love to see a video on the Kommandogerat gun director. Looks like a very sophisticated analog computer able to take a lot of different variables into account and coming up with a firing solution for the batteries nearby. I count 12 guys manning the thing!
I wonder if it also corrects for parallax of the position of the actual different guns/batteries it controls, like the B-29 system from earlier or battleship guns.
There are some good USNavy training films on youtube, starting at the extreme basic level. Search for "fire control computers" or some such, maybe narrowingidown to training, analog, mechanical, etc.
Hence the old saying "The flak is always the heaviest over the target".
Crews brought that saying home after the war and applied it to similar lessons in life, like if you're someone investigating corruption and you start getting pressured or threatened from higher ups, then you know you're close to the truth or "over the target", in general it means if things get tough you must be close to the answers about things or what you're looking for.
Great information ...thanks so much for sharing. We at the 390th Memorial Museum ( Tucson AZ) follow you intently.
My uncle's B-24 had two engines shot out by flak over Munster on Nov. 5, 1943. It couldn't climb to the return formation and was riddled by fighters and crashed in the sea off of Holland. The gunners bailed but the officers in front all died, including my uncle.
My great-uncle was shot down in his B-17 in August of 1943 just off the coast of Italy, by Italian Colonel Angelo Tondi flying a captured P-38. Cannon rounds in the cockpit probably killed both him and his pilot immediately.
I love your posts thank you!
Great video.
It interesting that it often takes more than one "bad thing" to happen to bring down a bomber as that sounds somewhat like a precursor to the "Swiss cheese" model of aviation safety today.
My dad was a ball turret gunner in a B-17 so that is my favorite plane. I know a lot about the structure of the aircraft but your videos researching the more obscure history of WWII bombers is very good. By the way, are you on Patron? I was looking for you there but could not find you.
i don't know which would be more terrifying: The beginning of a flak barrage or the end of it signaling incoming fighters!
Those guys, including my late Uncle, were like sitting ducks in those things, especially until long-range fighters came on line. I wonder if waist gunners ever hit other planes in the close formation? Thanks for the high-level content.
Yes they did.
Waist gunners would not "spray and pray" as depicted in the Hollywood movies, they only had about minute worth of ammunition, it would not last until the target zone. Gunners were trained to only shoot at the fighters performing a direct attack run on the bombers. This would be rather "static" shooting position, so the possibility of friendly fire was small. This channel explained it few times, there are also period gunner training movies here on TH-cam.
Edit: This channel did show statistical data how much of the damage on the returning bombers come from 50cal bullets - it was basically negligible.
losses for1945 Europe, 3,602 planes of which1,371 were Fighters, ratio 1:2 Fighters to Flak. When the German airforce "had ceased to exist" Add all other Allied losses.
The B29 losses over Japan? August 1945, is really interesting, these figures are Never talked about! 55 shot down by fighters,52 by Flak, 29 by both, 89 by unknown. Looks like all B29 losses over Japan November 1944 to August 1945 ! so 225 Downed. Thanks greatly for that.
Is there any information about a straggler success rate? I.e. how often did a plane that left the formation successfully evade attack and make it back to base?
I had no idea bombers used IAS for cruise speeds, I always thought they were just flying really slow to conserve fuel. Do you know how fast their TAS would be? I’m guessing it’s in the 200-250mph range but I don’t have information on how off the bomber speed measurements are.
Hey, Keith. Would it have been common for Naval PBY catalina crews and 12th Air Force B-25 crews to be wearing flight helmets?
Does the flak detonate bombs falling from the bombers sometimes?
I suspect that is improbable. Flak was set to burst at a specific altitude where the bombers were believed to be flying, generally using some type of mechanical time fuse. Bombs, once dropped, will accelerate with gravity and will be 50 ft away within about 1.25 seconds, so there is an extremely small window for it to affect the bombs in any way. Testing has shown it is pretty difficult to set off explosives inadvertently, with ship magazine explosions (like the Royal Navy battle cruiser explosions at Jutland or USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor) coming from a hit in the propellant magazine, since propellant is much easier to set off. While I realize that can sound ridiculous, the simple fact is that detonation chain in fuses and bombs/shells is fairly complex and gradually builds to the point it can set off the main explosive charge. Low-order detonations that cause the main charge to burn, but not detonate, are not all that unusual. As a case in point, lots of 14" main battery shells were recovered after Arizona's propellant magazine exploded.
Love this channel, but I have nothing clever nor informative to write about.
Gotta feed the algorithm nonetheless, I guess.
POW Stats ? stories-living in pow camp and chances of survival in a German Camp.
Something like two thirds of all Soviet military personnel captured by German in WWII did not survive.
For the US alone, some 93,000 US personnel were captured and interned by the Germans. Of those around 1100 died, meaning a slightly better than 99% survival rate.
Figures are rounded, so they are very slightly inaccurate, but I really could not be bothered to type in the actual numbers.... They are accurate enough for the purposes of this though, so hope you do not mind.
(Clumsy fingers hit post too early, and for some reason would not allow me to edit the initial post.)
Western POWs were fed decently and not deliberately starved. They started starving near the end of the war, but that was because the German food production and distribution system had collapsed, and even Germans were starving. It wasn't deliberate. And since the war ended quickly, there wasn't enough time for the healthy young men in the camps to starve.
6:54 That's number 4.
Happy Xmas Eve, everyone 🙏🎄
What does feathering the propeller mean? Locking it in place so that it doesn't keep turinng?
Turning the blades of the prop until they are edge on to the slip stream. This keeps the engine from windmilling.
@@tfogelson3139 ^This. A windmilling propeller causes more drag than one which is not turning.
A windmilling prop adds drag, making the plane harder to handle and slowing it even more. Also would likely induce yaw in the direction of the windmilling prop.