Paratroop drops at night were pretty common, I believe the Norway drops in '40 were, and I know the Normandy drops were.
As for night flying, the introduction of airborne radar allowed flying at night or bad weather, ground based flight control radar allowed safe night landings.
IFF was invented in 1937.
The AN/APS-3 radar was in production in 1943, and had a 300 mile range and was utilized for blind night-bombing and Arctic flying.
Germany's big problem was ignoring the magnetron, so they didn't utilize microwave technology.
However, night flying was actually very common and very safe, and was fully functional in Germany in July 1940, even with their poor levels of research on the subject. They utilized the Kammhuber line, using Himmelbett stations to control zones of about 22 miles each, and 2 Würzburg radars, one to track the bomber and one to control the night fighter (which was actually a converted Junkers or Dornier). This was very functional until the RAF discovered the Window counter-measure.
However, Germany immediately reacted and implemented 'Night illumination'. This allowed day single-engine fighters to be used at night: Flak would be fired at no higher than 15,000 feet while the fighter flew with extended-range drop tanks at maximum height. Enemy bombers would fly between the flak and the fighters and thus be clearly illuminated.
Per the
Lancaster Museum for every 100 bomber crewmen only 9 were killed on landing, and most were due to crippled bombers.
And surprisingly even tactical and navy bombers were effective even relatively early in the war (1942) even
without the use of airborne radar. In an extreme example the Night Witches, a Soviet bomber regiment made up of women, flew any and everything they could get their hands on to bomb the Germans at night, including the P0-2 biplane, and were so effective that they received 23 of the 30 Citations of Hero of the Soviet Union given to women in Russia during the length of the war. They did not do any significant material damage in these dinky bi-planes, but night bombing should definitely cause some org loss:
Quoting Hauptmann Johannes Steinhoff, the commander of II./JG 52 who was awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knights Cross for 101 victories on September 2, 1942, wrote:
"We simply couldn't grasp that the Soviet airmen that caused us the greatest trouble were in fact WOMEN. These women feared nothing. They came night after night in their very slow biplanes, and for some periods they wouldn't give us any sleep at all."
In 1943 radar deficient Japan was so effective with night navy bomber attacks that the US Navy created the Night Birds squadron to counter-act them.
So, to sum up: Night bombing is realistic and fairly safe, but it can be argued that it should do minimal/zero strength damage at night and only Org loss. IMHO.
Why this knowledge does not help me pick up chicks I'll never know.
