In taking account the effect of Allied bombing don`t forget the resources devoted to AA batteries and interceptors by the Germans. This is wasted production for the other areas of the war, and this was indeed crucial. The loss of industrial capacity was not.
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Because bomber defense was much more easily accomplished by achieving air superiority and having long-range escort fighters capable of following bombers all the way to the target, eliminate enemy fighters, and then return to base.
Although it is important to note that the B-29 had a 20mm cannon equipped in its tail.
My opinion is that the .50 Cal Brownings were more than adequate when it came to rate of fire, unlike larger cannons, and that perhaps the actual accuracy of bomber gunners was not so great when compared to actually throwing up a giant "wall of lead".
yes,
but what if 1 x 40 mm flak fired, instead of 3 x 50 cal mgs per bomber firing on average ....
It's a good question, a pity it was never tried during the war.
As I said though, I think the main reason was that by war's end all of those extra machine guns were practically useless anyways since Allied P-51s were dominating the skies.
My guess: Control, ammo feeds, recoil, space, aerodynamics, weight (gun, mount and ammo) and structural integrity could all have caused problems. The heavier guns like 75mm were not autocannons as far as I know and they had many problems developing low-recoil versions and mounting, even when the guns were integrated into fuselage. Single fire cannons are perhaps not the best anti-fighter wepons. Even modern(er) A-10 had huge designing problems with 30mm vulcan, as I've heard.
This just a guess. It's not really my field. And generally I guess .50cal (12.7mm) was found to be sufficient to shoot down fighters.
Quite a bit of German production of aircrafts were job shops and thus already not as concentrated target for bombing. I think you are right about work studies etc but you are applying the more modern level of machining necessity to WW2's more simple parts. Not that an aircraft engine did not have delicately machined parts but no where close to a modern engine. The bombing did slow German production but that production was already growing faster than Germany had manpower to use. By the end of the war such a shortage of qualified pilots that many 262's weren't able to be flown without great risk of the unqualified pilot killing themselves.
Where the Allied bombing hit Germany hardest was refineries and transportation networks(many bridges took a dozen missions to knock out past easy repair but eventually Allies did have the time and planes to do a mission on even little bridges). The ball bearing factories were vulnerable most of the war but Allies never concentrated on them in a way that could have mattered until very end. Everywhere else the bombing slowed Germany production and diverted resources but in itself accomplished little damage especially compared to the cost for Allies.
How is the game supposed to reflect this is the point of this thread though it started with basic question of unescorted bombers vs fighters.
That is still unanswered conclusively but if the game can be adjusted that escorted bombers take 5-10% damage per raid with equal losses to fighters that is close to historical. Since bombers much more expensive than fighter the fighters still "win" in a sense but I doubt many players will feel that way.
10-20% losses of bombers while unescorted with similar fighters losses of 5-10% however the main effect is escorted bombers suffer much lower organization losses and do more damage on their mission while unescorted suffer drastically more org losses and do much less IC damage.
Of course that is all predicated on the tech levels being equal and relatively equal numbers involved. If Germany manages to put up 2 fighters for every 1 Allied bomber then the numbers should adjust more in Germany favor... likewise if Allies get 2-1 escorts over the German fighters then odds go the other way. The actual stats of the units in game just take tweaking to try and get it close to something if it is possible to agree on overall effects. Since the game can really only be made to replicate "averages" the outstanding examples for either side are kind of useless.
well,
since it was possible to mount 2 x 40 mm on mobile vehicles, and attach them to destroyers and whatnot, it should be possible to mount one to something the size of a b17.
a10's 30 mm is much more complex than anything that came before. it is designed to penetrate modern tank armor. so its rather a bad example to introduce. it even has a number of different permutations for ammo types for loading.
but, 40 mm aa guns were not that complicated. some were even hand loaded. you know - you drop the shells into a loader and it fires.
i used to believe that ww2 aircraft were simpler machinery. however as i had read the design and production stories of various prominent aircraft, i dont hold that misconception anymore.
illogical and ahistorical.
sweeping assumptions based on a few extremely badly executed bombing missions in european theater on germany can not be taken as a measure of realism to reflect on the game.
in case you people havent noticed, you people all are talking about strategic campaign in germany. noone has ever talked about what the bomber-fighter status or status of strategic campaigns were in any other theaters, like japan, italy or ussr.
for some reason, this entire 'bomber vulnerability' and 'inefficiency of strategic air campaign as a strategic tool' always revolves around germany, totally ignoring what happened in other theaters.
therefore it is beyond foolish to take up the germany campaign and then claim that the realism as thus, and it should happen as such in the game too, and translating it to sweeping illogical changes of percentage losses per aircraft, whereas no similar situation was observed in other theaters.
even the singlemost fact that b29 was never used in europe can negate such popular misconceptions. or the fact that japan got its industry ruined by the strategic attacks.
this game doesnt revolve around germany.
in an alternative timeline, us would well have decided to use b29s in germany, or, enter the war before 1941 and use b17s when they were practically immune from interception, or enter in 1941, but rush to use the b17s and similar aircraft before they became rather obsolete with the advances incorporated into fighters.
and we are not sticking rigidly to the timeline and preferences and decisions of the actual time period. we cant, for if we did, our actions as player and the game ai would have no meaning. everything would have happened in the scripted sense, time, and fashion.
An aircraft, any aircraft, has far more delicate tolerances then land or sea vehicles.
yes but these are huge aircraft. heavier guns were fitted in later bombers in automated turrets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95
Radar-controlled Guns: 1 or 2 × 23 mm AM-23 cannon in tail turret
tho tu95 is a later design, it shows that similar sized aircraft can house heavier armament.
in place of such a fast firing 23 mm gun, a singlemost 40 mm standard gun could be fitted.
Depends on the meaing of 'Quite a bit'. The FW190 was what was built by many part shops then assembled at the airfield. Bf109's and most other aircraft were built in factories. If there was capacity, it was built in the factory. Later german uboat production would be greatly increased by doing similar to what was done with the focke-wulf.
Trying to glean fact from fiction on strategic bombing is in my opinion an impossible job. Its affect has been often times blown out of proportion. When attacking factories, generally in Germany, production dropped for a month then would hit record levels the proceeding months unless hit again. Tiger production in 44 is a classic example, allied bombings of Henschal factories in spring of 44 dropped production only to have Tiger production to go over 100 a month for the first time until production stopped mid summer to start producing Tiger II.
Another thing to consider, the bf 109, whenever it was up gunned to combat bombers, it did so by greatly reducing its ability to combat fighters.
The rate of fire of an AM-23 is way higher than that of a WW2 cannon though.
I think rate of fire was viewed as more important than sheer damage. With a cannon you need to have some degree of accuracy with your shooting, with the machine guns it wasn't as important since you had plenty of lead to throw out there and usually not enough time to get it all out.
Edit: The bombers were held stiffly in formation in order to best cover one another, making them much more vulnerable individually to being hit by a carefully aimed shot. Fighter aircraft have no such worries and can freely move in and out of the formation at will making them a much tougher target.
Perhaps if bomber tactics had favored faster bombers with enough agility to turn with enemy fighters might have given cannons a larger role in defending the bombers, but its much easier to visualize a fighter armed with cannons striking out at a formation of lumbering bombers than the other way around.
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the catch of a 40 mm gun is that it can carry explosive, proximity fuze warheads :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze
this thing even stopped kamikaze in their tracks.
Yes, V2 was a waste of resources.
It would have been much wiser to concentrate on this alternative project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserfall
A note on the flak towers, as I happen to live in Vienna which is one of the three cities (others are Berlin and Hamburg) where they built them:
They were built in pairs (one command tower und one combat towers), and these things are practically indestructable - they were not only designed as AA emplacements but also as mass shelters for the population.
After the war the Allies partially demolished some of the towers in Hamburg and Berlin but parts of them still remain.
In one of the Vienna towers stored munitions expolded in 1946, resulting in damage. In 2006 authorities had to close off the surrounding area because as a long term result of that damage one of the gun platforms is close to collapse.
Every few years there are plans to demolish the remaining towers, but these always are cancelled because doing it in small bits would be to expensive and blowing them up would need so much explosives that collateral damage would be inevitable.
more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower (the Augarten G-Tower is the one where the ammo exploded inside)
These figures strike me as a little high. Not every unescorted mission went as badly as Schweinfurt. Also, note that night bomber losses should be somewhat less -- I believe the RAF's all-time worst loss was only a little over 10%.
Even if we go with your figures, that's not very different from what the game offers right now -- both sides currently take less losses than that, but not much less. If we go with your figures, making that change simply won't change the results from strategic bombing much. I'm OK with that if you are.
Some interesting links related to this topic
http://www.airdefenseartillery.com/online/ADA In Action/WWII/WWIIHomePage.htm
http://www.taphilo.com/history/wwii/bombing-campaign.shtml
http://www.airdefenseartillery.com/online/ADA In Action/WWII/WWIIHomePage.htm
http://www.taphilo.com/history/wwii/bombing-campaign.shtml
Indeed, I did some snooping.
http://www.uboataces.com/articles-uboat-bunker.shtml
It appears that the Germans had plans to increase the thickness of the bunkers to 10 meters to protect against these mega bombs.
Light bombers like Torpedo or Dive bombers should still be able to take massive losses.
For reference look at the Battle of Sedan (allied bomber losses), Battle of Midway, Battle of Coral Sea & Battle of the Phillipine sea. All of these Battles include sending out bombers and having more then half of them lost in a single day.
Alot of talk for having no clue about how things work...
The entire point of faster speed is that you are NOT "subject to the same risk of defensive fire."
When going twice as fast the turret gunners will only have half the time to react and you will cover twice the distance. History showed Me262 blowing right through bomber formations of hundreds of bombers without being hit by a single bullet. In this situation a Propeller aircraft would be chanceless.
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It was, which is why the American jets in the next war were under gunned when armed with .50 cal vs migs.
Those 262 were shot down by fighters armed with .50 cal that circled the airbases the 262 had to land at. By the time the 262 was coming in, it would often be with only one engine still working as the metal couldn't handle the heat the engines produced. The germans eventually had to station FW-190's at the airfields to try to protect the 262's but that didn't help much as again they were generally sitting ducks coming in.
262 head on attacks on bombers also led to a lot of collisions.
Absolutely right. I haven't run any tests with fighters vs. CAS, so I don't really know what happens there.