Re: Need help tracking down a B-17


Message posted by Magoo on July 04, 2003 at 18:34:00 PST:

"Then after that the Strategic Bomb survey commisioned after the wars end concluded that the Heavy bombing raids conducted during the war had little to no effect on the German Industry or overall war effort."

Interesting comment indeed, and it goes to show the value of reliable intelligence. The lack of effect wasn't due to any lack of aircraft, crew bravado, or tonnage being dropped, but mainly attributable to the crappy intelligence available in those days.

During the bombing campaign against Germany in 1942-1944, they may have known there was an aircraft factory or munitions plant in a rough general area, but without any reliable human intelligance or detailed photo recon available during WWII, they would just try to level the whole area, with resulting incredible collateral damage to infrastructure and the local population! It might take 500+ aircraft, each one carrying 10-15 500lb bombs, and they may still miss or just graze the target, if they were lucky! Then, because they couldn't be sure whether they'd hit the target or not, they'd go back again and again just to make sure!

The Germans were also highly adept at repairing or packing up a manufacturing operation and moving it elsewhere, sometimes in only a matter of days.

These days it might take three or four 2000lb JDAMs and one or two aircraft or even a couple of Tomahawks to take out a similar target, but we still need to know the exact building! Remember when a B-2 scored a direct hit with one GAM on a building in downtown Belgrade during the Kosovo campaign, with little collateral damage, only to later discover that instead of hitting what they believed to be the Serbian War Ministry, they'd actually hit the Chinese Embassy! Right building, wrong information! In cases such as this, intelligence is EVERYTHING!

What's this got to do with Area 51? Glad you asked! Stealth aircraft/systems, MC2A, E-8C, E-3, RC-135V/W, R/MQ-1/9, RQ-4, KH-11, KH-12, Lacrosse... all of these acronyms and designations apply to aerial-based ISR platforms that will no doubt continue to be developed and upgraded in and over the Nellis and R-2508 airspaces in the coming years.

Magoo


In Reply to: Re: Need help tracking down a B-17 posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on July 04, 2003 at 10:16:14 PST:

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