Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[Feuerfalke]

No, Thor is right.

It was quite common, that the other planes dropped their bombs when the leader of the formation did. You can see that in the documentary about the Memphis Belle, too (no, not the Hollywood-Movie). That is also visible on a lot of videos taken during bomb-raids. You will mostly see the leaders bombs impact before the bombs from the other planes do.

What you said, Monterey is true, too, though. All other planes had their bombardiers aiming, too, and this was vital for the mission success, because if it turned out there was a malfunction or a last second kill on the lead bombardier or even the whole plane, they could still release their bombs on target.


What Thor didn't say, though: This tactic is usually taken for carpet bombing, which means a large formation drops bomb over a wide area. Taking that into account, the (lead) bombardier of course aimed in front of the actual target, so the mass of bombs dropped right on and around it, massing the destruction around the center of the impact area.

Thor instead describes a "precision" attack, which of course uses different tactics and is usually flown by a line-formation and resulted in a much more concentrated impact-pattern.