Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Even so, the U.S. practice of heavily armed bombers flying in close formation didn't work so well unless they had fighter escort. U.S. attempts at unescorted missions deep into Europe were disastrous and forced a temporary halt to U.S. bombing raids while the generals figured out a different strategy.

The British learned this lesson earlier and told the Americans, but the Americans wouldn't listen. Without extremely long-ranged fighters like the P-47, P-51 and P-38 to escort their bombers, the British had to revert to night bombing.

That "classical" aproach to the bombers self protecting capacity is not that fair at all. If germans tried to take down american bombers as any other single flying aircraft, they will probably got serious losses. Even if they look dumb on holywood films, they played smart with their resources, and instead of making extremely daring attacks on bombers, by single engined fighters, they picked them with heavy two engined fighters and with long range devices. Those bombers forced to fall back, were then to be finished by single engined fighters.

So, the doctrine wasn`t that wrong, it just generated new tactics, and new weapons that made this doctrine obsolete. Actually US bombers faired fairly well at he begining. Germans just happened to readjust faster than expected. When escorts started coming with the bomber formations, single engined fighters were not as goood as the bi-motors on the bomber killing task, but will have some chance against escorts, where bi-motors would have none.