STRAT. Bombers On Naval Attack Question

[P.Hausser]

Hello, I have a question about strategic bombers on naval attack.
I have several times experienced B 17s conducting naval attack on ships currently at sea, and find that they frequently hit the target. The bombing altitudes used have been between 6 000 - 8 000 feet and 9 000 - 11 000 feet.
Out of in total 9 individual attack phases with an average of +/ - 10 strategic bombers in average per mission I find their sucsess ratio to be very high - a lot higher than I would assume that B 17s ever could have been on naval attack from any altitude?
I am now in May of 1942 and have already lost 2 captiol ships ( 2 heavy cruisers) and one of them was at sea when it was attacked by B 17s, it took 6 500 lbs from them and sunk.
I would assume that this ship would be doing 30 knots, shooting all its anti aircraft-guns and zig-zaging...
Of course the few B17 s could have been lucky this time, however I find them to have "Dauntless like" preformance against cargo-ships when operating from lower altitudes...

I understand that many of you operates with HR´s regarding this?


[&:][&:]

[tocaff]

B-17s had a hard enough time hitting a stationary target, let alone a moving one.  Many players set HRs with a minimum altitude for 4E bombers set to Naval Attack or ban it altogether.

I think that the use of 4E bombers should be banned for ground attack roles also.  I believe it was Operation Cobra in Europe where the 4E bombers plastered their targets and when the ground pounders went to do their thing they couldn't advance due to the severe cratering of the area...end of operation.

[chesmart]

You are lucky my bombers with experience 60ish and nav exp 60ish are lucky if they hit a ship every 20 attacks at altitude 5000. Now if I put them at 100 thats another story but the casualties are horrendous. 

[P.Hausser]

ORIGINAL: che200

You are lucky my bombers with experience 60ish and nav exp 60ish are lucky if they hit a ship every 20 attacks at altitude 5000. Now if I put them at 100 thats another story but the casualties are horrendous. 

Their LowN pilotskill are probably not as developed.

[chesmart]

Yes I train them at the same altitude I bomb. Do your planes attack TFs in the open or in port ?

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

...  I believe it was Operation Cobra in Europe where the 4E bombers plastered their targets and when the ground pounders went to do their thing they couldn't advance due to the severe cratering of the area...end of operation.

Todd, I think that was the Normandy break-out op, and if I recall, the bombers mistakenly bombed Bradley's own troops not once but twice!

[sfbaytf]

We have no house rule in my game. In general I've refrained from bombing ships with 4Es and when I do it's usually at 8000 feet or more, with lousy results. however when I get desperate or just feel mean I will send some B-24s on a 100 feet shipping raid. They do get beat up by fighters and flak, but they are also pretty effective. I get a good number of 500 pound bomb hits on ship. Occasionally I'll get some 50 cal hits from their strafing to boot.

Usually after one of my opponents "Imperial Nuclear subs" scores a hit, I'll retaliate with a 100 foot B-24 raid on his ships.

[Fletcher]

House Rules will be the best option...

a) NO 4E bombers attacks at Naval Attack or
b) Any 4E bombers at Naval Attack mission must be at 10,000+ feet altitude.

Your allied opponent could use his B-25/A-20/B-26s for the skip-bombing tactics avoiding use of his 4Es (B-17 were used in RL with amazing outcomes).

best wishes

[mike scholl 1]

Couple of things to remember here.  B-17's/24's got a poor rep for bombing ships at sea in the Pacific..., but the bombing results generally cited were from A/C flying "naval search" singly or in very small numbers from high altitudes.  Exceptions where they were on "naval attack" are mostly oddities like Midway where everything "in the barn" was tossed against KB.

Actual attacks on shipping by the "heavies" were in general "port attacks", where they attacked from lower altitudes with fair success.  But there simply aren't any examples to compare of 50+ 4-eng. bombers making a naval strike, so it's impossible to say what they could or couldn't do in such circumstances.

[jrcar]

In the DEI B-17 were used to attack Japanese naval forces, but most of the time that was while/near unloading. These were small packets of around 8 aircraft (all that was available at the time) from memory.

It is a legitimate mission for them, and if the Allies are training on Naval attack then they aren't training/using them on something else!

I'm in favour though of limiting 4E use from bases, such as no more than a group (and all from the same group) at a base. This limits early war raids to a max of 32 aircrfat (4x8), but many groups have only 3 squadrons, and some of the most useful groups on 2 that can be in 4E bombers.

Cheers
Rob

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: P.Hausser

Hello, I have a question about strategic bombers on naval attack.
I have several times experienced B 17s conducting naval attack on ships currently at sea, and find that they frequently hit the target. The bombing altitudes used have been between 6 000 - 8 000 feet and 9 000 - 11 000 feet.
Out of in total 9 individual attack phases with an average of +/ - 10 strategic bombers in average per mission I find their sucsess ratio to be very high - a lot higher than I would assume that B 17s ever could have been on naval attack from any altitude?
I am now in May of 1942 and have already lost 2 captiol ships ( 2 heavy cruisers) and one of them was at sea when it was attacked by B 17s, it took 6 500 lbs from them and sunk.
I would assume that this ship would be doing 30 knots, shooting all its anti aircraft-guns and zig-zaging...
Of course the few B17 s could have been lucky this time, however I find them to have "Dauntless like" preformance against cargo-ships when operating from lower altitudes...

I understand that many of you operates with HR´s regarding this?


[&:][&:]

It happened IRL. For example, B-24's of the 308th bombardment group received a DUC for interdiction of shipping in the South China Sea. B-17's flew at various levels in the Battle of the Bismark Sea. That's just scratching the surface.

From Air Force Magazine:

On Oct. 15, 1944, five months after joining the Group, Carswell won his first major distinction. Late that afternoon, he took off from an advance base at Liuchow on a solo sweep over the South China Sea. About 150 miles east of Hong Kong, he found a formation of six naval vessels. In a first attack through the concentrated fire of those heavily armed warships, Carswell's crew got two direct hits on a cruiser, blowing it up. Using his remaining bombs, Carswell made three runs on a destroyer, scoring one direct hit and two near misses that put the ship out of action.

[spence]

b) Any 4E bombers at Naval Attack mission must be at 10,000+ feet altitude.

The 4E bomber could do and did do quite well against ships manuevering at sea when:

1) it was employed at low level
2) the commander accepted the inevitable losses that occurred to enemy flak as "the price of doing business".

Way too much stock is placed on the famous photos taken of the KB carriers at Midway being attacked from 20000 feet by B-17s. Attacks by B-17s and B-24s at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea were made from between 6-8000 feet and IIRC a DD and several transports were hit and disabled by them even before the B-25s did their skip-bomb thing.

The USN employed patrol bomber PB4Y-1s to attack shipping underway at sea from very low (3 digit) altitudes; the rule of thumb being that 100 feet of altitude for each 100 lbs of bomb would allow for only a slight bump from the bomb blast.

At Uboat.net there is a series of photos of an attack on a German Uboat in the Atlantic by both USN and USAAF planes. The USAAF B-25s are attacking from 5000. The USN bombers (forgot what type(s)) are much much closer and are taking photos that almost show what color the flak gunners' eyes are.

www.uboatarchive.net/U848.htm





Not the Uboat but you get the idea.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Fletcher

House Rules will be the best option...

a) NO 4E bombers attacks at Naval Attack or
b) Any 4E bombers at Naval Attack mission must be at 10,000+ feet altitude.

Your allied opponent could use his B-25/A-20/B-26s for the skip-bombing tactics avoiding use of his 4Es (B-17 were used in RL with amazing outcomes).

best wishes

Banning low level 4e attacks outright is the opposite extreme of having no limits set. A good medium can be reached if you simply use the house rule my opponent and I are using in our current PBEM game. Only one 4e unit per base can be set to a mission lower than 10k (any kind of mission, not just naval attacks).

That way you can set 200 4e planes to naval attack if you want, but only one of the units can be at low altitude. The high level planes may score an occasional hit, but you’re not going to sweep the seas clean of enemy shipping with this rule.

Jim

[Halsey]

The USN/USMC 4E patrols should not be included in the restriction.

I agree with the rest of the ruling though.[;)]

[witpqs]

With the separate skills for Naval rather than Ground bombing I just don't think its' necessary.

[Cyber Me]

B17s helped indirectly to sink the Hiei. As you Hiei was seriously damaged during the Battle of Guadalcanal suffering significant damage to steering, making it difficult for Hiei to disengage during the night. But damage control on Hiei had restored some steering and increases in speed. And Hiei was able to get slowly under way. But at dawn B17s from Noumea appeared on the horizon. Abe was forced to increase Hiei's speed to 15kn to avoid beginnning a sitting duck while near stationary during the repairs. The speed increase of put off the aim of the B17s causing them to miss the Hiei. But the increased pressures on the hull and steering caused during this short stint of full power undid a lot of the work the damage control teams had made. Ade was then forced to consider towing Hiei to safety but the threat of sub attacks and the appearance of even more planes soon added to Hiei's even worse unseaworthiness. An abandonned Hiei sank later that night.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: P.Hausser

Hello, I have a question about strategic bombers on naval attack.
I have several times experienced B 17s conducting naval attack on ships currently at sea, and find that they frequently hit the target. The bombing altitudes used have been between 6 000 - 8 000 feet and 9 000 - 11 000 feet.
Out of in total 9 individual attack phases with an average of +/ - 10 strategic bombers in average per mission I find their sucsess ratio to be very high - a lot higher than I would assume that B 17s ever could have been on naval attack from any altitude?
I am now in May of 1942 and have already lost 2 captiol ships ( 2 heavy cruisers) and one of them was at sea when it was attacked by B 17s, it took 6 500 lbs from them and sunk.
I would assume that this ship would be doing 30 knots, shooting all its anti aircraft-guns and zig-zaging...
Of course the few B17 s could have been lucky this time, however I find them to have "Dauntless like" preformance against cargo-ships when operating from lower altitudes...

I understand that many of you operates with HR´s regarding this?


[&:][&:]

my PBEM has got a hr on 4Es, the (the old one from WITP) that the Allied aren´t allowed to do naval bombing with 4Es (non Navy) below 10.000ft after 6/42. While I´ve used the bombers to some extend (9/42 now) they were far from beating everything in nav attacks. If weather is good, you can achieve nice results, as soon as you get a rainy day, you won´t hit anything with them.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: jrcar

In the DEI B-17 were used to attack Japanese naval forces, but most of the time that was while/near unloading. These were small packets of around 8 aircraft (all that was available at the time) from memory.

It is a legitimate mission for them, and if the Allies are training on Naval attack then they aren't training/using them on something else!

I'm in favour though of limiting 4E use from bases, such as no more than a group (and all from the same group) at a base. This limits early war raids to a max of 32 aircrfat (4x8), but many groups have only 3 squadrons, and some of the most useful groups on 2 that can be in 4E bombers.

Cheers
Rob

not really true jrcar [;)]. You train the pilots, not the bombers. And you can train the pilots in a crappy ac somewhere and then transfer them with 70 nav skill into a B-17 squadron to fly succesful naval strikes the next day without ever being flown in a B-17 before.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

ORIGINAL: P.Hausser

Hello, I have a question about strategic bombers on naval attack.
I have several times experienced B 17s conducting naval attack on ships currently at sea, and find that they frequently hit the target. The bombing altitudes used have been between 6 000 - 8 000 feet and 9 000 - 11 000 feet.
Out of in total 9 individual attack phases with an average of +/ - 10 strategic bombers in average per mission I find their sucsess ratio to be very high - a lot higher than I would assume that B 17s ever could have been on naval attack from any altitude?
I am now in May of 1942 and have already lost 2 captiol ships ( 2 heavy cruisers) and one of them was at sea when it was attacked by B 17s, it took 6 500 lbs from them and sunk.
I would assume that this ship would be doing 30 knots, shooting all its anti aircraft-guns and zig-zaging...
Of course the few B17 s could have been lucky this time, however I find them to have "Dauntless like" preformance against cargo-ships when operating from lower altitudes...

I understand that many of you operates with HR´s regarding this?


[&:][&:]

It happened IRL. For example, B-24's of the 308th bombardment group received a DUC for interdiction of shipping in the South China Sea. B-17's flew at various levels in the Battle of the Bismark Sea. That's just scratching the surface.

From Air Force Magazine:

On Oct. 15, 1944, five months after joining the Group, Carswell won his first major distinction. Late that afternoon, he took off from an advance base at Liuchow on a solo sweep over the South China Sea. About 150 miles east of Hong Kong, he found a formation of six naval vessels. In a first attack through the concentrated fire of those heavily armed warships, Carswell's crew got two direct hits on a cruiser, blowing it up. Using his remaining bombs, Carswell made three runs on a destroyer, scoring one direct hit and two near misses that put the ship out of action.

how much hits did he really score and what were those shis?

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Fletcher

House Rules will be the best option...

a) NO 4E bombers attacks at Naval Attack or
b) Any 4E bombers at Naval Attack mission must be at 10,000+ feet altitude.

I might be willing to consider something like this..., if you also restricted Kates to no "naval attacks" except with torpedoes. Got real tired of seeing them scoring 50-75% hits and more from 9,000 feet against shipping in the open sea. That's WAY better than they did against anchored targets at PH...., in fact it's way better than they ever did against any bombing target!