"Rich Rostrom" <rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote in message news:rrostrom-9C8FBE.14175531082016@news.eternal-september.org...

"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:

In his book Hitler's U-boat War Clay Blair advocates the loss of
merchant shipping off the US coast in 1942 was not the fault of
the USN or Admiral King, indeed they were the competent ones,
everyone else let them down.

And you don't agree, and see a lot of special pleading by Blair

Essentially pleading to ignore the book's conclusions about
convoys, followed by pleading the USN did not have the
resources for even lightly protected coastal convoys until
May 1942.

Coastal Command Sorties per month per aircraft, 1941, 1942, 1943
Catalina 2.87, 2.19, 3.95
Hudson 3.83, 4.56, 7.35
Liberator 1.13, 1.90, 2.597
Sunderland 3.90, 2.81, 3.35
Wellington 3.67, 3.22, 3.77

Hours per sortie
Catalina 13.7, 13.5, 15.44
Hudson 4.8, 5.28, 5.96
Liberator 10.88, 10.92, 12.27
Sunderland 8.42, 10.78, 11.56
Wellington 6.68, 8.14, 8.35

The above derived from sortie and average strength totals. The 8th Air
Force had real problems in maintaining early operations, was continually
expanding until June 1944 then managed 2 crews per heavy bomber in
the second half of 1944, effective sorties per 4 engined bomber per
month,

Aug-42 1.18
Sep-42 0.67
Oct-42 0.66
Nov-42 1.22
Dec-42 0.83
Jan-43 1.29
Feb-43 1.96
Mar-43 3.9
Apr-43 1.16
May-43 3.2
Jun-43 2.09
Jul-43 2.7
Aug-43 2.99
Sep-43 3.59

Jan-44 5.6
Feb-44 6.36
Mar-44 5.67
Apr-44 5.99
May-44 6.78
Jun-44 9.56
Jul-44 8.45
Aug-44 8.58
Sep-44 7.81
Oct-44 8.13
Nov-44 7.22
Dec-44 8.35
Jan-45 8.13
Feb-45 11.22
Mar-45 15.27
Apr-45 9.86

Some of these numbers seem absurdly low. I would guess
that those numbers are combat sorties / total aircraft
in service, including planes in transit from factories,
planes used in training, etc.

As for strengths they are aircraft in combat units, end of
story, from the regular Orders of Battle. They do not count
reserves, do not count planes en route, though in the 8th AF
case they may include the assembly ships as they were on
group strength.

I looked up the OOB and strength figures for the combat
units. I did not add reserves.

For example, the 8th Air force heavy bomber units as of
6 June 1944, group, aircraft type, strength, location.

91 B-17 48 Bassingbourn
92 B-17 61 Podington
303 B-17 58 Molesworth
305 B-17 39 Chelveston
306 B-17 57 Thurleigh
351 B-17 55 Polebrook
379 B-17 60 Kimbolton
381 B-17 62 Ridgewell
384 B-17 53 Grafton Underwood
398 B-17 68 Nuthampstead
401 B-17 57 Deenethorpe
457 B-17 61 Glatton
44 B-24 55 Shipdham
93 B-24 58 Hardwick
389 B-24 57 Hethel
392 B-24 66 Wendling
445 B-24 69 Tibenham
446 B-24 72 Bungay
448 B-24 71 Seething
453 B-24 71 Old Buckenham
458 B-24 57 Horsham St Faith
466 B-24 72 Attlebridge
467 B-24 65 Rackheath
489 B-24 65 Halesworth
491 B-24 75 Metfield
492 B-24 65 North Pickenham
34 B-24 71 Mendelsham
94 B-17 53 Bury St Edmunds
95 B-17 65 Horham
96 B-17 41 Snetterton Heath
100 B-17 61 Thorpe Abbots
385 B-17 65 Great Ashfield
388 B-17 55 Knettishall
390 B-17 61 Framlingham
447 B-17 64 Rattlesden
452 B-17 55 Deopham Green
486 B-24 64 Sudbury
487 B-24 58 Lavenham
490 B-24 54 Eye
493 B-24 61 Debach

Total 2,424 aircraft in 40 groups.

On 13 June there were 2,496 heavy bombers on group strength,
on 20 June 2,419, on 27 June 2,161, average for the month
using these four dates, 2,375.

For the month 22,713 effective bomber sorties from 28,925 airborne.

The 8th Air Force did at least weekly strength reports, I do not have
all of them, I have ranging between 1 and 5 per month.

Coastal Command strengths are monthly.

Yes the sorties figures look very low, that is the result, apart
from the aircraft themselves there needs to be crews ready
to go. After an all day sortie how much rest do you think
a crew needed before going again? The 8th Air Force
noted it could use 2 crews per heavy bomber.

Then add weather, there were plenty of no fly days.

I can't believe only two sorties/month for PBYs in
1942, for instance. Dan Gallery in _U-505_ discussed
the difficulties of operating PBYs from Iceland. I
don't recall how many sorties per day he needed to
mount to maintain a continuous patrol over a convoy
to the south... Call it N. He stated that each plane,
after a day's run, would spend the next day being
checked out and maintained. So 2 X N.

Every plane needed a full three-day engine tear-down
and rebuild once a month; another 10%.

Spares for accidents and breakdowns: another 20%

So 2.64 N planes required - then x 2 again for
training, etc. (Though he offered to make to with
only 50% reserves.) He calculated that he should
have had 26 planes - but he only had 12.

So the convoy requires cover for a given number of days
from Iceland, before/after which aircraft from Britain/Canada
etc. would take over, so he needed 26 aircraft on hand to
cover a convoy for how many days? What does he say
about the sortie totals generated by his escort carrier?
Does he mention the number of available crews?

There were gaps between convoys.

I agree the numbers look low, I also understand the real
problems in maintenance, the availability of spare parts,
and multi person crews, the entire crew has to be ready.
I also have reports from 10 squadron RAAF that indicate
they flew more than 3 sorties per Sunderland per month
on a number of occasions.

At the same time I am using the official combat sortie
totals and combat unit strengths. If these have omitted
combat sorties I would be surprised.

We know the problems the allies had in building enough
aircraft and training crews in the 1940 to 1943 period,
add spare parts production and providing those spare
parts to units along with the heavier maintenance
facilities. Particularly US aircraft in England, and aircraft
in Iceland and Gibraltar in general.

The combat units did need training sorties. According to
the USAAF in the European Theatre its combat aircraft
did 4,289,376 hours flying combat out of 5,946,310 hours
total flying, or about 2.5 hours combat to 1 hour training,
for the heavy bombers it was 2.2 hours combat to 1 hour
training. Or to put it another way for 1942 the heavy bomber
flying time was 47% combat, in 1943 54%. In 1944 with
on average better trained crews arriving and a higher
operational tempo it was 73% of hours on combat.

All air forces assumed a squadron would rarely put up all its
aircraft. The RAF for much of the war broke squadron strength
into two, with some of the strength called I.R., the initial reserve. Sunderland squadrons had nine aircraft, in theory 6 serviceable,
2 in reserve, 1 in maintenance.

For the period 1 April 1942 to 10 May 1945, when Bomber
Command recorded strength, serviceable, crews and aircraft
available with crew on a daily basis, so 1,136 days, the averages
were,

1,308.5 aircraft on strength, 989.29 serviceable, 1180.7 crews
939.71 aircraft with crews. So around 71.8% of strength was
available on average. For 1 April to 31 December 1942 it
was 62.4%

In April 1942 there were just over 4,000 sorties generated from
an average strength of 713.9 aircraft, 389.5 aircraft with crews.

June 1943, 6,000 sorties, 1,079.6 average aircraft strength,
772.9 aircraft with crews.

The June 1944 maximum effort, 17,853 sorties, average strength
1,666.5 aircraft, 1,350.2 aircraft with crews.

Now one of the problems Coastal Command had was its need
for crews trained in over water navigation and long flight times,
add radar operators. It also had the problem of plenty of
different types in service and what that meant in terms of
matching an aircraft with an available crew.

So of 34 squadrons on 1 January 1941 it had Ansons, Battles,
Beauforts, Beaufighters, Blenheims, Hudsons, Lerwicks, Londons,
Stranraers, Sunderlands, Wellingtons and Whitleys. Total 510
aircraft 386 serviceable.

Remembering it was anti shipping as well as trade protection.

The 38 squadrons as of 1 January 1942, Beaufighters, Blenheims,
Catalinas, Hudsons, Hurricanes (Iceland), Liberators, Northrop
(Norwegian), Sunderlands, Wellingtons and Whitleys. Total 552
aircraft, 370 serviceable

The 41 squadrons as of 1 January 1943, Beaufighters, Catalinas,
Fortresses, Halifaxes, Hampdens, Hudsons, Liberators, Northrop
(Norwegian), Sunderlands, Wellingtons and Whitleys. Total 721
aircraft, 345 serviceable.

Even ignoring the anti shipping units think of the anti submarine
crew training requirements.

The Germans were reading RN and merchant ship codes,
Enigma would have revealed this.

Not directly. In July 1941-Jan 1942, when the British
were reading most naval Enigma, the Admiralty did not
realize the Germans were reading BAMS. Some analysts
suggested this, but were dismissed. IIRC, the Admiralty
was finally persuaded only in 1943 by Rodger Winn of
the Tracking Room, and only after a long campaing by him.

As noted it is Blair's idea about Enigma giving the information,
agreed about how the 1940/41 breaks did not easily reveal
the German successes. And the point Blair keeps ignoring
the lone wolf tactics used in the western Atlantic minimised
the need for radio traffic.

Now if the allies halved the around 10 month
blackout period to 5 months that would be end July 1942...

Which would be nice - but the break into TRITON couldn't
happen until the capture of key Enigma and other German
coding material (the additional Enigma wheels and the Short
Signal Book). That was a matter of luck (and extraordinary
courage). I don't think the USN could have done anything to
hasten it.

I would put it more that the break happened when it did
because of the capture, the 4 rotor bombes were being
made.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:

In his book Hitler's U-boat War Clay Blair advocates the loss of
merchant shipping off the US coast in 1942 was not the fault of
the USN or Admiral King, indeed they were the competent ones,
everyone else let them down.

And you don't agree, and see a lot of special pleading by Blair

Coastal Command Sorties per month per aircraft, 1941, 1942, 1943
Catalina 2.87, 2.19, 3.95
Hudson 3.83, 4.56, 7.35
Liberator 1.13, 1.90, 2.597
Sunderland 3.90, 2.81, 3.35
Wellington 3.67, 3.22, 3.77

Hours per sortie
Catalina 13.7, 13.5, 15.44
Hudson 4.8, 5.28, 5.96
Liberator 10.88, 10.92, 12.27
Sunderland 8.42, 10.78, 11.56
Wellington 6.68, 8.14, 8.35

The above derived from sortie and average strength totals. The 8th Air
Force had real problems in maintaining early operations, was continually expanding until June 1944 then managed 2 crews per heavy bomber in
the second half of 1944, effective sorties per 4 engined bomber per month,

Aug-42 1.18
Sep-42 0.67
Oct-42 0.66
Nov-42 1.22
Dec-42 0.83
Jan-43 1.29
Feb-43 1.96
Mar-43 3.9
Apr-43 1.16
May-43 3.2
Jun-43 2.09
Jul-43 2.7
Aug-43 2.99
Sep-43 3.59

Jan-44 5.6
Feb-44 6.36
Mar-44 5.67
Apr-44 5.99
May-44 6.78
Jun-44 9.56
Jul-44 8.45
Aug-44 8.58
Sep-44 7.81
Oct-44 8.13
Nov-44 7.22
Dec-44 8.35
Jan-45 8.13
Feb-45 11.22
Mar-45 15.27
Apr-45 9.86

Some of these numbers seem absurdly low. I would guess
that those numbers are combat sorties / total aircraft
in service, including planes in transit from factories,
planes used in training, etc.

I can't believe only two sorties/month for PBYs in
1942, for instance. Dan Gallery in _U-505_ discussed
the difficulties of operating PBYs from Iceland. I
don't recall how many sorties per day he needed to
mount to maintain a continuous patrol over a convoy
to the south... Call it N. He stated that each plane,
after a day's run, would spend the next day being
checked out and maintained. So 2 X N.

Every plane needed a full three-day engine tear-down
and rebuild once a month; another 10%.

Spares for accidents and breakdowns: another 20%

So 2.64 N planes required - then x 2 again for
training, etc. (Though he offered to make to with
only 50% reserves.) He calculated that he should
have had 26 planes - but he only had 12.

The Germans were reading RN and merchant ship codes,
Enigma would have revealed this.

Not directly. In July 1941-Jan 1942, when the British
were reading most naval Enigma, the Admiralty did not
realize the Germans were reading BAMS. Some analysts
suggested this, but were dismissed. IIRC, the Admiralty
was finally persuaded only in 1943 by Rodger Winn of
the Tracking Room, and only after a long campaing by him.

Now if the allies halved the around 10 month
blackout period to 5 months that would be end July 1942...

Which would be nice - but the break into TRITON couldn't
happen until the capture of key Enigma and other German
coding material (the additional Enigma wheels and the Short
Signal Book). That was a matter of luck (and extraordinary
courage). I don't think the USN could have done anything to
hasten it.
--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:

Thank you for an extremely informative response, which
I have saved.

As for strengths they are aircraft in combat units, end of
story, from the regular Orders of Battle. They do not count
reserves, do not count planes en route, though in the 8th AF
case they may include the assembly ships as they were on
group strength.

I looked up the OOB and strength figures for the combat
units. I did not add reserves.

OK. And of course these are planes on 8AF strength, not
planes elsewhere. Still, less than 1 sortie/month in 1942;
ISTM that has to be connected to 8AF just starting up
operations. Then the very high rates in 1945 might be
connected to the perception that the war was ending, and
so training and organization activities were pretty much
discontinued.

For example, the 8th Air force heavy bomber units as of
6 June 1944, group, aircraft type, strength, location.

401 B-17 57 Deenethorpe

My late father joined 401 Group about two weeks later.

He flew 30 missions in the next four months.

Yes the sorties figures look very low, that is the result, apart
from the aircraft themselves there needs to be crews ready
to go. After an all day sortie how much rest do you think
a crew needed before going again? The 8th Air Force
noted it could use 2 crews per heavy bomber.

Then add weather, there were plenty of no fly days.

True, but no fly days for weather would "overlap" with
rest days for crew and maintenance days for planes.

I can't believe only two sorties/month for PBYs in
1942, for instance. Dan Gallery in _U-505_ discussed
the difficulties of operating PBYs from Iceland....

So the convoy requires cover for a given number of days
from Iceland...so he needed 26 aircraft on hand to
cover a convoy for how many days?

He did not go into that at all. IIRC, his requirement
was to have one PBY over "the convoy lane" 24/7.

What does he say about the sortie totals generated by
his escort carrier?

Nothing. He did write about how on GUADALCANAL's first
cruise, they lost many aircraft to accidents and breakdowns,
till finally there were only five left. Four were parked
on the foredeck when the fifth came in to land. It came in
too fast, missed the arrester cables, bounced over the
barriers, and wrecked all the parked aircraft, ending the
cruise.

Does he mention the number of available crews?

No.

There were gaps between convoys.

And times when more than one convoy was passing, i.e.
one eastbound and one westbound.

On top of that - he ran extra training exercises, such as
"TIRPITZ drill". (If TIRPITZ had tried to break out past
Iceland as BISMARCK did, Gallery had an attack plan for
all the Allied airpower in Iceland, including B-17s and
fighters. When an Allied battleship called, he'd stage
a 'dry run' with that ship as target.)

In 1944 with on average better trained crews arriving and a higher operational tempo it was 73% of hours on combat.

Perhaps also by that time, airfields and ground operation
procedures had been optimized, and many more of the ground
personnel were experienced. (Unlike air crews, they did not
rotate out after a "quota" of missions.)

In April 1942 ...713.9 aircraft, 389.5 aircraft with crews.

June 1943, 1,079.6 average aircraft..., 772.9 aircraft with crews.

The June 1944 maximum effort...

I note that the 8AF sortie rate also surged by 40% that month.

... 17,853 sorties, average strength > 1,666.5 aircraft, 1,350.2
aircraft with crews.

Hmmm... You noted above that "The 8th Air Force noted it could
use 2 crews per heavy bomber." But here's Bomber Command with
0.55, 0.72, 0.62 crews per plane?

[Coastal Command] also had the problem of plenty of
different types in service ... on 1 January 1941
it had [12 different makes]...

That would certainly generate a lot of friction and overhead.

as of 1 January 1942 ... [10 different makes]...

as of 1 January 1943, ... [11 different makes]...

What a mess. Especially with old beaters like Hampdens
and Whitleys still flying.

I would put it more that the break happened when it did
because of the capture...

I think we agree there.
--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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"Rich Rostrom" <rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote in message news:rrostrom-C0D867.12235902092016@news.eternal-september.org...

"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:

As for strengths they are aircraft in combat units, end of
story, from the regular Orders of Battle. They do not count
reserves, do not count planes en route, though in the 8th AF
case they may include the assembly ships as they were on
group strength.

I looked up the OOB and strength figures for the combat
units. I did not add reserves.

OK. And of course these are planes on 8AF strength, not
planes elsewhere.

It is the combat units. The 8th Air Force had aircraft in other units
and various non combat units.

Still, less than 1 sortie/month in 1942;
ISTM that has to be connected to 8AF just starting up
operations. Then the very high rates in 1945 might be
connected to the perception that the war was ending, and
so training and organization activities were pretty much
discontinued.

From my original post,

"The 8th Air
Force had real problems in maintaining early operations, was continually expanding until June 1944 then managed 2 crews per heavy bomber in
the second half of 1944"

The two crews per bomber are a big part. Then add from
September 1944 onwards the German front line was
about the German border, France and Belgium were not
friendly territory.

Have you noticed you are deleting the information, then
either asking for it again or coming up with conclusions
that do not fit?

For example, the 8th Air force heavy bomber units as of
6 June 1944, group, aircraft type, strength, location.

401 B-17 57 Deenethorpe

My late father joined 401 Group about two weeks later.

He flew 30 missions in the next four months.

Right, so 120 or so days, flying every fourth day, 7 to 8
sorties per month.

Yes the sorties figures look very low, that is the result, apart
from the aircraft themselves there needs to be crews ready
to go. After an all day sortie how much rest do you think
a crew needed before going again? The 8th Air Force
noted it could use 2 crews per heavy bomber.

Then add weather, there were plenty of no fly days.

True, but no fly days for weather would "overlap" with
rest days for crew and maintenance days for planes.

At times, the weather forecasting of the times was not
that accurate, in particular predicting weather over
Germany. Plenty of missions were scrubbed.

I can't believe only two sorties/month for PBYs in
1942, for instance. Dan Gallery in _U-505_ discussed
the difficulties of operating PBYs from Iceland....

So the convoy requires cover for a given number of days
from Iceland...so he needed 26 aircraft on hand to
cover a convoy for how many days?

He did not go into that at all. IIRC, his requirement
was to have one PBY over "the convoy lane" 24/7.

Right and that took 26 PBY when the RAF was talking about
12 hour sorties. Does he mention loiter time where the
convoy was?

What does he say about the sortie totals generated by
his escort carrier?

Nothing.

Which would be another clue about what was possible.

There were gaps between convoys.

And times when more than one convoy was passing, i.e.
one eastbound and one westbound.

Yes but Gallery was talking bout 1 convoy.

On top of that - he ran extra training exercises, such as
"TIRPITZ drill". (If TIRPITZ had tried to break out past
Iceland as BISMARCK did, Gallery had an attack plan for
all the Allied airpower in Iceland, including B-17s and
fighters. When an Allied battleship called, he'd stage
a 'dry run' with that ship as target.)

There were no US B-17 units on Iceland. And it looks
like very few Coastal Command ones.

In 1944 with on average better trained crews arriving and a higher
operational tempo it was 73% of hours on combat.

Perhaps also by that time, airfields and ground operation
procedures had been optimized, and many more of the ground
personnel were experienced. (Unlike air crews, they did not
rotate out after a "quota" of missions.)

Yes, the improvements from experience, also possibly less
damage on average in returning aircraft, the lower fighter
attacks and German ammunition problems versus the
increase in flak guns.

In April 1942 ...713.9 aircraft, 389.5 aircraft with crews.

June 1943, 1,079.6 average aircraft..., 772.9 aircraft with crews.

The June 1944 maximum effort...

I note that the 8AF sortie rate also surged by 40% that month.

... 17,853 sorties, average strength
1,666.5 aircraft, 1,350.2
aircraft with crews.

Hmmm... You noted above that "The 8th Air Force noted it could
use 2 crews per heavy bomber." But here's Bomber Command with
0.55, 0.72, 0.62 crews per plane?

Again you have effectively deleted the answer to your question.

To repeat,

For the period 1 April 1942 to 10 May 1945, when Bomber
Command recorded strength, serviceable, crews and aircraft
available with crew on a daily basis, so 1,136 days, the averages
were,

1,308.5 aircraft on strength, 989.29 serviceable, 1180.7 crews
939.71 aircraft with crews. So around 71.8% of strength was
available on average. For 1 April to 31 December 1942 it
was 62.4%

Note the average number of crews versus the average number of
aircraft with crews. Yes the RAF system enabled more aircraft
than crews, the US system managed the opposite.

Averages for
April 1942 487.4 crews for 428.4 serviceable aircraft.
June 1943 888.2 crews for 833 serviceable aircraft.
June 1944 1,658.1 crews for 1,370.5 serviceable aircraft.

[Coastal Command] also had the problem of plenty of
different types in service ... on 1 January 1941
it had [12 different makes]...

That would certainly generate a lot of friction and overhead.

as of 1 January 1942 ... [10 different makes]...

as of 1 January 1943, ... [11 different makes]...

What a mess. Especially with old beaters like Hampdens
and Whitleys still flying.

Aircraft in use by other commands meant a bigger training
system for those types which could be used by Coastal
Command, to me it is the exclusive to Coastal Command
types that cause the problems then add the number of types.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

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"Rich Rostrom" <rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote in message news:rrostrom-894539.22535804092016@news.eternal-september.org...

"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:

The two crews per bomber are a big part. Then add from
September 1944 onwards the German front line was
about the German border, France and Belgium were not
friendly territory.

ITYM - "*now* friendly territory". ???

For the Germans or alternatively were friendly for the allies.

Have you noticed you are deleting the information, then
either asking for it again or coming up with conclusions
that do not fit?

I try to edit quotations to the minimum; this is
perhaps a habit from when bandwidth was much smaller.
Even now, quoting hundreds of lines for a 2-3 line
response seems gauche.

I suggest making the reply then editing.

If TIRPITZ had tried to break out past Iceland...
Gallery had an attack plan for all the Allied
airpower in Iceland, including B-17s and fighters.

There were no US B-17 units on Iceland. And it looks
like very few Coastal Command ones.

I distinctly remember "B-17s commence high-level
attack" as one line in his final summary of the attack
plan. In Iceland, Gallery worked most closely with the
British - as he put it, "we joined the RAF for the
duration". So it seems quite possible that CC B-17s
were included.

The RAF had the following B-17 squadrons,
59 Dec-42 to Apr-43 in England, Coastal Command
90 May-41 to Feb-42 in England and Middle East, Bomber Command
206 Jul-42 to Mar-44 in England,Coastal Command
214 Jan-44 to Jul-45 England, Bomber Command
220 Dec-41 to Apr-45 England, Coastal Command
(Detachments to Iceland recorded Jul-42 to Feb-43)
223 Apr-45 to Jul-45, England, Bomber Command
251 Mar-45 to Oct-45 Iceland, Coastal Command
517 Sep-43 to Nov-43, England, USAAF aircraft attached to unit.
519 Oct-44 to Sep-45, England, Coastal Command Reconnaissance
521 Dec-44 to Feb-46, England, Coastal Command Reconnaissance
(Both 519 and 521 had various other types on strength)

The Bomber Command units post 1942 were countermeasures.

Without the maintenance facilities Iceland was not going to
do many B-17 operations.

Simply put the RAF had squadrons, but not all at once of B-24,
Catalina and Sunderlands in Iceland counting the longer range
aircraft, for lengthy periods, not so B-17. The weather and
servicing requirements meant aircraft numbers were usually
kept low.

I see that. I also see what I missed before - that there
were extras in both aircraft and crews. More total aircraft
than crews, but more crews than serviceable aircraft.

Correct.

But relatively fewer crews / aircraft than the USAF, which
(_if_ I understand this information) sought to "saturate"
the crew side of the equation, to get the maximum use of
the aircraft.

The USAAF found the machines could do more than the
crews as of later in 1944, by which time they had a good
flow of aircraft and spare parts along with a fully working
maintenance system.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:

The two crews per bomber are a big part. Then add from
September 1944 onwards the German front line was
about the German border, France and Belgium were not
friendly territory.

ITYM - "*now* friendly territory". ???

Have you noticed you are deleting the information, then
either asking for it again or coming up with conclusions
that do not fit?

I try to edit quotations to the minimum; this is
perhaps a habit from when bandwidth was much smaller.
Even now, quoting hundreds of lines for a 2-3 line
response seems gauche.

He did not go into that at all. IIRC, his requirement
was to have one PBY over "the convoy lane" 24/7.

Right and that took 26 PBY when the RAF was talking about
12 hour sorties. Does he mention loiter time where the
convoy was?

I think he did but the book is packed away. Sorry.

If TIRPITZ had tried to break out past Iceland...
Gallery had an attack plan for all the Allied
airpower in Iceland, including B-17s and fighters.

There were no US B-17 units on Iceland. And it looks
like very few Coastal Command ones.

I distinctly remember "B-17s commence high-level
attack" as one line in his final summary of the attack
plan. In Iceland, Gallery worked most closely with the
British - as he put it, "we joined the RAF for the
duration". So it seems quite possible that CC B-17s
were included.

Hmmm... You noted above that "The 8th Air Force noted it could
use 2 crews per heavy bomber." But here's Bomber Command with
0.55, 0.72, 0.62 crews per plane?

Again you have effectively deleted the answer to your question.

To repeat,

For the period 1 April 1942 to 10 May 1945, when
Bomber Command recorded strength, serviceable, crews
and aircraft available with crew on a daily basis,
so 1,136 days, the averages were,

1,308.5 aircraft on strength, 989.29 serviceable, 1180.7 crews
939.71 aircraft with crews. So around 71.8% of strength was
available on average. For 1 April to 31 December 1942 it
was 62.4%

Note the average number of crews versus the average number of
aircraft with crews. Yes the RAF system enabled more aircraft
than crews, the US system managed the opposite.

I see that. I also see what I missed before - that there
were extras in both aircraft and crews. More total aircraft
than crews, but more crews than serviceable aircraft.

But relatively fewer crews / aircraft than the USAF, which
(_if_ I understand this information) sought to "saturate"
the crew side of the equation, to get the maximum use of
the aircraft.

A vast amount of information has been put up here, and
it's difficult to assimilate so much in one go. My failing,
not the author's.
--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

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"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote in message news:icGdnWyo6anrSVvKnZ2dnUU7-LXNnZ2d@westnet.com.au...

In his book Hitler's U-boat War Clay Blair advocates the loss of
merchant shipping off the US coast in 1942 was not the fault of
the USN or Admiral King, indeed they were the competent ones,
everyone else let them down.

The first two chapters of the U-boat war against the Americas
read to me more like an attack on those who disagree with the
conclusion, rather than a history of the actual U-boat operations.

The photographs of the major players tend to have simple biographic, captions, the two main exceptions are FDR "failed to properly prepare
the USN for the U-Boat threat in the Atlantic" and Admiral Andrews,
commander of the Eastern Sea Frontier, described as able.

In summary, according to Blair, most historians, particularly British, are astray in accusing US as dumb or inept or criminally neglectful. They
use biased sources and in particular distort Admiral King's position, distortions which have been allowed to stand for all too long. Instead
King had an unusually firm grip on the U-boat menace, was doing his
utmost to improve things, urging all to prepare for US coastal convoys.
"The British contempt for Admiral King and America's alleged inability
to cope with or its indifference to the U-boat threat", the inability was quite clear in the tonnage sunk. The question is why and for Blair the answer is every non USN/USCG player on the allied side. Admiral
King's attitude to the British is never mentioned.

The USAAF view. From The Battle Against the U-Boat in the American
Theater By Timothy Warnock

The United States lacked ships, aircraft, equipment, trained personnel
and a master plan to counter any serious submarine offensive.

USCG transferred to USN control in November 1941, Admiral King
became CinC US Fleet in December 1941, Chief of Naval Operations
in March 1942

After Pearl Harbor the USN turned its naval districts into sea frontiers,
the Eastern was from Canada to North Florida, the Gulf from North
Florida to Guatemala.

USN convoy escort duty training started in 1937, but only few officers
were qualified in 1941. USN lacked aircraft, the pre war plans were
for the USAAF to support the USN but the doctrine of bombing meant
there was no equipment or trained USAAF anti submarine personnel.
Initially the USAAF considered its anti submarine role to be temporary
and was reluctant to fly patrols.

IJN submarines operated off the US west coast in December 1941,
as of 28 November 1941 the USAAF ordered support for the USN
and soon discovered how different each organisation was when it
came to the problem. The USAAF did the long range patrols, up
to 600 miles out into the Pacific and patrols continued until February 1943.

U-boats sank 171 ships off US east cost to end June 1942. "US military
leaders until May 1942 undertook little effective action to find and attack submarines whose positions were known through distress signals from
torpedoed ships or to redirect shipping away from waters where attacks
had taken place."

USAAF used fighters and observation for short range patrols, medium
bombers for medium range patrols and B-17 for long range, patrols started
on 8 December 1941. I Bomber Command commanded the bombers but
only 6 bomber aircraft per day available on average until March, the USAAF usually had less than 10 aircraft per day on patrol. Most patrols were done
by the Civil Air Patrol starting 8 March 1942, it ended up with 21 stations, the civil aircraft helped push patrol time to 8,000 hours in March which
about equalled January+February.

USAAF aircraft originally flew unarmed or with bombs, no radars fitted
before March 1942, the early level of ship recognition is illustrated by the dropping of 4 bombs on a USN destroyer identified as a U-boat.

British advice was much sought, a joint USN/USAAF Control and
Information Center was set up in New York on 31 December 1941. No
ULTRA information was available and what information the British sent
the USN tended to file or take too long to pass on.

British coaching was necessary across the board, along with better
equipment and training. In Q2/1942 the USAAF aircraft attacked 54
submarines and damaged 7, in Q3/1943 it was 24 attacks, 8 damaged,
1 sunk.

Despite the British example the USN and USAAF failed to closely
co-operate, multiple headquarters had overlapping responsibilities. The
USAAF proposed an AAF anti submarine command which was rejected
by the USN as such work was traditionally a Navy responsibility and would
place USN aircraft under the USAAF. Instead the USAAF I Bomber
Command was placed under Eastern Sea Frontier command on 26 March
1942. The USAAF concluded the USN was hampering attempts to come
up with a single anti submarine command headquarters.

The USN command allocated aircraft to sea sectors and usually disallowed transfers so when the submarine threat moved aircraft transfers proved difficult and usually too late.

The USAAF decided the USN was defensive, "as it built up its forces until
it could institute a coastal convoy system", so all or nothing when it came
to
escorted convoys.

When the first convoys were sailed the USN asked for USAAF convoy
patrols, while the USAAF wanted long range non convoy sorties. The USN
managed to obtain the convoy protection sorties which were "probably the
best use of scarce resources".

Gulf Sea Frontier, 5 ships sunk January to April 1942, in May it was 41
ships,
of 219,867 GRT sunk, 55% tankers. By end June 61 ships sunk. When the
Gulf Sea Frontier was set up the USAAF contributed 14 observation aircraft
and two worn out B-18. In May a squadron of A-29 and another of B-25 were added and the Gulf Task Force created to control them with sea frontier co-operation.

Losses in the Caribbean began on 16 February 1942 and by end June 141
ships had been sunk, then another 173 by end August. In December 1941
the USAAF shipped 80 fighters, 9 heavy bombers and 4 radar sets to
Panama. Initially patrols were against the threat of IJN carrier raids, in April
it was U-boats, P-39 and A-17 were used, they "occasionally" attacked
friendly ships and submarines, fortunately without damaging them.

USAAF Caribbean forces in February 1942 had about 40 B-18, 7 A-20
and 7 fighters, the overall size did not really change, instead it became
radar equipped anti submarine aircraft. Essentially the conclusion is
radar equipped aircraft were very much better than non equipped.

On 15 October 1942 the USAAF formed its Antisubmarine Command,
despite I Bomber Command being used for anti submarine work its
primary mission had remained long range bombing. In January 1943
the anti submarine command had 19 mostly B-24 squadrons, then 25
squadrons in September. Gradually patrols extended their reach out
into the mid and south Atlantic.

In October 1941 the USAAF allocated 4 Newfoundland based B-17 for anti submarine work, in July 1942 the 421st Bombardment Squadron replaced the detachment, it was later renamed the 20th Antisubmarine Squadron. Fuel shortages forced great circle convoy routes in late 1942 and early 1943, redeployment of U-boats to the mid Atlantic began in June 1942 and the
attacks became effective in July and August. For August and September
43 ships sunk from 7 convoys attacked out of 21 located out of 65 that
sailed.

The early 1943 Casablanca conference confirmed use of VLR B-24. The
British immediately began such patrols from Ireland and Iceland, the USAAF
sent part of a squadron to Newfoundland in March, it began patrols on 3
April,
by end April there were 3 USAAF B-24 squadrons but no USN aircraft to
cover the western stretches of the mid Atlantic.

The USAAF set up the 1st Sea-Search Attack Group on 17 June 1942, it
help develop and test radar altimeters, magnetic anomaly detectors,
sonobuoys, better depth charges, long range navigation (LORAN system)
and microwave radar. The altimeter was standard USAAF anti submarine
equipment by 1943.

The early USAAF radars were the copies of the British sets the Germans
had detectors for, the first microwave radars, hand built, were delivered in June 1942, as of February 1943 a skilled operator could identify surfaced submarines at 40 miles range. The radars proved notoriously unreliable
and difficult to maintain. Initial microwave sets were in B-18, 90 fitted
by
end June 1942. First B-24 fittings in September 1942.

The USAAF kept wanting offensive patrols, but their lack of success was
a problem, convoy escort "came close to being as resented as the routine patrols" for a lack of action. The reality was convoy escort was
"absolutely
essential to prevent enemy submarines from attacking convoys."

The USAAF wanted patrolling aircraft to locate a submarine so ships and aircraft could be homed in to conduct a "killer hunt" (Yes not Hunter
Killer,
that was USN). Given the resources required and the lack of intelligence
it is not surprising such tactics were not regularly used until around mid 1943.

On 6 October 1943 the USAAF officially exited anti submarine operations.
As of 24 August 1943 USAAF anti submarine aircraft were 187 B-24,
80 B-25, 12 B-17 and 7 B-34, most with microwave radar.

So in summary the USAAF was initially untrained reluctant to do the work,
and always wanted non convoy protection sorties. It then established an
anti submarine command of properly trained and equipped personnel.
Differences with the USN in terms of command structures and tactics
were never fully resolved.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

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