Strategic Bomber Offensive: RAF Briefing



Strategic Bomber Offensive: Royal Air Force (RAF) Briefing Round 2

The British bomber losses have been approaching 5% (1 in 20 bombers) per mission, a rate that cannot be sustained. The German nightfighter tactics, combined with accurate flak (anti-aircraft ground artillery), have been very effective against the bombers. Furthermore, intelligence estimates indicate that the night bombing offensive has had little effect on German morale, most of the bombs don’t even fall within the limits of the area targeted, and German industrial production has hardly been disrupted.

You are part of a team of scientists, engineers, and RAF officers chartered to prioritize promising new technologies to improve the effectiveness of the night bomber offensive. The technologies under consideration are the following:

1) Improved radio navigation, able to achieve more precise location of bombers with respect to their targets;

2) Airborne jamming, to confuse the German tracking radars;

3) Window and chaff, to confuse the German tracking radars;

4) Radio controlled decoys, to confuse the German radars and nightfighters;

5) German-speaking British aircrews, who can broadcast on the German air controller frequencies and send confusing instructions to the German pilots;

6) Better airborne lookdown radars, able to “see” the ground even in the dark, making it easier to navigate the airplane as well as identify targets;

7) Better airborne lookforward radars, able to give warning of approaching German nightfighters;

8) Improved bombsights, able to calculate aircraft speed, height, and wind effects, to make released bombs more likely to accurately hit specific targets;

9) More heavily armored and armed bombers, better able to engage the German fighters and survive attacks by them;

10) Less heavily armored but faster bombers, better able to outmaneuver the German fighters by flying faster and higher;

11) Bigger bombers, better able to deliver even bigger bomb loads against German targets;

12) Night Intruder Fighters, designed to follow German fighters to their airfields and attack them on the ground;

13) Pathfinder bombers, who lead the way to the target and mark it by dropping flares and incendiary bombs;

14) Fighter drop tanks, making it possible for fighters to escort the bombers to their targets and back again;

15) Improved photoreconnaissance, to better identify targets and to assess the effectiveness of prior bombing missions.

Rank order the technologies from most critical to least critical, and justify your ordering from the perspective of Bomber Command’s strategic objective.

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