What are some countries that have never lost a war?

[MadMax13]

Because their plan was to phase the prop aircraft out and replace them with the rocket and jet powered aircraft...

[MadMax13]

Because their plan was to phase the prop aircraft out and replace them with the rocket and jet powered aircraft. Also the German aircraft werent THAT bad, in the hand of a seasoned pilot the Me109 was terrifying, ever heard of the "Abbeville Boys", and the FW190 was like the fighter version of the B17, it could take an ass whooping and still give the enemy hell, then limp home. The real problem with the Luftwaffe was they had nothing to deal with the B17s, B17s could only really be taken out, somewhat safely if you hit the pilot or a lucky shot hit the one of the gas tanks, i know because my grandfather flew tail gunner, bombed Munster, Berlin, all the extremely dangerous targets, was in the "Bloody Hundredth", they lost more planes on indivdual missions than any other group. My grandfather told me one story, they had lost something like 3 of the engines, they dumped the guns, ammo, radio, the lot and still managed to make it from Germany back to Thorpe Abbots RAF base in southern Norfolk...

[Matra et Alpine]

erm, MM, until the Allies coudl fly decent fighter cover the B17 losses were horrendous
The idea of protection in numbers just didnt' work out in reality.

[clutch-monkey]

yeah, look at the ploesti and schweinfurt raids..
"our navigator has an easy job, just follow the parachutes and crashed B17's home"
stupid box formation.

[MadMax13]

Youve got to be joking, the casualties were worse before the P51 came along but B17 formations were probably the worst thing you could fly into, why do you think the plane was called the "Flying Fortress". Plus those formations were excellent because unlike other flight formations they couldnt be flown through, thus stopping breakups, and if one DID fall out of formation and it was on the outside it made the formation smaller but didnt weaken it, the goes for one dropping out of the middle...

[clutch-monkey]

without fighter escort they got ripped to pieces by enemy fighters. their casualties were considered unsustainable...hence why the brits went to night missions only..
for the longer missions i believe some crews ripped out the turrets for speed and range, since they did SFA if the fighters attacked from most lateral angles. That, and Ju-88's launching rockets into the box formations to break them up.. fat targets.

[Matra et Alpine]

MM, what you say is definately the theory of the B17 design and early usage.
But the reality was they got torn apart until top cover coudl be provided.
My dad flew Hurricane escort for the B17s.

[MadMax13]

My grandfather flew tail gunner in a B17, hes told me that on several different occasions how ****ed the 109s and 190s were. The lateral angle attack did nothing, about the only area of the aircraft that wasnt covered by more than one gun was the front, thats why the Germans attacked B17 formations from the front. And the night bombing, that was the tactic before going to daytime bombing, they were finding that bombing at night rarely hit the their targets, it was a crap shoot, it was the Americans that started doing daytime runs, you didnt have the cover of night to keep the fighters off of you but you were 100 times more successful in hitting your target...

[MadMax13]

He did, however, say that the shit you really had to worry about were the 262s, they were soo damn fast they were nearly impossible to hit, he only ever ran into one or two so it wasnt a problem...

[Matra et Alpine]

MM, sounds like your grandfather was flying later on in the war.
When was he deployed ?
At the latter end the quality of the pilots were low and lack of airfields meant routes were availabel pretty much avoiding the fighters.

[MadMax13]

Heres the link to "Miss Conduct" and its crew...2nd Lt. George Morasco... Nonetheless, bombing campaigns into Germany were still as dangerous as they were in the beginning, mainly because by that time the Germans had well fortified flak positions, AA batteries, etc.. Of course the formations were going to take signifcant casualties, they were in tight formations, werent supposed to drop out of those formations while having to defend themselves from planes that could freely meneuver, its like a herd of wildebeest trying to protect themselves from a pride of lions...

[Matra et Alpine]

If that's your grandfather's plane and crew then it's all 1945 stuff and by then their were few decent pilots for the "real "fighters and pilots were getting sent up in 262s with limited training and skills.
eg

1942 ...
The first really big raid came on 9 October, when 108 bombers (including a number of Liberators) attacked the Railway works at Fives-Lille. Only 69 aircraft reached the target, and of those two were lost. The Germans adopted a tactic of ignoring the fighter escort and attacking the bombers directly. This raid saw one of the most extreme examples of over-reporting of victories. American gunners claimed 56 aircraft destroyed, 26 probably destroyed and 20 damaged. Sadly the real figures were much less impressive – only one German fighter had been shot down.
1943 ...
On 17 August the Eighth Air Force launched a massive attack on the aircraft factory at Regensburg and the ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt. The idea was for both attacks to be made at the same time to prevent the German fighters from concentrating on one target, but unfortunately the Schweinfurt force was delayed by three and a half hours by poor weather over England. The Germans had time to deal with each force in turn, destroyed 24 aircraft from the Regensburg attack and 37 from the Schweinfurt force. The Eighth Air Force returned to Schweinfurt again on 14 October, losing another 45 aircraft. These three raids alone had cost the Eighth Air Force 121 B-17s. The ball bearing factory itself suffered no more than minor damage

[clutch-monkey]

yeah on the october 14th schweinfurt raids the loss rate was 30 percent...entire eighth air force bomber group would have been wiped out in less than a week. they immediately suspended deep daylight raids until a long range fighter was developed...
B17's were seriously vulnerable withou fighter escort.
hell even going in at treetop level like at ploesti didn't work.

My grandfather flew tail gunner in a B17, hes told me that on several different occasions how ****ed the 109s and 190s were. The lateral angle attack did nothing, about the only area of the aircraft that wasnt covered by more than one gun was the front, thats why the Germans attacked B17 formations from the front. And the night bombing, that was the tactic before going to daytime bombing, they were finding that bombing at night rarely hit the their targets, it was a crap shoot, it was the Americans that started doing daytime runs, you didnt have the cover of night to keep the fighters off of you but you were 100 times more successful in hitting your target...

didn't the british start using mosquitoes to hit the target with flares and imprved accuracy by a lot?

[Birdman]

Yes. The british started using the mosquitos to mark out a box around the target to try to improve the acuracy of the bombers.

[clutch-monkey]

did it work? i don't remember too much about it.