antarmike Posted October 5, 2008 Share Posted October 5, 2008 On this day the Americans and the British agree a bombing strategy that will see the US bombing during the day and the RAF bombing at night. Part of the rational is that the US planes are better armed and are better able to defend themselves against day fighters. This didn't really work out because their losses were horrendous. The RAF night bombing campaiagn was equally costly, but throughout the technical war with the Germans the British had periods of relative success interlaced with with periods of heavy losses. Early losses were not too bad because German night fighters stayed in boxes, so that a stream of bombers only encountered a few of the total night fighters, (the other fighters patrolling "empty" boxes) The Luftwaffe re-organised and used radar to find the stream, then called in large numbers of fighter to intercept. The introduction of "window" to blind the radar saw another period when RAF losses dropped for a period. The US losses also went through good and bad patches. Their luck changed with the introduction of true long range fighters (such as the Mustang) which could protect the bombers all the way in and all the way out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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