bombing of iar factory, I`m building missions in IL 2 need doc

Strategic interests do not have anything to do with Christian or any other religion's holidays. Look at the "Yom Kippur" war or at the "Tet Offensive". Perhaps the atheism is mandatory for bomber crews

It is a difference in what was intended to bomb and where fell the bombs.
The bomb missions for Brasov were briefed only for Marshaling Yard (triajul CFR) and IAR factory both close to Brasov city. The altitude of bombing was at least 7000 m. A bomb squadron had at least 30 planes. If the first plane aiming was bad (due to artificial fog covered target ), the carpet bombs will spread in a large area covering also civilian places. Many planes had problems with automatic releasing bombs at given signal so had delayed time until manualy released (nobody want to return with bombs still attached).

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on March 30, 2009 08:42 pm

Yep. Exactly like in the German case - and it applies to us as well. I've read somewhere that most of the bombs actually fell before the bombing zone, because the pilots dreaded the flak and wanted to escape ASAP. I don't know the route on which the American forces came, but I guess it was from south to north; thus, because IAR factories were (and still are) in the north of the town, it's only safe to assume that Braşov was "collateral damage", due to the anxiety of the pilots and bombers of USAF. What do you think of this theory?

I've learned a long time ago that once the bombers came over Tampa, or Schei (that is South or South-West) to avoid any flaks. But I couldn't tell any more details about that.

The 15th AF used two routes to bomb Brasov.
One from south west (Campulung-Muscel) and the second from west, longing the Carpathian (Fagaras).

Are you reffering to Brasov bombing or in general somewhere in Europe.
For Brasov I don't have such an info.
In general US crews had fear of Flak more than fighters.
I read a story about a B-17 crew who dismantled an old german panzer and used pieces of it as armour plates (for Flak protection) on their seats. The result was much worst. Due to heavy load (with so many armour plates) the plane was loosing speed and couldn't keep with the formation being an easy target for fighters.

But returning to the subject , your theory that pilots launched bombs before target to escape Flak is not standing. Next day a recce plane will take pictures of the target and will be noticed if the bombs marks were before target.
The bombers will be sent back (again and again) to hit the target. The crews knew that (they were not stupid) and the only thing to avoid flak is to destroy target from the first mission (if possible ).

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on April 01, 2009 07:13 am

That simply makes no sense.

The standard US bomber formation was the "combat box" that operated as a unit and created a "fortress in the air" bristling with firepower that offered protection against fighters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_box
If one bomber crew lost "their cool" before the target and dropped their bombs "prematurely", then it would make no difference because they would still have to remain in formation with all the other aircraft until the others finished their proper "bomb run".

As Canatacuzino said, bomber crews feared Flak the most (there was no defence against it, other than luck and prayer) and, as also pointed out by Cantacuzino, the next thing they feared was being on their own, away from the protection of the "box" where they can pe picked on by fighters.

Radu

OT. That reminds me of the practice of US soldiers in Vietnam riding a helicopter. After crossing the front line, the first thing was to remove their helmets and sit on them.

Gen. Dénes

Hi Denes, I know this is OOT, but a good read about helicopters in Vietnam is "Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason. Here is a sampler http://www.robertcmason.com/textdocs/chickenhawk1-4.pdf

Radu

Well, actually it was my mistake. The problem occured at British pilots, not at American "boxes". The signalling of the area (for night bombing, yes? - because RAF was specialized in "dark actions" ) was made by special bombs launched usually by Mosquitos at high altitude, creating some sort of rectangle, inside which the main force of bombers delivered the "goods". But only USAF visited Romania, right, so my "theory" does not apply!

That happened in Western Europe. Did it happen at us, where the distance was "slightly" bigger?

Every Air Forces Army had an Recce squadron no matter how long are the distances to the target.
The 15th AF used Recce P-38 lightning with suplementary fuel tanks and RAF used Mosquito.

Your theory does not apply because you didn't specified if it's about Brasov (the open topic) or for Romania or Europe.

For Brasov there were no RAF night bombing, as far as I know.

Not only for Braşov - I believe RAF didn't bomb Romanian targets at all!

It did. You should really try to search the forum more.