Robin Olds fighter-bombers idea

[mlenoch]

If I can find it in my shelf, there was a government post war analysis of the WW2 air campaign. Specifically, looking at daylight strategic bombing, the report said it was less than 40% (if I remember correctly) effective. While the effectiveness of target destruction for night bombing was below 10%. Night bombing was cited as being immensly effective for morale reduction of the German populace (maybe valid for the sake of 'restitution' for the night bombing of England).
Hope this adds some fact to this discussion.
VL

[Mike Bates]

One reason the brass my not have considered the idea more is the secondary effects of strategic bombing. While they my not of put many bombs on the main target they still were doing damage to the surrounding road & rail network. Any support factories located near by and the people working at these factories that live close by.

Mike

[Saville]

Regarding a fighter bomber defending against an attacking fighter.....

A couple of years ago I had the priviledge of attending a gathering of the Dedaelians. At one point a Korean War F4U pilot told us a story. His unit was carrying 1000 lb bombs to blow up some bridge in North Kiorea. They were close to the target and they notice a flight of Mig-15's above them heading north. As they watched, the lead Mig dives down to intercept. The rest of the Migs stay up (the storyteller's conjecture was that they were newbies). The F4U's scatter and the Mig singles out this guy telling the story. They hassle. For a long long time, it seemed. The F4U wasn't handling quite right, notices our storyteller, but it was all he could do to avoid getting shot down.
The Mig was making a lot of high speed passes which actually made it harder to shoot down the Corsair, or so the storyteller says..

Well as these things sometimes go, the Mig pilot......

Makes a Mistake

He tries making a slower pass and pulls out ahead of the Corsair..going not all that much faster. The F4U driver kicks in a little rudder and squeezes off a burst. Now the storyteller said that his shots glanced off the side of the Mig because the angle was shallow and the Mig was built like a tank.

But, strange to note, the Mig wobbles, goes into a glide and lands in a field.

The Corsair driver is amazed and happy and heads for home. His buddies join up on him and a wingy motions with his thumb...as if pressing a button on top of the stick.

It seems our storyteller NEVER dropped the 1000 lb bomb. Which explained the a/c odd dogfighting characteristics.

The storyteller told us he was convinced he DID NOT shoot down the Mig because he saw his bullets glancing off so he didn't claim the kill.