Day vs Night Bombing?

[RAF Liberators]

Another reason could be related to this old joke

Our Friends The Yanks
An American airman, was told at Briefing to ‘Go in at 30,000 feet and keep out of the flak.”
“If I go in a 20,000 feet, what will happen?’ asked the airman.
“You’ll probably be mentioned in despatches”, answered the officer.
“If I go in at 10,000 feet, what will happen then ?“ he asked.
“In that case you will probably get the Congress Medal”, he was told.
"And if I go in at 5,000 feet?’ he inquired excitedly.
“Don’t be a fool, man”, replied his superior, “you’ll go and bump into the R.A.F. at that height.”

[MAGNA]

Ooh that's not bad RAF.

The American daylight raids were stopped for a time due to heavy losses and were restarted when escort fighters with long range fuel tanks were made available.

The RAF could have done the same using Spitfires as long range tanks were available (so I read somewhere) but it didn't happen for various reasons.

As I have also read in my history of the Mosquito book, the original design was going to be for a fast four engined bomber with little or no armament which could fly higher than enemy fighters and go in fast. This idea was seen as unworkable by 'those who knew' so being a private design, the mossie was changed to a smaller twin engined machine.

Two interesting results here;

1. The Mosquito bombers for their weight and numbers dropped proportionally more bombs than the four engined types during the war.

2. Later strategic bombers relied on - surprise surprise - high altitude and speed with little or no armament.

What goes around comes around.

[Freightshaker]

I'll also agree on Bomber Command going to nights because of terrible losses during the day. Little to no accuracy was lost since most bombs didn't come within 5-10 miles of the target anyways. I found it surprising that as much money and development that was put into BC, bombing accuracy was never really solved until further into the war. Even then, bombing points were determined to be the the center of a city.

As for the Mosquito; wonderful aircraft and the most versatile of the war. It was developed at a time when the school of thought was "the bomber would always get through" and that by using speed the bombers could outrun interceptors. In principle this works but not with the technology of the time.

Just like the see saw battle between AT guns and armor, bombers and interceptors grew better while competing against each other.

[Holly6]

Excellent stuff guys.

I knew that the USAAF flew and bombed off of a lead ship, until I read the post by Karl, I wasn't aware that the RAF flew their ships as individual commands. It makes sense due to the darkness. After mid-1942 and the American presence in Europe, any idea on how they assigned targets? Hard to believe that with the two different conditions they would have had both groups hitting all areas.

Does this need to be moved to the Airwar site?

[RAF Liberators]

Technically they didn't fly their planes as seperate commands, they still flew in formations. Later in the war the R.A.F. were putting up to a 1,000 bombers in a raid this needed co-ordination. The targeting was done on different colour flares dropped by pathfinders that went ahead of the formations.
Targetting for the most part wasn't normally 5-10 miles off it was actually quite accurate, I have a large number of target photos on my site in the galleries which show how accurate targeting was (certainly from 205 Group and ACSEAC anyway).

[Freightshaker]

Technically they didn't fly their planes as seperate commands, they still flew in formations. Later in the war the R.A.F. were putting up to a 1,000 bombers in a raid this needed co-ordination. The targeting was done on different colour flares dropped by pathfinders that went ahead of the formations.
Targetting for the most part wasn't normally 5-10 miles off it was actually quite accurate, I have a large number of target photos on my site in the galleries which show how accurate targeting was (certainly from 205 Group and ACSEAC anyway).

The 5-10 miles figure was for early war, before radio triangulation was used for targeting.

[RAF Liberators]

Yeah dead reckoning was used before Oboe and G which was not always as accurate. But it was only the first couple of years that targeting wasn't so good, I'm just trying to defend BC because it still wasn't every raid that was 5-10 miles out, only a small percentage, and for the sake of historical correctness I'm trying not to generalise.
It's too easy for history to get changed

[Holly6]

Technically they didn't fly their planes as seperate commands, they still flew in formations. Later in the war the R.A.F. were putting up to a 1,000 bombers in a raid this needed co-ordination. The targeting was done on different colour flares dropped by pathfinders that went ahead of the formations.
Targetting for the most part wasn't normally 5-10 miles off it was actually quite accurate, I have a large number of target photos on my site in the galleries which show how accurate targeting was (certainly from 205 Group and ACSEAC anyway).

Was the Norden sight used by the British also? I guess the real question would be "was it accurate enough at night?

[RAF Liberators]

Yes to a small degree, after each Op the key components were removed and kept under guard.
For the most part the accuracy of the bomb aimers dropping on predefined flares was good, the R.A.F were flying lower than their American counterparts which was another factor.

[FireFoxy]

Ooh that's not bad RAF.

The American daylight raids were stopped for a time due to heavy losses and were restarted when escort fighters with long range fuel tanks were made available.

The RAF could have done the same using Spitfires as long range tanks were available (so I read somewhere) but it didn't happen for various reasons.

As I have also read in my history of the Mosquito book, the original design was going to be for a fast four engined bomber with little or no armament which could fly higher than enemy fighters and go in fast. This idea was seen as unworkable by 'those who knew' so being a private design, the mossie was changed to a smaller twin engined machine.

Two interesting results here;

1. The Mosquito bombers for their weight and numbers dropped proportionally more bombs than the four engined types during the war.

2. Later strategic bombers relied on - surprise surprise - high altitude and speed with little or no armament.

What goes around comes around.

Sir,Mossie are my fave ww2 aircraft, more than the spitfire.She was specical, she was a hansome plane and she was made mostly out of wood,she out classed the steal planes.I think she was used in all kinds of battles, like an allrounder dream machine.I think out of the the Allies, for once Britain had something better than America!
Please this is not to start a war,just saying britain had one thing better than the Americans did.