#Ww2 bomber crew survival rates series

However the mission became legendary and was a great boost to British morale. Eight of the 19 Lancasters that took part were lost with the loss of 56 men: 53 died and 3 were captured. Two of the four dams targeted were destroyed and the raids flooded mines, factories and houses for 50 miles. The missiles were designed to skim across the water, hit the dam and sink to the bottom unleashing enough explosive power to breach the structure.

#Ww2 bomber crew survival rates series

In a series of moonlit raids the Lancasters flew very low and dropped ‘bouncing bombs’. 617, of 19 modified Lancasters attacked dams across Germany to disrupt industrial production. Here are some of the operations you could have faced… The ‘Dambusters’ Lancaster crews took part in 156,000 missions and dropped 618,378 tons of bombs on targets in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. They just need to inflict enough losses to prevent the Air Force from accomplishing its mission.The Lancaster was the work-horse of RAF Bomber Command and the most successful bomber of World War Two. dependence on airpower, they don’t need to defeat the U.S. remains ahead technologically, Russia and China have plenty of sophisticated weapons and the military competence to use them. Even if manned aircraft are someday replaced by fleets of cheap, expendable drones, they would likely be met by masses of anti-drone weapons. Air Force lost just 14 aircraft, for a loss rate of 0.48 percent. leaders and the American public have become accustomed to virtually loss-free air campaigns. aircraft operated virtually unopposed is over. Nonetheless, Brown does make an important point: the days where U.S. Which raises the question of whether any nation’s air force can fight a long-term air campaign without immolating itself. Then again, aircraft-killing weapons such as air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles have also improved. Today’s warplanes are fewer in number than in World War II, but much more capable both in attack and defense, including stand-off missiles, stealth capabilities and jamming systems. Brown doesn’t expect to lose thousands of aircraft in a conflict over Taiwan or the Baltic States. Even the big combat drones aren’t mass-produced anymore: the Air Force only has around 300 missile-armed MQ-9 Reapers, each costing at least $15 million each. If the Air Force loses one-third of its planned fleet 1,763 F-35As in two weeks of combat, they’re not getting replaced any time soon. Lockheed Martin LMT hopes to achieve a production rate of just 180 F-35 stealth fighters per year by 2024.į-35 stealth planes, costing $80 million apiece, are not mass-production items like B-17s and P-51s. build replacement aircraft today? There aren’t any new B-52s being built today, nor F-22 stealth fighters. Israel managed to eke out a victory in 1973, thanks in part to deliveries of replacement aircraft from the United States. And the Arabs were using Cold War Soviet weapons: today’s Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles are much more lethal. But the closest analogy to World War II levels of attrition would the 1973 October War, when the Israeli Air Force lost one-third of its aircraft in two weeks to Arab anti-aircraft defenses.

lost 922 aircraft over North Vietnam between 19.

During Operation Rolling Thunder, the U.S. World War II was not the only conflict where aircraft suffered heavy losses. would concede defeat or resort to nuclear weapons. Losing a thousand aircraft in a month is a non sequitur: either the U.S. military has about 3,000 combat aircraft, including land-based and carrier-based fighters. That works out to dozens of aircraft lost each day, or more than a thousand per month. And of those 276,000 planes, 68,000 were lost in combat or accidents, or more than 25 percent, over almost four years of war. produced an amazing 276,000 aircraft during World War II, with 16 new B-17s per day rolling out of the factories per day by April 1944. Or even 16 aircraft, which would be 28 percent of the Air Force’s current fleet of 58 B-52Hs. Now just imagine 60 B-52 bombers shot down in one day.