“I watched two fighters explode perhaps not far below, disappearing inside sheets off lime flame, B-17s dropping call at most of the condition out-of worry, from motors unstoppable to handle surfaces shot aside, amicable and you may opponent parachutes floating off and, for the eco-friendly carpet far underneath united states, multiple funeral service pyres off smoke away from dropped routes, establishing our walk.”
The 3 electric batteries off 88-mm weapons organized within target performed their finest so you can disturb the latest bomb runs, but the best bomb groups put the designs regarding bombs accurately. Next, bear in mind taken place while in the a large attack using one address, soil and you will cigarette about explosions and you will fires blurry the fresh new setting-out items, and you can further bombing is actually less perfect.
Shortly after bombing the mark, the newest B-17s continued southern area. Two damaged bombers remaining the newest formation and you may going having basic Switzerland. Eight a lot more busted airplanes transpired on the road to Algeria.
Of your own 146 hefty bombers which had set out getting Regensburg, eight turned-back, and you may 139 entered the new Dutch shore. Twenty-four of them was in fact forgotten.
Brand new Schweinfurt raiding push, comprising 230 B-17s, escorts Hall in Tirol launched its attack later in the day. They also suffered heavily about German fighters and flak, shedding 30-half dozen bombers.
The next “new” gun was the brand new 21-cm rocket, good German Armed forces infantry gun adjusted to have heavens-to-air fool around with
Hence, of the 376 B-17 Traveling Fortresses you to definitely lay out of England so you can bomb brand new several essential targets, sixty was indeed shed. That has been perhaps not the last pricing. If the Regensburg force gone back to England seven days later, assaulting a keen airfield near Bordeaux on your way, it absolutely was without various other fifty-four aircraft, which had been broken beyond immediate repair, and you will about three significantly more were lost inside the get back flight. Temporarily, the fresh new dual attacks hence with the French airfield deprived Eighth Sky Force out of 118 bombers-nearly one to-3rd of your push the amount of time for the August 17.
Even after bomber team reports to the contrary, its come back flame don’t create significant loss to your Italian language fighters. The latest Luftwaffe destroyed just twenty-eight fighters in the a couple of great air fights.
On months you to adopted, the huge-scale regarding a couple of guns caused a formidable boost in the latest firepower of German house security fighters. The original is actually brand new Mk. 108 canon, a thirty-mm firearm one to discharged eleven-ounce, high-volatile incendiary series at a level greater than 600 each minute; on average, three instance hits had been adequate to down much bomber.
The newest Bf-109s had been fitting with a 30-mm cannon firing from the propeller middle
Mounted within the a tube that can served as launcher, the fresh 248-pound, spin-stabilized gun transmitted a great 90-lb warhead strong enough to damage one bomber within 30 meters of your area of detonation. The newest missile are big date-fuzed so you’re able to explode at a preset trip distance, but not, and so the target’s variety must be evaluated contained in this fine limitations prior to discharge.
These types of additionally the FW-190s was in fact altered to create one rocket launcher under each wing. In another move to buttress new combatant protections, Destroyer Squadron twenty six try reformed given that a house protection device with a moderate energy out of eighty “bomber-destroyers.” Brand new unit’s formidable twin-engine Bf-110s and you will Me personally-410s carried a forward-capturing armament regarding four 20-mm cannon, a couple of 29-mm cannon, and you can five 21-cm skyrocket launchers.
For action, the brand new 21-cm skyrocket turned-out apparently inaccurate. It downed pair bombers, nonetheless it will broken planes sufficiently to force them out of development to make sure that most other fighters you can expect to finish her or him out of.
8th Sky Force’s big bombers started again episodes for the Germany to your September six, 1943, when 338 Flying Fortresses set-out to have Stuttgart. Italian language fighter pushes once more responded strenuously and efficiently, and on this event new raiders needed to compete with worst climate. An important goals was basically blanketed by clouds, in addition to aircraft bombed “purpose of possibility” in route family. The latest September six attack pricing forty-five bombers.