Was this the actual historical procedure?

[danielprates]

I remember a scripted campaing for the old il2, it was about a dozen ju88 missions in France 1940. Some missions were low-level bombing runs, and the mission description would orient you to fly at a certain altitude and speed, and set the bombsight to a certain angle and use that as a fixed sight of sorts to bomb the target. So for instance, 300m AGL and 300kph, with an angle of 45 degrees, and presto you have a low level sight. It makes sense of course; what I was curious is whether this is just something the scenario designer came up with, or it in real life that was indeed the prescribed procedure for bombers equiped with this type of bombsight (lofte 7 and alike). I ask because though the principle seems logic, those medium bomber bombsights werent really designed for that (or were they?) and this kind of really low level bombing was more typical of smaller planes, and those would use more straightfoward simple sights like the Hs129's "zielenrichtung" or similar aiming aids. Does anybody know about this?

Edited January 5, 2022 by danielprates

[Matt-357]

Interesting. I wonder how low the bomb site was used in medium (mid to low altitude) level bombers like the Ju-88 and A-20.

[danielprates]

13 minutes ago, Matt-357 said:

Interesting. I wonder how low the bomb site was used in medium (mid to low altitude) level bombers like the Ju-88 and A-20.

 

And "if" it was. Maybe there was another method. A fixed aiming aid for instance. That'a what I am asking: the method I mentioned above makes sense, but "was it" really done like that?

[Jade_Monkey]

I don't know much about the topic, but it would be weird to prescribe the angle ahead of time. Wouldn't they need to correct for wind etc? 

 

Not sure how they knew the wind parameters but that might be a separate conversation.

[Matt-357]

At 300 m not sure how significant the wind effect would be. Depends on the target and number of bombs dropped in addition to the wind speed I guess.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Might actually be cool if somebody with too much time on their hands came up with a bombing table for this sort of thing.  Just get the speed and alt right, point the nose, jump in the bombadier and then just let the target fly into your sights.

[Alexmarine]

The game's bombing device already takes care of all of that, just set it on the ground and then be sure to keep the plane inside those parameters and you are ready to go (or to bomb in this case )

[Guest deleted@83466]

1 minute ago, Alexmarine said:

The game's bombing device already takes care of all of that, just set it on the ground and then be sure to keep the plane inside those parameters and you are ready to go (or to bomb in this case )

yeah, I guess you’re right now that I think about it.  No table needed.

[danielprates]

Hmm... I never tried that. Doesn't it go "out of scale", so to speak? Those level bombing bombsights have an envelope of altitudes/speeds they are supposed to be used into. It goes against common experience using them for a few hundred meters' height. Then again, I never read anywhere a disclaimer like "warning: not accurate below x altitude" or something like that.

 

But as @Matt-357 said, this type of super low run seems to be the kind of scenario where you need so-and-so accuracy, like a boresight aim-and-shoot type of thing. A fraction of a second wrong and the bomb hits far off the target. 

[dannytherat]

5 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

I don't know much about the topic, but it would be weird to prescribe the angle ahead of time. Wouldn't they need to correct for wind etc? 

Also variations in the weight of the aircraft would surely have an effect too.

While we can say to fly at such-and-such height above ground level and such-and-such speed, the aircraft's weight would make a difference depending on the fuel and weapons load at the time of the drop, specifically because a heavier-ladem aircraft will be forced to fly with the wing at a higher angle of attack to provide the required increased lift.

 

Since we're considering a fixed sight, pulling the nose up will also affect where the sight is pointing.

 

That said, if you're sufficiently low and fast this might not make too much difference I suppose... ?