I'd have thought that the OR Section of 2 TAF would have produced quite a lot. 2 ORS (21 AG) in their final report 'Operational Research in NW Europe' include 5 Chapters on Air Support, with 4 or 5 short reports in each chapter (only 1 seems to be a joint report with 2 TAF OR).
Without attempting to paraphrase the lot, the dominant impression of the close air support items (ie ignoring the extensive bombing stuff) is that pilots claims were way over the top, that 2 TAF used mostly rockets and these were far more successful than USAAF's who used mostly 500 lb bombs. (One example, Mortain area Aug 44, en armd vehs destroyed, pilot claims - 2 TAF 84, 9 USAAF 69; actual findings - 15 by rkts, 4 cannon or MG, 2 by bomb!) They avoid differentiating .5 vs 20mm because it wastoo difficult too judge reliably. One interesting average is 6 rkt firing sorties to achieve a 'rail cut'.
There's lots of interesting tables and the overall impression from these is the high proportion of abandoned vehicles, often with little attempt at destruction. In fact it's mostly SSVs destroyed and the circumstances tend to suggest that these may have been the result of allied ground tps MG shooting.
The full report is in Nat Archive WO291/1331 and several inches thick, but all the air stuff in in Part 1.
The real impact of the fighter bomber post D-day
Moderator: John W. Howard
dduff442 wrote:Extremely efficient, though the result would likely be very temporary. Had the war continued longer, findings such as this would have helped the RAF view prevail over that of the Army.nigelfe wrote:One interesting average is 6 rkt firing sorties to achieve a 'rail cut'.
Regards,
dduff
The rokets were not all that effective. It was 6 sorties each sortie or plane with 8 rockets. 48 rockets per railway tie cut. Plus some of the reports were a bit suspisious.
While the rockets were roughly twice as accurate as the bombs. The bombs had more than twice the destructive potential.
At the time there was a great deal of contention between the Army and RAF over the question of the effectiveness of air attack, the brunt of which was fought by the Operational Research (OR) scientists from 21st Army Gp.
In a nutshell, the OR folks spent a great deal of time crawling over the battlefield wreckage, counting burned out vehicles and trying to figure out what they had been shot by. By and large, the RAF did not deign to get its hands dirty on such a mundane endeavour. The (army sponsored) OR types concluded that very few German vehicles had been actually destroyed by air attack. The RAF would not agree with that conclusion, though they did not attempt any counter-studies.
I remember seeing in the archives, some of the correspondance between the 21st Army Gp OR staff, and the RAF. On one of the letters, in hand writing, someone had written (I quote from memory) "Unless they think fairies have carried off all of the German wrecks destroyed by their air attacks, where do they think the wrecks went??!!"
I should also mention that much of the OR reporting has now been compiled and published in a book by the military history dept of Wilfred Laurier University as Montgomery's Scientists: Operational Research in Northwest Europe, Terry Copp, editor http://info.wlu.ca/~wwwmsds/bookslcmsds.htm
In a nutshell, the OR folks spent a great deal of time crawling over the battlefield wreckage, counting burned out vehicles and trying to figure out what they had been shot by. By and large, the RAF did not deign to get its hands dirty on such a mundane endeavour. The (army sponsored) OR types concluded that very few German vehicles had been actually destroyed by air attack. The RAF would not agree with that conclusion, though they did not attempt any counter-studies.
I remember seeing in the archives, some of the correspondance between the 21st Army Gp OR staff, and the RAF. On one of the letters, in hand writing, someone had written (I quote from memory) "Unless they think fairies have carried off all of the German wrecks destroyed by their air attacks, where do they think the wrecks went??!!"
I should also mention that much of the OR reporting has now been compiled and published in a book by the military history dept of Wilfred Laurier University as Montgomery's Scientists: Operational Research in Northwest Europe, Terry Copp, editor http://info.wlu.ca/~wwwmsds/bookslcmsds.htm
Having read most of th 2 ORS reports I'd have to say its difficult to see exactly what the RAF, etc, actually contributed to WW2! I suspect the Scientific Advisor at 21 AG was saying the same thing, but am not so sure about the one at AEAF. The RAF did have a Bombing Analysis Unit and Air MInistry DAT also produced reports, perhaps based on pilots' claims which would appear to be only rivalled by AA gunners'! The Army OR had some talent including Solly Zuckerman who had moved into other matters by 1944.