Скачать или смотреть Why U.S. Bomber Crews Started Flying "Backwards" — And Doubled Their Kill Rate

Why U.S. Bomber Crews Started Flying "Backwards" — And Doubled Their Kill Rate
November nineteenth, nineteen forty-three. Twenty-two thousand feet above the North Sea. Technical Sergeant Howard Fischer pressed his face against the frozen plexiglass of the ball turret, watching the formation of B-17s ahead of his aircraft suddenly execute what seemed like an impossible maneuver. The lead bomber group wasn't flying toward their target at Breman, Germany. They were flying backwards.
Or so it appeared to Fischer, who had completed fourteen missions without ever seeing anything like this. The aircraft hadn't actually reversed direction. Their noses still pointed toward the target. But something fundamental had changed about how they positioned themselves in relation to the enemy fighters that were already climbing to intercept them. Something that contradicted every tactical manual Fischer had memorized during training at Gunnery School. Something that would revolutionize aerial combat over Europe and ultimately save thousands of American lives through a counterintuitive understanding of geometry, psychology, and the brutal mathematics of survival.
The problem had been building for months, hidden in the casualty reports that arrived at Eighth Air Force Headquarters in High Wycombe, England. Every mission over occupied Europe produced the same grim pattern. American bomber formations flying deep into German territory faced coordinated fighter attacks that exploited a fundamental weakness in defensive tactics. The Luftwaffe had identified this vulnerability through painful experience, and by autumn of nineteen forty-three, German fighter pilots had refined their techniques to devastating effect. The head-on attack, executed by Messerschmitt BF one hundred nine and Focke-Wulf one hundred ninety fighters diving from high altitude directly at the lead bombers in a formation, had become the single most lethal threat to American air crews.