Timeline for How well did American bombers fight enemy fighters in World War II?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 25, 2023 at 19:15 | comment | added | totalMongot | @vsz The analogy is correct Though, a dozen of machine guns on a bomber with trained crews are more efficient than one on a tank served by a guy who has other things to do. If you look into the American and British bombers being attacked by day fighters or Wilde Sau, you'll see the former inflicted significant losses to the latter (even if overall ratio was not in their favour) | |
| Sep 25, 2023 at 6:42 | comment | added | vsz | So in effect this is similar to roof-mounted machine guns on tanks: they had a negligible chance to actually shoot down an attacking aircraft, but were still useful by stressing the pilot with tracers buzzing by, and making him more difficult to aim. | |
| Aug 27, 2021 at 17:58 | vote | accept | Tom Au | ||
| Aug 26, 2021 at 16:47 | comment | added | totalMongot | @TomAu Exactly, they had "some", consisting in resistance of their structure, and numerous machine guns: they had more than other bombers of any countries | |
| Aug 26, 2021 at 7:29 | comment | added | mart | I think the point of the answer is that the defense of the bombers only worked in concert with a fighter escort. | |
| Aug 25, 2021 at 18:46 | comment | added | Tom Au | "American bombers were able to go through heavy defenses because they were resistant and have enough machine guns to spoil attacks from fighters. This forced enemy fighters to perform sophisticated attacks." This suggests that American bombers had "some," though "imperfect" defenses against German fighters. | |
| Aug 25, 2021 at 18:44 | history | answered | totalMongot | CC BY-SA 4.0 |