Abort and Diversion of Bombers

[RIBob 39]

Is this even possible in EAW?  It happened frequently, at ;east during the earlier years of the war, until improved bombing tech aids appeared later-on.  How would this be accomplished?  What effect would it have on Luftwaffe fighter response?   Allied fighter support?  Presumably the bombers would jettison their bombs if over Germany, but what if over France--jettison them in the Channel?

submitted for discussion.

[VonBeerhofen 63]

I don't think bombers were too squeemish about dropping their load but their objective would always be to get to the target and drop em there. One thing is certain, you didn't want to fly home with them as it made you less maneuverable and would cost extra fuel and obviously the last thing you'd want was to land a heavily damaged plane with it's bombs still on board.

Even if you couldn't make it to the target there must have been plenty of oppertunities to drop em elsewhere, any place where flack is coming from would be a good spot. If you weren't sure you'd probably drop em in open country to do the least ammount of collateral damage, that is if you had such oppertunity.

VonBeerhofen

Edited June 3, 2019 by VonBeerhofen

[Jel 37]

One plausible theory is that Glenn Miller's plane was hit by RAF bombs in a special bomb release zone in the English Channel. Many years after the event a RAF rear gunner had been listening to a BBC doco about Miller's disappearance. When he heard the details checked his log-book, because he remembered seeing a small US plane below them at the time of release. The log book date and time matched. It is believed that the US pilot was new, and may not have known about the "no-go" zone where bombs could be jettisoned when missions were aborted due to bad weather.