Shuttle bombing

Summary

Shuttle bombing is a tactic where bombers fly from their home base to bomb a first target and continue to a different location where they are refuelled and rearmed. The aircraft may then bomb a second target on the return leg to their home base.[1][2][3] Some examples of operations which have used this tactic are:

While shuttle bombing offered several advantages, allowing distant targets to be hit and complicating the Axis defence arrangements, it posed a number of practical difficulties, not least the awkward relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. The operations were concluded in September 1944 after a three-month period and not repeated.

References edit

  1. ^ Staff. Shuttle bombing Archived 2011-05-18 at the Wayback Machine McGraw-Hill's AccessScience Encyclopedia of Science & Technology Online Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Edward T. Russell (1999). Leaping the Atlantic Wall: Army Air Forces Campaigns in Western Europe, 1942–1945 Archived 2004-06-27 at the Wayback Machine(PDF), United States Air Force History and Museums Program Archived 2006-10-28 at the Wayback Machine pp. 26, 27. (HTML Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine copy on the website of USAAF.net)
  3. ^ Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D., eds. (2005). "Shuttle Bombing". The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 778. ISBN 978-0192806703.
  4. ^ Beevor, Antony (1999). Stalingrad. Penguin Books. p. 138. ISBN 0140249850.
  5. ^ Christopher Chant (1986). The Encyclopedia of Codenames of World War II, Routledge, ISBN 0710207182. p. 15
  6. ^ Jon Lake (2002). Lancaster Squadrons 1942–43, Osprey, ISBN 1841763136. p. 66
  7. ^ Bombardiers lourds de la dernière guerre: B-17, forteresse volante, Avro Lancaster, B-24 Liberator. Editions Atlas. 1980. ISBN 2731200316.
  8. ^ Miller, Donald (2006). Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys who Fought the Air War against Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743235444.
  9. ^ Charles T. O'Reilly (2001). Forgotten Battles: Italy's War of Liberation, 1943–1945 Lexington Books, ISBN 0739101951. p. 343
  10. ^ Deane, John R. 1947. The Strange Alliance, The Story of our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. The Viking Press.[ISBN missing][page needed]
  11. ^ Combat Chronology of the US Army Air Forces September 1944: 17, 18, 19 copied from USAF History Publications Archived 18 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine & wwii combat chronology (pdf) Archived 2008-09-10 at the Wayback Machine