# High sulfur steel **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 24, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088 "2016-01-24T16:39:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/21 "2016-01-26T05:03:00Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > In other words Doolittle did tell the fighters that they should leave the fighters without escort in order to concentrate on offensive actions against the Luftwaffe. Sure, because by keeping the fighters tightly locked to the bombers (which is what you meant to say), they were ineffective. By allowing the fighters to chase the enemy fighters, they proved highly effective, as you own cite states. As your cite states, permission for roaming freer was especially given on the return trip when the bombers were less vulnerable. It wasn’t a zero sum game. By moving away from the bomber formations, they were able to shoot down more Luftwaffe fighters, and consequently not only did achieving air superiority help us during and after the Normandy landings, it also significantly reduced the number of bombers lost to the Germans. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/22 "2016-01-26T05:06:52Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > ^ > Disagree. The 1941-1942 fighters that were air-cooled and only wing-internal tanks could take more punishments than, say, a P-51 D whose engine was water-cooled, and had an auxiliary tank behind the pilot. A pressurized cockpit was also very vulnerable. However, the 1941-1942 fighters couldn’t do what the P-51 D could. They lacked the performance. But that isn’t what **Bob** is talking about. He’s writing about the various versions within each aircraft model. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/23 "2016-01-26T05:14:24Z")
Exactly, a high-altitude fighter will require a pressurized cockpit, water-cooled and turbocharged engine, some auxiliary gas tanks, maybe small tanks of oxygen gas and SO2 for going “M” mode. All these made the Mustang D a bit trickier than, say, the older A or C. And whereas the Focke Wulf 190D, the F4 Corsair, or the F-6 Hellcat can’t engage the P-51 D or the Focke Wulf TA 152 above 22,000 feet, the first group are more simple, ruggedly built, with greater survivability. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/24 "2016-01-26T06:05:45Z")
There isn’t a disagreement on earlier aircraft being more rugged. But, as I just said: [QUOTE=TokyoBayer;] But that isn’t what **Bob** is talking about. He’s writing about the various versions within each aircraft model. [/QUOTE] An example being the FW 190 A-8 with improved armor for a specific purpose, over previous models. It looks like you are objecting to something which wasn’t said. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/25 "2016-01-26T06:29:41Z")
That’s because I didn’t mention one important premise of mine: the crucial aspect of the air war, beginning 1944 maybe has moved to high altitude long range action between defending fighters trying to shoot down large bombers, and enemy fighters bent on wiping them out. And so, I went into my treatise about next gen fighters being optimized for high altitude, long range fighting. Planes like the Mustang D&H, the FW TA152, and the Japanese Reppu were among the last versions of their respective models before the war ended. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/26 "2016-01-26T07:38:46Z")
OK, that makes sense. It seemed that we were talking past each other. ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/27 "2016-01-26T11:34:34Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > By allowing the fighters to chase the enemy fighters, they proved highly effective, At killing fighters, but not at protecting bombers. Without close fighter support the bombers were vulnerable to any fighters that either got through or which we didn’t know the Germans had. > [@](#): > > on the return trip when the bombers were less vulnerable. Why would the bombers be less vulnerable on the return trip? Wouldn’t it still benefit the Germans to shoot them down if they could even when they are empty and heading home so they couldn’t be re-loaded and returned? And wouldn’t the bombers be low on fuel on the way home meaning they had less ability to maneuver away from German fighters or AA? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/28 "2016-01-26T13:03:53Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > At killing fighters, but not at protecting bombers. WTF? 😕 Who are the P-51s protecting the bombers from if not German fighters? If they are killing the fighters, and more importantly the pilots how is that not protecting the bombers, especially as your own cites state that this was effective? Dead pilots cannot fly the next time, and Germany was increasingly unable to replace their pilots. This method also proved highly effective at defeating the heavy fighters which were deadlier against the bombers. Sticking by the bomber formations wasn’t effective at protecting them and the Germans were able to get away. The bombers may have wanted the close escorts, but it simply didn’t work as well, as all the cites show. You may want to reread the various cites, and follow the links. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/29 "2016-01-26T15:01:38Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > What kind of trade off was there in making aircraft from aluminum to save weight as opposed to steel which might have been able to withstand anti-aircraft fire better than aluminum? Considering what it took to train pilots and aircrews, was any thought ever given to armor plating on aircraft so fewer planes would have been shot down? Many aircraft models DID use armor. (Weight devoted to armor is weight you can’t use for other things, so there is a trade off.) > **[Ilyushin Il-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-2#.22The_Flying_tank.22)** > > The Ilyushin Il-2 (Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word shturmovík (Cyrillic: штурмовик), the generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft, became a synecdoche for the Il-2 in English sources, where it is commonly rendered Shturmovik, Stormovik and Sturmovik. > To Il-2 pilots, the aircraft was known by the diminutive "Ilyusha". To the soldiers on the ground, it was called the "Hunchback"... ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/30 "2016-01-26T15:37:32Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > WTF? 😕 Who are the P-51s protecting the bombers from if not German fighters? If the fighters are bombing German ground targets while the bombers are flying back to their base, the fighters aren’t protecting the bombers by the simple fact that the fighters aren’t with the bombers. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/31 "2016-01-26T21:54:56Z")
Fighters don’t bomb anything. They don’t carry bombs. They were engaging the same defending fighters that were attacking the bombers, but at locations further away. This helps in many ways. You need to understand that this is a complicated long term war. Not a single sortie. The Luftwaffe had limited and dwindling numbers of pilots and planes. Every German fighter shot down was a significant loss, especially the loss of the pilot. Germany had very little capability to train new pilots once the war was in full swing. In the end the strategies of how the allied fighters acted to protect the bombers was evolved over to be the most effective. As has been described earlier - they quickly discovered that close support of the bombers was not as effective, for a range of reasons. Active engagement with attacking fighters turns the role of the support fighters form one of passively waiting for an attack, and trying to stop the attack from hitting bombers once the attack has found their target, to one of actively seeking out and destroying as much of the the incoming attack force as possible before it has found its target. They simply found that the latter actually did work better. Returning bombers were vastly less vulnerable. The fuel load was dramatically lower, and most importantly - they had dropped their payload of bombs. They were vastly lighter. They could fly might higher, faster, and were much more manoeuvrable. One the way into a bombing run the bombers were so heavy that they were essentially sitting ducks in comparison. Also, bombers were freer to find their own way back - so there was not the same concentrated group of planes to seek out - or to protect. The other problem for the German fighters was that there would likely be another wave of bombers on another sortie coming in - and chasing down bombers that had completed their run was in competition with trying to protect another target from a new threat. No matter what - bomber flight crew was one of the most dangerous jobs. The loss rate was extraordinarily high. But the allied commanders were not fools. Their strategies evolved over time, and their success in protecting bombers significantly improved. ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/32 "2016-01-27T01:23:24Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Fighters don’t bomb anything. They don’t carry bombs. They do strafe ground targets. > [@](#): > > Every German fighter shot down was a significant loss, especially the loss of the pilot. Germany had very little capability to train new pilots once the war was in full swing. Not particularly. For all practical purpose Germany never had any more aircraft than they did the day they started the war. Factory production never exceeded battle losses, but this was due in large part because Hitler shifted his resources away from aircraft production once he realized how successful his ground forces could be using Blitzkrieg tactics. Merely knocking fighters out of the sky isn’t enough to win an air war. You have to destroy your enemy’s industrial ability to keep producing aircraft, and it takes bombers to do this. So letting your bombers get shot down while your fighters are trying to eliminate your enemy’s fighters, will likely just prolong the war because you won’t really be doing anything other than shooting down what can be replaced. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/33 "2016-01-27T01:41:23Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > They do **strafe** ground targets. You wrote: "If the fighters are **bombing** German ground targets " I was answering what you wrote. > [@](#): > > Not particularly. For all practical purpose Germany never had any more **aircraft** than they did the day they started the war. I said " Germany had very little capability to train new **pilots**". It was pilots, not planes that was the critical issue. You lose a pilot and it doesn’t matter how much industrial capacity you have, you can’t get a new plane in the sky. The allies trained their pilots in the US. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/34 "2016-01-28T14:43:07Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > Merely knocking fighters out of the sky isn’t enough to win an air war. You have to destroy your enemy’s industrial ability to keep producing aircraft, and it takes bombers to do this. So letting your bombers get shot down while your fighters are trying to eliminate your enemy’s fighters, will likely just prolong the war because you won’t really be doing anything other than shooting down what can be replaced. Were this anything other than a “documentary” produced hysteria, it would have concerned the Allies, but fortunately baseless speculation does not reflect the actual situation. I have no idea where you got the idea that the Allied bombers weren’t targeting the German aircraft factories. They were. Please provide a cite which shows otherwise. I have no idea where you get the idea that there wasn’t a sufficient number of bombers. There were. Please provide a cite which shows otherwise. Doolittle’s tactics were [devastating to the Luftwaffe](http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/aspj/airchronicles/aureview/1983/mar-apr/murray.htm): > [@](#): > > The terrible pressure on the fighter force culminated in the five-month period between January and May of 1944. The Luftwaffe was already in serious trouble at the beginning of the year. On 31 December 1943 the Luftwaffe had 2395 single-engine pilots in combat squadrons deployed throughout Europe. Of these pilots only 1495 were fully operational (62 percent), 291 were partially combat-ready (12 percent), and 691 were not operationally ready under any circumstances (26 percent). This force lost no less than 2262 fighter pilots in the next five months—close to 100 percent of the number reporting for duty at the turn of the year.27 In a conference with Herman Göring in mid-May, General Adolf Galland admitted that Luftflotte Reich (responsible for air defense over northern Germany) had lost 38 percent of its fighter pilots in April, while Luftflotte 3 (responsible for air defense over France and southern Germany) had lost 24 percent of its fighter pilots.28 by this point in the war, Germany training was a joke, with under-trained pilots getting killed right and left. The facts demonstrate you are clearly wrong. > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > YThe allies trained their pilots in the US. Minor quibble. It was North America. The US pilots trained in the US and British, Commonwealth and other Allies [principally trained in Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Commonwealth_Air_Training_Plan). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/35 "2016-01-28T16:00:21Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > Merely knocking fighters out of the sky isn’t enough to win an air war. You have to destroy your enemy’s industrial ability to keep producing aircraft, and it takes bombers to do this. So letting your bombers get shot down while your fighters are trying to eliminate your enemy’s fighters, will likely just prolong the war because you won’t really be doing anything other than shooting down what can be replaced. I suspect the other people responding to you are becoming very frustrated, because you are not taking their answers on board. Fighter escorts were ineffective when they remained in formation with bombers. Thus, fighters would be deployed in advance of bomber formations to clear a path. The heaviest bomber losses came early in the war when no Allied fighters existed with the range to escort bombers much beyond the coast of France. In any event, Doolittle’s crews had a much lower casualty rate than RAF Bomber Command, which lost nearly _half_ of its personnel. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/36 "2016-01-28T23:27:49Z")
Mustangs would strafe fighter airfields deep inside Germany, especially for those launching and receiving ME-262’s. Since there’s no way a Mustang could catch a '262 in the air, the former resorted to cat-and-mouse tactics. However, they can’t do that when there’s a TA 152 standing (flying) guard over the airfield. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088/37 "2016-01-29T01:49:52Z")
P-51s were credited with a 5:4 ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed in air versus on the ground. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-sulfur-steel/744088.md?page=1)