The Wikipedia page on Schräge Musik contains what seems to be a decent overview of the topic. Still, it leaves a number of questions unanswered (and some unasked).
For starters, and just to clear this up in my mind, does the term Schräge Musik refer to the tactic of upward firing into bombers and other planes or is it meant to apply to vertically firing systems themselves, especially cannon?
A more important question, and the main motivation for this thread is ‘why the surprise’? Both the Wiki article above and Freeman Dyson’s memoir of his WWII analytic work for the RAF, emphasize the surprise that Schräge Musik caused to its ‘recipients’. Indeed, for a long time, the allies attributed losses that were in reality due to Schräge Musik as resulting from flak. Even when evidence began to accrue that their bombers were being attacked (and destroyed) from below, they were disinclined to draw the obvious conclusion. Why was that? It seems to me (as an ignoramus about such things, mind you), that aerial attacks from below - from planes situated in the bombers’ well-known and well-appreciated blind spot - was ‘a natural’; just waiting to happen. I would have thought such attacks would have been anticipated not repudiated.
Oh, one final question, please: how does one pronounce Schräge Musik? Does it sound like 'sh-rage muzik? Or is it more along the lines of ‘shrah-jeh muzeek’, or something else?
Neither. Forget about the “a,” (closer to “eh” in American, but the “g” is hard and that does count. Extra credit if you put the accent on the “ik.”
ETA: from a “Karl” yet!
Never heard of this. Those damn Nazis were clever when it came to killing people. At first I thought you were talking about the ground based AA cannon that eventually got transformed into the main gun for Tiger tanks. I guess we should have taken it quite seriously when it was first reported, but what countermeasures could we have taken?
I seem to recall that the Luftwaffe had mounted rockets on some of their night fighters, to fire vertically.
The RAF bomber command flew night sorties, an attack from below would be attributed to ground based AA or triple A, before they realized that they were being attacked by night fighters. I guess the jig would have been up, when someone started comparing known flak sites and where the bombers were attacked.
Bombers were often flying as part of a group. Fighters below one could easily be in view of squadron mates to the sides.
It does make for an interesting tool for thinning the herd if you can get into a good position on the fringes of a group or picking off flak damaged stragglers.
Ventral gun mounts were installed in the B-17C -B-17D variants who barely saw combat, the E-F-G variants that were built by the thousands all had the Sperry Ball Turrets.
Your comments are valid for the U.S. bomber strategy.
British tactics differed.
When the Brits switched to night attacks the planes did not tend to travel in formations. (Flying in formation at night, particularly if the formation is tight enough to provide defensive covering fire, is nearly as dangerous as flak and opposing fighters.) Instead, each plane headed for its target as soon as it was off the ground without forming up in formations, and each plane’s navigator was responsible to get the plane to the target.
In the middle of 1942, the Brits began experimenting with “stream” formations in which all the planes flew an identical path with the intention of overwhelming the night fighters by arriving rapidly, one after the other. However,again with the intention of reducing the number of mid-air collisions, the planes maintained a fixed distance that did not give their crews the opportunity to view the other planes in the formation after dark.
A very few British light bombers (U.S. built Martin Baltimores, for example), had a ventral gun firing downward and rearward from a position aft the bomb bay, (much like the lower gun on a TBF torpedo bomber) and the Bristol Blenheim had an odd gun fired using mirrors that was mounted facing back from the bottom of the nose, but I cannot think of any British medium or heavy bomber with a ventral turret.
drachillix: As Tom points out, your argument doesn’t really hold water with respect to the RAF bombers. The fear (perhaps unfounded - see below) of mid-air collisions tended to make them avoid traveling close together and thus close enough to alert their neighbour that ‘Jerry’s right under you!!’ Dive now!!’
Indeed, in the link I cited above pointing to the memoirs of renowned physicist but erstwhile RAF bomber command Operations Research Section analyst Freeman Dyson, he spends considerable time describing how his task was to demonstrate that it actually wasn’t all that dangerous to fly in formation. He recalls a figure of 0.07 percent of sorties led to a fatal collision (a much smaller chance than hearing some fatal Schräge Musik!).
I know they mounted this system on the Me-163, with an interesting configuration- part of the plane had special sensors which would fire the upward guns when the shadow of the bomber passed overhead. The idea was that the rocket fighters were so fast that there was an extremely short window to fire and hit bombers. Apparently a few bombers were shot down this way.
These attacks happened during daylight, obviously. I think there was also some thought to this method for inexperienced pilots to increase the chances they would successfully shoot down a bomber.
I think this quote from Dyson gives the clue “Bomber Command told the crews that their chances of survival would increase with experience, and the crews believed it. They were told, After you have got through the first few operations, things will get better. *This idea was important for morale at a time when the fraction of crews surviving to the end of a 30-operation tour was only about 25 percent. *”
Thinking about the possibility of a German weapon that could attack bomber from the blind spot would mean acknowledging that (until countermeasures could be developed) all the skill, training and experience of the bomber crew made little difference to their survival rate.
1943 US training film (two parts) for bomber pilots on avoiding flak. (Sorry for cite to only one.) Fascinating, and horrible in light of practical reality.
As long as we’re revisiting this (my comment above in fact mentioned the umlaut “a,”) the “u” in “Musik” has no “y” diphthong like English pronunciation, but is basically a “oo” in “moose” but a little less lippy. The “i” is more “icky” than “eeky,” also, to answer OP.
Yeah, you’re right about the “a.” I just wanted to forestall the “y” diphthong. Which seems to be a bugaboo of mine. Once upon a time I got graded on this shit.
But for singers, so I’m sure I fuck it up at times for normal speech.
You’re totally right about the “oo” diphthong thingie, and I KNEW that and my test paper just went down to 89%. (only four hours sleep doesn’t help matters, either). Seems like the only thing I remember from school was German pronunciation, 'cause Deutsche was a cool language. Not pretty to listen to, just .
I apologize if I came off as a dick. Old home week is now over.
Once upon a time I got graded on this shit.
.