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These both seem illogically logical, kind of like the other story about an engineer who figured out where to armor aircraft by looking at the ones that came bac

These both seem illogically logical, kind of like the other story about an engineer who figured out where to armor aircraft by looking at the ones that came back -- he armored the places that were never shot up.

desdiv 7y ago
More info: >Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armour be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The areas untouched in returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research#Second_World_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research#Second_Wor...
- waterhouse 7y ago
  That whole article section is delicious. It has many examples of clear-headed people looking at a situation, figuring out a logical approach, and demonstrating that it worked well. The specific story of armoring an aircraft would be best completed by "...and the loss rate per mission was cut from x% to y% on the new planes". Unfortunately, that's one of the few examples that the section doesn't explicitly say demonstrated improvement.
- hackerbabz 7y ago
  I've heard it many times, and it's great, but I think it must not be true. Planes had hardly any armor at all and all I've ever seen was put in very logical places. Protect the engines, fuel, pilot, and other crew. It's not like they welded a piece of steel into a random place on the hull because they'd never seen it get hit before.
  - chrxr 7y ago
    Whilst it may not have been Blackett or his team doing the research, research in this area does seem to have been done(1), and there are books and papers written about it(2). 1- https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kyZgEKzZZtJQTCSG2/examine-your-assumptions https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kyZgEKzZZtJQTCSG2/examine-yo... 2 - https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    The point is that it would not be a random place. The complete absence of armor in the Mitsubishi Zero is often cited as one of the reasons why it became outclassed by American fighters later in WWII.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Also it's not like they had no clue which parts of an aircraft were important. The less-snappy but likely more accurate story is they looked closely at the parts without bullet holes in them to see what important components in those parts could use some more shielding.
nradov 7y ago
Ironically for bombers they probably would have achieved better results by stripping off most of the armor and all the defensive machine guns (and gunners). The weight reduction would have allowed them to fly higher and faster, making them less likely to get hit in the first place.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  They're never going to be able to fly faster than the fighters trying to intercept them though and flying higher makes them less effective at hitting their targets requiring more missions and more collateral damage so I'm not sure your plan works out with those factored in.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    Flying faster exposes you to those interceptors for less time and makes it harder for them to reach you before they run out of fuel. As for accuracy, they already had trouble reliably hitting any target smaller than an entire city so I don’t think it would make much difference for that to be a bit worse. But good luck convincing the folks in charge to give up on the idea of “precision” bombing....
  - nradov 7y ago
    My plan worked fine in practice. Look at the lower loss rates achieved by Mosquitos and similar fast bombers. At that time, fighters had limited endurance at high speed and were barely faster than bombers, so a small increase in bomber speed could make interception effectively impossible. And at higher altitudes the smaller fighters had trouble even turning due to high wing loading. Bombing accuracy was a moot point. None of them were able to reliably hit a target smaller than a city regardless of speed or altitude.
    - mannykannot 7y ago
      Bombing accuracy in daylight could be better than that... http://ww2today.com/9th-october-1943-the-marienburg-focke-wulf-plant-raid http://ww2today.com/9th-october-1943-the-marienburg-focke-wu...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

desdiv 7y ago

More info: >Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armour be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The areas untouched in returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research#Second_World_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research#Second_Wor...

waterhouse 7y ago
That whole article section is delicious. It has many examples of clear-headed people looking at a situation, figuring out a logical approach, and demonstrating that it worked well. The specific story of armoring an aircraft would be best completed by "...and the loss rate per mission was cut from x% to y% on the new planes". Unfortunately, that's one of the few examples that the section doesn't explicitly say demonstrated improvement.
hackerbabz 7y ago
I've heard it many times, and it's great, but I think it must not be true. Planes had hardly any armor at all and all I've ever seen was put in very logical places. Protect the engines, fuel, pilot, and other crew. It's not like they welded a piece of steel into a random place on the hull because they'd never seen it get hit before.
- chrxr 7y ago
  Whilst it may not have been Blackett or his team doing the research, research in this area does seem to have been done(1), and there are books and papers written about it(2). 1- https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kyZgEKzZZtJQTCSG2/examine-your-assumptions https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kyZgEKzZZtJQTCSG2/examine-yo... 2 - https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf https://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf
- mannykannot 7y ago
  The point is that it would not be a random place. The complete absence of armor in the Mitsubishi Zero is often cited as one of the reasons why it became outclassed by American fighters later in WWII.
- taneq 7y ago
  Also it's not like they had no clue which parts of an aircraft were important. The less-snappy but likely more accurate story is they looked closely at the parts without bullet holes in them to see what important components in those parts could use some more shielding.

nradov 7y ago

Ironically for bombers they probably would have achieved better results by stripping off most of the armor and all the defensive machine guns (and gunners). The weight reduction would have allowed them to fly higher and faster, making them less likely to get hit in the first place.

rtkwe 7y ago
They're never going to be able to fly faster than the fighters trying to intercept them though and flying higher makes them less effective at hitting their targets requiring more missions and more collateral damage so I'm not sure your plan works out with those factored in.
- mikeash 7y ago
  Flying faster exposes you to those interceptors for less time and makes it harder for them to reach you before they run out of fuel. As for accuracy, they already had trouble reliably hitting any target smaller than an entire city so I don’t think it would make much difference for that to be a bit worse. But good luck convincing the folks in charge to give up on the idea of “precision” bombing....
- nradov 7y ago
  My plan worked fine in practice. Look at the lower loss rates achieved by Mosquitos and similar fast bombers. At that time, fighters had limited endurance at high speed and were barely faster than bombers, so a small increase in bomber speed could make interception effectively impossible. And at higher altitudes the smaller fighters had trouble even turning due to high wing loading. Bombing accuracy was a moot point. None of them were able to reliably hit a target smaller than a city regardless of speed or altitude.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    Bombing accuracy in daylight could be better than that... http://ww2today.com/9th-october-1943-the-marienburg-focke-wulf-plant-raid http://ww2today.com/9th-october-1943-the-marienburg-focke-wu...

deleted 7y ago

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