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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 whi

by 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.

by desdiv 7y ago

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.