R.A.F. BLASTS BERLIN IN SECOND HEAVY NIGHT RAID; ALLIES RAID SPITSBERGEN (9/9/41)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 9/9/41 | James MacDonald, Ross Munro, David Anderson, C. Brooks Peters, C.L. Sulzberger, Hanson W. Baldwin

[Homer_J_Simpson]

the brass decided that the the Norden had no practical apllication for what they were doing.

In addition to the factors you mentioned, I get the idea from the museum plaque above that the Norden was designed for daylight bombing. For their raids on England, didn't the Luftwaffe prefer to operate at night to avoid British fighters?

[PzLdr]

Initially, no. When the prep for Sea Lion started, the Luftwaffe used, almost exclusively, daylight bombing, including predominately STUKA attacks from Luftflotte V in Norway [quickly abandoned]. Luftflotten 2 and 3 [Kesselring and Sperrle], operating from the Channel coast closed the Channel to British shipping with daylight raids. And the attacks on the RAF airfields and radar stations were daylight attacks.

The switch came in September, when Hitler ordered London bombed. Since the Heinkels were largely unescorted over the target [limited fuel capacity of the Me 109s, limited time available over London], the casualty/loss rate soared, and night bombing was the only way to cut the losses [another consequence of no strategic bomber program], In fact the only aircraft available to the Luftwaffe in any numbers for longe range operations was the Focke Wulf “Condor”, designed as a passenger plane.

To paraphrase Churchill: “Never have so many owed so much to the fuel capacity of a 109”