I suggest you rethink your assessment of the “Army Air Farce”. It was not a case of the Germans finding out due to poor radio discipline.
I’d also like to point out, “Of the 177 aircraft originally listed for Operation TIDAL WAVE only some 88 managed to make the full return to Libya and only 33 of these were fit for service the following day. Losses included 53 aircraft, 44 of which were to German and Romanian and air defenses. Additional aircraft would be forced ditch in the Mediterranean or divert to other bases such as the RAF airfield at Corfu. A few would land and be interned in neutral Turkey. Of the aircrews, 440 men were killed, and a further 220 were taken prisoner. Five airmen were awarded the Medal of Honor, three posthumously, the most ever awarded for a single mission by the USAAF.”
That isn’t a level of effort that deserves to be called a ‘farce’.
“The enemy was well aware that a major bombing raid had been mounted. Across the Mediterranean they had tracked the 177 Liberators. When the formation reached Corfu, spotters had announced their direction sending German forces throughout the region into a second-stage alert. As the bombers made landfall and continued north over Greece, Axis forces went to third-stage. In the Romanian capitol of Bucharest Major Ernst Kuchenbacker phoned his commander, Brigadier General Alfred Gerstenberg, at his weekend mountain retreat. “It is unclear what is developing,” he advised the man who commanded one of the most heavily defended cities in Europe, “but we think the objective must be Ploesti.” Immediately Gerstenberg headed back to the city to command its defense.
As many as 200 Axis fighters were in the vicinity of Ploesti, including four wings (52 planes) of ME-109s at Mizel, twenty miles east of the city. All pilots were put on alert for immediate takeoff, with spotters already in the air. More than 200 big anti-aircraft guns ringed the city limits to protect the refineries, including 88-mm flak guns and 37-mm and 20-mm rapid-fire cannon. Well-trained German gunners heard the sounds of the sirens and rushed to their stations, ready to rain death on the Americans they now believed were heading towards them. Across the city barrage balloons were raised on their explosive laden steel cables, to snare wings and destroy the bombers that might soon arrive.”
http://www.homeofheroes.com/wings/part2/09_ploesti.html