The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-10-20

defiant, d1Sdalntul thorough body else do the piloting. I want to get a shot at Jerry"
 The Fortresses' performance has changed many ideas about aerial warfare, and may bring about i'm portant further changes.
 "One of four big headaches" an air force officer said, lis keeping the boys from going out of the way to get a shot at Jerry. Even so, they're not so illogical. We're just as anxious to knock out enemy fighters as we are to hit bomb tar gets. Sometimes I wish more of them would challenge the Fortresses."
 Officials emphasize that Fortress formations are not impregnable to attack and that losses must be ex- pected to increase as the range of operations is extended. But they are gratifed by a better than expected performance so far.
 The Fortress fighting power comes from gunnery and ticket, disciplined formation flying. A Fortress pilot must be a precisionist to maintain mutual protective fire and still per init space for many guns to fire in any direction whnile flying toward the target and returning home.
 Teamwork is familiar to Amert- cans drilled on the football field, but it requires many intricate oper- ations in the war theater to attain the close coordination desired and there's still room for improvement by many American squadrons. If a F'ocke-Wulf 190 attacks 8 formation of Fortresses there might be as many as 60 guns trained on it at 1000 yards compared with the Nazis four cannon and two machine guns. The Nazi flyer wants to get as close as possible, and against a British plane he probably would charge in to range Of 400 or 300 yards.
 But aginSt Fortress formation an enemy comes into range at 1000 yards and might encounter fatal fire at 800.
 At 600 yards the Nazi would be blanketed by barrage, while his own fire could be directed only against one Fortress.
 A fortress flying alone might be more than a match for a single enemy fighter. but it is vulnerable if attacked by several. A squadron of fortresses, however. is able to con- centrate about 100 half inch shells a second against an attacker-and only a few hits would be fatal. That's the reason for the inten- sive training emphasis put on form- ation flying, which so far has frus- trated most enemy attacks.
 Some Have Been Hit
 Int doesn't mean that the fort resses have avoided damage. Some have been hit heavily, but the tough ships usually are able to get home safely. Americans knew before they went into European action that : Japanese anti-aircraft fire was com- paratively ineffective against fort resses. and were gratified to learn that German Flax was not much better.
 If a fortress is damaged and . forced to slow down, the squadron leader usually orders other ships in the flight to reduce their speed ac- cordingly. Thus the squadron main tains protective fire for the dam aged plane.
 Raids deep into Europe require revised methods and planning United States lightning flfighters, designed especially for high-altitude long distance escort. may provide teh key to deeper raids into Eu- rope when they go into action In this theater.
 | Meanwhile. fighters currently op- erating in this theater of operations coul dmake longer raids possible by escorting the fortreSses part Of the distance to the target and then re- turning later for a rendezvous to escort them back through the mosI dangerous leg of the flight.
 Germans repeatedly have changed tactics in attempting to break through fortress fire from al dlrec- tions, singly and in numbers, bul they've failed to find the answer so far, Perhaps there isn't any answer except to meet increased flrepoyeg with still greater firepower