All-Aircraft-Simulations
Bombing of the Venlo railroadbridge - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Bombing of the Venlo railroadbridge (/showthread.php?tid=65007)


Bombing of the Venlo railroadbridge - wimsma - 20.09.2009

I want to tell you about the actual bombing of the railroadbridge in my hometown. This bridge was of low strategic importance, but still it was bombed by the RAF. Now..many years later it is debated if the prize the people in the city had to pay was not far th high.

[Image: bombardement28oktober19.th.jpg]

The bridge was bombed by B-25 planes. hey dropped about 250 1000 pund bombs at each run. There were bombings on 13, 18, 28, 29, oktober and on 2,3,4,5, 18, 19 november 1944. Some days there were two runs. A total of 13 bombings. Bombs were dropped at about 10000 to 12000 feet because of the heavy flak. The weather was very bad, many bombings used only radar for guidence. Bombing was very inaccurate...the complete inner-city was destroyed. More then 300 people were killed.

[Image: bombardement3november19.th.jpg]

Still the bridge was NOT DESTROYED!! The Germans themselves blew it up when they retreated to the eastside of the Maas river.

[Image: bridgevenlo.th.jpg]

You see only the craters in the open field. There are many more across the city.
Siting in a cellar while you are being bombed is very traumatic. Stories about these events were told in my family for many years.

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Ok..it's history now and I play games with this stuff. I just wanted to make clear how extreme difficult bombing a bridge is...

I think bombing a bridge in il-2 is far too easy. When a bridge is defended it is suicidal to go below 10000 feet. The problem about bombing is the extreme acuraty you need. When a bomb hits the bridge it just makes a small hole in it and expledes in the water. When you look at the pictures you see the bridge was actually hit several times. You have to hit the pilars. Maybe this is some inspiration for some modder to build a more realistic damegemodel for bridges.








- boogabooga - 20.09.2009

This mod is already available, and has been for months. Try the search function.

edit: I found it!
viewtopic.php?t=11218&highlight=bridge+damage+mod

Thanks Charlie Chap!

You're right though, that's why this mod is great. Many bridges have a history of being very tough to bring down. There was Remagen of course. The Dragon's Jaw Bridge in Vietnam survived several airstrikes during Rolling Thunder, and was only brought down with guided weapons.

- ROSOBORONEXPORTCORP - 20.09.2009

Similarly, most trains that were taken out by strafing were by debris derailed or had their cargo lit on fire. A locomotive boiler on the other hand had the thickness of tank armour and was slopped...

- boogabooga - 20.09.2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shsxuauQ ... re=related

I think a clear boiler penetration is evident at 2:40.

- ROSOBORONEXPORTCORP - 21.09.2009

This particular footage is unconvincing. There is a big difference between venting some steam after taking out the release valve and a catastrophic rupturing of the boiler. There are a number of vulnerable components that can be hit without penetrating the boiler and it is likely that a train with that degree of damage shown in the film could keep running for several kilometres.

However, I will concede that there exists at least one piece of footage showing a catastrophic failure of a locomotive's boiler while under attack by a hispano armed aircraft. I'd submit that the gun camera footage shown isn't typical. Rather, the surviving footage has been chosen for its analytic or dramatic properties. It isn't an unbiased sample.

Critical damage to the water injector or the crew could leave an unmaintained locomotive to explode several minutes after attack, but an immediate massive explosion would be very rare.

In February 1944, 122 Wing (Tempest) claimed 484 locomotives. I suspect that the majority of these were taken out by bombs and rockets, with just a couple undergoing dramatic explosions after being placed under cannon fire.

P-47 pilots regularly strafed the cabs of locomotives to try and kill the crew and thus send the train out of control (as they couldn't penetrate the boilers). Added to this historical evidence is a quick examination of how any locomotive is engineered.

Protection of loc-drivers - wimsma - 21.09.2009

My grandfather worked on the railroad during the war. The Dutch railways continued to ride with dutch people who were forced to do this work. So...if you see these straffing of trains you might think there are only "bad" germans in it....but his was mostly not true. He told me this when i was a little boy, and of course he was no weapen expert.

He told me that the aircraft guns could penetrate thick steel. He mentioned bulletholes right trough the wheels of a train.

The locdriver was not onprotected in his cabin. There was a little concrete bunker in it were he could hide. I don't know if this was common, but he mentioned it. He also said that there was a great difference in the penetration of concrete or steel. The locdriver was very well protected.