Barrage Balloons

Battle of Britain "Wings of Victory"
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stickman
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Joined: 05 Nov 2004, 13:17
Location: Oahu, Hawai'i

Barrage Balloons

Post by stickman »

Now that I have placed all of the HAA and LAA that I wanted to for v2.13,
my attention goes to deploying the Barrage Balloons better for v2.14.

I am not very happy at the way some of these balloons are deployed for BoBII.
Some places that had them do not. Some are deployed rather stupidly.

A couple pictures of them here, historically:

Image

Close up for our bobworld.
Of particular concern is the 168 barrage balloons at Birmingham. Many, if not most of them would have been protecting the Castle Bromwich Spitfire factory just east of Birminham.
Lately I been have trying to bomb Castle Bromwich which I can only do at low level with one Gruppe of Me110s as escort.
I gave Castle Bromwich 12 Bofors, but the factory needs about 100 of these 168 balloons ringing around the factory,
and leaving a lane open at the airfield end for the new Spitfires to take for duty stations.

Image

There are other very important fighter aircraft factories that currently do have this historical balloon protection.
I intend to give them what they need and historically had.

----

Currently I do not know how these are placed into the game, and I do not think that I can add any more balloon "groups".
Not even sure yet how many balloons make up a balloon "group".
The one group at Sheerness only has 3 balloons. :roll: The four groups at Dover have from 5 to 8 balloons in each group. :?

What I can do within the MAINWLD file (and the editable coordinates given there), is relocate the currently deployed ones that make better defensive sense.
Also give some important Strategic Targets balloons that they did have. Will have to transfer some from London, which has more than it needs, to do so.

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PV
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Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: Barrage Balloons

Post by PV »

So, this immediately raised to me the question of
did these things do any good? The answer seems not
at all encouraging:

http://www.bbrclub.org/Barrage%20Balloo ... 20WWII.htm

I guess this is not too surprising - there are a lot more
local aircraft in the neighbourhood of the cables than there
are invading bombers, especially in the years after the
blitz. However, this chart does not count the V-1s tagged by
balloon cables, which explains much the reason they remained
deployed throughout the war: 231 V1s were brought down
by balloons (according to wikii).

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stickman
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Re: Barrage Balloons

Post by stickman »

PV,
231 V1s were brought down by balloon cables (according to wikii).
I did not know that they so effective. :)

I'll tell you what! When I was making Take Off & Landing patterns for the Squadrons at Filton airfield,
I initially tried to have them Take Off into the prevailing West Atlantic Winds.
This proved to be a total disaster!
As I watched Squadron after Squadron after Squadron, take off to west, and turn into the barrage balloon cables that were protecting the Bristol Aeroplane factory.
I watched Squadron after Squadron getting 3 or 4 aircraft getting snagged... BOOM!

OK. I made it so.. that the the Filton Squadrons Take Off to the east, where they will never run into the damned things protecting the factory!
Prevailing winds be damned!

These Barrage Balloon Cables are like Land Mines.
They will kill anyone who steps on one of the damned things. :twisted:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1941.
Japan decides to go to war against the sleepy USA.

Admiral Yamamoto asks his Naval Intelligence spy that lives at Pearl City.
message..
"Are there any barrage balloons around Pearl Harbor?"
message..
"Sir, these morons do not have any barrage balloons around the most Strategic Harbor in the wide Pacific, not even 1. Idiots!!"
message..
"Report naval vessels and types. AC type?"

When Yamamoto learned that the US Navy never took even the most basic precaution and normal defense
of deploying barrage balloon cables around Pearl Harbor,
then he thought... I may not surprise them, as they should have good intelligence,
but seem to be rather stupid at this point..

and.. if no Barrage Balloons around Pearl Harbor, I can use torpedo bombers as well as dive bombers. :)
Must modify some torpedo fins for shallow water delivery.
It just might work!
Hopefully we will get lucky and catch the Carriers in the Harbor. :?:

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arquillos
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Joined: 29 Dec 2010, 16:29
Location: Madrid (Spain)

Re: Barrage Balloons

Post by arquillos »

Nice and interesting historical facts!

Stickman, good luck with the Balloons!

Pat_Pattle
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Re: Barrage Balloons

Post by Pat_Pattle »

If everything I've read is correct the balloon barrage claimed many more Allied aircraft than Luftwaffe and also closed a number of airfields in the latter part of the war including Biggin Hill. Have just read an account of a Stirling being brought down by cables over Crewe killing all on board.

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