MASTERS is here!

[Lud13]

Was really looking forward for this one but this was a big disappointment.

They should stick with Bloody Hundredth and pick one of THE U.S. fighter groups to add complete perspective of Air War over Europe.

From early unescorted missions to total dominance over Third Raich. Even add few Luftwaffe scenes (similar to Battle of Britain movie) to show change from high spirits in Jagdwaffe at the beginning of campaign to utter destruction and defeat...

 

Sadly, what we witnessed is just bad tasting lemonade.

[Zola25]

I remember reading Masters of The Air years ago thinking it would be a fantastic inspiration for a Band of Brothers type tv-series - I was super excited when I learned that they were going to do just that.

My mind is pretty blown how they have actually managed to end up with something as boring and un-dramatic as this - I mean, considering the real life events described in great detail in the book it is supposedly based on...

The true horrors of the prison camps (especially in "neutral" Switzerland) described in the book somehow turned into an episode of "Hogans heroes" - or "The Great Escape" at best - and don´t get me started on the quality of the CGI...

 

Mind Blowing that I would rather watch "Memphis belle" again over this

 

Rant over.. 

 

[Shoggz]

I obviously watched a different series to everyone else!

[tomprobert]

I enjoyed parts of the series but was a little underwhelmed in others. The CGI wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but I agree with others' views on the series trying to cover to much ground in too-few episodes, which meant I didn't really get the same connection as with Band of Brothers (which to me is the best WWII TV show/film I've seen). The base set, vehicles, uniforms and B-17s (in OD as Fs!) were very well done and I thought captured the 'feel' of a WWII base well. 

 

The Masters of the Air book is a great read and you've got to give credit to the producers for giving it a good go, but I can't help but wonder if a series would have been better had it been based on Stephen Ambrose's 'The Wild Blue' which is a fantastic account of a 15th AF B-24 crew flying out of Italy. It focuses on mainly one crew, so you get a much more intimate knowledge of them as people and therefore better connection - more like BoB - and you follow them from training until they complete their tour. For those who haven't read it I heartily recommend it. 

 

Masters gets a solid 7.5/10 from me - and yes, being a B-17 nut I did spot a load of inaccuracies but you just have to learn to overlook these and enjoy it for what it is/was...

 

Tom

[cbk57]

This series caused me to do a deep dive on the WWII bombing campaign that I might not have done otherwise, I now feel i have a better over all understanding of what really happened, so if learning something counts it is a 10, if just looking at the story I agree very much with Tom above, 7.5.  I listened to podcasts from Unnoficial history of hte pacific war, WWII Bomber podcast(name is a tad off, ask if you need correction) and Hardthrasher.  I come away from all of this with a much deeper understanding and I think if they spent some time educating the listener in the show or in the intro about the big picture it might have helped a lot.  It failed to deliver any context for 1944 and 1945 other than the most superficial coverage of the role of the Mustang and that B-17s would be used as bait.  I found it striking to learn that in the end the most significant contribution of the 8th Air Force was to destroy the Luftwaffe in 1944 and that most bombing in WWII Germany was not achieving the strategic result that was envisioned.   As such the 1943 period was well covered, but we are left with only a superficial understanding of what is probably the most important period, January 1, 1944 through June 6, 1944.  During this time period Germany, if the sources are correct, was forced to shift 80% of their aircraft and a high percentage of their high power AA to defend Germany and also during this time period the Luftwaffe was essentially destroyed and high power guns and ammunition were denied to other fronts reducing the effectiveness of the German army in all other theaters of conflict.  

 

I do not take the cynical side that some podcasters take and over dramatize, as there are claims made now that the Nordon Bombsite was useless, the B-17 not so great and so on, the tactics of 1943 and strategies a waste.  I look at Human nature and the need to make mistakes and learn from them, also in light of these were all new technologies and ideas at the time which had never been tested by reality.  WWII lead to some truly remarkable mechanical computer systems the NOrdon Bombsite among them.  Did they all work as claimed, well no, but it was a product of the time and circumstance.  So I am pretty forgiving of these things as our standards have evolved so much over time.  Precision bombing was not really possible until the lasers guided bomb was perfected in truth.  

 

I have been listening a lot to unofficial history of the pacific war and they delve into Mahan and grand strategy a bit which reminds me of my college Courses on U.S. Military HIstory decades ago.  When you think of seeking out the climactic battle, perhaps 1944 air war was the climactic battle of the European theater as it layed the ground work for D-Day but also drew resources away from the Eastern front and made it significantly harder for the Germans to defend that front as they had fewer planes and pilots as well as dramatically fewer high power anti tank guns as so much of that was going to AAA.  

Edited March 18 by cbk57

[R Palimaka]

I agree with Richard and Tom above.

 

For me it was a satisfying enough overview although it fell short in places as others have pointed out. No, I don't think it met the level of Band of Brothers but gave a sense of the bombing campaign and how it affected the young men involved. The CGI was not as good as I hoped, but there were brilliant little moments like the 78th Fighter Group Mustangs cruising through the formations of B-17s in the final episode. It was interesting to watch it with my partner Ruth, who bless her heart, has been seriously making an effort to understand the air war, the people involved and the aircraft as well. In six years we've been together she's made huge strides in understanding, and asks probing and interesting questions.

 

As a vehicle for learning, Masters of the Air provided a chance for me to explain the issues involved in the American bombing effort, and she quite enjoyed the character development, the atmosphere created on the base. She said it gave her a sense of the intensity of the battles in the air. She actually cheered when the Mustangs intervened during the mission to Berlin! The series introduced her to the POW experience, the forced marches during the winter of 1945, and she had no idea about the food drops during Operation Manna. As members of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, she's familiar with the RCAF contribution and was quite shocked at her reaction to the virtual reality night time bombing raid experience that was presented at the Museum. Masters of the Air provided a chance to see the struggles to make the daylight American effort succeed. It was funny, during the raid in Southern France by the "Red Tails" she also commented on some of the engine sounds..."That's not what a Mustang sounds like!" I guess all the airshows I've taken her to have had an effect.

 

If the series provoked some of the audience to ask questions, to do some research and read more deeply then it succeeded. We found it moving, and Ruth's comment at the very end showed me it worked. She turned to me and said, " After all they saw and endured, and the friends they lost, how did they manage when they got home?" The biographies of the main personalities gave her a bit of an answer. 

 

Maybe watching it through someone else's eyes helped, but I took it for what it was and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 

Richard

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18 by R Palimaka

[Confusionreigns178]

On 3/13/2024 at 11:18 AM, JeepsGunsTanks said:

the M1A2 76mm gun on Fury could punch right through the front of the Tiger, no problem at those ranges.

 

Is there any concrete evidence to support this? From what, I've read, even the high-velocity 76mm on the Sherman would generally only take a large gouge out of a Tiger 1's front armour (not penetrating) and maybe give the crew severe headaches. 

 

Still, one thing the German quality advantage was no counter to the enormous numbers of Shermans produced (Tiger 1's - approximately 1,450 produced.... Shermans, approximately 45,000 made). Those numbers tell a story all by themselves.  

 

Cheers. 

 

Chris. 

Edited March 18 by Confusionreigns178
Amending some information

[Shoggz]

1 hour ago, R Palimaka said:

I agree with Richard and Tom above.

 

For me it was a satisfying enough overview although it fell short in places as others have pointed out. No, I don't think it met the level of Band of Brothers but gave a sense of the bombing campaign and how it affected the young men involved. The CGI was not as good as I hoped, but there were brilliant little moments like the 78th Fighter Group Mustangs cruising through the formations of B-17s in the final episode. It was interesting to watch it with my partner Ruth, who bless her heart, has been seriously making an effort to understand the air war, the people involved and the aircraft as well. In six years we've been together she's made huge strides in understanding, and asks probing and interesting questions.

 

As a vehicle for learning, Masters of the Air provided a chance for me to explain the issues involved in the American bombing effort, and she quite enjoyed the character development, the atmosphere created on the base. She said it gave her a sense of the intensity of the battles in the air. She actually cheered when the Mustangs intervened during the mission to Berlin! The series introduced her to the POW experience, the marches during the winter of 1945, and she had no idea about the food drops during Operation Manna. As members of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, she's familiar with the RCAF contribution and was quite shocked at her reaction to the virtual reality night time bombing raid experience that was presented at the Museum. Masters of the Air provided a chance to see the struggles to make the daylight American effort succeed. It was funny, during the raid in Southern France by the "Red Tails" she also commented on some of the engine sounds..."That's not what a Mustang sounds like!" I guess all the airshows I've taken her to have had an effect.

 

If the series provoked some of the audience to ask questions, to do some research and read more deeply then it succeeded. We found it moving, and Ruth's comment at the very end showed me it worked. She turned to me and said, " After all they saw and endured, and the friends they lost, how did they manage when they got home?" The biographies of the main personalities gave her a bit of an answer. 

 

Maybe watching it through someone else's eyes helped, but I took it for what it was and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 

Richard

 

 

 

 

 

Almost my experience to a tee. After being ambivalent about the series at first Sarah got more and more into it - to the point where she was actively researching the main characters! 

 

..and as an interesting aside, probably just for UK folk, the same actress who played the mysterious SOE agent ‘Sandra Westgate’ (Bel Powley) was Bianca in ‘Benidorm’. Talk about a contrast!

[JeepsGunsTanks]

22 minutes ago, Confusionreigns178 said:

Is there any concrete evidence to support this? From what, I've read, even the high-velocity 76mm on the Sherman would generally only take a large gouge out of a Tiger 1's front armour (not penetrating) and maybe give the crew severe headaches. 

 

Still, one thing the German quality advantage was no counter to the enormous numbers of Shermans produced (Tiger 1's - approximately 1,450 produced.... Shermans, approximately 45,000 made). Those numbers tell a story all by themselves.  

 

Cheers. 

 

Chris. 

 

You must not be up to date on the Tiger or Sherman if you think the Tiger had a quality advantage. It had a slight front armor advantage and a gun advantage, and that was it. It was so grossly unreliable that the US Army would have rejected it. The Tiger was also very rare in the sectors the US Army fought in. If I recall correctly, they faced less than ten in total (7). I'd have to go review Steve Zaloga's Armored Thunderbolt(the new bible) to be sure.

 

Let's put the gun thing to bed now. There are tables in Sherman by Hunnicutt (the old bible) that show the M1A2 gun in the E8 Shermans could punch the front hull of a Tiger from 500 yards. In the movie they were at point blank range, at that range the gun probably had the power to do the turret face. They also could have shot through the side from any practical combat range with the M1A2 gun.  

 

That does not even take into account the fight scenario, which gave Sherman a huge advantage the movie did not portray correctly.

 

Let's talk about turret drive systems for a second because it will also let me show you how Sherman was a technological marvel and the Tiger was a technological cludge and dead end. The Tiger tank uses a ridiculous Rube Goldberg affair of driveshafts and gears to power the turret's rotation through the engine. If you wanted full traverse speed on a Tiger, you had to have the engine at redline, and the tank could not be moving.  If the tank was driving, the turret was going to be slower. It was also not very accurate, meaning the turret had to be manually put on target with hand cranks. They used the hand cranks most of the time because revving an unreliable motor for turret speed is not a good trade-off since the engine has, at best, 1500 kilometers in it.

 

On the other hand, the Sherman—at least every non-105 Sherman ever built—was built this way. They had a stabilized, hydraulically or electrically driven turret drive system that was more than twice as fast as the Tigers and completely independent of Sherman's automotive systems. It was also fine enough in control, the gunner used it fine aim the gun. The hydraulic system was powered by an electric motor using the tanks' batteries. Even the M3 Lee had this system. This was Buck Roger's space stuff to the Germans. They could not reproduce it. You might be saying to yourself you need the automotive systems to charge the batteries, and that is incorrect because every Sherman and Lee came with its own little Joe generator to keep those batteries charged. This was considered a wild luxury by German tankers who were supplied by horse-drawn carts.

 

 

We could also compare the massive all-aluminum Ford GAA, which was a powerhouse of internal combustion engines, to a true dual overhead cam V8 in 1942. Compared to the Maybach disaster in the Tiger, which had to be downrated to even make it to 1500 kilometers, it was both better in quality and technology, just like the Sherman tank. The Sherman tank was expected to go more than 1500 miles before it needed any major work, and most did.

 

 

[Oldbaldguy]

I have heard so much about the hard time the US had with its daylight bombing campaign over Europe but not nearly as much about the RAF’s night bombing strategy to the point that I don’t know how they did it, how it worked or how effective it was.  Are there any decent books on the subject and has anyone made a decent movie about it - something on the caliber of Twelve O’Clock High?

[tomprobert]

8 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

I have heard so much about the hard time the US had with its daylight bombing campaign over Europe but not nearly as much about the RAF’s night bombing strategy to the point that I don’t know how they did it, how it worked or how effective it was.  Are there any decent books on the subject and has anyone made a decent movie about it - something on the caliber of Twelve O’Clock High?

The RAF did indeed have it tough - and in some instances tougher. On the notorious Nuremberg raid of March 30/31 1944, 96 aircraft were lost in one night and the total of men MIA was more than the total British pilots lost in the Battle of Britain. 
 

Two really good reads/watches are ‘Night Bombers’ (available on You Tube) and Jack Currie’s ‘Lancaster Target’ which is a superb read and chronicles the terrors of night bombing vividly. 
 

 

[cbk57]

12 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

I have heard so much about the hard time the US had with its daylight bombing campaign over Europe but not nearly as much about the RAF’s night bombing strategy to the point that I don’t know how they did it, how it worked or how effective it was.  Are there any decent books on the subject and has anyone made a decent movie about it - something on the caliber of Twelve O’Clock High?

Short version the Brits learned the lessons the Americans later learned, most bombs were not hitting the target day or night, the British eventually adopted night bombing but it was not altering the war.  In 1944 the Brits and Americans were ordered to coordinate their tactics and The Brits would bomb a city by night and the Americans by day.  So essentially they would keep the Germans shooting around the clock, force the Luftwaffe into the air and use the escorts to destroy the Luftwaffe and so grind the Germans down.  This worked by D-Day the Allies had total air superiority for the rest of the war and while the Germans could send up some planes the rest of the war they were never the same threat again.  Essentially Germany was crushed by May of 1944 but kept fighting for another year.  Wish the series covered this.

[R Palimaka]

18 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

I have heard so much about the hard time the US had with its daylight bombing campaign over Europe but not nearly as much about the RAF’s night bombing strategy to the point that I don’t know how they did it, how it worked or how effective it was.  Are there any decent books on the subject and has anyone made a decent movie about it - something on the caliber of Twelve O’Clock High?

 

9 hours ago, tomprobert said:

The RAF did indeed have it tough - and in some instances tougher. On the notorious Nuremberg raid of March 30/31 1944, 96 aircraft were lost in one night and the total of men MIA was more than the total British pilots lost in the Battle of Britain. 
 

Two really good reads/watches are ‘Night Bombers’ (available on You Tube) and Jack Currie’s ‘Lancaster Target’ which is a superb read and chronicles the terrors of night bombing vividly. 
 

 

 

Those are good recommendations by Tom. "Night Bombers" was filmed in colour at the time, and is a remarkable film to watch, although it's not like a commercially released film like "Twelve O'Clock High" or "Memphis Bell". I can't really think of one for Bomber Command, apart from "The Dambusters" which was about one special mission and wasn't really representative of the main effort. 

 

As for books, there are a few that come to mind, other members might suggest more,

"Bomber Command" by Max Hastings - some say he was too critical of "Bomber" Harris, but the later revised edition is a good overview

"The Right of the Line" by John Terraine - a massive work that covers all of the RAF wartime effort, by a superb historian

"The Bombers and the Bombed" by Richard Overy - covers both the American and RAF bombing campaign, so gives you both in parallel

"The Hardest Victory: RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War" by Denis Richards, who was involved with the RAF Official History

 Martin Middlebrook's books dealing with the battles over Berlin, Hamburg or Peenemunde.

 

As for personal accounts, probably the finest is "A Thousand Shall Fall" by Murray Peden. This book is often recommended and cited in other works, and is a very fine piece of writing in itself. 

 

Bomber Command's war was very different and difficult. From the early daylight failures, through the switch to night bombing and developing technology to overcome the darkness and the relentless German defences...to finally going back to raids in daylight for some operations late in the war, thanks mostly to the efforts of the USAAF to win air superiority over Europe. Bomber Command was a very international effort. While the majority of crews were from the UK, there were crews and full squadrons from all over the Commonwealth and occupied Europe. The Canadians alone had a separate group within Bomber Command. 6 Group, headquartered in Allerton Park, at peak strength consisted of 14 heavy bomber squadrons. 

 

Richard

 

Edited March 19 by R Palimaka

[Gazzas]

I was expecting a big piece about what the escorts brought to the campaign with the final episodes.  Me 262 Luftwaffe swansong?  But no.  Instead it became a pitiful display of "Don't forget what those nasty German Nazi's did to us" from Hollywood.  Stereotypical screaming Germans.  Stereotypical Luftwaffe interrogation officers with slicked down AH haircuts, made extra smarmy, being brushed off by skilled and staunch US airmen.  I have to admit that I was mightily impressed when the P-51's swooped down on the POW camp, machine gunning the guards without hitting a single POW.  Amazing.

 

 

[Christa]

Was it simpler when all the goodies were gentlemen and all the baddies wore black hats?