RE:(was B_5 Aft Arc)Bombers/raiders

Kevin Walker wrote:

>Raiders are a fairly common factor in war.  A high speed (the long
>ranged weapon is a bonus) ship that works in small numbers or alone,
>keeping the enemy forces pinned in protecting valuable resources has
>happened a fair amount in past conflicts.

Yep, eg: Golden Hinde, Emden, etc

>In fact, bombers during wars
>of the past 70 years took on this role in a round about way.  Raiding
>of this type helps to keep the enemies production lower, make the
>situation more of an unknown for the enemy,

In regard to bombers...nope. Bombers only made fairly effective raiders
(specfying a raider as an aircraft or vessel whose purpose it to attack
and
destroy   economic (ie: Merchant vessels) targets rather than
naval/military
units) at sea until the advent of escort carriers. During the whole of
WW2
bombers were pretty crap at hitting specefic targets, ie: facilities in
production centres, hence area bombing was employed, which whilst great
at
killing people did not achieve much else (German production rates
increased
dramatically during 42-45 even whilst being plastered by the RAF by
night
and the USAF by day). Even the raid by 617 squadron on the dams did
little
long term, or even short term, production harm. With modern weapons its
a
whole different story but then with modern weapons wars are so quick
that
production during wartime is not quite the key factor it was 60 years
ago.

>...and limits the ability of
>the enemy to concentrate their forces into large fleets or into massive
>and ungodly huge vessels.

The Battle of Britain was fought and won by the RAF by concentrating
forces
along the luftwaffe's axis of attacks (rather than in one point in time
and
space). Small groups of upto 3 aircraft operating as raiders could avoid
this but then were unable to cause critical damage to their targets.

Bombers made fairly effective raiders (specfying a raider as an aircraft
or
vessel whose purpose it to attack and destroy	economic (ie: Merchant
vessels) targets rather than naval/military units) at sea until the
advent
of escort carriers.

Neither the Royal Navy or the US Navy were unable to concentrate thier
main
battle fleets thanks to raiders. Giving that the Kreigsmarine of WW2 was
pretty much dedicated to surface raiding it actually encouraged the
Royal
Navy to concentrate forces when hunting German warships down.

Submarines, especially U-Boats, and USN subs in the Pacific were the
true
raiders of modern times...but they relied on stealth and cunning, not
speed
to acheive their success.

A Raiders specefic target is merchant shipping, not warships. Design a
raider with thrust 8 engines to avoid enemy warships, fine, but don't
arm it
to deal with them...after all it's going to run away ;-)

Regards,

Matt Tope