NOTES TO TABLE 46

The above figures for the Navy’s two principal bomb carrying planes of 1942-43 present an interesting contrast with the data for 1945. The overwhelming concentration on the heaviest types of bombs in 1942-43 is not believed to have had any especial justification in the nature of the targets attacked, which were principally airfields and lightly constructed military land targets. This concentration may have resulted in part from the difficulties of bomb supply to forward areas, or from operating conditions which favored the loading of the smallest possible number of bombs. It is believed, however, that the primary factor was the absence of any science of ordnance selection, or of any standard doctrine in the field; the first steps by the Navy to organize the study of bomb damage and to produce a doctrine for ordnance selection were taken in late 1943 and were not effective until 1944. Thus field commanders in the South Pacific and elsewhere were free to follow the path of least resistance - loading the fewest bombs - and the then current "blast" theory of bomb damage (which favored the largest bomb available, and ignored the desirability of using a larger number of smaller bombs to increase the probability of getting hits, on such targets as were susceptible to damage by smaller bombs).

It will be noted that the carrier forces, although they had among their targets a larger percentage of armored warships and others requiring larger bombs, were less inclined to emphasize large bombs than the land-based airforces. Neither made much use of fragmentation or incendiary ordnance. By contrast with 1942-43 the ordnance selection in 1945 exhibited exceptional improvement, for which credit may be assigned to an increasing awareness of the importance of correct ordnance, and an increasing volume of information concerning the science of ordnance selection.