Creepback (or creep-back) is the tendency of

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...

aircraft using optical bombsights to release their weapons aimed at target markers before time, leading to a gradual spread backwards along the bombing path of the concentration of bombing. It was a particularly noted phenomenon of the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

's Bomber Command night attacks during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The most dangerous time of a bombing raid in World War II was during the bombing run, the approach to the target. The bomber pilot was required to hold the aircraft straight and level, unable to take evasive action in the face of fierce enemy air defences over the target, including

searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direc ...

s, night fighters and anti-aircraft fire. The temptation was strong for the bomber crew to 'flinch' and release their bombs slightly before reaching the target indicator flares that marked the aiming point. The fires started by the short bombs tended to be used as an aiming point by subsequent crews, who in turn also dropped their bomb loads slightly short. The result was that "the bombing inevitably crept back along the line of the bomb run." The problem was further exacerbated by the need to re-mark the target with flares as the original markers were extinguished or hidden by smoke and flame. The marker aircraft were also susceptible to creepback, which accelerated the effect on subsequent waves of bombers. The RAF could find no effective counter to the problem of Creepback, and eventually incorporated it into their mission planning.Middlebrook, p100 The initial aiming point for a bombing raid would be set on the far side of the target as the bomber stream approached, allowing the bombing pattern to 'creep back' across the target, which was usually an industrial or residential district of a city. Creepback may not have been so pronounced during American day bombing raids, because the large, tightly packed American bomber formations dropped their bombs together when the formation leader's aircraft bombed. In the British bomber stream tactic, by contrast, each aircraft bombed independently while flying at a set height and course.

References

* Hastings, Max, with Michael Joseph ''Bomber Command'' (1979). * Middlebrook, Martin ''The Battle of Hamburg'', Allen Lane (1980).

Notes

{{reflist Aerial bombing

See also

References

Notes