A Physicist with the Air Force

An anonymous submitter - anonymous because of the database crash that wiped out several hours of data today, sigh - sent in this tale about the duties of a physicist during World War II.

Comments

Slide Rule Club

[Dr. Dew]

At first I thought he was kidding about the slide rule club - I guess we're this generation's equivalent.

It's a little sobering to think of these engineering problems in their human context - even ignoring the fact that he's talking about bombers, it's striking to think that they had enough data to calculate 70-to-1 fighter-to-B29 kill ratios on rear attacks and 3-to-1 kill ratios on front attacks.

The opportunity to make adjustments to decisions as theoretical data are replaced by empirical data is exciting and rewarding. But I'm glad my adjustments don't have an immediate impact with respect to people living and dying.

incorrect simulation

[kisrael]

After six weeks of data collection and statistical analysis, I completed my report. My analysis showed that, in attacks on our B-29s from the rear, it cost the enemy 70 lost fighter planes, on average, to shoot down one of our bombers. But in frontal attacks, the Japanese lost only three fighters for every B-29 they downed. This result differed starkly from the results of a massive combat simulation study, done back home, that had concluded that B-29s would be most vulnerable to attacks from behind! In light of the new findings, bomber formations and tactics were modified to bring greater firepower to bear against frontal attacks. These changes, together with some minor technical modifications, largely solved the problem

Any guesses what they were doing wrong with the "massive combat simulation study"?