<p>Up to this time, American bombing technique had been static; but the next few months saw a development of tactics and equipment that led to a major improvement in the effectiveness of the force. The B-17s and B-24s had been bombing in elements of three aircraft, until crews discovered the defensive advantage of grouping a pair of these elements. This squadron formation evolved into a combat box, a group of three squadrons stacked in space in a way to give the best forward fields of fire to the top and bottom turrets.
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<p>The 1st Bombardment Wing, under Brigadier General Lawrence S. Kuter, carried it one step further and derived the combat wing, consisting of two or three combat boxes, each box being made up of aircraft from a single bomb group. That seemingly random scattering in space of up to 54 bombers became the maximum defensive formation and a standard for the command. It was later to be modified as conditions dictated: opened out, when flak was the primary enemy; bunched together even tighter when the Luftwaffe threatened.
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<p>Bombing was a cooperative effort between bombardier and pilot, the former calling out course corrections to the pilot, who held altitude and airspeed as nearly constant as possible. The famed Norden bombsight was an analog computer that solved the geometry of bomb ballistics with cranked-in data for airspeed, altitude, drift and heading. Human instruction and reaction time, fraught with possibilities for mistakes, linked bombsight and flight path.
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<p>Early in 1943, a new bombing aid arrived in the European theater. AFCE (Automatic Flight Control Equipment) linked bombsight and autopilot; with it, the bombardier actually flew the airplane during the bomb run, directing its course by adjustments to the bombsight, and eliminating a human source of confusion and error.
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<p>Also early in 1943, some of the bomb groups tried a technique they believed would improve the bomb pattern. They put their best bombardier in the lead aircraft of the combat box; when he toggled his switches for the drop, so did every other bombardier in the formation. The result was a near-simultaneous drop and a tight bomb pattern. If the lead bombardier was really good, the results of the drop were extremely satisfying.
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<p>The first time all these came together was on the 18 March mission against the submarine construction yards in Vegesack in northwest Germany. Among those on the mission was the 305th Bomb Group, commanded by Colonel Curtis E. LeMay, a tough, innovative and brave leader. LeMay had been at the forefront of these new ideas to improve defensive formations and bombing accuracy. The unit turned in an outstanding performance. Using AFCE and dropping on signal from the lead bombardier, they put more than three-quarters of their bombs within 1,000 ft (304 m) of the target.
