Topic summary
Fighter escort
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Escort fighter.
In US Army Air Force service
The U.S. Army Air Forces' precision strategic bombing campaign against German industries was only possible during the day. At first, this was not seen as an issue; the Forces' Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers were the most heavily armed aircraft of the time. Close formations of them were planned, creating a crossfire of .50 caliber machine-guns that would fend off the enemy with no need for a fighter escort. Some officials claimed that escort fighters were wholly impractical. The service remained convinced of this strategy in spite of continued warnings from the RAF that this would not be the case.