"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.

The impact the combined bomber offensive had against POL cannot be
disputed.
POL was a "Top 3" target prior to the war, but when Intelligence officials
were
replaced by American industrial "speacialists", it was dropped to #13
(IIRC).
The first Ploesti raid was undertaken not so much for the direct physical
effect, but to force Germany to defend themselves from the Baltic to the
Med.
When a serious effort was undertaken to hit German POL (and sythetic POL)
in
early 1944, the results were relatively quick and devestating. The reason
your
P-51s did so well was because the FW-190 and Me-109 pilots they were
flying
against had less than half the pre-war training time. The reduction in
training
hours was due to the loss of both lubricant and fuel.

I am inclined to think there were several factors behind the poorer
training:

The most important being the shortage of pilots, despite the bombing the
Germans had more (fuelled) combat aircraft than they had experienced pilots
to fly them.

The second was the lack of safe training areas, any flight over Germany in
44/45 was a combat mission even if it was in a trainer. Hence it made sense
to get the students into armed aircraft and with experienced combat pilots
ASAP.

In my view fuel as a poor third reason.

The impact the CBO had
prior to 1944 was to draw manpower to defend Germany from the front. Every
guy
manning a AAA piece or fueling a fighter would have been carrying a
Mauser-98
on either the eastern or western front if it wasn't for the CBO.

Just like all the effort being put into bombing as not available to help the
allied armies. Also the flack units could and did turn their guns on ground
targets in the later stages of the war.

How long would a Kar-98 carrying soldier last if the allies put all that
effort into the battlefield?