robert arndt wrote in message

During WW2 Germany was hit by 1.3MT of bombs, devastating 85% of its
major cities (some of which were population targets).

Air Chief Marshal Harris in his despatch on operations has an
acreage table the damage done, mainly by the RAF, to 70 German
cities. Of the 102,745 acres of built up area the cities are listed as
having 50,327 are listed as destroyed, or 49%.

Didn't matter,
the Germans were in the process of simply moving underground and over
to dispersal areas in the forests off the autobahn when the war ended.

This no doubt totally explains the drops in German production in
late 1944 and into 1945. As opposed to the loss of oil products
hurting the military and the loss of transport hurting the economy.

If moving underground and dispersal was so easy the lack of working
underground or dispersed refineries in April1945 needs to be explained.

So while the USAAF and RAF repeat raids were quite effective in
destroying German cities, the number of people killed in the raids
wasn't overly devastating- with the exception of Dresden.

The figures I have indicate Hamburg was more deadly than Dresden.
Since the fire raid at Hamburg killed over 40,000.

See Telling Lies About Hitler, The Holocaust, History and the Irving
Trial by Richard Evans, one of the historians who did the research
to prove truth as a defence against David Irving. One section goes
through the various documents giving the casualties for the Dresden
attack.

It appears the East German official toll was 35,000, and someone
added a 1 to the front. Dresden itself reported 18,375 confirmed
dead by 10th March 1945, 20,204 dead by 22nd March with an
expected death toll of around 25,000 (this report became known as
TB47, a forgery was issued adding a zero to the numbers). Some
1,858 bodies were recovered between 8 May 1945 and 1966. Note
the fire raid at Hamburg killed around 3.3% of the population, 25,000
represents around 3 to 4% of the estimated Dresden population,
567,000 down from 630,000 pre war plus refugees, around 100,000
official refugees plus any unofficial ones. There were some 31,102
death cards issued and 21,271 burials registered.

In Britain
too both the Blitz and Robot attacks did damage but the people in
those targeted cities continued on, constantly sifting through the
rubble and rebuilding/repairing what they could.

There is a difference between the delivery of an average of 5,000
tons per day of bombs, which is what the allied air forces were
doing in September 1944, to the total of 10,492 V1s and 1,403
V2s launched against all of England for the war, basically the
effort represented 2 days of allied bombing. About 71% of the
V1s and 79% of the V2s made it to England or "off-shore", of
the 7,488 V1s observed by the defences 3,957 were shot down,
leaving 3,531, of which 2,419 exploded in the London Civil Defence
Area. So all up the V weapons did less than a day's allied bombing
in September 1944 over the period 12 June 1944 to 29 March 1945.
See The Defence of the United Kingdom by Basil Collier.

Conventional bombing doesn't seem to have all that effect, even today.
Look at all the bombs dropped in both Gulf Wars. One target alone,
Saddam's German Q4 bunker was hit reportedly by 85 tons of bombs
including ground-penetrating bunker busters. Direct hits. No effect.

Ah the proof of hundreds of raids based on one incident,

On 21 January 1944 2 Halifaxes, each with a 2,000 pound bomb
and 874 4 pound incendiaries took on the Lignose Sprengstoff
Werke Schoenbeck explosives plant. Both 2,000 pound bombs
scored direct hits on buildings and then the incendiaries went to
work. The TNT plant suffered 50% permanent damage, that is not
rebuilt, the electric fuse plant took 10 months to return to full production.

If the bad guys still control the area than can salvage and rebuild.

I suppose if Hitler had put the Germany economy on full war production
in 1939 instead of 1943 and managed to construct the huge underground
bunker facilities before the end of 1944 then Germany could have
actually fought the war for years on introducing SAMs, better jet
fighters, and either a free-fall atomic bomb or one mounted on an
A-9/A-10 ICBM bound for Moscow, London, or NY.

This is quite funny really, the obvious thing to do was use the western
European economy better but invest in things like more fuel production,
ensuring the Luftwaffe had enough for proper pilot training, and ensure
the updating of the conventional fighters occurred earlier, the Bf109G-10
and Fw190D in service in early 1944 for example. Also no raiding the
training system for transport operations.

Diverting the manpower to the expensive task of underground factories
would help the allies, after all one of the reasons the Germans were able
to hold production up was a surplus of machine tools and factory space,
building more factory space would be a good move for the allies. The
most successful campaign against the German economy was the
destruction of the transport links between the factories which were mainly
above ground.

As for the ICBM dream in March 1944 of 57 V2 tests, 26 launched
and 4 made the target area. The fact that Germany was behind
England in nuclear research.


All of this ignores the Red Army, the Nazi policy of subsidising
extra manpower pre war to hide the unemployment problem, which
carried over into the war, the Nazi divide and rule policy when it
came to running Germany, the military continually demanding small
changes which slowed production and German government
indebtedness. In the first year of the war, September 1939 to
August 1940, the Reich spent 38.04 million marks on the military
and 31.95 on debt repayment, from then on for the rest of the
war the Government spent more on debt repayment than the war,
in the September 1943 to August 1944 period the ratio was 3
to 1 in favour of debt repayment. See Germany and the Second
World War volume V table II.VI.7, page 678 (English language
edition).

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.