"John Freck" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message


Your point A) isn't any scraping the barrel by any means. The
Allies
wasted immense resources on bombers and strategic bombing.

Snip


There were no strategic bombers in 1940

I was getting beyond the time frame I began with, July 1st 1940.
My commentary gets more and more relevant from July 1st, 1940,
however.
IMO, the RAF had strategic bombers if the strategically bombed. To me
then,
'strategic bomber' is any plane dropping bombs on a strategic mission
bombing run.
This then begs the question what is 'strategic bombing'. If on July
1st, 1940 a single Hurricane Super Marine
Spitfire drops a single 1,000lbs bomb on a railroad line near Arnhiem,
then a strategic bombing mission occured.

No that would have been a bloody miracle since there never was such
a thing as a Hurricane Super Marine Fighter

I find it important to
note: 'tactical' and 'strategic' are not opposite. The sentence
'There are tactical variations of strategic bombing that include type
of aircraft used, altitude and speed at moment of bomb release,
maginitude, and target.' makes sense, and the inverse is true. There
are strategeis behind tactical choises. In any case, the RAF can from
July 1st, 1940 favor fighters even more than they did, and use fighter
bombers more over bombers and use bombing better.


They DID favor fighters, there was no such thing as the fighter bomber
at the time and the bomber force was being used in the tactical
role to attack the invasion barges. The strategic attack on German industry
didnt begin in earnest until 1942.



RAF bomber command was almost exlusively equipped
with light day bombers such as the Blenheim and Battle.
The handful of 'heavies' available were twin engine types
such as the Wellington, Whitley and Hampden.

You are telling me that the RAF had no heavy bomb load capacity
4-engined bombers yet by July 1st, 1940, or not many.

Exactly that, not one 4 engined bomber was in service.

Furthermore,
you indicate strategic bombing must be "heavy" bombing as opposed to
"light" bombing. I think you use you vocabulary differently than me,


Thats for sure, I also know what missions RAF bomber command
flew in 1940 do you ?

and that we need to understand our idiomatical difference and develop
from there carefully.


I think you need to read up a little on the subject , here's a free clue.

Of the 13,000 tons of bombs the RAF dropped in 1940 only
137 tons fell on Industrial towns, the majority were on airfields,
naval targets and troop concentrations.

These usually count as tactical missions.

In fact raids on tactical targets exceeded those on strategic ones
until 1942.

Of the 13,000 bombs dropped in 1940 5,000 were delivered by
Wellingtons (twin engined) , 3000 by Whitleys (twin engined),
2700 by Hampdens (twin engined), 2000 by Blenheims (twin engined)
and the remainder by the single engined Fairey battle.

Keith