Area bombing is not a dirty word.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Pete"
Date: 1/16/04 2:47 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote

When France surrendered and collaborated it sure looked that way. Children
in
France today are taught in schools that France defeated Germany with the
"help"
of the allies. How French.

The Zaragoza base library had a high school level history book, with
British, French, Russian, and American sections. All relating to WWII.

All 4 sections said basically the same thing. "We won, everyone else helped"

Pete



Then they add that all those who helped were only after the money. (sheesh)
Think they will ever say thank you to those who " helped"?




Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Bill Phillips wrote in message ...
More important you need to explain why war production went up. I have
already explained that my assessment is that the bombing angered the
population and caused them to give up their luxuries and free time and
worked hard to produce more weapons. In short production went up because of
the bombing.

I would recommend the works of Richard Overy, War and Economy in
the Third Reich for example. He advances the point of view the German
economy was much more mobilised early than the post war surveys
had thought and it was inefficiency that was a major cause of low
production, and armament worker efficiency went down in the early war
period. It seems the German statistics used post war, the Wagenfuehr
indexes, did not accurately record when a firm switched to war production.

As an example of the improvements,

The BMW801 aero engine in 1940 took 5,145 kg of raw materials and
2,400 hours of labour, in 1944 it was 2,790 kg of raw materials and
1,250 hours of labour. Henschel made a 64% saving when building
engines between 1939 and 1943, in 1942 Junkers improved Ju88
production efficiency by 30%. In May 1943 each ton of munitions
used less than half the iron and steel, a sixth of the aluminium and
half the copper compared with 1941. Early raw material allocations
were set on an industry wide basis, not product, controls were slack
enough that the Messerschmitt organisation made aluminium step
ladders for example, there were also lightweight shelters made
intended for the troops in the desert.

Pre war there were incentives to employ people, which continued into
the war, minimal rationalisation of supply, the same component could
cost twice as much from different suppliers, the continual interference
of the military demanding small changes, the deliberate cut backs in
1941, which makes the late 1942 increases look better than they should.
The fact in things like aircraft the switch to smaller, lighter aircraft
means the numbers look better but not if you go by airframe weight.
Early in the war if someone reported a better way of doing things they
simply found their quota raised, the state took all the benefit.

Speer helped remove the inefficiencies, aided by the obvious
necessity for more production. The economy's resilience was
helped by having more factory space and machine tools than
were needed, indeed Germany exported many machine tools
during the war. In any case there were the tools looted from
France etc., these mainly helped the allies, since when the
Germans tried to transfer production to the factories in occupied
areas many of the key tools were in storage in Germany.

There were examples of workers becoming more dedicated but it
appears the general result of the situation in Germany in 1943 and
beyond was an increase in general apathy and absenteeism, Ford
factories in the Rhur 4% in 1940 and 25% in 1944, foreign workers
could be held to 3% absenteeism but they were 50 to 80% as
productive as Germans. No revolt, just a get through the day attitude.
The general war situation enabled the Nazis to squeeze the civilians
harder. According to Overy the output per head for the arms industry
looked like, 1939 100, 1940 87.6, 1941 75.9 (provisional figure),
1942 99.6, 1943 131.6, 1944 160.0 (minimum).


Simply before mid 1944 the allies were not in a position to affect
a section of the German economy, the allies lacked the numbers,
the experience and the defences were too strong, and then there
was the need to support the Normandy invasion. In late 1944 the
allies could go after the German economy by destroying the transport
links, and the production decline set in, and there was almost no need
for strikes outside Germany anymore, the assault could be concentrated.
Even Bomber Command took until September 1944 to hit the half way
mark for total bombs on Germany for the war, for the 8th Air Force it was
around two months later.

The trouble is the allied advances in 1944 also cut off important
sources of German raw materials, on the other hand it appears
it took around 9 months for iron ore to become steel in some
weapon or machine. Also there was the extra mobilisation of
skilled workers into the military. Even so most of the economic
decline in 1944 and early 1945 is bomber induced, given the
rapid drop off in railway and canal traffic.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Geoffrey Sinclair" .

illed workers into the military. Even so most of the economic
decline in 1944 and early 1945 is bomber induced, given t

It was my pleasure to contribute what little I could to the crushing of the
Nazi swine.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

It depends on when you divert the resources.

Once you have built bombers you are restricted in what you can do
with
them.

However change early enough and you can build almost anything
instead,
such
as a tank that could take on Tigers and Panthers 1 to 1. Note:
resources
are
a quality issue as well as a quantity one, better equipment could
have
actually reduced the logistic burden by achieving a given effect
with
less
equipment.

Then you would have had to scrap the entire US military production
strategy,
which was based upon getting a LOT of "good enough" stuff produced as
opposed to the German approach of building a few really good items--we
know
which side lost, so I would side with the winning strategy.

I can't find any evidence that the USAAF were pursuing this strategy; on
average its aircraft were as good or better than the enemy's.

Your own example was in regards to *tanks* for gosh sakes!

Your reply was in regards to "the entire US military production"

If you want USAAF
examples, ask yourself why, despite the availability of better aircraft,
projects like the P-40 continued in production as long as they did? Why
did
the B-25 continue in production when the B-26, and later the A-26, were
already entering service in great numbers? Because the US valued mass,
that's why.

That's why I said "on average" both sides kept some poor aircraft in
production, and both produced some first class aircraft.

Much the same can be said of rifles, artillery, ships, etc.

OK. You think the M3 Grease Gun was the best possible quality SMG we could
produce? Of course not--but it provided the *numbers* that we could not
acheive with the Thompson production.

The M3's main fault was the single feed magazine, copied from the MP38/40.

In regards to tanks, the Sherman was
adequate in many ways, good in a few ways, and barely adequate in others
(such as firepower)--but we were still rolling the original 75mm version
off
the lines when the war ended.

They were worse that the average German tank.

Were Liberty and Victory ships the highest
quality merchent vessels going? No again--but by golly we could turn them
out like pretzels.

No German competition, so no comparison possible.

Artillery? We did fairly well in that area--but more due
to better tactics and C-2 than any inherent advantage of the guns--and
again, turning out zillions of guns also helped.

Those numbers were combined with quality comparable to the German weapons.


So it appears that this "entire" strategy was only applied to tanks.

See above.



Even if it was put into air power then it could have won the battle
of
the
Atlantic earlier

That is not assured. merely tossing a few hundred more aircraft over
the
ocean was not going to stop the German subs; it took a combination of
aircraft and emerging technology (i.e., small radars capable of seeing
the
surfaced little buggers).

I am well aware of the need for technology, I am also aware that the
first
airborne radars went to the bombers, so that they could bomb through
cloud.

That would be because those first radars would have been LOUSY U-Boat
detectors.

Then why were slightly modified versions subsequently used to hunt U-Boats?


Then you would have had to factor in that the
germans, not being subjected to any kind of CBO, would have produced
even
*m
ore* boats ata faster pace, and trained them more effectively since
there
was not the additional effect on their POL supplies, not to mention
the
fact
that all of those flak crews and resources would have been
reprogrammed
to
face your other threats, and their Luftwaffe would have been better
able
to
support operations on *both* fronts, etc, ad nauseum.

Given that German war production went up under bombing, I doubt that the
extra effort going to the front line would be anything like as large as
the
effort freed from our bombing offensive.

Logic failure. Get back to the subject at hand--the sheer number of
personnel dedicated to the flak forces, the number of guns that went to
support that defense effort that were NOT available to directly support
the
Wehrmacht, the critical resources that went into producing those guns and
ammo that instead could have flowed also to the Wehrmacht efforts, the
lack
of Luftwaffe support over the battlefield because of the need to resist
the
CBO, etc.

My point has never been that no resources would have been freed for the
German front line, just that they would be less that the resources freed for
the allied front line.

The secondary point is that without bombing to enrage the population the
Germans would have produced less war material, so there would have been less
to share around.

and some more CAS and air transport would have been useful
for the advance across Europe. For example a little more air power
would
have turned Operation Market Garden into a victory.

No freakin' way. The weather shut out air support almost altogether
during
a
critical window of that operation, and a few more C-47's would NOT
have
affected the outcome at Arnhem.

The biggest single problem at Arnhem was that the RAF took 3 lifts to
drop
the British airborne div and the Polish Bde.

No, the biggest "single problem" was that they went to Arnhem in the first
place, amidst reforming German Panzer units that light airborne troopies
were ill equipped to fight, while depending upon an unrealistic advance
rate
from the XXX Corps ground elements along a single axis of advance. Had
they
been able to drop the Polich Brigade on day one that would have just
allowed
the German's to roll them up with the majority of the British division,
instead of having it available to support the withdrawl of what British
elements were able to finally accomplish that move.

The airborne did have some quite effective anti-tank weapons, fighting a
defensive battle in Arnhem they could have held the very under strength
Panzer Divs for a long time.

If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they
could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.

I sincerely doubt that. It would not have changed the fact that they were
dropped too far from their objective, nor would it have changed the fact
that they were facing a lot of German troops and tanks that they had not
planned on encountering. In all likelihood, you would have just given the
Nazis a larger bag of POW's to handle when it was all over.

They hung on for quite a long time despite all the problems.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...



If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they
could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.



Given that only a single battallion was dropped close enough
on the first drop this seems unlikely. Quite simply there
were no suitable drop zones close to the bridge large
enough to put the whole force into in one go.

Actually the first 2 Bde's were dropped about the same distance from the
bridges. Also although glider LZ's could only be used once, paras only need
minutes to clear a DZ for a second drop.

One Bde stayed to guard the DZ's, a mistake IMHO, and the other advanced on
the bridges on 3 Bn axis. Only one of the Bn's made it to the road bridge,
which is probably where you got your single Bn.

With 5 times the force driving for the bridges the handful of Germans in the
way would not have stood a chance.

When you consider that paratroops are by definition lightly
armed and that the Germans had a Panzer division in the
area it becomes an impossibility.

The Panzer Div's were not positioned to stop the initial attack and the
airborne had adequate anti-tank weapons to defend a town against their
counter attack.

The fundamental flaw with the operation was that XXX Corps
had to advance along a single road along the top of a dyke
with flooded fields on either side. A single 88 could hold an
armoured column up until the infantry pushed along the field
margins up to their chest in mud and cold water while under
fire.

That is why the plan called for an airborne carpet to clear the way. The
delay was more due to the failure to capture the bridge at Nijmegen before
the Germans had reacted.

This made a rapid advance kinda difficult. As for CAS this hit
the same problem that grounded the Poles, FOG, which
isnt exactly rare in NW Europe in the fall.

I was referring to the clear weather days only, principally D and D+1, sorry
if that was not clear.

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
I was think of the RAF, however, the main lesson of the BoB was that
bombing
was not as effective as had been expected. As far as I can tell the
USAAF
did not learn this lesson.

This is an over simplified lesson. The biggest lesson the USAAF ignored
was the
psychological effect of bombing on civilians. If nothing else, residents
of
London and surrounding areas disproved some of Douhet's theorys by
maintaining
some sense of order during and after the bombings and by showing up for
work
the next morning. The USAAF still believed you could cause the collapse of
a
nations morale, and thus the collapse of their war effort by bombing
civilians.
Now, much to their credit, very few 8th AF missions were designed as
"civilian
morale destruction" missions, but the nature of high altitude bombing in
the
1940's meant there was going to be collateral civilian casulties and many
in
the USAAF believed this was not a bad thing, but a key to winning the war.


Agreed.

Thanks for the information, I will look into it further. However I am
inclined to think that the inefficiencies were largely an attitude problem,
which was corrected by bombing.

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...



If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they
could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.



Given that only a single battallion was dropped close enough
on the first drop this seems unlikely. Quite simply there
were no suitable drop zones close to the bridge large
enough to put the whole force into in one go.

Actually the first 2 Bde's were dropped about the same distance from the
bridges. Also although glider LZ's could only be used once, paras only
need
minutes to clear a DZ for a second drop.

One Bde stayed to guard the DZ's, a mistake IMHO, and the other advanced
on
the bridges on 3 Bn axis. Only one of the Bn's made it to the road bridge,
which is probably where you got your single Bn.


Quite so , note that guarding you supply line is standard military doctrine

With 5 times the force driving for the bridges the handful of Germans in
the
way would not have stood a chance.


Which is irrelevant, seizing the bridge was achieved, holding it
was the problem.

When you consider that paratroops are by definition lightly
armed and that the Germans had a Panzer division in the
area it becomes an impossibility.

The Panzer Div's were not positioned to stop the initial attack and the
airborne had adequate anti-tank weapons to defend a town against their
counter attack.


Hardly, they had a handful of PIAT'S and no counter to
German artillery. As Major Tony Hibbert said the German
tanks were now devastatingly effective.

'We really had nothing we could do to them, and they drove up
and down the street, firing high explosive into the side of the
building, to create the gap, and then firing smoke shells through that.
The phosphorus from the smoke shells burned us out. By about 8 o'clock,
on Wednesday evening, the fires got out of control and of course
we had by this time about 300 wounded in the cellars.'

The fundamental flaw with the operation was that XXX Corps
had to advance along a single road along the top of a dyke
with flooded fields on either side. A single 88 could hold an
armoured column up until the infantry pushed along the field
margins up to their chest in mud and cold water while under
fire.

That is why the plan called for an airborne carpet to clear the way. The
delay was more due to the failure to capture the bridge at Nijmegen before
the Germans had reacted.


The bridge at Nijmegen was ONE of the problems

This made a rapid advance kinda difficult. As for CAS this hit
the same problem that grounded the Poles, FOG, which
isnt exactly rare in NW Europe in the fall.

I was referring to the clear weather days only, principally D and D+1,
sorry
if that was not clear.


Trouble is that leaves the para's at Arnhem vulnerable to German
counter attack with no CAS and no artillery

Keith

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

snip

Then you would have had to scrap the entire US military production
strategy,
which was based upon getting a LOT of "good enough" stuff produced
as
opposed to the German approach of building a few really good
items--we
know
which side lost, so I would side with the winning strategy.

I can't find any evidence that the USAAF were pursuing this strategy;
on
average its aircraft were as good or better than the enemy's.

Your own example was in regards to *tanks* for gosh sakes!

Your reply was in regards to "the entire US military production"

And I have detailed how that applied to land, air, and sea systems.


If you want USAAF
examples, ask yourself why, despite the availability of better aircraft,
projects like the P-40 continued in production as long as they did? Why
did
the B-25 continue in production when the B-26, and later the A-26, were
already entering service in great numbers? Because the US valued mass,
that's why.

That's why I said "on average" both sides kept some poor aircraft in
production, and both produced some first class aircraft.

Who cares what the Germans did? The issue here was the US philosophy of
producing a lot of stuff that was "good enough" versus a few things that
were demonstrably superior.


Much the same can be said of rifles, artillery, ships, etc.

OK. You think the M3 Grease Gun was the best possible quality SMG we
could
produce? Of course not--but it provided the *numbers* that we could not
acheive with the Thompson production.

The M3's main fault was the single feed magazine, copied from the MP38/40.

The M3 was a stamped out, mass produced clunker in comparison to the
Thompson. It had a strange rate of fire (it tended to increase its rate as
you held the trigger down, sort of a bam...bam...bam..bam..bam.bam.bam.bam
situation--we still had them as standard weapons for tank, CEV, and AVLB
crewmen in the late eighties, not becuse they were *good*, but because we
had nothing to replace them until the M4 came along), was heavy as hell, and
was never considered to be very accurate weapon. Your single feed magazine,
whatever that means, was the least of its problems.


In regards to tanks, the Sherman was
adequate in many ways, good in a few ways, and barely adequate in others
(such as firepower)--but we were still rolling the original 75mm version
off
the lines when the war ended.

They were worse that the average German tank.

Yep, they were in terms of firepower. They were pretty good from a
mechanical reliability standpoint (probably significantly better than their
German counterparts), and relatively fast and agile for the period. They
also did not tax the supporting infrastructure as much as heavier products
like the Tiger would have had it been in allied hands (things like standard
tactical bridging systems, and even shipping--unlike the Germans, we had to
transport all of the Shermans overseas before they could even get into the
fight). The later higher velocity 76 mm gun was better than the 75mm, but it
never really matched German firepower (until the Israelis upgunned them
later in life to the Super Sherman standard).


Were Liberty and Victory ships the highest
quality merchent vessels going? No again--but by golly we could turn
them
out like pretzels.

No German competition, so no comparison possible.

You don't need a comparison--it just goes to show that we were turning out
stuff to acheive mass, with acceptable performance versus lower production
with optimal performance.


Artillery? We did fairly well in that area--but more due
to better tactics and C-2 than any inherent advantage of the guns--and
again, turning out zillions of guns also helped.

Those numbers were combined with quality comparable to the German weapons.

Yes and no. We did not do nearly as well as the Germans in terms of
versatility, where their 88mm was king. And IIRC the Germans had better SP
guns than we did (the old M7 105mm Priest being about the best we managed),
with products like the Sdkfz 165 Hummel and its 150mm gun. Our comparable
M12 and M40 did not become available until later in the war. The M7 remained
the standard divisional SP gun in the armored divisions throughout the war.

snip

I am well aware of the need for technology, I am also aware that the
first
airborne radars went to the bombers, so that they could bomb through
cloud.

That would be because those first radars would have been LOUSY U-Boat
detectors.

Then why were slightly modified versions subsequently used to hunt
U-Boats?

I don't believe they were "slightly modified". IIRC, and someone around here
who specializes in the field can correct me if I am wrong, it took a shorter
wavelength radar to acheive the ability of detecting a surfaced U-Boat than
waht was available on the bomber radars that were used for gross mapping
(which was about the best they could manage).

snip for bevity's sake


Logic failure. Get back to the subject at hand--the sheer number of
personnel dedicated to the flak forces, the number of guns that went to
support that defense effort that were NOT available to directly support
the
Wehrmacht, the critical resources that went into producing those guns
and
ammo that instead could have flowed also to the Wehrmacht efforts, the
lack
of Luftwaffe support over the battlefield because of the need to resist
the
CBO, etc.

My point has never been that no resources would have been freed for the
German front line, just that they would be less that the resources freed
for
the allied front line.

First, I seriously doubt that. "In January of 1944 there were 20,625 FLAK
guns (7,941 heavy guns and 12,684 light/medium guns) with 6,880 searchlights
defending Germany. Stationed on other fronts were another 9,569
anti-aircraft guns and 960 searchlights, these totals do not include Army
and Navy FLAK units." (www.ww2guide.com/flak.shtml ). That is a lot of
resources right there. How many men were required to keep each gun and
searchlight in service? How many men and how much other resources were
required to provide the early warning needed, supply the guns, etc.? How
many fighter squadrons were tied up in the defense of the Reich in 1943-44?

If we use a SWAG of eight men per heavy gun and four per lighter gun, and
maybe four per searchlight, that gives you some 125,000 personnel *just in
the weapons crews themselves*. Even if you assume that the Flak units
required less service support committment than frontline combat units (where
the teeth-to-tail ratio was probably in the five or six-to-one range at
best) and assumed a one-to-one ratio, you are talking another 125K personnel
right there. That is already 250K personnel tied up in the defense effort
without even starting to consider the Luftwaffe flying assets. I'd be very
surprised if the total number of German personnel tied to the defense effort
against the CBO was not well in excess of 500K personnel...at a time when
Wehrmacht units were furiously disbanding some units in a vain effort to
keep others in a fill-status that *remotely* resembled their TO&E
requirements.

Which brings us to the second point--the allies could *afford* to dedicate
personnel and resources to the CBO because we had an over-abundance of
manpower and equipment resources. We were challenged to support the scope of
the force that we DID have fighting on the continent--tossing more manpower
into the equation would just exacerbate the support constraints. OTOH, the
Germans were already short manpower and equipment almost across the
board--keeping tank strength in their panzer units up to minimal levels was
a nightmare, and they were lacking infantry and artillerymen as well. Their
tactical air support efforts were seriously hampered by the need to continue
the defense effort back home. So in the end the CBO, if it accomplished
nothing else, applied additional pressure to the German manning and
equipment shortfalls affecting their frontline units that would not have
been present had the CBO not occured.


The secondary point is that without bombing to enrage the population the
Germans would have produced less war material, so there would have been
less
to share around.

That argument has never been adequately supported. The reason German
production was still climbing was more due to the effect of their belated
shift to a wartime effort, and the improved efficiencies resulting from the
efforts of Speer and his folks, than due to "rage" on the part of the german
workforce. As another poster has noted, that workforce exhibited an
increasing absence rate as the war progressed--hardly an indicator of a
motivated workforce.

snip


No, the biggest "single problem" was that they went to Arnhem in the
first
place, amidst reforming German Panzer units that light airborne troopies
were ill equipped to fight, while depending upon an unrealistic advance
rate
from the XXX Corps ground elements along a single axis of advance. Had
they
been able to drop the Polich Brigade on day one that would have just
allowed
the German's to roll them up with the majority of the British division,
instead of having it available to support the withdrawl of what British
elements were able to finally accomplish that move.

The airborne did have some quite effective anti-tank weapons, fighting a
defensive battle in Arnhem they could have held the very under strength
Panzer Divs for a long time.

They did? And what were they? The PIAT? You are dreaming here--they faced
those panzers, and they did NOT hold out "for a long time". Their AT
capabilities were ABYSMAL. And you have again ignored the REAL problems with
Market Garden--the poor and limited capacity axis of advnace given to XXX
Corps, the lack of decent DZ's around Arnhem close enough to the targets,
and that great unknown--the weather.


If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they
could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.

I sincerely doubt that. It would not have changed the fact that they
were
dropped too far from their objective, nor would it have changed the fact
that they were facing a lot of German troops and tanks that they had not
planned on encountering. In all likelihood, you would have just given
the
Nazis a larger bag of POW's to handle when it was all over.

They hung on for quite a long time despite all the problems.

And they ended up withdrawing what they could. Had the entire division
dropped in on day one it would not have sped up XXX Corps advance one iota,
and you'd have been left with the germans having more POW's in hand than
they actually got in the end.

Brooks

Bill Phillips wrote in message ...
Thanks for the information, I will look into it further. However I am
inclined to think that the inefficiencies were largely an attitude problem,
which was corrected by bombing.

The German WWII economic inefficiencies were built in by the
Nazi's general divide and rule ideas and the methods used
pre war to create employment. Plus the military's ideas of how
a war economy should be run. Then add the overlay that the
early victories "proved" the system was basically working and
the 1941 cut backs.

The general war situation meant the system had to become more
efficient if Germany was to stand any chance of winning. The
general war situation, including the bombing but also things like
the defeats in the east and south all played there part in any
attitude change. The worse things became the less any vested
interests were able to hold out.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email