Area bombing is not a dirty word.

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
60 years of hindsight with some revisionism thrown in have obscured the
original intent of attacking an enemy from the air. I only flew one (of
50)
mission
over cloud cover using GEE. We didn't call it area bombing. We didn't call
it
blind bombing. Those are words are now used to stake out an agenda against
bombing in general. We flew the mission because it had to be flown and GEE
was
the only way to get it done. And there was a war on. A very nasty
unpleasant
war.
The name of the game was to go for the enemies throat.

The problem is: were you going for the enemy's throat?

Beating the enemy's fist with your face is not a good way to win.

Hit him night and day
in good weather and bad with no let up and no relief. We flew the
missions,
came back, buried our dead and went out again.We always hit a specific
target
that had to be hit. .The idea of having the enemy hit us without our
hitting
back any way we could was unthinkable. It shows weakness and gives the
inititive to the enemy, and once you have lost the initiative, you have
lost
the war.

Quite agree, however, your return blows have to be effective.

Also doing the same thing again and again is not gaining the initiative, it
is surrendering it.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 12/31/03 3:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
60 years of hindsight with some revisionism thrown in have obscured the
original intent of attacking an enemy from the air. I only flew one (of
50)
mission
over cloud cover using GEE. We didn't call it area bombing. We didn't call
it
blind bombing. Those are words are now used to stake out an agenda against
bombing in general. We flew the mission because it had to be flown and GEE
was
the only way to get it done. And there was a war on. A very nasty
unpleasant
war.
The name of the game was to go for the enemies throat.

The problem is: were you going for the enemy's throat?

Beating the enemy's fist with your face is not a good way to win.

Hit him night and day
in good weather and bad with no let up and no relief. We flew the
missions,
came back, buried our dead and went out again.We always hit a specific
target
that had to be hit. .The idea of having the enemy hit us without our
hitting
back any way we could was unthinkable. It shows weakness and gives the
inititive to the enemy, and once you have lost the initiative, you have
lost
the war.

Quite agree, however, your return blows have to be effective.

Also doing the same thing again and again is not gaining the initiative, it
is surrendering it.



Not when experience shows you that he is crumbling under your repeated blows.
And as we delivered these blows we could see him crumbling under our very eyes.



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

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 12/31/03 3:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
60 years of hindsight with some revisionism thrown in have obscured the
original intent of attacking an enemy from the air. I only flew one (of
50)
mission
over cloud cover using GEE. We didn't call it area bombing. We didn't
call
it
blind bombing. Those are words are now used to stake out an agenda
against
bombing in general. We flew the mission because it had to be flown and
GEE
was
the only way to get it done. And there was a war on. A very nasty
unpleasant
war.
The name of the game was to go for the enemies throat.

The problem is: were you going for the enemy's throat?

Beating the enemy's fist with your face is not a good way to win.

Hit him night and day
in good weather and bad with no let up and no relief. We flew the
missions,
came back, buried our dead and went out again.We always hit a specific
target
that had to be hit. .The idea of having the enemy hit us without our
hitting
back any way we could was unthinkable. It shows weakness and gives the
inititive to the enemy, and once you have lost the initiative, you have
lost
the war.

Quite agree, however, your return blows have to be effective.

Also doing the same thing again and again is not gaining the initiative,
it
is surrendering it.



Not when experience shows you that he is crumbling under your repeated
blows.
And as we delivered these blows we could see him crumbling under our very
eyes.


I did a quick search on Germany+war+production.

This is the first hit I got:

http://www.usaaf.net/surveys/eto/ebs4.htm

It indicates that German Industry has so much slack in it that bombing had
little effect.

Psychologically bombing may have been counter productive, it made us appear
inhuman and therefore caused the Germans to fight longer and harder.

True Germany was crumbling at the end but that was as a result of many
effects.

IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 1/1/04 11:36 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 12/31/03 3:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
60 years of hindsight with some revisionism thrown in have obscured the
original intent of attacking an enemy from the air. I only flew one (of
50)
mission
over cloud cover using GEE. We didn't call it area bombing. We didn't
call
it
blind bombing. Those are words are now used to stake out an agenda
against
bombing in general. We flew the mission because it had to be flown and
GEE
was
the only way to get it done. And there was a war on. A very nasty
unpleasant
war.
The name of the game was to go for the enemies throat.

The problem is: were you going for the enemy's throat?

Beating the enemy's fist with your face is not a good way to win.

Hit him night and day
in good weather and bad with no let up and no relief. We flew the
missions,
came back, buried our dead and went out again.We always hit a specific
target
that had to be hit. .The idea of having the enemy hit us without our
hitting
back any way we could was unthinkable. It shows weakness and gives the
inititive to the enemy, and once you have lost the initiative, you have
lost
the war.

Quite agree, however, your return blows have to be effective.

Also doing the same thing again and again is not gaining the initiative,
it
is surrendering it.



Not when experience shows you that he is crumbling under your repeated
blows.
And as we delivered these blows we could see him crumbling under our very
eyes.


I did a quick search on Germany+war+production.

This is the first hit I got:

http://www.usaaf.net/surveys/eto/ebs4.htm

It indicates that German Industry has so much slack in it that bombing had
little effect.

Psychologically bombing may have been counter productive, it made us appear
inhuman and therefore caused the Germans to fight longer and harder.

True Germany was crumbling at the end but that was as a result of many
effects.

IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.



Well, that's on opinion.


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

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. 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.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

On 01 Jan 2004 20:33:57 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

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.

History Channel Mode On

Between 12 May 1944 and 8 May 1945 the Allied air forces dropped
185,841 tons of high-explosive bombs on 87 German oil producing
targets (16 hydrogenation plants, 9 Fischer-Tropsch plants, 40
refineries, and 22 benzol plants), flying 61,712 sorties. At first,
production losses were extremely sharp, because the plants had not
been hit before and production loss resulted no matter what sections
were hit. In later attacks bombs which hit sections of the plant
already knocked out obviously could not contribute to further
production loss. As the intensity of the attacks increased, production
continued to fall until September, despite the frantic efforts of a
350,000-man emergency repair organization. Production increased
slightly in October and still more in November, mostly because weather
conditions interfered with bombing accuracy (10.1 percent of the bombs
dropped on synthetic plants in these months were by visual sighting,
as compared with 41.5 percent during the previous four months).

The Germans proved extremely adept at reparing these facilities.
A typical example of the recovery capacity of a plant is provided by
the records of the Ammoniakwerk Merseburg Coal to Oil Conversion
Plant, at Leuna. Because of this plant's great importance to the
German war economy, it is safe to assume that repair work was not held
up by lack of material or labor.

The first attack, 12 May 1944, knocked production from 100 percent
down to zero. On 28 May, when the plant was showing signs of
recovering, a second raid again knocked it flat but only for six days.
At this point the management drew up a plan that would have plant to
75 percent production in 27 days. The recovery followed the plan
closely, reaching 75 percent in 29 days. Four days later, a third
attack sent production back to zero. The recovery capacity was still
strong, however, and was back to 51 percent in 11 days on a plan which
called for 80 percent recovery in 13 days. At this point Attack 4 hit
the plant knocking it out of production for three days. After this it
restarted production and achieved 35 percent of normal in five days,
when Attacks 5 and 6 on 28 and 29 July stopped production for the
fifth time. This time the plant's recovery was slower and five
additional attacks on the now inactive plant kept production down
until 15 October. A recovery schedule drawn up at this time provided
for 50 percent production by the end of December. Despite two light
attacks, this plan was maintained, and production had 29 percent by 21
November when Attack 14 knocked it down to zero again. Five additional
attacks kept it down until 29 December when production was resumed on
a schedule that called for 30 percent recovery in one month and 45
percent in two. Recovery had reached 15 percent when Attacks 20 and 21
on 14 January put the plant again out of action for 38 days. Recovery
started again on 21 February, following a plan that foresaw 20 percent
production in one month and 30 percent in two. This schedule was
followed fairly closely, and production had reached 20 percent on 4
April when Attack 22 shut down the plant for the ninth and final time.
Allied occupation prevented any further recovery.

The Leuna versus Allied air forces bout resembled in some ways a prize
fight. The plant was knocked down nine times but never out, and
recovered rapidly at first but more slowly as the accumulating
punishment began to tell. Its recovery capacity also slackened as
indicated by the decreasing percentages of the recovery plans. It
might be said that the plant was finally defeated on points. To have
achieved a complete knockout the Allied air forces would have had to
destroy its recovery capacity, and they did not deliver a sufficiently
strong punch to accomplish this. However the production of the plant
dropped to a trickle after the bombing started, For nearly 11 months
of operation total output was equal to 12% or so of full production
and the ability to repair the plant was dropping fast.

/History Channel Mode Off
--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: Johnny Bravo
Date: 1/2/04 6:05 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

On 01 Jan 2004 20:33:57 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

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.

History Channel Mode On

Between 12 May 1944 and 8 May 1945 the Allied air forces dropped
185,841 tons of high-explosive bombs on 87 German oil producing
targets (16 hydrogenation plants, 9 Fischer-Tropsch plants, 40
refineries, and 22 benzol plants), flying 61,712 sorties. At first,
production losses were extremely sharp, because the plants had not
been hit before and production loss resulted no matter what sections
were hit. In later attacks bombs which hit sections of the plant
already knocked out obviously could not contribute to further
production loss. As the intensity of the attacks increased, production
continued to fall until September, despite the frantic efforts of a
350,000-man emergency repair organization. Production increased
slightly in October and still more in November, mostly because weather
conditions interfered with bombing accuracy (10.1 percent of the bombs
dropped on synthetic plants in these months were by visual sighting,
as compared with 41.5 percent during the previous four months).

The Germans proved extremely adept at reparing these facilities.
A typical example of the recovery capacity of a plant is provided by
the records of the Ammoniakwerk Merseburg Coal to Oil Conversion
Plant, at Leuna. Because of this plant's great importance to the
German war economy, it is safe to assume that repair work was not held
up by lack of material or labor.

The first attack, 12 May 1944, knocked production from 100 percent
down to zero. On 28 May, when the plant was showing signs of
recovering, a second raid again knocked it flat but only for six days.
At this point the management drew up a plan that would have plant to
75 percent production in 27 days. The recovery followed the plan
closely, reaching 75 percent in 29 days. Four days later, a third
attack sent production back to zero. The recovery capacity was still
strong, however, and was back to 51 percent in 11 days on a plan which
called for 80 percent recovery in 13 days. At this point Attack 4 hit
the plant knocking it out of production for three days. After this it
restarted production and achieved 35 percent of normal in five days,
when Attacks 5 and 6 on 28 and 29 July stopped production for the
fifth time. This time the plant's recovery was slower and five
additional attacks on the now inactive plant kept production down
until 15 October. A recovery schedule drawn up at this time provided
for 50 percent production by the end of December. Despite two light
attacks, this plan was maintained, and production had 29 percent by 21
November when Attack 14 knocked it down to zero again. Five additional
attacks kept it down until 29 December when production was resumed on
a schedule that called for 30 percent recovery in one month and 45
percent in two. Recovery had reached 15 percent when Attacks 20 and 21
on 14 January put the plant again out of action for 38 days. Recovery
started again on 21 February, following a plan that foresaw 20 percent
production in one month and 30 percent in two. This schedule was
followed fairly closely, and production had reached 20 percent on 4
April when Attack 22 shut down the plant for the ninth and final time.
Allied occupation prevented any further recovery.

The Leuna versus Allied air forces bout resembled in some ways a prize
fight. The plant was knocked down nine times but never out, and
recovered rapidly at first but more slowly as the accumulating
punishment began to tell. Its recovery capacity also slackened as
indicated by the decreasing percentages of the recovery plans. It
might be said that the plant was finally defeated on points. To have
achieved a complete knockout the Allied air forces would have had to
destroy its recovery capacity, and they did not deliver a sufficiently
strong punch to accomplish this. However the production of the plant
dropped to a trickle after the bombing started, For nearly 11 months
of operation total output was equal to 12% or so of full production
and the ability to repair the plant was dropping fast.


Of course the important point you are making is the fact that no matter how
many times we bombed and they repaired, we would always be back. In the end we
prevailed. I have sort of lost track of how many missions we flew against the
marshalling yards at Cologne. See "Death of a Marshalling Yard" on my
website.




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

On 02 Jan 2004 14:21:00 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

Of course the important point you are making is the fact that no matter how
many times we bombed and they repaired, we would always be back. In the end we
prevailed. I have sort of lost track of how many missions we flew against the
marshalling yards at Cologne. See "Death of a Marshalling Yard" on my
website.

It is also important to note that we had to go back. It just wasn't
possible to knock it out one time so we could ignore it from then on
and go on to the next target. The Germans were pretty good at the
repair business, even for the Coal-Oil conversion plants which
required some specialized components to function (mainly high pressure
domes).

--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft

"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?

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

"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.

Nor could it have been, at least not effectively (see below). At least they
kept the Luftwaffe largely in check while also makiong the POL and
transportation situations within Germany a nightmare (all three of which
were very good things for the "allied armies").

Also the flack units could and did turn their guns on ground
targets in the later stages of the war.

Great. Imagine how much MORE succesful they would have been had they not had
to concentrate all of those resources on defending the homeland and instead
had been putting them on more mobile armored platforms.


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

And pray tell just HOW would you put all of that effort "onto the
battlefield"? We know that level bombing was of mixed, at best, tactical
value when applied "to the battlefield" (witness COBRA). The allied ground
forces in France in late 1944 were about as big as you could manage given
logistics constraints (and no, having all of the bombers play transport
would not have appreciably changed that picture), so you would not have been
reorienting the bombing resources into the ground fight very easily. Sounds
like your plan is not very workable. OTOH, having the CBO ongoing prevented
what was left of the Luftwaffe in late 44 from being able to effectively
focus on supporting their own ground forces opposing the oncoming allied
ground juggernaut. It did indeed make the POL situation a critical one for
German forces, including those on the ground facing Ike's troops. I just
can't see how we could have substantially improved upon the situation by
reorienting the resources applied to the CBO--as Buffdrvr points out, we
could have better *focused* them to be more effective, given the benefit of
hindsight, but in the end the combined weight of *all* of the resources
brought to bear, from the CBO to the ground soldiers and TACAIR, working
simultaneously to apply pressure to the Germans from all directions and
forcing them to try to defend *everywhere* versus concentrating solely upon
the ground equation, was the optimal solution to be had.

Brooks