Area bombing is not a dirty word.

In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"B2431" wrote in message
...

snip

You can see where I am going with this. I wonder how many airmen would
have
lived if the Allies changed their methods. I wonder how much shorther the
war
would have been if oil production and distribution alone were the sole
primary
targets early in the war. Secondary targets would be airfields and flack.

I think you'd have to toss transportation into the mix right after the
petroleum industry.

Let's not forget training, either. Yes, there was a tremendous spurt
in production numbers in 1944, but what use was it when there were no
pilots to fly the airplanes, or crew the submarines or tanks?
What new pilots, or sub crews, or soldiers that could be trained, went
to their units with no operational training whatsoever. Survival at
that point was a matter of luck - they never got the chance to develop
skill.
The German Armed Forces going into 1945 were like an M&M. (Smartie,
for you Brits) A thin, hard shell of veterans surrounding a soft
innter layer.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"B2431" wrote in message
...

snip

You can see where I am going with this. I wonder how many airmen would
have
lived if the Allies changed their methods. I wonder how much shorther
the
war
would have been if oil production and distribution alone were the sole
primary
targets early in the war. Secondary targets would be airfields and
flack.

I think you'd have to toss transportation into the mix right after the
petroleum industry.

Let's not forget training, either. Yes, there was a tremendous spurt
in production numbers in 1944, but what use was it when there were no
pilots to fly the airplanes, or crew the submarines or tanks?
What new pilots, or sub crews, or soldiers that could be trained, went
to their units with no operational training whatsoever. Survival at
that point was a matter of luck - they never got the chance to develop
skill.
The German Armed Forces going into 1945 were like an M&M. (Smartie,
for you Brits) A thin, hard shell of veterans surrounding a soft
innter layer.

True, but the bombing campaign did not target "training", per se. Its effect
on the petroleum situation adversely impacted training, and the attrition of
Luftwaffe pilots defending against the campaign applied additional stress to
the training pipeline. But it would have been very hard to set forth a
bombing campaign during WWII with an objective of degrading the Germans'
ability to train.

Brooks


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
t...

"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"B2431" wrote in message
...

snip

You can see where I am going with this. I wonder how many airmen
would
have
lived if the Allies changed their methods. I wonder how much shorther
the
war
would have been if oil production and distribution alone were the
sole
primary
targets early in the war. Secondary targets would be airfields and
flack.

I think you'd have to toss transportation into the mix right after the
petroleum industry.

Let's not forget training, either. Yes, there was a tremendous spurt
in production numbers in 1944, but what use was it when there were no
pilots to fly the airplanes, or crew the submarines or tanks?
What new pilots, or sub crews, or soldiers that could be trained, went
to their units with no operational training whatsoever. Survival at
that point was a matter of luck - they never got the chance to develop
skill.
The German Armed Forces going into 1945 were like an M&M. (Smartie,
for you Brits) A thin, hard shell of veterans surrounding a soft
innter layer.

True, but the bombing campaign did not target "training", per se. Its
effect
on the petroleum situation adversely impacted training, and the attrition
of
Luftwaffe pilots defending against the campaign applied additional stress
to
the training pipeline. But it would have been very hard to set forth a
bombing campaign during WWII with an objective of degrading the Germans'
ability to train.

This is rather the basis of my objection to bombing.

Several others have commented on the need to identify the weakest link in
the German military and then concentrate on it.

Well, the weakest link was trained combatants, anything that does not target
them:
(a) wastes valuable resources.
(b) causes unnecessary suffering.
(c) increases the amount of aid needed to rebuild Germany afterwards.

I have already given the USAAF bombers credit for being bait for the German
combat pilots, which is more than I give the RAF.

On 01 Jan 2004 21:42:41 GMT, (B2431) wrote:

3) Targets kept changing prorities. If the bombing missions were planned to
knock out a system or production of a specific item such as ball bearings or
oil and continued until that system or product was brought to a stop they could
then go on to the next priority. Speer said a follow up to the Schweinfurt raid
would have seriously hurt ball bearing production to the point of affecting the
war effort. However the next bombing missions were elsewhere.

This was a necessity as the repair capacity of the Germans was
rather high. Two raids on a German Coal to Oil conversion plant
dropped production to zero; 29 days later it was back up to 75% of
normal capacity. After being hit again they were back up to 51% of
capacity in 11 days and expecting to be at 80% two days later. Hit
again and it was at 35% of capacity in 5 days; the Germans were just
too good at fixing the capacity to hope it would be out for good
without just hititng it constantly and ignoring other plants at 100%
capacity.

You can see where I am going with this. I wonder how many airmen would have
lived if the Allies changed their methods. I wonder how much shorther the war
would have been if oil production and distribution alone were the sole primary
targets early in the war. Secondary targets would be airfields and flack.

The problem with this is that we couldn't hit all their oil
production and distribution early in the war. Few if any, escorts
would have been available for nearly all the targets that we could
hit. We would keep hitting the same half of the production capacity
that was already at zero production.

--
"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 6:15 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

On 01 Jan 2004 21:42:41 GMT, (B2431) wrote:

3) Targets kept changing prorities. If the bombing missions were planned to
knock out a system or production of a specific item such as ball bearings or
oil and continued until that system or product was brought to a stop they
could
then go on to the next priority. Speer said a follow up to the Schweinfurt
raid
would have seriously hurt ball bearing production to the point of affecting
the
war effort. However the next bombing missions were elsewhere.

This was a necessity as the repair capacity of the Germans was
rather high. Two raids on a German Coal to Oil conversion plant
dropped production to zero; 29 days later it was back up to 75% of
normal capacity. After being hit again they were back up to 51% of
capacity in 11 days and expecting to be at 80% two days later. Hit
again and it was at 35% of capacity in 5 days; the Germans were just
too good at fixing the capacity to hope it would be out for good
without just hititng it constantly and ignoring other plants at 100%
capacity.

You can see where I am going with this. I wonder how many airmen would have
lived if the Allies changed their methods. I wonder how much shorther the
war
would have been if oil production and distribution alone were the sole
primary
targets early in the war. Secondary targets would be airfields and flack.

The problem with this is that we couldn't hit all their oil
production and distribution early in the war. Few if any, escorts
would have been available for nearly all the targets that we could
hit. We would keep hitting the same half of the production capacity
that was already at zero production.


When you get an enemy operation down to zero production, the point is to keep
it there at all costs.

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

the Germans were just
too good at fixing the capacity to hope it would be out for good
without just hititng it constantly and ignoring other plants at 100%
capacity.

However, don't underestimate the overall impact of reducing a fuel production
facility to 0% for even one day.


BUFDRVR

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

On 02 Jan 2004 22:57:45 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

the Germans were just
too good at fixing the capacity to hope it would be out for good
without just hititng it constantly and ignoring other plants at 100%
capacity.

However, don't underestimate the overall impact of reducing a fuel production
facility to 0% for even one day.

"If the bombing missions were planned to knock out a system or
production of a specific item such as ball bearings or oil and
continued until that system or product was brought to a stop they
could then go on to the next priority. "

I'm not saying there wasn't an impact from cutting it to 0% even for
a short time, just that we couldn't hit it once and forget it for the
rest of the war.

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

Bill Phillips wrote in message ...

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.

This is correct to mid 1944, the bombers could not compete with
Speer undoing the inefficiencies in the German economy. It was
also a fact the effect of the bombers helped Speer push through
the changes. The main effect of the bombing was military, the
cost of the air raid warning and protection system, the deployment
of so many fighters and flak guns in Germany, the losses to the day
fighters in particular in early 1944.

The Air Forces are left with "production would have gone up further"
rather than "production went down" until mid 1944, not very convincing.


One reason the average Luftwaffe day fighter had no performance
improvement between early 1942 and mid 1944 was the need
for numbers. The day fighters went from being generally superior
to generally inferior to the allied day fighters.

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

The "morale" issue is complicated, yes at times it made people more
productive, in others less, similar for "fighting attitude".

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

The combination of loss of resources and the bombing. It took around
9 months for iron ore to end up as steel in a weapon, similar for other
raw materials, so much of the production loss in late 1944 seems to
be mainly bombing. However this bombing includes the effects of the
medium, light and fighter bombers on the German transport system,
not just the heavies.

The other thing to note is the halfway point for the 8th Air Force bombs
dropped on Germany is around mid November 1944, (less than 1/3 had
been dropped by the end of August 1944), Bomber Command mid point
was around early October 1944 it was very end loaded campaign.

The amount of tonnage and the speed of delivery meant the final months
of the war the bombing was more effective, overloading the air raid repair
abilities.

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


The loss of oil products helped, the lack of nitrogen and methanol
meant the Germans had to use more and more inert fillings in
shells. The need to defend Germany left less and less to control the
airspace over the armies or run bombing operations in the allied rear.

No one had ever tried this type of bombing before, and the Germans
did not volunteer raid reports, so it took a long time to learn what
worked.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Geoffrey Sinclair"
Date: 1/1/04 8:27 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

lso a fact the effect of the bombers helped Speer push through
the changes. The main effect of the bombing was military, the
cost of the air raid warning and protection system, the deployment
of so many fighters and flak guns in Germany, the losses to the day
fighters in particular in early 1944.

Don't forget the bridges, marshalling yards, rail facilities, ammo dumps, fuel
dumps. food supplies, dams, canals.road junctions that we detroyed.


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