Greatest Strategic Air Missions

Hiroshima. Nothing ever even came close in effect importance or end result.
End of story.


Gee, Art.

That just whacked a huge number of civilians.

Wouldn't a strategic air mission have to be something like the Dam Busters or
something?

Or wrecking that canal (I forget the name) with Tall Boys?

Seriously, something that caused a strategic effect for economical return, like
the Oil Campaign of 1944/45.

Walt

Subject: Greatest Strategic Air Missions
From: (WalterM140)
Date: 8/22/2004 5:05 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Hiroshima. Nothing ever even came close in effect importance or end result.
End of story.


Gee, Art.

That just whacked a huge number of civilians.

Wouldn't a strategic air mission have to be something like the Dam Busters or
something?

Or wrecking that canal (I forget the name) with Tall Boys?

Seriously, something that caused a strategic effect for economical return,
like
the Oil Campaign of 1944/45.

Walt

\

If that dam was never busted it wouldn't have made the slightest difference in
the war. In fact the results of the dam busting was disappointing. Why are we
discussing missions that may have been heroic but made zero difference in the
outcome of fhe war?


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

missions that may have been heroic but made zero difference in the
outcome of the war?

So what do you think of the "Black Buck" missions in the Falklands war
from that standpoint? Definitely a tour de force of planning and
airmanship, but what was their result on the fight?

Some say they had little effect in terms of their ostensible goals
such as runway denial, but caused Argentina to hold back forces to
defend their mainland. Or is that just a popular misconception?

I might add, speaking in general rather than about Black Buck, that
making zero difference on the outcome is not at all the same as making
zero difference in the path to that outcome. Causing a war to end
sooner or later, with more or less casualties, is definitely on the
table when discussing these things, I should think.

Cheers,
--Joe

"Ad absurdum per aspera" wrote in message
om...
missions that may have been heroic but made zero difference in the
outcome of the war?

So what do you think of the "Black Buck" missions in the Falklands war
from that standpoint? Definitely a tour de force of planning and
airmanship, but what was their result on the fight?


Minor IMHO except in so far as they forced the argentines
to retain aircraft for home defence

Some say they had little effect in terms of their ostensible goals
such as runway denial, but caused Argentina to hold back forces to
defend their mainland. Or is that just a popular misconception?


No its accurate enough but the forces retained were
not specialist naval attackers as I recall. In any even they
were a minor part of a small war and scarcely count
as either great or strategic.

Keith

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
Hiroshima. Nothing ever even came close in effect importance or end
result.
End of story.


Gee, Art.

That just whacked a huge number of civilians.


Well no.

Hirsohima was not only the home port for much of the
Japanese Navy it was also the home of 2nd Army Headquarters,
which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan.
There were large numbers of troops based there. At
least 3 divisions IRC

It was also a major communications center, a storage point,
and the embarkation port for most of the troops who
were sent to the Philipines, Malaya, China etc.

To quote a Japanese newspaper report, "Probably more
than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did
the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the
troops leaving from the harbor."

Wouldn't a strategic air mission have to be something like the Dam Busters
or
something?


Getting the enemy to surrender unconditionally is about as
strategic as it gets.

Keith

In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
Hiroshima. Nothing ever even came close in effect importance or end
result.
End of story.


Gee, Art.

That just whacked a huge number of civilians.


Well no.

Hirsohima was not only the home port for much of the
Japanese Navy it was also the home of 2nd Army Headquarters,
which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan.

To avoid any confusion, it was 2nd _General_ army. A regular Japanese
"army" was more like an Allied corps, an "area army" was equivalent to a
field army (i.e., four-star command). General Army was somewhere
between Army Group and Theater Army.

There were large numbers of troops based there. At
least 3 divisions IRC

It was also a major communications center, a storage point,
and the embarkation port for most of the troops who
were sent to the Philipines, Malaya, China etc.

To quote a Japanese newspaper report, "Probably more
than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did
the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the
troops leaving from the harbor."

Wouldn't a strategic air mission have to be something like the Dam
Busters
or
something?


Getting the enemy to surrender unconditionally is about as
strategic as it gets.

Keith

Keith Willshaw wrote:

That just whacked a huge number of civilians.



Well no.

Are you saying that a large number of civilians was not killed in that
bombing?


Hirsohima was not only the home port for much of the
Japanese Navy it was also the home of 2nd Army Headquarters,
which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan.
There were large numbers of troops based there. At
least 3 divisions IRC

The bombing did not target any specific military facilities. According
to the Japanese figures, military casualties from the attack accounted
for less than 3% of the overall casualties. Thus, for every Japanese
soldier killed in the Hiroshima bombing there was 97% of "collateral
damage." So, no, it was not the greatest strategic air mission.

Getting the enemy to surrender unconditionally is about as
strategic as it gets.

The Soviet advances were the primary reason for the fact that the Japs
were even considering a surrender. They figured maybe Stalin won't stop
with the Kurils. Same situation as with the Germans trying to surrender
to the Americans and nobody nuked them.

--
Regards,

Venik

Visit my site: http://www.aeronautics.ru
If you need to e-mail me, please use the following subject line:
?Subject=Newsgr0ups_resp0 nse

Venik wrote:

Thus, for every Japanese
soldier killed in the Hiroshima bombing there was 97% of "collateral
damage." So, no, it was not the greatest strategic air mission.

The judgement on whether a mission was a strategic success is not based on
collateral damage. In *most* circumstances high collateral damage will usually
translate to a strategic failure....but not in this case.

The Soviet advances were the primary reason for the fact that the Japs
were even considering a surrender.

Not according to interviews conducted with Japanese civilian and military
leaders following WW II. Take a look at the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.

Same situation as with the Germans trying to surrender
to the Americans and nobody nuked them.

Uhh..the first successful nuclear bomb testing wasn't done until 16 July
1945....two months after Germany was defeated.


BUFDRVR

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

BUFDRVR wrote:

Not according to interviews conducted with Japanese civilian and military
leaders following WW II. Take a look at the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.

I am sure the answers would have been different if these interviews were
conducted by the Soviets. In addition to trying to appease their
conquerors, these Japanese leaders probably also felt more comfortable
with the idea that their surrender was precipitated by a super weapon
and not but by their desire to salvage as much as possible out of a
hopeless situation.

As you know, during the Yalta conference Stalin promised to attack Japan
ninety days from the surrender of Germany. In return the USSR got the
Allied blessing to grab some territory back from Japan. It's hard to
imagine that the Japanese were not aware of the details of this deal.
Even before the Germany's surrender, the Japanese sent a diplomatic
delegation to the USSR to work out some sort of a surrender deal that
would allow Japan to keep the Emperor. By that time the US diplomats
have already got themselves into a bottle by pronouncing the policy of
Unconditional Surrender. The Soviets, on the other hand, had no
particular problem with the Emperor.

Germans surrendered on May 8, which meant that Stalin was obligated to
attack Japan no later than August 8. US plans called for a limited
invasion of the Ryuku Islands in November and the invasion of the
mainland Japan was to take place in January of 1946 at the earliest. So
there definitely was a big gap between the timing of the Soviet invasion
of Japan and the US invasion. If the negotiations between Japan and the
USSR produced results (and there was no reason why they shouldn't have,
since both countries were not even at war with each other), the Soviet
"attack" on Japan could have been a very brief and victorious affair for
Stalin.

The US delayed the Potsdam conference for two weeks, during which the
first nuke was tested. And Truman authorized the bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki just two days before the Soviet attack against Japan.
Truman's decision to use the A-bombs was opposed by most of his military
advisers, including Le May, Eisenhower and MacArthur. And the public
reaction in the US to the use of the A-bomb was split close to the
middle. At the time, the significance of timing of these events was
quite obvious to anyone reading newspapers.

Japanese negotiated with both the US and the USSR and in both cases
their primary and only real condition was to retain the Emperor. They
would have preferred to surrender to the Americans for obvious reasons:
USSR had territorial claims against Japan and nobody in Japan was
looking forward to living under Kremlin's control. On the other hand,
negotiating with the USSR was less problematic because the two countries
were not at war and because the Soviets, unlike the US, did not demand
unconditional surrender.

In the end, the US changed its policy of Unconditional Surrender and
that's what prompted the Japanese surrender. And the use of the nukes
allowed the US to obscure this rather embarrassing policy change from
public scrutiny, as well as to give Stalin something to think about.
It's also important to remember that Truman counted on a much bigger
impact of the A-bomb on the Soviets, because, of course, he had no idea
that the Soviets have already taken from Los Alamos everything they
needed for their own bomb. During the Potsdam conference Truman even
attributed Stalin's lack of response to the news of the A-bomb test to
his failure to grasp the significance of the event., since Truman,
obviously, expected some sort of an emotional response from uncle Joe.
If Truman knew how quickly the USSR would build its own A-bomb, perhaps
he would have listened to his military commanders on this matter.

--
Regards,

Venik

Visit my site: http://www.aeronautics.ru
If you need to e-mail me, please use the following subject line:
?Subject=Newsgr0ups_resp0 nse

"Venik" wrote in message
...
BUFDRVR wrote:

Not according to interviews conducted with Japanese civilian and
military
leaders following WW II. Take a look at the U.S. Strategic Bombing
Survey.

I am sure the answers would have been different if these interviews were
conducted by the Soviets.

Well yes Beria had a way of getting the answers Stalin wanted to hear.

Keith




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