From: "Bill Phillips"



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.


In my opinion a great many strategic bombing missions were a waste of men and
aircraft.

1) The bombing of London had already proved the population would NOT be
demoralized yet the Allies seemed to think the Germans would cave.

2) Formating missions could take as long as 2 hours during which time the
Germans would be alerted by radar. I have always wondered if 1 or 2 Forts or
Lancs could sneak in at night and hit the target at dawn. Both bombers had good
accuracy at 5 kilofeet giving a good chance of taking out the target.

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.

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.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired