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