Area bombing is not a dirty word.

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