Area bombing is not a dirty word.

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 02:01:50 GMT, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:



If we use a SWAG of eight men per heavy gun and four per lighter gun, and
maybe four per searchlight, that gives you some 125,000 personnel *just in
the weapons crews themselves*. Even if you assume that the Flak units
required less service support committment than frontline combat units (where
the teeth-to-tail ratio was probably in the five or six-to-one range at
best) and assumed a one-to-one ratio, you are talking another 125K personnel
right there. That is already 250K personnel tied up in the defense effort
without even starting to consider the Luftwaffe flying assets. I'd be very
surprised if the total number of German personnel tied to the defense effort
against the CBO was not well in excess of 500K personnel...at a time when
Wehrmacht units were furiously disbanding some units in a vain effort to
keep others in a fill-status that *remotely* resembled their TO&E
requirements.

The real question is where would the personelly otherwise tied up in
the AA defense be more useful to the German war effort. Most of the
crews were not fit to serve in the front line units either because
they were in the wrong age or sex group. Some of them weren't even
Germans.

Against one eight man gun crew you'd have one ten man B-17 crew. Which
crew costs its parent country more to sustain in the combat?


Which brings us to the second point--the allies could *afford* to dedicate
personnel and resources to the CBO because we had an over-abundance of
manpower and equipment resources. We were challenged to support the scope of
the force that we DID have fighting on the continent--tossing more manpower
into the equation would just exacerbate the support constraints. OTOH, the
Germans were already short manpower and equipment almost across the
board--keeping tank strength in their panzer units up to minimal levels was
a nightmare, and they were lacking infantry and artillerymen as well. Their
tactical air support efforts were seriously hampered by the need to continue
the defense effort back home. So in the end the CBO, if it accomplished
nothing else, applied additional pressure to the German manning and
equipment shortfalls affecting their frontline units that would not have
been present had the CBO not occured.

This point is valid, with some limits. Indeed, Allies could afford to
send their best human material into strategic bombing. The question is
whether this human material who flew and supported strategic bombing
offensive could have been used more efficiently.

It shouldn't be forgotten that half of the bombs dropped by CBO on
German controlled territory was dropped after September 1944 when
German army and air force were thoroughly defeated and were unlikely
to survive 1945 campaign season even if CBO completely stopped then.

CBO was a consequence of Germany being fully engaged in Soviet Union
with Allies reluctant to risk their ground troops until they became
sure in the victory. If it weren't for collapse of France in 1940, I
doubt British would choose to build Bomber Command on the expense of
increased BEF.


They did? And what were they? The PIAT?

They had antitank guns too. Not too many, but on the other hand, II SS
Panzer corps didn't have that many tanks either.

You are dreaming here--they faced those panzers, and they did NOT
hold out "for a long time".

They were expected to hold for 48 hours. They held out for nine days
and their opponents weren't limited to II SS panzerkorps.

Their AT capabilities were ABYSMAL. And you have again ignored the REAL problems with
Market Garden--the poor and limited capacity axis of advnace given to XXX
Corps, the lack of decent DZ's around Arnhem close enough to the targets,
and that great unknown--the weather.

Allies had a capability to make two drops on the first day. They chose
not to exercise it. It was a mistake. If there were more troops at
Arnhem, Urquhart would have had enough troops to attack towards the
bridge and hold the DZs. With only one drop, he deemed capture of the
bridge more important and sent troops there hoping that XXX corps
would establish the land supply line.


Drax
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