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Greatest Strategic Air Missions?



 
 
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  #21  
Old August 21st 04, 10:49 PM
BUFDRVR
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Keith Willshaw wrote:

I'd suggest the oil campaign against Germany in WW2
was rather more significant.


Had POL been a top priority beginning in 1942 I think the POL campaign would be
an obvious choice, but the fact that POL was not a high priority until 1944
kind of blurs its importance. According to Speer, had we systematically
attacked Germany's electricity (production and distribution) beginning in 1942,
the war in Europe would have ended 6-8 months sooner.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"
  #22  
Old August 21st 04, 11:09 PM
Ed Rasimus
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On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 22:01:35 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:23:23 -0700, "Leadfoot"
wrote:



Biggest strategic campaign, of course, would be Linebacker II.


I'd suggest the oil campaign against Germany in WW2
was rather more significant.

Keith

Context, ol' buddy. Context! You've snipped the location of that
single line away--it was following the listing of the Doumer Bridge
LGB attack as a great strategic event, and my comments were strictly
related to the SEA unpleasantness of we colonials.

When we're talking strategic campaigns, WW II has got some huge ones.
Vietnam, on the other hand, simply ground on until every one got tired
and went home.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org
  #23  
Old August 21st 04, 11:10 PM
Ed Rasimus
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On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 10:53:21 -0700, "Leadfoot"
wrote:


"hobo" wrote in message
...
In article KYBVc.118201$sh.114795@fed1read06,
"Leadfoot" wrote:

Some candidates

Yamamoto shootdown
Hiroshima
Paul Doumer bridge LGB
Dambusters
Tirpitz
Norwegian heavy water
Midway
Doolittle raid


Why isn't the Israeli attack on the Egyptian AF to start the Six Day war
listed?


Cuz I didn't think of it in the twenty minutes I took from taking the idea
in my head to flowing the electrons onto the internet.

It's definitely a good candidate I didn't think of along with 9-11 or
Taranto.


After their AF was destroyed on the ground the Egyptians ordered
their troops on the border to retreat, which was most likely a mistake,
and they were slaughtered by the Israelis as they withdrew. Eliminating
Egypt so quickly allowed the Israelis to fight a 3 front war one front
at a time.



And, if we're going into pre-emptions, how about Pearl Harbor?


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org
  #24  
Old August 22nd 04, 12:06 AM
Howard Berkowitz
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In article , Andrew Chaplin
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Doolittle raid


Tactical mission, but politically strategic.


Was there not a change in the deployment of Japan's air forces as a
result? If so, would it not fall into the strategic realm?


Part of the problem in placing this particular raid is that it was
planned mostly for domestic morale reasons, not the immense strategic
effect it actually had. We get into the fundamental definition of
"strategic".

In general, I use "strategic" to describe an air operation that will
have a significant effect on the entire war, without major interaction
with other operations. The Doolittle raid, in particular, brings up the
question "do the planners need to be aware they are trying for a major
[strategic] effect?"

This didn't appear to be a consideration in planning this raid -- the
effect was unforeseen. Perhaps we can also consider what might be
called "negative strategic" decisions, such as Goering deciding to stop
what we'd now call a SEAD campaign, and switch to city bombing.
  #25  
Old August 22nd 04, 12:10 AM
Howard Berkowitz
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In article , Ed Rasimus
wrote:

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 17:14:50 GMT, Andrew Chaplin
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Doolittle raid

Tactical mission, but politically strategic.


Was there not a change in the deployment of Japan's air forces as a
result? If so, would it not fall into the strategic realm?


BTSOM. We're quickly descending into the realm of semantics here. The
distinction that is usually applied to tactical-v-strategic is one of
goals rather than outcomes.

The goal of the Doolittle raid was certainly not to bring Japanese
industrial might to its knees nor to destroy critical military assets
but rather to demonstrate to both the American people and the enemy
that the war could be brought to the enemy's homeland.

The targets were minimal and the impact even less except for the
demonstration of resolve.


Agreed that was the planners' intent. The Japanese reaction is what we
didn't predict. It caused considerable loss of face especially to the
Army, but also to the Navy in not guarding the homeland.

There is considerable postwar data that the fundamentally unwise
decision, in terms of strategic overreach, to attack Midway was a direct
consequence of the Doolittle raid. Capturing Midway would have extended
the outer security perimeter and thus have prevented further raids, or
so the staff thought.

Again, the "turning points" are different from different perspectives.
From the US position, the Japanese defeat at Midway turned the tide. For
any appreciable faction within the Japanese Naval staff, it was the
capture of Saipan that triggered the formation of a peace faction.
Japan put more value on Saipan as a key part of the inner perimeter than
the US had realized.
  #26  
Old August 22nd 04, 12:11 AM
Howard Berkowitz
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In article CsMVc.122499$sh.74185@fed1read06, "Leadfoot"
wrote:

And without giving away your spoiler, Yamamoto's replacement didn't last
long before being lost in a storm.
  #27  
Old August 22nd 04, 12:56 AM
ArtKramr
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ubject: Greatest Strategic Air Missions?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 8/21/2004 4:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article , Andrew Chaplin
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Doolittle raid

Tactical mission, but politically strategic.


Was there not a change in the deployment of Japan's air forces as a
result? If so, would it not fall into the strategic realm?


Part of the problem in placing this particular raid is that it was
planned mostly for domestic morale reasons, not the immense strategic
effect it actually had. We get into the fundamental definition of
"strategic".

In general, I use "strategic" to describe an air operation that will
have a significant effect on the entire war, without major interaction
with other operations. The Doolittle raid, in particular, brings up the
question "do the planners need to be aware they are trying for a major
[strategic] effect?"

This didn't appear to be a consideration in planning this raid -- the
effect was unforeseen. Perhaps we can also consider what might be
called "negative strategic" decisions, such as Goering deciding to stop
what we'd now call a SEAD campaign, and switch to city bombing.



I think that hte greatest strategic missions was the Battle of Britain. It
changed the course of the wsr. It stopped the German invasion of England which
allowed us to fortify England which led to the Normandy imvasions which led to
final victory in western europe. I can think of no other air battles which come
even close in importance, power and success. A single battle which led to
final victory.




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

  #28  
Old August 22nd 04, 01:49 AM
Kevin Brooks
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"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
In article , Andrew Chaplin
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Doolittle raid

Tactical mission, but politically strategic.


Was there not a change in the deployment of Japan's air forces as a
result? If so, would it not fall into the strategic realm?


Part of the problem in placing this particular raid is that it was
planned mostly for domestic morale reasons, not the immense strategic
effect it actually had. We get into the fundamental definition of
"strategic".

In general, I use "strategic" to describe an air operation that will
have a significant effect on the entire war, without major interaction
with other operations.


I think you were sort of on the right course, but you left the tracks with
that last clause. "Without major interaction with other operations"? I'd
posit that if your goal does NOT "interact" with "other operations", as in
being complimentary of, then it is not only not a strategic operation, it is
probably one that was a wasted effort in the first place.

A better solution IMO would be to look at things from the overarching
strategic framework perspective. At the top you have strategy--the setting
of goals, and resourcing elemnts such that they can acheive those goals,
that lead to obtaining national goals, or the endstate desired. In a broad
sense, for example, our strategic goals for the combined bomber offensive
against Germany was to significantly reduce the effectiveness of German
industrial production, degrade their capability of transporting military
resources to their desired destinations, and defeat the morale of the German
populace and reduce their support for continuing the war. Next comes the
operational level, where successive campaigns are planned and resourced to
acheive these goals over a period of time; IMO, the "transportation plan"
and the "oil plan" were not really *strategies*--they were instead
operational level efforts aimed at helping acheive strategic objectives.
Then you would have the individual raids, which are essentially the tactical
level execution of the operational plans (i.e., they equate to "battles" in
the ground combat arena).

Note that we refer to what occured in Europe during WWII as the "European
Theater of Operations", not the "European Theater of Strategy".

The Doolittle raid, in particular, brings up the
question "do the planners need to be aware they are trying for a major
[strategic] effect?"


Yes, they do, and in this case they apparently did--the effect being more
the domestic morale boost that you pointed to above before you veered a bit
offcourse. That they *also* acheived some degree of strategic effect
(causing the Japanese to rethink and redeploy their available air assets)
may have been an unforseen benefit, but it had some strategic ramifications
nonetheless. And those strategic ramifications would have been measured in
how much they "interacted" (or more accurately impacted) other operations.
IMO, the Doolittle Raid was one of those rare exceptions to what I outlined
above; it was a single raid (or "battle") planned to acheive a strategic
goal (morale boost), that also had the added benefit of at least marginally
impacting what was then still a japanese "center of gravity", which was
their (at the time) still effective air operations throughout their theaters
of operations.


This didn't appear to be a consideration in planning this raid -- the
effect was unforeseen.


But it occured anyhow. The thread posits missions that had a strategic
impact, not necesarily those that acheived said impact that was preplanned
as an objective.

Perhaps we can also consider what might be
called "negative strategic" decisions, such as Goering deciding to stop
what we'd now call a SEAD campaign, and switch to city bombing.


I'd put that decision more into the "negative operational decision"
category; he changed the operational objective from defeating the RAF (an
operational objective if there ever was one) to the more daunting task of
defeating British morale with raids often targeted at nothing of direct
military value. And he had a rather paltry capability of acheiving that goal
(morale defeat) with the force he had available; say what you will about the
RAF targeting of large urban areas, but at least they had the muscle to make
an honest effort of it.

Brooks


  #29  
Old August 22nd 04, 01:51 AM
Leadfoot
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"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 22:01:35 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:23:23 -0700, "Leadfoot"
wrote:



Biggest strategic campaign, of course, would be Linebacker II.


I'd suggest the oil campaign against Germany in WW2
was rather more significant.

Keith

Context, ol' buddy. Context! You've snipped the location of that
single line away--it was following the listing of the Doumer Bridge
LGB attack as a great strategic event, and my comments were strictly
related to the SEA unpleasantness of we colonials.


Actually my intent in using the word "strategic" was to avoid the listing of
missions such as "most aircraft shot down" or "most tanks busted" type
missions which while important to any war effort wasn't what I was looking
for. "Mission" could be numerous sorties on different days such as
"dambusters" but wouldn't include something like "Point Blank". I could
have been clearer but since this is Usenet it probably wouldn't make a
diffence anyway as people tend to post whatever they want.





When we're talking strategic campaigns, WW II has got some huge ones.
Vietnam, on the other hand, simply ground on until every one got tired
and went home.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org



 




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