Area bombing is not a dirty word.

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
In my view fuel as a poor third reason.


According to interviews with Albert Kesselring, fuel shortages severely
limited
training and was, according to him, the leading cause of eventually losing
air
superiority over their own country.


One thing that the German high command is excellent at is finding excuses
for their failures.

One of the reasons WW2 happened was that they successfully convinced the
German people that they had been on the verge of winning WW1 when the
politicians "stabbed then in the back."

So what do you expect him to say:

A) Our failure to train enough pilots early in the war meant that we got
into a vicious circle of: pilot shortage leading to, shorter training
leading to, higher casualties leading to, pilot shortage.

B) We were winning when we ran out of fuel, due to circumstances beyond my
control.

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
They lied about the effectiveness of German
bombing at the start of WW2, to justify a counter offensive.

Wrong. The USAAF part of the CBO was born out of AWPD-1, first drafted in
1938. The only thing the USAAF can be accused of was too easily dismissing
the
German failure in the Battle of Britain when they revised AWPD-1 in late
1940.
According to most air power experts of that time period, Germany failed
because
their bombers were ill equipped to the task. They were correct in that
regard,
but they let that explain away everything and literally learned no lessons
from
the Battle of Britain.

I was think of the RAF, however, the main lesson of the BoB was that bombing
was not as effective as had been expected. As far as I can tell the USAAF
did not learn this lesson.

Throughout WW2
they lied about the effectiveness of their bombing to justify throwing
good
resources after bad.

Wrong again. They had a real time intelligence problem with attempting to
analyze exactly the results of their bombing. They had excellent photo
recon
and excellent SIGINT due to Ultra, but a hard time correlating the 2. 60
years
later, we are still struggling with this, albeit not nearly as bad.

Again I was thinking of the RAF, bomb damage assessment in the early days of
night bombing were mostly wishful thinking and was subsequently proved to be
wildly optimistic. BDA did improve as the war progressed, but by then
people were committed to the bombing offensive and so there was less need to
lie.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...


OK there is scope for dropping bombs on things that are neither
production
or oil.

However, STOPPED means that NO bombs were dropped on production
facilities,
which does not fit what I have heard.



In fact there was a switch of emphasis in strategic bombing
from industrial towns to oil targets in 1944. The first bomber command
raid was that on the synthetic-oil plant at Gelsenkirchen on the
night of June 12/13 1944.

Indeed the major raids from this point on were directed at
military targets (Kiel, Le Havre etc), communications targets,
V1/V2 sites and oil targets. It was only in October that raids
were once more made on general production targets when raids
were made on Dortmund and Duisburg.

The handful of high profile raids you mention is a small part of the total
picture, and even your list includes some bombing of war production targets,
i.e. it hadn't stopped.

More important you need to explain why war production went up. I have
already explained that my assessment is that the bombing angered the
population and caused them to give up their luxuries and free time and
worked hard to produce more weapons. In short production went up because of
the bombing.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 1/16/04 12:12 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
In my view fuel as a poor third reason.


According to interviews with Albert Kesselring, fuel shortages severely
limited
training and was, according to him, the leading cause of eventually losing
air
superiority over their own country.


One thing that the German high command is excellent at is finding excuses
for their failures.

One of the reasons WW2 happened was that they successfully convinced the
German people that they had been on the verge of winning WW1 when the
politicians "stabbed then in the back."

So what do you expect him to say:

A) Our failure to train enough pilots early in the war meant that we got
into a vicious circle of: pilot shortage leading to, shorter training
leading to, higher casualties leading to, pilot shortage.

B) We were winning when we ran out of fuel, due to circumstances beyond my
control.



When France surrendered and collaborated it sure looked that way. Children in
France today are taught in schools that France defeated Germany with the "help"
of the allies. How French.


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

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

It depends on when you divert the resources.

Once you have built bombers you are restricted in what you can do with
them.

However change early enough and you can build almost anything instead,
such
as a tank that could take on Tigers and Panthers 1 to 1. Note:
resources
are
a quality issue as well as a quantity one, better equipment could have
actually reduced the logistic burden by achieving a given effect with
less
equipment.

Then you would have had to scrap the entire US military production
strategy,
which was based upon getting a LOT of "good enough" stuff produced as
opposed to the German approach of building a few really good items--we
know
which side lost, so I would side with the winning strategy.

I can't find any evidence that the USAAF were pursuing this strategy; on
average its aircraft were as good or better than the enemy's.

Your own example was in regards to *tanks* for gosh sakes! If you want USAAF
examples, ask yourself why, despite the availability of better aircraft,
projects like the P-40 continued in production as long as they did? Why did
the B-25 continue in production when the B-26, and later the A-26, were
already entering service in great numbers? Because the US valued mass,
that's why.


Much the same can be said of rifles, artillery, ships, etc.

OK. You think the M3 Grease Gun was the best possible quality SMG we could
produce? Of course not--but it provided the *numbers* that we could not
acheive with the Thompson production. In regards to tanks, the Sherman was
adequate in many ways, good in a few ways, and barely adequate in others
(such as firepower)--but we were still rolling the original 75mm version off
the lines when the war ended. Were Liberty and Victory ships the highest
quality merchent vessels going? No again--but by golly we could turn them
out like pretzels. Artillery? We did fairly well in that area--but more due
to better tactics and C-2 than any inherent advantage of the guns--and
again, turning out zillions of guns also helped.


So it appears that this "entire" strategy was only applied to tanks.

See above.



Even if it was put into air power then it could have won the battle of
the
Atlantic earlier

That is not assured. merely tossing a few hundred more aircraft over the
ocean was not going to stop the German subs; it took a combination of
aircraft and emerging technology (i.e., small radars capable of seeing
the
surfaced little buggers).

I am well aware of the need for technology, I am also aware that the first
airborne radars went to the bombers, so that they could bomb through
cloud.

That would be because those first radars would have been LOUSY U-Boat
detectors.


Then you would have had to factor in that the
germans, not being subjected to any kind of CBO, would have produced
even
*m
ore* boats ata faster pace, and trained them more effectively since
there
was not the additional effect on their POL supplies, not to mention the
fact
that all of those flak crews and resources would have been reprogrammed
to
face your other threats, and their Luftwaffe would have been better able
to
support operations on *both* fronts, etc, ad nauseum.

Given that German war production went up under bombing, I doubt that the
extra effort going to the front line would be anything like as large as
the
effort freed from our bombing offensive.

Logic failure. Get back to the subject at hand--the sheer number of
personnel dedicated to the flak forces, the number of guns that went to
support that defense effort that were NOT available to directly support the
Wehrmacht, the critical resources that went into producing those guns and
ammo that instead could have flowed also to the Wehrmacht efforts, the lack
of Luftwaffe support over the battlefield because of the need to resist the
CBO, etc.


and some more CAS and air transport would have been useful
for the advance across Europe. For example a little more air power
would
have turned Operation Market Garden into a victory.

No freakin' way. The weather shut out air support almost altogether
during
a
critical window of that operation, and a few more C-47's would NOT have
affected the outcome at Arnhem.

The biggest single problem at Arnhem was that the RAF took 3 lifts to drop
the British airborne div and the Polish Bde.

No, the biggest "single problem" was that they went to Arnhem in the first
place, amidst reforming German Panzer units that light airborne troopies
were ill equipped to fight, while depending upon an unrealistic advance rate
from the XXX Corps ground elements along a single axis of advance. Had they
been able to drop the Polich Brigade on day one that would have just allowed
the German's to roll them up with the majority of the British division,
instead of having it available to support the withdrawl of what British
elements were able to finally accomplish that move.


If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.

I sincerely doubt that. It would not have changed the fact that they were
dropped too far from their objective, nor would it have changed the fact
that they were facing a lot of German troops and tanks that they had not
planned on encountering. In all likelihood, you would have just given the
Nazis a larger bag of POW's to handle when it was all over.

Brooks

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...



If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.



Given that only a single battallion was dropped close enough
on the first drop this seems unlikely. Quite simply there
were no suitable drop zones close to the bridge large
enough to put the whole force into in one go.

When you consider that paratroops are by definition lightly
armed and that the Germans had a Panzer division in the
area it becomes an impossibility.

The fundamental flaw with the operation was that XXX Corps
had to advance along a single road along the top of a dyke
with flooded fields on either side. A single 88 could hold an
armoured column up until the infantry pushed along the field
margins up to their chest in mud and cold water while under
fire.

This made a rapid advance kinda difficult. As for CAS this hit
the same problem that grounded the Poles, FOG, which
isnt exactly rare in NW Europe in the fall.

Keith

I was think of the RAF, however, the main lesson of the BoB was that bombing
was not as effective as had been expected. As far as I can tell the USAAF
did not learn this lesson.

This is an over simplified lesson. The biggest lesson the USAAF ignored was the
psychological effect of bombing on civilians. If nothing else, residents of
London and surrounding areas disproved some of Douhet's theorys by maintaining
some sense of order during and after the bombings and by showing up for work
the next morning. The USAAF still believed you could cause the collapse of a
nations morale, and thus the collapse of their war effort by bombing civilians.
Now, much to their credit, very few 8th AF missions were designed as "civilian
morale destruction" missions, but the nature of high altitude bombing in the
1940's meant there was going to be collateral civilian casulties and many in
the USAAF believed this was not a bad thing, but a key to winning the war.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

In short production went up because of
the bombing.

Not true. Production went up *in relation to earlier yearly production* because
most military hardware factories were operating in the neighborhood of 40%-50%
of their capability. By 1942, German armament factories had nearly doubled
their output capacity. In the "United States Strategic Bombing Surveys",
undertaken after the war, this *undetected* excess production capability was a
major intelligence failure by both the UK and the US.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...


OK there is scope for dropping bombs on things that are neither
production
or oil.

However, STOPPED means that NO bombs were dropped on production
facilities,
which does not fit what I have heard.



In fact there was a switch of emphasis in strategic bombing
from industrial towns to oil targets in 1944. The first bomber command
raid was that on the synthetic-oil plant at Gelsenkirchen on the
night of June 12/13 1944.

Indeed the major raids from this point on were directed at
military targets (Kiel, Le Havre etc), communications targets,
V1/V2 sites and oil targets. It was only in October that raids
were once more made on general production targets when raids
were made on Dortmund and Duisburg.

The handful of high profile raids you mention is a small part of the total
picture, and even your list includes some bombing of war production
targets,
i.e. it hadn't stopped.


In fact in 1944 it was a LARGE part of the picture and its quite
true that war production targets were still bombed, stopping
a Tiger tank being delivered is preferable to trying to kill
it with a Sherman tank

More important you need to explain why war production went up.

Thats simple. Germany didnt put its industries on a full war
footing until 1943. They had no way to go but up. Add to this
Harris switching the focus of the attacks to Berlin from
the Ruhr and the subsequent concentration on tactical and
infrastructure targets that D-Day necessitated and improvement
in German production is inevitable.



I have
already explained that my assessment is that the bombing angered the
population and caused them to give up their luxuries and free time and
worked hard to produce more weapons. In short production went up because
of
the bombing.


You are in error. The people of Germany had no choice in the matter.
Production priorities were decided by the Reichsminister for war
production. Until 1942 that was Fritz Todt. When he died in an air
crash in 1942 he was replaced by Albert Speer. Speer was shocked by
the inefficiencies and corruption he found in German war production.

If you care to review the data you'll find that Britain was outproducing
Germany in all important areas of production from 1941 onwards
even though Germany had the entire resources of Western Europe
to call on.

Consider aircraft production as an example

In 1942 Germany produced a total of 16,000 aircraft including
2200 FW-190's and 2700 Me-109's

In 1942 Britain produced 28,000 combat aircraft and the USA
turned out 48,000


When we consider tanks we find the following figures
Germany 9,300
Britain 8,600
USA 23,800

I suggest you get hold of a copy of Speer's memoirs
and read them. They are somewhat self serving but
do bear witness to the inefficient mess he found.

Speer also had no doubt about the damage done to Germany's
economy by the bombing of its industrial centres. He said
of the early 1943 raids.

"I was surprised during the war years that the Americans
and the British did not follow up on the destruction of our industry.
If they had done that, the war would have been over a year earlier."

Field Marshall Erhard Milch said after the war

"In conclusion I would like to state that the Allies would have been able to
end the war sooner had they started their attacks against the German
petroleum refineries earlier; in fact they would have shortened the war by
the exact number of months (or weeks) it would have taken (and took) to
carry out these attacks effectively."

Of course this neglects the practicalities of such an attack, until
late 1943 bomber command didnt have the accuracy to hit these
targets and the 8th AF couldnt fly the deep penetration raids
until the escort fighters became available in the same time frame.

Still while I believe the attacks on Hamburg, the Ruhr and Cologne
were succesfull the Berling campaign was an error and
we would have done better to go after the oil targets
at that time while maintaining attacks on promary production
centres in the Ruhr


Keith

"ArtKramr" wrote

When France surrendered and collaborated it sure looked that way. Children
in
France today are taught in schools that France defeated Germany with the
"help"
of the allies. How French.

The Zaragoza base library had a high school level history book, with
British, French, Russian, and American sections. All relating to WWII.

All 4 sections said basically the same thing. "We won, everyone else helped"

Pete