How effective was Allied Strategic bombing? The allied Strategic Bombing offensive at times comes in for a fair bit of flack [excuse the pun] mainly through ''Bomber''Harris's obsession with area bombing of cities to break German morale, which was no more successful then the Luftwaffe bombing England. But this from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, just about sums it up for me...... .........The German experience suggests that even a first class military power -- rugged and resilient as Germany was -- cannot live long under full-scale and free exploitation of air weapons over the heart of its territory. By the beginning of 1945, before the invasion of the homeland itself, Germany was reaching a state of helplessness. Her armament production was falling irretrievably, orderliness in effort was disappearing, and total disruption and disintegration were well along. Her armies were still in the field. But with the impending collapse of the supporting economy, the indications are convincing that they would have had to cease fighting -- any effective fighting -- within a few months. Germany was mortally wounded........... I think Allied strategic bombing on the whole, was decisive in the war in Western Europe. In hindsight it might have been employed differently or better in some respects. Nevertheless, it was decisive. The destruction of Germany's oil production and transportation network would have brought Germany to it's knees, even if the ground forces weren't over running the Reich. The attacks on oil production, oil refineries and tank farms, plus the destruction of the transportation network made a very large contribution to the general collapse of Germany in 1945, because this occurred sufficiently late in the war in that Germany was due to be defeated, some times the decisive nature of the bombing is over looked.
I agree that bombing played a major role when they did hit industrial areas. the more damage a industrial area takes the more down time and the less weapons it produceses. i believe the war would have gone on longer if they left the industrial areas alone. I believe that bombing civilian targets was a mistake. If you distroy a soldier's home most of the time they get angry which in turn makes them want to get vengence.
Allies oftenly had wrong targets on strategic bombing,exsample was when allys bombed Belgrade on ortodox eastern morning 1944. when was killed double more ppl then on axis bombing 1941.Belgrade was not so important center of German army and owerall it did not made any serius damage to German,bit it did to Belgrade population.
cold math of war bombing civilians sounds awful but in some ways of thinking those same civilians are themselves assets to be reduced. think about it- almost every adult male [ and many females ] did something that aided the war effort. be they farmers, tradesmen, skilled workers, or even street sweepers and garbage men every one did something that was of value if only very indirectly. a by product of such attacks was something called dehousing. destroy the workers homes and support systems and they have to leave. away from their jobs they become liabilities instead of assets. in history there are far more cases of civilians being attacked or otherwise used than not.
Was not the very purpose of the raid on Dresden to demoralize the German civilian population and convince them that "resistance was futile?" Incendiaries were used to create the resulting fire-storm. I believe the planners got the effect they had calculated...the firestorm was not an unlucky coincidence. It was no different in the Pacific. Gen Curtis LeMay came to the same conclusion in strategic bombings of cities in Japan. The high-winds over Japan at regular bombing altitude made pin-point bomb-strikes impossible. He rearmed the B-29s with incendiaries, and brought the bombers-in at much lower altitudes. The results were devastating to Japanese cities. Thousands of civilians died as a result. Tim
Dresden I for one agree with Bomber Harris and the bombing of Dresden, there was a war on for gods sake! The germans launched 8,000 flying bombs in September 44, 2,300 of these reached the London area, in April 45 1,050 Rocket bombs fell on Southern England killing 2,754 persons,... now that is indiscriminate bombing.
Ugly as it may be... they don't call it "Total War" for nothing. The Germans had been dropping bombs, and indiscriminate V-1 rockets on the people of England for years. The RAF simply responded in kind and brought a bigger club to the fight. Tim
Even if the Germans managed to hold the line against the Red army, and defeated the Normandy landing, they wouldn't have lasted much longer then they did historically because of lack of fuel [as was starting to have effect in the abortive Ardennes offensive] plus the destruction of the transportation network. And as for targets like Dresden, well, I guess that opens up a can of worms. The bombing of Dresden, led by the Royal Air Force and followed by the United States Army Air Force between February 13 and February 15, 1945, remains one of the more controversial Allied actions of World War II. The British claimed that Dresden and similar towns are the centres to which evacuees are being moved. They are centres of communications through which traffic is moving across to the Russian Front, and from the Western Front to the East, and they are sufficiently close to the Russian Front for the Russians to continue the successful prosecution of their battle. Others ask was the bombing a war crime? Some historians say that a mass assault against civilians simply constitutes a crime against humanity.
Dresden had already been bombed twice by the time of the main raid in Feb 45. The first time was Dec 44, the second Jan 45, both by the USAAF bombers which attacked Dresden as a secondary target after bad weather obscured their primary target.
bombing As someone who actually watched the skys light up and heard the bombs as they exploded in Coventry a few miles away, had a mate there who spent 13 hours being bombed, ruined his hearing and a RN career, saw Coventry the next day with the smoke, the water, the ambulances........ I felt as we all did when Dresden got it (and still do) "The Blitz Chickens have come Home to Roost". There was a war on and for a change, we were winning.!
How did this turn from a discussion onto the effectiveness of the bombing campaign into a discussion on the morality behind it? Back on topic please.
bombing civillian centers does not cause people to lose the will to fight...if anything it creates new recruits... we allies coldly condemed rotterdam ,shanghie ,guenica and the like as being barbarous and immoral while the axis powers were doing it ...and rightly so . also german war production actually INCREASED in spite of our efforts right up to the end of the war ...allied strategic bombing was mostly a costly fiasco imo ..i think the russian tactical air doctrine really made more sense but of course the long range heavy bombers were the only way TO strike at germany before d day ..with modern smart weapons the heavys would have been very cost effective as it was they rarely could hit the side of a barn with a 2 by 4...
When in June 1944 the Allied Air Force launched a concerted attack on German oil installations with the object to immobilise the German armed forces. The campaign was a great success, although it was not apparent until later. In May 1944 the Germans produced 156,000 tons of aviation gasoline, by January 1945 aviation gasoline production had fallen to 11,000 tons. By March it almost ceased altogether. With the introduction of the North American P-15B Mustang Fighter it was a turning point in the air war. The Luftwaffe fighter arm was virtually destroyed by May '44, even if the Luftwaffe had found a way to combat the Mustang, they would have had no fuel to do so, while the German army was forced to abandon a lot of its equipment reliant on gasoline, because of the acute shortage. The German air force planed to produce 80,000 aircraft a year by '45 but in '44 produced 36,000. But it's one thing to churn out weapon systems, but not much good if you have no fuel for them. It had other benefits such as a 3rd of all artillery production, and a 5th of all shells went to aa defence. Half of all electro tech' products' and a 3rd of the optical industry. The aluminium used in the aa defence could produce an estimated 10 to 15 thousand more fighters, plus up to 1 million men to man the defences. IMO without the bombing Germany would have been much more heavily armed with battle front weapons and the air force would have proved a much more effective opponent.
