The Allied Bomber Offensive

Here's a place to discuss the bomber offensive waged against Germany by Britain's RAF Bomber Command and the American 8th and 15th Air Forces. Tactics, doctrines, aircraft, commanders, specific raids, blunders, successes, failures, and anything else that springs to mind about this topic can be brought up for discussion.

 

Let ask the big question. Was the bomber offensives over Germany worth it? Might the resources expended on strategic bombing have been been spent on more tactical missions such as taking out the German surface fleet?

 

Or on more 'essential resources' like ball-bearing factories and oil refineries, rather than cities, as the Americans tended to try and do.
(by that I mean that their goal was to bomb only such targets, but they did bomb cities too...)

 

Allied Bomber Offensive

When the US 8th and 15th Air Forces and Bomber Command (eventually) targetted the German fuel supply (Rumanian and synthetic) the effect on the German war machine was disastrous.

Similarly, when the allies targetted the transportation network it screwed up Albert Speer's attempts to disperse production - things just couldn't be moved around as brdges, tunnels, canals were systematically destroyed.

Max Hastings ' Bomber Command' has a good chapter on the oil and transportation campaign, another good book to read is 'Target: Hitlers Oil by Ronald Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbitt which describes the allied offensive against German fuel supplies form the start of the war and The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhall which describes the Dambusters raid but also Wallis's initial thinking and the developmnet and use of the Tallboy and Grand Slam.

From Max Hastings ‘Bomber Command’

In 1943, Germany’s synthetic-oil plants produced 6.2 million tons of petroleum products from coal, in addition to the 2 million tons imported from Hungary and Rumania. The plants were dispersed among eighty locations, of which twenty-seven were notably important. Many of the targets were within range of 15th Air Force in Italy if not of 8th Air Forces in England, but hitherto the Allies had devoted barely 1% of their entire wartime bombing effort to oil targets.

In June 1944 only 11.6% of his (Spaatz) effort was launched against oil targets, in July 17%, in August 16.4%. But the effects were dramatic. Petroleum available to Germany fell from 927,999 tons in March, to 715,000 tons in May, and 472,000 tons in June. The Luftwaffe’s supplies of aviation fuel fell from 180,000 tons in April, to 50,000 tons in June and 10,000 tons in August. All Speer’s achievements in the aircraft factories went for nothing. By late summer of 1944 the Lutftwaffe lacked the fuel to fly anything like its available order of battle.

Pilot training had all but ceased: the Luftwaffe could not operate the aircraft Speer was still producing with such huge exertions. Total supplies of all fuel products had fallen to less than a third of their January levels. The German armies were largely driven back on horse-drawn transport: diesel trucks towed petrol vehicle: whole tank formations were immobilised: tactical battlefield mobility was being seriously affected, and stockpiles were rapidly becoming exhausted.



This from Target: Hitler’s Oil

By December (1944) railway car loadings, including shipments of manufactured goods, components and perishable commodities, had fallen to about half of their level in the previous August. Especially marked was the effect on the transportation of coal, which normally made up 40% of total rail traffic and was an essential input for Germany’s manufacturing industries, raw materials industries and power supply. Between August and December, monthly shipments of coal by rail and water fell from 7.4 million tons to 2.7 million tons. In January 1945, stocks of coal were becoming exhausted and industry was approaching collapse. By February, coal deliveries had fallen to a quarter of their normal level, though part of this reduction resulted from the Red Army’s seizure of the Silesian coalfields and the capture of the Saar by the Western allies. In March coal deliveries fell to 16% and by the end of the month had declined to only 4% of normal.


This sounds like a very good topic to talk about.

 

Different story of air campaign over Germany is bombing of Dresden.Perhaps,it is the tragic face of campaign considered as an Allied warcrime.It was supposed to be,135,000 were killed according to Allied sources.

Best Regards
Tolga Alkan

 

Not wanting to get bogged down in a 'was Dresden right' discussion...

Dresden was a rail hub, which was I believe the justification for the bombing. If memory serves, the Soviets requested it.
What difference it made to the outcome of the war is debatable, but such debate is made with hindsight, and I can appreciate that the Soviets may have wanted to win sooner and with less effort.

The large casualty figures stem from the fact that Dresden was being used to house large numbers of referees from the surrounding countryside, and there were not enough shelters for those poor souls.

That said, the bombing effort really was overkill, with 3 big raids (2 night, 1 day) if memory serves.

 

This link provides very interesting informations on Dresden campaign,I hope it would be helpful.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1000

 

Oil and Transport plan

At what point did the allies have the ability to sustain the required bombing offensive against the German oil facilities and the German transportation network to make that offensive successful?

The American offensive against the German aircraft industry and Luftwaffe which ultimately gave the Allies air superiority didn’t start in earnest until beginning 1944 when the Mustang and Thunderbolt became available in increasing numbers and Bomber Commands ability to accurately bomb anything smaller than a city on the scale needed by night didn’t really start to be effective until about the same time.

Speer himself stated after the war that ‘Allied air attacks remained without decisive success until early 1944. This failiure which is reflected in the armaments outputs for 1943 and 1944, is to be attributed principally to the tenacious efforts of the German workers and factory managers and also to the haphazard and too scattered from of attacks of the enemy who, until the attacks on the synthetic oil plants, based his raids on no clearly recognisable economic planning… The Americans’ attacks, which followed a definite system of attacks on industrial targets, were by far the most dangerous’

This lack of a pattern did however make the Germans scatter their defences widely and probably helped when the Americans with some late help from the British started concentrating on oil and transportation – I say late help here because by this time Arthur Harris was out of control and disregarding orders or making his own unique interpretation of them – how he was allowed to get away with this for so long never ceases to amaze me, I suppose having Churchill’s support helped.

Given Harris’ whole campaign was one of destroying German morale, anyone like to guess on the effect on British morale if he had been sacked after the failiure of the battle of Berlin or in early 1944.

 

The casualty figures are also supposed to around 40,000 dead. 135,000 is an exaggeration, although the actual number is bad enough.

 

Re: Oil and Transport plan

The failure to hit the German oil industry harder and sooner than they did was one of the big controversies of the strategic bombing offensive. Given what the Allies knew about the relatively shaky German oil program, it seems inconceivable that an all out offensive to cripple it was not immediately launched. Imagine such a program being initiated in 1943; the USAAF daylight attacks might still have suffered heavy losses, but at least they would have accomplished something positive in return. Heavy blows at places like Schweinfurt and Regensburg were wasted because the Americans couldn't follow them up. Sending mission after mission to Ploesti would have been such a follow up effort.

 

Loss of bombers and crews and civilian casualties are all part of the war. The strategic missions by the RAF and the US were successful in crippling the German industries, oil supplies, and transportations. What more do you expect?

 

Bombing targets

Targeting the important targets with maximum effort rather than as i've said on other postings continuing to 'bounce the rubble' in an effort to bring about a collapse in morale before your own forces are decimated.

My own view is that Arthur Harris was out of control by the beginning of 1944 and should have been removed - he had done his job in getting Bomber Command the resources it needed but his own blinkered views saw those forces wasted.

 

Re: Bombing targets

Who would have replaced him? And for what cause would they have relieved him? Getting sacked would have required Harris to screw up royally, something I don't believe he really did.

 

Repalcement for Arthur Harris

Good question and to be honest I cant really say who could have replaced him and with the full weight of Winston Churchill behind him (at least until Dresden) he was safe unless as you say it was perceived he had screwed up badly.

However, it could be said that with what has become known as the ‘Battle of Berlin’ he did screw up – he said ‘if the USAAF will come in on it, it will cost us between 400 and 500 aircraft and Germany the war – Germany managed to weather the storm and between October 1943 and March 1944 Bomber Command lost 1,287 aircraft missing (some of which would have been VERY useful over the Atlantic) and 2,352 damaged and was close to breaking point with only 2,729 new aircraft being delivered in that time (figures from ‘Wilfred Freeman – the Genius behind allied survival and air supremacy 1939 to 1945’ by Anthony Furze) – bombers were getting hacked out of the sky or staggering back to base damaged quicker than they could be built or repaired at a time when it was thought the German night-fighters had been tamed by all the extra equipment, jamming and support the bombers were getting.

Also as Max Hastings says in his book ‘Bomber Command’ ‘By proclaiming his intentions to launch the full weight on Bomber Command’s resources against the enemy’s capitol, Harris also flaunted his defiance of the ‘Pointblank’ Directive. Attacking Berlin had only the most distant relevance to the defeat of the Luftwaffe in production which was supposed to be the first duty of the Allied air offensive.’

That alone should have been enough for the Air Staff to say do as we say or you’re out and it shows a weakness on Air Chief Marshall Charles Potal's part.

It was probably lucky for the crews that the Allied chiefs put Bomber Command under Overlord control and it is just as well the USAAF didn’t ‘come in’ but did hit Germany’s fighter production and pilots or the Luftwaffe would have had a lot more aircraft in June – thanks to the American offensive, monthly losses averaged 450 in the first 5 months of 1944 and by May 1944, only 246 of Germany’s single-engined day fighters remained operational.


The most obvious choice would have been one of the Group leaders but would they have had the same way of thinking Harris did – they knew what Arthur Harris wanted and the presumably the effects on their careers if they showed any sign of disagreeing with him.

Can anyone suggest which of the existing Group Leaders would have been a good choice?

 

At this time of the war, the German surface fleet was on its last leg already, and confined to ports in Germany were they believed they could safely stay, so bombing the German fleet wouldn't have really accolmpished much.

What the bombing offensive did do was force the German war machine underground were, ironically, they produced far more than the "Golden Years" of 1940-1942.

 

Effect on the FAA

True, but what if some of the effort that went into the Bomber program went into developing an effective torpedo/dive bomber for the FAA - imagine the effect on the war if Tirpitz had been sunk in March 1942 when the FAA had attcked it and so freed up resources. Although Bomber and Coastal command were slowly demolishing the upperworks of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen at Brest, effective dive-bombers might have put them on the bottom - admittedly of a harbour but still on the bottom and well within range of continued attack to delay salvage - the Italians and US raised their sunk battleships but they weren't in range of constant attack.

 

Re: Effect on the FAA

I have to point out that dive bombing never sank a battleship in any navy during the war. With the exception of the "Tallboy" attack that killed TIRPITZ and the horizontal bomb that got ARIZONA, those battleships sunk by air attack were torpedoed, although the bombs certainly made life more difficult for the crews.

 

I think Roma was sunk solely by (radio guided) bombs, not torpedoes. And Kirishima was destroyed by gunfire. But I support your point, areial torpedoes were ship killers, aerial bombs killed men.

 

Wasn't Yamato sunk by dive bombers?

 

If memory serves Yamato was sunk by a combination of dive bombing and torpedoes effectively the battleship equivalent of death by a thousands cuts.


As far as ship killing goes a torpedo bomber has the advantage that it bashes holes below the waterline thus letting the sea in (well DUR! Ebar ). But the draw back is an attack run where you have to come in low, slow and straight. During its run out a torpedo bomber then has to try to accelerate away from something close to a standing start. A dive bomber is less likely to land a fatal hit but makes its attack run and run out at top speed making it better able to survive and is more likely to land a hit.

By the end of WW2 it is however both the dive bomber and the torpedo bomber were becoming obsolete as warship killers. The role was being taken over by the high level bomber, which at the start of the war had been near useless for ship killing. The first generation of guided weapons were coming into service giving rise to the specter of a Tallboy sized weapon that could be guided onto its target. No practical scale of armor could hope to stop such a bomb.