The Allied Bomber Offensive

US figures are from Ray Wagner's American Combat Planes and British figures are from http://www.nucleus.com/~ltwright/bc-stats.html . The link has been down for a couple of years now, but webarchives still have it.

 

Oh, Grieg. Your political views are as harmonious and beautiful as Grieg´s music. I envy you your fast and optimistic Weltanschauung. I really do.

But however you look at it: Such a Wall Streeter with corrupt record in municipality of NY as Roosevelt can become elected President 4 times, after having prolonged the economic crisis, shared the goods of Federal Budget with his cronies.
And, having promised no foreign war for your boys, did everything imaginable to provoke both axis powers to declare (or otherwise start) war with USA, giving even more money to the generous Sponsors of his dramatically beautiful political career.

And you still remain a happy optimist? How come?

 

Does anyone know what ULTRA was revealing about the success or otherwise of the Allied Bombing Offensive?

 

The initial USAAF raid on Schweinfurt in August 1943 reduced production of ball-bearings by 38% but Speer was given time to patch up the works and increase the defences so by the time of the second attack in October, although production was reduced by over 60%, the cost was too much even for the USAAF to bear.

What would have happened to the German war machine had the initial attack been immediatley followed up either by the USAAF of by Bomber Command (BC did attack the place but in February 1944 as Arthur Harris has managed to ignore suggestions that they do so until then).

From what i've read the Germans were able to meet part of the shortfall by use of 'slide bearings' - how do slide bearings compare to ball bearings?

 

Wierd. I've been in engineering for 30 years and have specified "slide bearings" for various jobs. And every single one of them was built up from little round things called "ball bearings"!!
If you ain't got ball bearings, you cain't build slide bearings.
Oli

 

slide bearings

are bearings that work with linear motion instead of rotary

 

Think of a squared-off C, with the top and bottom ends actually coming down/ up and on the inside of the upper and lower arms is a row of ball bearings, (sometimes on the inside face as well, but not often). They're used for sliding mechanism, - sliding doors, materials handling systems, stuff like that. Sometimes you can get away with not having ball bearings in it, but then the section is made of PTFE, Kevlar, Teflon or UHMWP, some of which not are not particulary industrial-strength duty and, AFAIK, are post-war materials.
Oli