really stupid reason for me actually. I'm abroad and only have an ipad with me an I hate typing on those things, thus I skipped most of my answer But you're absolutely right of course.Curious - why limit discussion regarding Strategic success to just Ploesti? The entire campaign against petro-chemical industry killed German fuel reserves...
Well, not necessarily as they were threatening the population weren't they? The German army could not ignore that despite their government's barbarism. Not sure how great an impact the relocation of AAA had on winning the war. But I'm playing the devil's advocate here as I don't really have an opinion on this discussion.Secondary benefits (unquestioned) were the re-allocation of AAA from German army to LW plus forcing Germany to allocate very high percentage of industrial resources (plant, labor, critical metals) toward fighter production to attempt to stop daylight bombing.
Had Daylight bombing and associated escort fighters not been considered threatening to German war machine they would have ignored it to the extent that they would a.) keep their resources mostly in the East, and b.) maintained aircraft production levels per 1942/early 1943.
Having said that, let me state that the P51 was a great plane, filling it's intended role admirably during the were being it crucial or not. Hopefully our fighting parties can now stop their booring fight about how crucial the P51 was, as it is a subjective matter, based on intepretation. And you can keep on fighting over this until some-one gets banned.
On Topic: My statement on the question at hand is that I believe the ME262 was a great contributor to the Allied vicory by being way too late to have any impact. also the BF109 was great for not being able to fight too long over England during the BOB, the FW190 for not being there during the BOB. The Heinkel 111 for not being a heavy 4 engined bomber. The BF110 for only flying defensive circles during the BOB. On all these points, these aircraft were crucial for the Allied victory
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